Perceptual barriers preventing small business owners from using public support services: evidence from Canada
Résumé
Given the economic importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), public authorities are seeking ways to improve support for SME owner-managers. Each year, considerable funds are budgeted to help small businesses, and the number of SME support organizations has steadily grown. Despite all these efforts, however, SME survival rates have barely improved, if at all. There may be a good reason for this: entrepreneurs and SME owner-managers do not make maximum use of the services available. Results from a survey of 70 SME owner-managers show that the main barrier is lack of knowledge about the agencies providing the services. On the one hand, many owner-managers do not seem to understand the utility or relevance of the services, while on the other they do not seem to know enough about the agencies working in their region. However, most of the owner-managers who had used the agencies felt the services they had received were appropriate to their needs. At first glance, the problem thus appears to lie more with the perceptions of certain owner-managers than with the nature or quality of the services themselves.