Research dissemination
Conference Presentation: UCLan Annual Staff and Research Student Symposium, presentation by Dr Alina Petrescu: Whyman, P. B. and Petrescu, A. I. (2010) 'The effects of economic recession on small and medium enterprises in Lancashire". July. University of Central Lancashire, Preston, U.K.
Research Report: Whyman, P. B. and Petrescu, A. I. (2011) "Economic recession and workplace flexibility practices in Lancashire-based SMEs", Research Report, Lancashire Business School Workplace Flexibility Series, LIEBR,. University of Central Lancashire, March, ISSN 2064-9276. Available to download here.
Journal Article: submitted for publication in February 2011 (waiting for editors to reply), based on the working paper:
- Whyman, P. B. and Petrescu, A. I. (2011) "SME workplace flexibility and performance during recession", Working Paper, LIEBR, University of Central Lancashire.
Note: Despite our initial intentions, it was not feasible to hold a seminar for the dissemination of results from the SME Survey 2009 Wave to the survey respondents from summer 2009. Similarly, the survey did not run in 2010. This was due to Dr. Alina Petrescu being on maternity leave (October 2009 - July 2010).
So we apologise to the 2009 SME respondents, who may have been waiting for a seminar date for research dissemination and offer them instead the chance to read the research report.
Moreover, we are doing our best in terms of continuous data collection: to compensate for not collecting data in 2010, the SME Survey 2011 also contains some retrospective questions covering the year July 2009- July 2010.
Research description
The SME research in 2009 was a large research project into SMEs workplace flexibility practices and organisational performance, conducted amid the difficult economic climate of the "credit crunch" recession in 2009.
Primary data was collected via the Lancashire SME Survey 2009 which was the first wave of our planned research series focused on the use of workplace flexibility practices by SMEs.
Which organisations were surveyed?
This 10-week project involved conducting primary field work in summer 2009 on a sample of over 2,000 Lancashire-based SMEs with regard to assessing the incidence, extent and links between workplace flexibility practices and organisational performance.
Which practices were surveyed?
We were interested in a set of practices encompassing over 60 WFPs.
For more information, please read the Research Report.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the Lancashire Business School for the financial support given to this research project as part of its Research Internships Funding Scheme in 2009. This scheme aimed to give students experience of real research projects as well as offer them the opportunity to gain excellent employability skills and a better understanding of the role that research plays in academia, practice and university life. In relation to this, we thank Michael Bowerman, who worked dutifully as the Intern Student at Lancashire Business School for 10 weeks in summer 2009.
We acknowledge the Preston City Council and the North and Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce who have supported our research by name and logo.
Finally, we thank all the SME participants in the Lancashire survey, and we look forward to their repeat participation in our further surveys.