When moving information online diminishes change : advisory services to SMEs

Small firms perform poorly. How to support SMEs effectively has occupied policymakers for decades. Previous work suggests weak competition as a cause of ‘the problem’. Therefore, the means of delivering support matters little. Accordingly, the government moved support online rather than be delivered in face-to-face exchanges between advisers and clients. However, we suggest adopting internal management practices to build capabilities does require face-to-face contact, so practices diffuse in a pattern like an ‘epidemic’. In support a multinomial logit model of 1334 cases of advice found SMEs that took advice to enhance internal management practices were more likely to be referred by other firms. Hence, we argue that moving online diminished change within these SMEs