The competitiveness and performance of small manufacturing firms: an analysis of matched pairs in Scotland and England

In this paper we present a comparative analysis of the competitiveness and performance of matched pairs of small manufacturing companies in Scotland and the south of England. One-third of Scottish products were judged to be of an unacceptable quality by the matched English companies. English companies are manufacturing to a higher quality but at a similiar price to the Scottish ones. The empirical evidence provides confirmation of the conceptual framework, namely that production-related issues lie at the core of the problem of competitiveness for small companies. The findings suggest that government assistance should shift away from fixed assets to soft assets, and especially towards training and advisory systems. -from Authors