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International conference to look at development role of small business

September 15, 2005

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An international conference on small business, to be held at The University of New England later this month, will focus on the role of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in rural, regional and urban development.

The 18th Annual Conference of the Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand (SEAANZ) will include papers dealing with SMEs as diverse as dairy farms, medical practices, biotechnology companies, vineyards, and the Welsh Whisky Company.

There will be papers on women in small business (in both Australia and South-east Asia), and on ethnic-minority business (in the UK).

The annual conference, to run from Monday 26 to Wednesday 28 September, is being held at UNE for the first time. UNE’s Professor Patrick Hutchinson, who chairs the organising committee for this year’s conference, said that one of the topics for discussion would be the role (current and potential) of universities in the development of the small-businesses sector. He pointed out that UNE, through its teaching, its research, and the organising of SME-related public seminars, had been playing such a role in New England. “With the recent establishment of a Centre for Business Research at UNE,” Professor Hutchinson continued, “that role will continue and expand. We believe this conference could act as a catalyst for greater involvement of universities in regional development through SMEs.”

More than 100 people from all over Australia, and from New Zealand, the United States, the UK and Malaysia, will take part in the conference. The keynote speakers will be Professor David Audretsch (Director of the Institute for Development Strategies at Indiana University in the United States), Dr Graham Hall (Director of the Research Degrees Program at Manchester Business School in England), Professor Monder Ram (Director of the Centre for Research into Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship at De Montfort University in England), and Brian Morgan (Director of the Leadership, Enterprise and Economic Development Unit at Cardiff Business School, and Director of three Welsh businesses, including the Welsh Whisky Company). UNE academics and researchers presenting papers will include Dr Roger Epworth and Associate Professor Alison Sheridan, Dr Andrew Clarke, and Janene Carey. (Associate Professor Alison Sheridan is pictured here.)

A paper by Associate Professor Evan Jones from the University of Sydney will explore what he calls the “subordinate” relationship with corporate business that is still characteristic of small business in Australia. He will discuss, as some of the reasons for this, what he refers to as “the continuing weaknesses of the legislative and regulatory structures, and the apparently significant lobbying power of corporate business”.

Professor Hutchinson said the focus of the conference on regional development was timely, “given the concern about population drift from regional centres”. “Small businesses are now seen as major drivers of economic growth,” he said.

The conference will close before lunch on Wednesday 28 September. That afternoon, a “Travelling Experts Seminar” on small business development will use videoconference technology to include people in nine regional centres throughout north-west NSW in a discussion at UNE with the four keynote speakers from the conference. The nine regional venues for the seminar will be the UNE Tamworth Centre, and UNE Access Centres in Boggabilla, Coonabarabran, Gunnedah, Inverell, Moree, Narrabri, Quirindi and Tenterfield. For more information on the “Travelling Experts Seminar” contact Professor Hutchinson at: phutchin@une.edu.au. Those interested in attending all or part of the SEAANZ conference should visit the conference Web site at: http://www.seaanz2005.org.


Media contact:Professor Patrick Hutchinson, New England Business School, UNE (02) 6773 3902 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at September 15, 2005 04:08 PM