Small business stories in the formation of enterprise policy: a narrative policy analysis of the UK Bolton Committee

Abstract

Enterprise policy, which seeks to stimulate start-ups and support small businesses, attracts significant investment from government and shapes the context for entrepreneurs. Researchers have begun to study the processes underlying the formulation of enterprise policy. However, accounts of how competing interests seek to influence enterprise policymaking processes remain rare. Utilising a distinctive approach to narrative entrepreneurship, developed through a narrative policy analysis, we examine archival records of submissions from a range of stakeholders to a UK government inquiry. We develop a narrative entrepreneurship approach that allows us to analyse the stories and broader narratives told by entrepreneurs and others. Our analysis identifies different types of narrative strategy used to develop stories by two competing interest groups: a narrative from small businesses and their representatives; and, contesting this, a counternarrative from other stakeholders, including the finance industry, consumer groups and large firms. We analyse how the inquiry engaged with these competing narratives and sought to make them amenable to policymaking through the creation of a simplifying, overarching metanarrative. We demonstrate that, while this metanarrative simplified the uncertain, complex and polarised issue of enterprise policy, it masked and did not resolve the underlying tensions between competing interests.