How Small Business Advisory Program Delivery Methods (Collective Learning, Tailored, and Practice-Based Approaches) Affect Learning and Innovation

Past studies relate small business advisory programme effectiveness to advisory characteristics such as advisory intensity and scope. We contribute to existing literature by seeking to identify the impact of different advisory programme methods of delivery on learning and subsequent firm innovation behaviour. Our research is based on a survey of 257 Australian firms completing small business advisory programmes in the three years preceding the research. We explore the range of small business advisory programme delivery methods in which our surveyed firms participated and, with reference to the literature on organisational learning and innovation, we analyse predictors of firms' learning ability and innovativeness based on the identified delivery methods. First, we found that business advisory programmes that involved high levels of collective learning and tailored approaches enhanced firms' perceptions of their learning of critical skills or capabilities. We also found that small business advisory programmes that were delivered by using practice-based approaches enhanced firms' subsequent organisational innovation. We verified this finding by testing whether firms that have participated in small business advisory services subsequently demonstrate improved behaviour in terms of organisational innovativeness, when compared with matched firms that have not participated in an advisory programme.