Smalltalk: Rhetoric of control as a barrier to growth in artisan micro-firms

This article reports on a study that uses discourse analysis to provide a social constructionist view of growth barriers in micro-level firms. Although barriers to growth have been the subject of prior studies, no study to date has taken a linguistic-based interpretative approach to understand the mechanisms by which such barriers arise. The study is based upon semi-structured interviews with owner-managers of 20 micro-level artisan businesses. The analysis focuses on responses to questions concerning business growth. The analytical reading of these responses highlights references to business control and shows how the way control is discursively constructed influences management practices and in turn impacts on business growth. The findings suggest the need for a better understanding of the complex interrelationship between micro-firm management practices and participants’ lived business reality. The article identifies ways in which growth-barrier constructions arise and points to how they may be overcome through business intervention.