International Small Business Journal 0(0) 1–18 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0266242613493454 isb.sagepub.com Small Firms i s b j 493454ISB 0 0 10.1177/0266242613493454International Small Business JournalKitching et al. 2013 Corresponding author: John Kitching, Small Business Research Centre, Kingston University, Kingston Hill, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey KT2 7LB, UK. Email: j.kitching@kingston.ac.uk Burden or benefit? Regulation as a dynamic influence on small business performance John Kitching Kingston University, UK Mark Hart Aston University, UK Nick Wilson King’s College London, UK Abstract This article contributes to contemporary debates concerning the impact of regulation on small business performance. Reassessing previous studies, we build our insights on their useful, but partial, approaches. Prior studies treat regulation principally as a static and negative influence, thereby neglecting the full range of regulatory effects on business performance. This study adopts a more nuanced approach, one informed by critical realism, that conceptualises social reality as stratified, and social causality in terms of the actions of human agents situated within particular social-structural contexts. We theorise regulation as a dynamic force, enabling as well as constraining performance, generating contradictory performance effects. Such regulatory effects flow directly from adaptations to regulation, and indirectly via relationships with the wide range of close and distant stakeholders with whom small businesses interact. Future research should examine these contradictory regulatory influences on small business performance. Keywords causal power, critical realism, dynamic influence, performance, regulation, small firm Introduction: Regulation as a small business burden The conventional view of business lobby groups, politicians, academics and the media is that regu- lation – or more pejoratively, ‘red tape’ – is a burden, cost or constraint on businesses (Institute of Article by guest on February 4, 2016 isb.sagepub.com Downloaded from