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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Paul RichterORCiD, Professor Simon Down, Dr Fiona WhitehurstORCiD, Dr Neil Alderman, Andrew Fairley
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose – To understand how small and micro businesses experience benefits from regulation, and to explain why benefits are experienced unevenly. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting an inductive, interpretive methodology, a sample of 23 UK-based business owners was interviewed about their responses to regulation, data being analysed thematically. Findings – Despite the challenges experienced responding to dynamic change represented by Covid-related regulations, businesses experienced three forms of benefits: operational, strategic and re-evaluative. These findings were analysed through the dynamic capabilities framework, specifically sensing (operational), seizing (strategic) and reconfiguring (re-evaluative). Further, analysis identified that business attributes of spatial fixity and business model elasticity mediated the experience of benefits within a context of greater regulatory control. Originality/value – The benefits of regulation experienced have not been theorised in detail previously, and the empirical evidence and analysis presented contribute to an ongoing conversation about the responses of smaller businesses. The article shows that benefits emerged not despite the regulation that often posed difficulties to businesses, but through it. This article's theoretical contribution connects the micro experience of business response to regulation with the macro regulatory context and offers a mechanism for understanding the contexts and attributes of why some businesses benefit and others do not, showing how regulatory constraints can enable benefits. The analysis extends dynamic capability theory by identifying increased regulatory control through a shift in governance paradigm as a mechanism for new sensing, seizing and reconfiguring responses, with businesses' capabilities being mediated and constrained by the two attributes.
Author(s): Richter P, Down S, Whitehurst F, Alderman N, Fitzmaurice M, Fairley A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research
Year: 2026
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 01/06/2026
Acceptance date: 29/04/2026
Date deposited: 30/06/2026
ISSN (print): 1355-2554
ISSN (electronic): 1758-6534
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-06-2024-0630
DOI: 10.1108/IJEBR-06-2024-0630
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/hfy7-4226
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