Small business growth in the spotlight for Management Publication of the Year 2024

Management Publication of the Year is a new national prize – a collaboration between CMI, the British Academy of Management and the Chartered Association of Business Schools. It celebrates impactful works, cutting-edge research and innovative thinking – from books and blogs to podcasts – that address the critical business and economic challenges of our time. 

In September, the impressively varied longlist of 19 publications was announced. Then, in November, the judges whittled these down to a shortlist of eight across three categories: SME Growth, Social Enterprise and Innovation, and Sustainable Futures.

We’ll look in more detail at the latter two categories in future articles. For now, we’re going to take a closer look at the shortlisted titles in the SME Growth category. 

Why focus on SMEs?

Over 99% of UK private sector business are small or medium-sized, but despite their numerical dominance, many of these businesses struggle to access the resources, expertise and knowledge they need to achieve growth. Many articles in business publications are written by practitioners in large enterprises, which face a different set of circumstances to SMEs. Advice and thought leadership coming out of corporations doesn’t always apply neatly to smaller businesses.  

The SME Growth category of Management Publication of the Year “celebrates research that seeks to address these challenges and aims to transform practice by presenting insights to positively impact a green growth economy that includes SMEs”.

So, which submissions from the longlist did the judges put through to the final round in this category?