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1. Introduction
There is renewed interest in research into small-firm growth (Leitch et al. , 2010). Growth is a contentious issue in that although it is a desirable outcome from an economic development perspective, it may, or may not match the entrepreneur's goals for the business. For example, consider "lifestyle" businesses, where the entrepreneur wants to do nothing more than make a good living (Burns, 2011). In entrepreneurship and small-business literatures there is a gap in our understanding of what exactly constitutes a small-firm despite numerous definitions of the term SME. The designation "small" is usually taken to refer to the business size. Small businesses (whether family owned or not) all experience similar growth issues, concerns and problems[1]. Indeed, the family (and family-business), as near universal organizing structures are eulogized in the literature and elevated to an ideal to be perpetuated (Carsrud, 2006). Family-businesses are said to be imbued with human values including justice and fairness (Vander Heyden et al. , 2005) - but what about notions of fairness and unfairness, in relation to non-family, small-firm? The literature is silent, albeit the "fairness" literature on small family-firms attempts to understand these issues in relation to how non-family members view their treatment as being "fair" or not. This is an internally focused concept with no reverse viewpoint.
Fowers and Wenger (1997) refer to the concept of "the-good-family" but in the small-business literature there is no similar assumption that all such businesses are good business despite their acknowledged importance in employment creation. Small-firms are lauded by politicians and policy makers for their potential to contribute to economic and financial growth. Yet, our understanding of their make-up and dynamics remains unclear with many small-businesses being started by friends, relatives and workmates. Thus founding entrepreneurs may have pre-existing relationships and expectations of fairness similar to those in small family-businesses. Yet the small-business literature is particularly silent on this important aspect of business growth and small-business management decision making.
From a theoretical perspective, many small-businesses and indeed family-businesses suffer from a "liability-of-smallness" (Aldrich and Auster, 1986) or "condition-of-smallness" (Anderson and Ullah, 2014), which results in them remaining small. There are about 4.5 million businesses in the UK of which about 99 per cent are small- and medium-sized, employing roughly...