Home-based Businesses and the Factors Affecting their Collaborative Propensity

Background to the research: Home-based businesses form a key element of many developed economies, with around fifty percent of businesses within OECD countries being based either from or at the home. Despite this prevalence, they frequently face challenging market conditions. One method of achieving and maintaining success is through the formation of collaborative relationships with other businesses, to realise benefits such as access to new markets, access to previously unavailable resources and the transfer of knowledge. While collaboration among home-based businesses in known to be commonplace, what remains unknown are factors which predispose businesses to collaboration, or the factors which allow for this collaboration to occur.

Methodology: Using data gathered by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, this research presents a quantitative study of nearly 4000 businesses located across 20 countries. Factors purporting to affect collaborative propensity were gathered from the existing literature; these factors were used to build models which allowed for the identification of the most impactful factors on various forms of collaboration among home-based businesses.

Research contribution: The research is able to identify a number of previously unidentified associations between the collaborative behaviours of home-based businesses and personal, organisational and environmental factors, chiefly that the clearest predictor for collaboration is the export intensity shown by a business and that businesses either presently employing larger workforces or projecting to do so in five years’ time are more inclined towards collaborative activities.

Research implications: This exploratory research is able to contribute to the limited but growing corpus of literature on home-based businesses and their real-world activities. Furthermore, the findings allow for a better understanding by practitioners of the various factors which are associated with collaborative activity, allowing for businesses to identify potentially suitable partners through the exhibition of these characteristics.