Regulation compliance in small Finnish companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to learn more about how regulation affects small business in the Finnish context. The authors create a framework for understanding owner-managers’ attitudes towards business legislation. It is authors’ understanding that not enough is known about how small firms make strategic choices that drive business in a highly regulated environment. Design/methodology/approach – This paper contributes to the existing knowledge of entrepreneurship and small business management. The empirical data used to test the hypotheses were drawn from the postal survey. Differences between owner-managers’ attitudes towards business regulation were identified with factor and cluster analyses methods. Findings – Regulation often exerts only a limited influence over owner-managers’ decision-making. Family entrepreneurs are more compliant towards business regulation. Regulation is not too heavy a burden to all in business in Finland, even though Finland is a highly regulated country. Research l...