The aims of this study were: to identify the management competencies and weaknesses of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the availability of internal expertise in relation to that available from external sources; to assess the significance for SMEs of private and public sector business service expertise (Business Link) for processes of strategic change and innovation or adaptation to external competitive pressures; to explore the processes by which the demand for external expertise is generated by SMEs, the types of work undertaken and the impact of such expertise on performance and competitiveness; to explore the regional implications of these decisions by examining these processes in different operating environments; to extend theoretical thinking about the position of SMEs in the wider process of production, and to develop the notion of the 'extended' firms in which the boundaries between externalised and internalised management expertise are increasingly blurred. The topics covered are: management strengths and weaknesses, education of owner/manager, use of external advisers (consultants), types of external advisers used, and most important factors to affect business over previous three years. Some of the data covers employment by firm concerned between 1992-1996.