This excellent paper was commissioned by Independent Freelancers Australian supported by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and undertaken by Monash University. The aim of the research was to develop a better understanding of the independent freelancer/ micro business owner/ self employed sector in Australia. They rightfully argue that a better understanding is crucial for anyone wanting to interact within such a complex sector. They suggest that the responses of this group to current and future economic situations will be a critical litmus test for the whole of society. Moreover the success or otherwise of this group has direct implications for the collection of taxes, for the repayment of loans, and via a traditional 'multiplier effect' there may be implications for many larger businesses. (PDF file, 12 pages, 1,717 KB)

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Unformated preview of the document: 'A Profile of Australian Micro-Business' (Part 4):

We set out to undertake this desk audit in the belief that there is an important
group in the market and society who are uniquely defined by their 'Micro-
Business' owner status, and a plethora of values, choices, needs and
expectations that go along with that.
To this end, we have successfully reconciled three distinctively oriented sets
of research and databases - namely the ABS view of the contractors as
workers; the ATO view of micro businesses as businesses and Roy Morgan
Research into the self employed as consumers. While the language and
terminology of each of the three source organisations has been different, the
individuals they focus on are essentially the same. The common interest has
been the smallest of small businesses—that is, the people who genuinely
work for themselves as self-employed persons.
While the international debate and argument amongst academics, lawyers
and statisticians over who comprises the group and how many people are in
it, we have been able to actually prove that the terms 'micro-business', 'selfemployed',
'independent contractors', and 'non-employees' are all
interchangeable and are collectively and individually appropriate terms to
describe the sector. The defining essence of their work life is that their
individuality is their business.
When these groups (individuals/partnerships/companies/trusts) are brought
within the definition, the ABS statistics indicate that the sector constitutes
around 20 per cent of the Australian workforce—that is, some 1.9 million
people.
Further, in beginning this task of reconciling the views provided by the ABS,
the ATO and Roy Morgan Research sources to profile individuals within this
sector as a worker, business and consumer. While the constant crossovers in
behaviours and attitudes between the categories was implicit in both the ABS
and ATO data – as for instance in the intertwining of the ATO micro business
numbers, they are made explicit in the Roy Morgan Research in which they sit
as they are, simultaneously, businesses, family people and consumers. What
has emerged is that their needs in each of these categories is constantly
intermingled and that they impact one on the other in ways that do not occur
with traditional employees or consumers, for example. Their lives involve
perpetual trades-offs, compromises and priority-resetting. Their behaviours
and attitudes reflect this.
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Further Research Needs
Through building on official sources such as the ABS and ATO, sources which
are essentially orientated toward producing findings that would support
prevailing public policy settings, but then blending these with the consumer
and marketing oriented view of Roy Morgan Research, we move into a deeper
understanding of who and what this group are. While our research appears to
be a world first in that it has made the pivotal importance of the groups'
commercial contract status as is the starting point for a proper understanding
of the group.
Having substantiated the compatible nature of the three sources and the
unique contribution each makes, we have a strong base to delve deeper into
a more sophisticated analysis. The richness of the Roy Morgan data has only
been skimmed and the Asteroid database provides fertile ground for more
targeted work, directed by the data from the ABS and the ATO. Further, the
qualitative research initiatives begun by ATO and the profiles developed also
provide the potential for further research.

Unformated preview of the document: 'A Profile of Australian Micro-Business':  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4