I've always wanted to use parentheses in prose the way we do in math, to make grouping explicit:
The (small business) owner. The small (business owner).
or
((Buffalo buffalo) ((Buffalo buffalo) buffalo)) buffalo (Buffalo buffalo).
The (small business) owner. The small (business owner).
or
((Buffalo buffalo) ((Buffalo buffalo) buffalo)) buffalo (Buffalo buffalo).
Your second formulation doesn't work. Words in parentheses should be able to be omitted without loss of grammaticality.
Instead,
The small (business) owner
would be a better contrasting formulation to the first one.