Small Firms and Entrepreneurship: An East-West Perspective

The role of entrepreneurship in the world economy is perhaps more important now than at any time in the twentieth century. This book analyses the relative importance of small firms in industrial economies. It brings together a series of studies spanning a spectrum of selected countries in developed Western nations and Eastern Europe to identify the exact role of small firms and how this role has evolved over the last fifteen years. A striking result which emerges is that a distinct and consistent shift away from large firms and towards small enterprises has occurred within the manufacturing sector of all western countries, while the role of small firms in Eastern European nations has been remarkably restricted, and, indeed, all these countries have experienced a shift away from small firms. It is clear from this analysis that a major challenge for political and economic reform in Central and Eastern Europe is to create the strong entrepreneurial sector which exists in the West.