Despite the pervasive phenomenon of scale economies the majority of firms hasalways been small firms. The emergence of small firms as a means of economic development on both sides of the Atlantic has been one of the major new topics of economic policy since the 1980s. This has drawn renewed...

This paper focuses on a new concern in the small firm’s literature, namely what makes a small firm stay in business for a long time. It reflects a change in economic policy, away from an emphasis on volume of start-ups to an emphasis on quality of start-ups. The basic hypothesis is that...

This paper examines the relationship between organization contextual variables and humanresource management (HRM) practices in small firms. The proposed model is based on anintegration of theoretical perspectives, including the resource-based approach, institutionaltheory, transaction cost...

Little empirical evidence provides insight in person-oriented drivers of business survival and success of small business owners. In this paper I perform a duration analysis of business survival amongst young white (selfemployed) small business owners in the U.S. Compulsory exits are...

We study the effects of the reform of the system of severance payments (TFR) of Italian employees on the cost and the access to credit for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The most direct consequence of the reform is to reduce in the long run the amount of liquid assets available to...

This paper analyses the effect of risk attitudes of firm owners on profits among micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Lagos, Nigeria. Higher risk perceptions are shown to have a significant positive effect on profits, whereas risk propensity has a negative or no effect. Education, age, being...