Success Strategies in High Growth Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Abstract

During the 1980s, researchers and policy-makers became increasingly interested in understanding the processes of enterprise development and growth. Encouraged by Birch’s (1979) evidence that job creation in the USA was only occurring in the small business sector, policy-makers began to champion the cause of the small business. For the first time, most European governments recognised the significant role new and small businesses play in employment and wealth creation. In Ireland, policy-makers sought to maximise the rate of start-up of new businesses and to protect existing small businesses by minimising the burdens resulting from government bureaucracy.