Introduction

Abstract

In the early 1980s a growing body of literature began to draw the attention of economic analysts and policy-makers to the “new” role played by small businesses in the context of industrial production. The developments of the literature on the matter – not always supported by reliable empirical evidence – led quickly to the establishment of a new standpoint, which viewed the phenomenon as a sharp reversal of the previous trend towards the concentration of production activities within giant enterprises, which would herald a future characterized by an increased role for small-scale production. By the end of the century a widespread belief had grown among many institutions and a growing number of scholars that the industrial system was probably to be considered as being at the outset of a new era of small, customer-oriented manufacturing activities which would quickly sweep away the remnants of the mass production system.¹

He said, it was very reasonable to think that there must have been Giants in former Ages (…).He argued, that the very Laws of Nature absolutely required we should have been made in the Beginning, of a Size more large and robust…

(J. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels)