ABSTRACT
The papers in this volume help in a modest way to demonstrate the complexity of small firm activity and development and provide illustrations of some of the methodological and data issues faced by researchers in this area. The nature of these challenges does of course change over time as the result of changes in, for example, the economic, technological and cultural environment in which small firms operate and in research approaches and techniques. However, the preceding papers also raise some research issues and challenges that have a certain timelessness about them. Some of these are sketched out below.
