ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION The euphoria concerning the potential of small-scale enterprises in Europe during the 1980s has subsided as more has come to be known about the specific strengths and weaknesses of these enterprises. From recent research it is apparent that (a) the organisational advantages of small enterprises are neither general nor generic, but comparative and contingent, (b) it is not the potential of the individual company which is decisive for small enterprise development, but the interaction between (mutually) specialised firms, and (c) the main problem faced by many small firms is not their size, but their isolation.
