ABSTRACT
The small African town is the location of small and sometimes not so small local hawkers, artisans, traders, businessmen and even small-scale industrialists. Some of these run businesses which on the surface may not be so different from the retailers described in traditional central place theory. But the small town may also house branches of large national or multi-national corporations of a type implied by dependency theories, which attempt to exploit local resources or markets. In order to describe the complex web of interdependencies in which the small-town enterprise operates, we need an enterprise concept which places the enterprise in a much more differentiated and dynamic environment, taking into account specific relations between the small enterprise and other small and large enterprises, organizations and households. In the industrialized countries a process of market integration and stabilization has gradually taken place during last 100-200 years, culminating in the Fordist and Keynesian polices in the period after the second world war.
