ABSTRACT
Small enterprise studies usually ignore business owners' social class, implicitly or explicitly assuming class differences to be minimal or unimportant. This chapter presents a comparison of the notions of class used in the two studies and raises theoretical and methodological questions essential to analyzing the implications of class for small- and medium-sized enterprises. The spouse of a mid-level civil servant may, for example, obtain a market stall more easily than another business owner. The intuitive definition of class applied to the women in 1986 study led to an examination of the resources women could tap for entering or operating a manufacturing business. Most of Nairobi's female entrepreneurs are concentrated in trade and service occupations. If women business owners are, in fact, of higher class than their male counterparts, then their higher incidence of capital accumulation may be the result of their greater access to needed resources. Class appears related to performance for both male and female entrepreneurs.
