ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to examine, with sociological tools, the social conditions facilitating the failure and success of small enterprises. I intend to use the term “small enterprise” in a broad sense to include micro-and small enterprises as well as the self-employed. This work draws on survey research, launched in 1993 (Czakó et al. 1994) and repeated in 1996, that targeted the economic and social characteristics of Hungarian nonagricultural enterprises employing fewer than fifty people. The panel survey contains personal and business figures for the self-employed (with or without employees) and the leaders of small incorporated firms, weighted by settlement type and legal form. These data reveal that one-third of the 1,407 small enterprises closed down between 1993 and 1996. At the same time, some one-sixth of the operating small ventures expanded their profile, about one-eighth enlarged their markets, and more than one-tenth increased their staff.
