ABSTRACT
European firms, both small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large scale enterprises (LSEs), face the double challenge of being confronted both with the increase in global competition and the features related to the single European market. Several research studies and extensive management literature have been devoted to exploring and understanding the characteristics of SMEs, scrutinizing, for example, the management styles, the roles of entrepreneurs and their business constraints. As the quotation that this chapter describes the differences between SMEs and large enterprises are so significant that they oblige us to explore their idiosyncrasies. The chapter focuses on the three components that describe an SME: the management role, the management style and its organizational structure. According to the survey data and the theories of growth the chapter presented, organizations of this size have somewhat formless organizational structures with the entrepreneur being the central figure and most of the times the founder and/or manager of the company.
