Helping Small Firms Grow: An Implementation Analysis of Small Firm Assistance Structures*

In: European journal of political research: official journal of the European Consortium for Political Research, Band 10, Heft 2, S. 187-198

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article describes the design of, and presents some first results from, the West German component of a four‐country comparative study of organizational arrangements for providing small firms with assistance to help them overcome their problems of development. In describing the research design, particular attention is given to the unit‐of‐analysis problem and to a method for inductively reconstructing the unit of analysis. An analytic 'grid', based on a simple model of problem‐solving, is proposed which would seem well suited to the project's cross‐cultural frame of reference. Preliminary results provided in the latter part of the article should serve to illustrate some of the analytic possibilities which may be expected from the project.