In Search of the 'SME Ordinaire' - Towards a Taxonomy

Abstract

The majority of businesses within most economies are small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Academic and policy interest in SMEs has expanded over the past thirty years with small business research forming an important part of the development of entrepreneurship as a field of inquiry. However, much of the recent focus of small business research has been towards what might be described as a "high church" view, embracing the entrepreneurial SMEs that are high-tech, high growth "Gazelle" or "Born Global" firms, often supported by venture capital financing. This paper focuses on the "low church" view of mainstream SMEs and seeks to develop taxonomy for the classification of what we shall call the "SME Ordinaire". We draw upon the work of Torres and Julien (2005), who recommended the need to denature the small firm and suggested the "small business concept" and its antithesis the anti-small business concept.

Keywords: ordinaire, small firms, taxonomy