Small businesses

Abstract

The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business as one that is independently owned and operated (not a branch firm or franchise), is not dominant in its field, can be operated and managed by one person, and employs fewer than 150 people (cited in Combs, Pulver, and Shaffer, 1983). We will use the SBA definition with one modification: Since we are dealing with nonmetropolitan America and placing emphasis on smaller rural communities, we will set the upper limit at 20 or fewer employees, including those with no employees. 1 We have chosen to relate our discussion principally to private firms that are in the retail, manufacturing, or service sectors. We do not discuss farms and other primary sector firms, financial institutions, wholesale firms, and transportation firms, since most of these are dealt with elsewhere in this book. The three types of firms we have chosen are typically thought of in terms of creating or attracting small business to rural communities.