Introduction xv
In total, the rigorous and insightful work of the authors in this volume is
intended to inform the collective understanding of small business in the fol-
lowing ways. First, by approaching timely issues with an eye on academic and
practical relevance, the chapters convey the current thinking on some of the
most important challenges facing today’s small business owners. Second, by
speaking to a wide variety of audiences, including academics, students, prac-
titioners, and policy makers, the chapters provide insights and action agendas
that may improve the current approach to small business theory and practice.
At the very least, given the importance that small businesses continue to
play in the economy, coupled with the inherent challenges their owners face,
the chapters in this volume may add some degree of richness to the ongoing
discussion regarding the importance of small business.
NOTES
1.  Howard E. Aldrich and Ellen Auster, “Even Dwarfs Started Small: Liabilities of
Age and Size and Their Strategic Implications,” in Research in Organizational Behav-
ior, vol. 8, ed. Barry Staw and L. L. Cummings (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1986):
165–198.
2.  Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3rd ed. (New York:
Harper & Row, 1950).
3.  Charles W. Carey Jr., “Corporations and Big Business,” Gale Digital Collections,
available at www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/whitepapers/gdc/Corporations_whtppr.pdf.
4.  Bruce A. Kirchhoff, Scott L. Newbert, Iftekhar Hasan, and Catherine Arm-
ington, “The Influence of University R&D Expenditures on New Business Forma-
tions and Employment Growth,” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 31, 4 (2007):
543–559; Laura J. Spence, “Does Size Matter? The State of the Art in Small Business
Ethics,” Business Ethics: A European Review 8, 3 (1999): 163–174.
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