Entrepreneurial behaviour in the international development of small firms.

The field of studies on small firms has been augmented by analyses aimed at supplanting the traditional model of small firm development based on dimensional growth and processes of internalisation. Within this context the most important interpretative assumptions seem to be: 1) the presumed identity of the concepts of development and growth. Businesses do not always seek growth as an end in itself, since a significant increase in size generates managerial and organisational problems. 2) the possibility of defining the boundaries. Size, if referred to a single firm, is a conceptual category which is not ideally suited to understanding the present-day logic of small firm development and, instead, referral should be made to different types of groups. 3) the different study approaches. It is hard to find a model which can specify all the variables related to a phenomenology of the small firm and the task of delegating the study of the ‘small local firm’to other disciplinary fields seems superficial, merely taking advantage of such work to interpret the role and mechanisms of functioning/behaviour.