- Title
- Failure and opportunity: small business in Grahamstown
- Title
- Development Studies Working Paper, no. 24
- Creator
- Wallis, Joe
- Subject
- Grahamstown (South Africa) -- Commerce Grahamstown (South Africa) -- Economic conditions
- Date
- 1986
- Type
- Book
- Type
- Text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1948
- Identifier
- vital:20241
- Identifier
- ISBN 0868101397
- Description
- In recent years there has been a growing appreciation of the contribution small business can make to economic development. This contribution is mainly derived from its responsiveness to change. The flexibility of small business thus enables it to respond to the changes in demand, technology and relative costs which occur in the economic development of many countries. Moreover, small business is often able to serve those areas and communities where markets are too small to support production on the scale undertaken by large enterprises. On the other hand, small business does exhibit a high rate of failure in most economies. The small business sector in Grahamstown is no exception and this paper initially addresses the problem of small business failure in the local economy. Section One discusses the role and significance of the small business sector in Grahamstown and examines the causes and consequences of the high rate of business failure recently experienced in this area. Section Two, presents case studies of three small businesses which have recently failed in Grahamstown. Despite their vulnerability and limited resources, small businesses are often the prime initiators of new industries and new markets. As new small firms start up they test out new products and techniques without committing large amounts of resources. Consequently, if they fail, they do not cause widespread disruption. They may therefore indicate possible opportunities for expanding production in particular sectors or areas of the economy. Section Three examines how a particular enterprise, Impact Management Services, may demonstrate the opportunity which local firms have to exploit Grahamstown's comparative advantage in the education sector by engaging in software development. The paper concludes by presenting some of the policy implications which seem to arise from the study.
- Description
- Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
- Format
- 31 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Institute of Social and Economic Research
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Development Studies Working Paper, no. 24
- Rights
- Rhodes University
- Rights
- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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