SMEs and Large Enterprises: Α Preliminary Comparative Analysis

The scope of this chapter is to shed some light on the debate about the most productive and useful, for an economy, size of an enterprise, comparing large firms and SMEs. Since the concept of SMEs is not perceived in the same way internationally, it is crucial, to clarify what an SME is, by presenting definitions from the three biggest economies (E.U., USA and China). A few facts concerning the basic characteristics of entrepreneurship of the aforementioned economies contribute in better understanding each country’s business structure. The main part of the chapter focuses on the advantages of each type of enterprise (large and SMEs), which is simultaneously the disadvantage of the other type, thus underlying the complex function of the real economy. At the end, this chapter concludes that today, for a series of reasons, large businesses and SMEs are both of vital importance for the resilience and growth of every economy and society.