Small Business Activity in a Market Economy
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INTRODUCTION The importance of small business activity in a market economy may be appreciated by considering the role of such activity in the economy of the United States. Applying the Nappi and Vora (1980) definition of small business (either fewer than 100 employees, or less than onemillion dollars in annual receipts), somewhat more than twothirds (67.9 percent) of all business enterprises in the United States are classified as small (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1982). These firms, in turn, accounted for 40.8 percent of nongovernment and nonfarm employment, 35.8 percent of sales revenues, and 32 percent of the country's GNP (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1982). The fact that small businesses employ almost onehalf of the American workforce illustrates the magnitude of this activity on society. Apart from this concrete impact, small business also has an abstract impact on American society. The very presence of the small business sector supports the dreams of individuals that they can, someday, be independent of large organizations. While the likelihood that such an eventuality will ever come to pass for most Americans is quite low, the continued presence of the dreamthe mere possibilityis important psychologically. The factors which influence the untimate success of any business enterpriselarge, medium, or smallare both numerous and varied. Ineffective financial management,
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f materials management, production, stocking, and distribution (Magee and Boodman, 1989). In dynamic economic and industrial environments, inventory management and control practices and procedures must be capable of supporting effective decisionmaking.
The American Production and Inventory Control Society defines inventories as stockkeeping items, held at stocking points, and serving to decouple successive operations in a manufacturing or distribution process (Peters, 1986). Inventories may also be defined in an accounting context, as "the aggregate of those items of personal property which are (1) held for sale in the ordinary course of business, (2) in the process of production for later sale, or (3) held for current consumption in the production of goods and services . . for sale" (Meigs and Meigs, 1988). Inventories may be comprised of tangible goods, such as aircraft parts, or of intangible services, such as airline tickets. What is significant, in this context, is that the goods and services be owned by the entity possessing the inventories.
Inventory management and control is an important managerial function for the small business enterprise. There are many factors providing significance to the inventory manageme
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Approximate Word count = 9872
Approximate Pages = 39 (250 words per page)
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