| Number of Employees | Number of Businesses |
|---|---|
| 1-4 | 2261 |
| 5-9 | 406 |
| 10-19 | 238 |
| 20-49 | 166 |
| 50-99 | 52 |
| Total | 3123 |
Download this excel file for a full breakdown of business types.
II.i
The first task of this research is to define what a small business is, which can be difficult. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what a small business is, there are many definitions (2). The first thing to note is the fact that the definition of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) varies across countries, industries, organizations, agencies and the academic community (1). A relatively standard definition is a company with a workforce of 1 to 100 employees. Some change the upper limit to 250 employees—which can then be broken down into small scale with 5-100 and medium-sized enterprises from 100-250. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA) in 2004, small businesses employ half of all private-sector workers and 39% of workers in high-tech jobs. Small businesses provide 60% to 80% of the net new jobs annually, pay 44.3% of total U.S. private payroll, and represent 99.7% of all employers (4). The International Data Corporation (IDC) breaks down the percentage of small businesses down by size as following in 2005: small businesses with less than 5 employees make up 69%; 5-9 employees, 14.3%; 10-19 employees, 8.6%, 20-49 employees, 5.5%; 50-99 employees, 2.0% (3). From March 2008 to March 2009, there were 680,716 small business deaths and 518,500 small business births, and in 2010 there were 27.9 small businesses with fewer than 500 employees (6).
II.ii.1
II.ii.2
This study will be looking at businesses in the Kent, Ohio area—which has seen an increase of development in the past few years.
II.ii.3
For the sake of this study, the definition of small businesses will be any firm with under 100 employees.
As I continue to dive into and flush out my secondary research, thoughts keep popping up of things I need to consider. Typically, I would find this irritating. But I find it quite fortunate in this regard—it gives me more to research and write about. This has been a concern since I started this project; Will I have enough to write about? Here are a few things I need to ensure I include in my thesis (which may require more research):
That’s all for now. Just throwing a few thoughts out there.
Recently I sat down with Evan Bailey to discuss my thesis and ask him if he would be interested in the opportunity to join my thesis committee—which he accepted.
Evan provided me with a lot of great suggestions for making the research more graspable. Here’s what my research looks like, as it continues to travel down a funnel:
The more I define my research, the more excited I get to actually perform it.
So I’ve been using Evernote for my thesis research, and it is a heck of a tool.
Evernote gives you the ability to make “notebooks” with “notes” inside of them, and create tags and so on. I’ve been using it to create a note for each secondary source that I’ve been reading, then tagging them with various tags that relate to the article (ROI, firm image, investment, etc).
There is also a free iPhone app available that automatically syncs all of your notes. So, say, I’m on the run and an idea pops in my head. I can create a note on my phone, and next time I open up Evernote on my computer, that note will be there. Or I want to review my notes on a particular article but I’m not near my computer—I can just pull it up on my phone.
I highly recommend it. Check it out here.
It took me an incredibly long time, but I finally have the blog up. I have spend the winter break so far by taking the time to gather various resources and such to aid in the research of my thesis. I wish to post about this later, but for now, I will keep this first post simple.