SPATIAL RESPONSIVENESS OF SMALL FIRMS

A spread in the growth of small firms in disparate regions within a country seems incongruous to many regional scientists. Nevertheless, this phenomenon can be observed in almost every country. Start-up and growth of small businesses are not strictly confined to a particular type of spatial environment. In this paper we examine how small businesses manage to start and grow under different locational conditions. To that end, we make a qualitative and longitudinal comparison between the environmental behaviour of successful small firms located in the Dutch periphery and similar firms located in the country's economic heartland, known as the Randstad. Although the interregional differences in economic conditions seem to be moderate in the Netherlands, the peripheral firms had to deal with more environmental constraints than the central ones. However, at the same time the former showed considerable ability to deal with these barriers. Furthermore, the causes underlying 'the environmental responsiveness' of the small firms investigated could be traced either to characteristics of the locational environment itself or to features of the organizations from which the firms originated.