Management development & the small firm

International interest in the development of small firms has expanded rapidly in recent years. Many countries now see the small business sector as a significant element in the permanent structure of business. Symptomatic of this interest was the International Seminar on Small Business Management Development held from 29 to 31 October 1971 at the Irish Management Institute in Dublin. Participants at the seminar were executives from organisations responsible for conducting small business management development programmes in a number of European countries. Only a few years ago it was hardly conceivable that an international conference, solely concerned with approaches for developing the small business manager, could attract support. Most respectable training institutions had not the wish, the energy or the know‐how to assist small firms. The problems involved in training the owners and managers of small firms were different from those in training large company managers and, consequently, many training institutions opted out. But by the autumn of 1971 there was sufficient interest in the problems of small firm management development to attract training specialists from 14 European countries to come together for the first time.