First published in 1997, this study sees the small enterprise as performing specific tasks within the larger societal system of production and distribution, and as being shaped and adapted to the specific social and economic, locally specific environment of which it is a part. Research was focused on fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, examining rural small towns serving rural hinterlands. Areas explored include the building sector in Zimbabwean district service centres, the building sector in small Tanzanian towns, small enterprises and the public sector in Kenya and Bangladesh and the structure of small-scale grain-marketing in a small Ugandan town.