The view has prevailed for the better part of the twentieth century that small firms do not perform an important role in Western economies. Official policies in many countries have favored large units of production because there were strong reasons to believe that large firms were superior to small firms in virtually every aspect of economic performance--productivity, technological progress, and job security and compensation. However, in the 1970s, evidence began to suggest that small firms in some countries were outperforming their larger counterparts. Perhaps the best example of this trend was in the steel industry, where new firms entered the market in the form of "mini-mills," and small-firm employment expanded, while many large companies shut down plants and reduced employment. Although no systematic evidence exists to determine unequivocally whether smaller units of production are as efficient as large firms or are, in fact, more efficient, some researchers have concluded that the accumulated evidence to date indicates that small firms are at least not burdened with an inherent size disadvantage.
Thus, an alternative view has emerged in the economics literature, arguing that small firms make several important contributions to industrial markets. First, small firms are often the source of the kind of innovative activity that leads to technological change. Small firms generate market turbulence that creates additional dimensions of competition, and they also promote international competition through newly created niches. Finally, small firms in recent years have generated the preponderant share of new jobs.
However, empirical knowledge about the relative roles of large and small firms is generally based upon anecdotal evidence and case studies, and such evidence has proved inadequate to answer major questions concerning the role of small firms across various industries and nations. An additional difficulty is that it is not obvious what criteria one should use to distinguish small firms from large ones. While a “small firm” is often defined as an enterprise with fewer than 500 employees, research studies of small firms use a wide variety of definitions.
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文章先提出一个view，然后分析之后，提出了另外一个alternative view，最后提到了分析这整个问题的局限或者说difficulties.
选项A 解散，或者驱除对于传统观点的challenge，排除
选项B 不是problem→solution的结构
选项C 不是去解决两方观点矛盾
选项D discussing the emergence of an alternative viewpoint，就是在什么情况下出现了一个怎么样的代替观点，正确
选项E 没有可能出现的counterevidence，也没有根据这个counterevidence 去defend view ，排除
A: dismiss a challenge (An alternative view) to a traditional view ( view prevailed for better part...) -- 作者并没有否认小公司对行业的贡献大，第三段仅仅是说明第二个view所采用的case以及一些定义是有问题的。 B： not a solution C: not resolve -- 两个是完全对立面 D: 对的。 讨论了第二个view的形成： 第一段：1970年有evidence证明小公司outperform大公司， 第二段：“An alternative view has emerged"...有两个重要的原因为什么小公司对行业有贡献。 E： 没有 这个含义
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2021-06-24 07:13:11
P1：介绍一个20世纪流行的观点，然后第一段中间转折说越来越多证据与之前的观点相反 P2：讨论新观点的reasoning P3：作者质疑两个观点的局限性
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2018-08-27 22:32:21
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