An overview on criteria of small and medium enterprises across the economies: A random selection of countries

Abstract

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is playing a tremendously important role in contributing to economic development via employment opportunity, income generation, export performance as well as domestic saving. Previous studies which concern about the compilation of SME definition are found to be limited, particularly throughout the diverse nature of economies across the globe. This present article aims to enhance previous works via evaluating on the general criteria of SMEs across economies of high-income, uppermiddle-income, lower-middle-income and low-income. A total number of 22 countries were randomly selected based on the availability and accessibility of data as well as information. In this review, the input of criteria on SME is described and finally summarised. Various secondary databases from websites and previous research documents: reports, working papers, articles, and journals were explored to retrieve all the information about SME criteria, definition and measurement. This systematic review has found that most of the selected countries are inclined to several factors in determining SME such as the number of employees, sales or revenues, assets or capital investment and a total of debt. The nature of this article is vitally-important to the future researcher, in line with other stakeholders such as government, NGOs, private bodies, policymaker and small entrepreneurs in providing understanding and recent information regarding SMEs.