Entrepreneurs and small businesses are a vital link in growing our economy, but they often do not have the financing, contacts, and history to go from innovation to implementation. An Office of Advocacy Issue Alert, Innovation in Small Firms (July 1986) gathered information from various sources and put small firms? role in innovation in perspective. Small businesses are efficient as innovators and produced roughly twice as many significant innovations per employee as large firms. An estimated 55 percent of approximately 8,000 innovations can be attributed to small firms, which included innovations at different levels of significance, according to a study published by the Office of Advocacy (Characterization of Innovations Introduced on the U.S. Market in 1982, The Futures Group, March 1984, www.sba.gov/advo/research, an update of another Advocacy study, The Relationship Between Industrial Concentration, Firm Size, and Technological Innovation, Gellman Research Associates, Inc., May 1982). However, because The Futures Group Research is dated, and the pace of technology and innovation activities has increased, it is necessary to update the study. Another possible research angle would be to study an individual case study industry, such as information technology. (Note that the Office of Advocacy does not maintain a list of businesses). The proposal will show how the research will add to the existing literature on small business innovation. Also, an important part of the final report would be the link between existing and current research findings. Fax or Emailing of proposals will not be accepted.

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