REVIEW OF MICRO, SMALL, AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (MSMES) DEMARCATIONS FOR GLOBAL APPLICATION
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)/ construction micro, small, and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) are crucial to every country’s development and economic prosperity world over. However, there is no uniform basis or criteria for defining micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) globally. Be that as it may, this paper thus aim to identify from literatures definitions of MSMEs and determine common criteria used by the various definitions that can be globally applicable in defining MSMEs without bias. The research question is therefore focused on ‘what is the criteria commonly used in literature to define MSMEs that is adaptable without bias to globally define MSMEs’? The research narratively reviewed 21 country’s definitions and 7 organisation’s and agency’s definitions of MSMEs. The result indicated number of employee’s as the most common criterion used for defining MSMEs. Since number of employee’s is common to most definitions and it is a non-bias criterion , it was concluded that number of employee’s be adopted as a global single criterion for defining MSMEs. This will enable the prospect of comparing MSMEs worldwide using a single basis of definition. It will also disregard the variability and discrepancies due to currency values, economic and financial policies in various nations.
Keywords: definition, MSMEs.
