important role is that of spokesperson. The small business manager spends a large amount of time doing such outwardly directed activities as meeting with customers, arranging financing with bankers, searching for new opportunities, and stimulating change. In con trast, the most important concerns of a manager in a large organization are directed inter- nally, toward deciding which organizational units get what available resources and how much of them. Also, according to this study, the entrepreneurial role-looking for business opportunities and planning activities for performance improvement is least important to managers in large firms. Compared with a manager in a large organization, a small business manager is more likely to be a generalist. His or her job will combine the activities of a large corporation's chief executive with many of the day-to-day activities done by a first-line supervisor Moreover, the structure and formality that characterize a manager's job in a large organiza- tion tend to give way to informality in small firms. Planning is less likely to be a carefully orchestrated ritual. The organization's design is less complex and structured, and control in the small business relies more on direct observation than on sophisticated computerized monitoring systems Again, as with organizational level, when we compare small and large organizations we see differences in degree and emphasis but not in function. Managers in both small and large organizations perform essentially the same activities; only how they go about them and the proportion of time they spend on each are different. Cross-National Transferability The last generic management issue concerns whether management concept are transfer able across national borders If managerial concepts were completely they would apply universally, regardless of economic, social, political, or cultural differences. Studies