Revisiting the Global Definitions of MSMEs: Parametric and Standardization Issues Esubalew Amare Abawa1, Raghurama A.2 1Ph. D. Candidate, Mangalore University, India, amareab32@gmail.com 2Professor, Department of Commerce, Mangalore University, India, araghurama@gmail.com Online published on 21 August, 2017. Abstract The importance of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) is not doubtful worldwide due to its significant contribution to meet various socioeconomic objectives, such as the higher growth of employment, promotion of exports and fostering entrepreneurship. However, to enhance this contribution and make it sustainable, government and researchers have to support the sector through suggesting the best ways of performing so that the sector will implement the suggestions for further impact. Nonetheless, the absence of universally accepted definition of MSMEs is the main challenge in identification and investigation of MSMEs problems. To reduce these challenges, the definitions currently used are revisited to use better parameters and produce a common definition that could be adopted by countries at least within the same economic category. To meet this, the study used a secondary data source from journal articles, reports and policy guidelines of different organizations and countries. Using the World Bank countries income categorization based on per capita Gross National Income (GNI), the study has reduced the number of definitions into four for high, upper middle, lower middle, and low-income countries. To implement these relatively global definitions of MSMEs, individual countries, the World Bank and other multilateral organizations, and researchers are suggested to contribute their parts. Top Keywords MSME, SME Definitions, Global MSME Definitions, revisiting, Global Enterprises. Top |