ADMINISTRATIVE PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

Twenty-five of the largest Dutch companies have joined a volunteer group of now-retired senior business managers to offer free business help and advice to managers running the country's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Of the 31,000 companies in the Netherlands, about 29,000 have nine or fewer employees. According to C.J. Graafland, director of Stichting Kleinnood, the operation set up to channel advice to those running these firms, "They often have little idea how to approach a large corporation for help or advice, even if such a course of action had occurred to them in the first place.