Industries have specific structures and the entrepreneur needs to learn and understand the significance of the structure for his/her industry. Industry structure includes size measures, e.g. industry sales, number of firms, and number of employees. Rate of growth and the industry growth curve are an important element of industry structure as is the extent to which an industry is unionized. There may be many more elements of industry structure. Industry structure is one determinant of competition. For example, competition in an industry comprised solely of union employers will be quite different than in an industry comprised of both union and non-union firms. Competition is also affected by the extent to which the government is a large buyer, or perhaps the only buyer, as in the defense industry.
- 12684 reads
