Abstract
The article discusses the issue of development of small and medium-sized
businesses in Poland from the perspective of evolutionary economics. The
evolution of the SMBs sector and the development of its present shape in
Poland started in the 1980s. At the same time (in the early 80s), evolutionary
economics placed hopes on the creation of alternative theory in relation to
the neoclassical approach. Eventually, the sector went through various stages
of evolution, which authors defined and specified differently. Diversity was
nothing bad in this area, just the opposite – it made it possible to work out
many mutually supplementing theses and views on the issue from a broad
perspective. However, in the author’s opinion, it is necessary to take into
account the sixth stage of the sector’s evolution (five stages are usually discussed
in literature), which would reflect the development state of the sector’s
population after the completed process of assistance of the European Union.