French small engineering firms outperformed dualist-model predictions of technological backwardness.

Evidence

This picture of comparatively rapid growth and technological sophistication contradicted established views of the role of small firms in the French economy. In particular, it was inconsistent with the dualist model which predicted technological backwardness in accordance with the confinement of small firms to unstable portions of the product market. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2478

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what mechanisms let small firms escape the dualist prediction, and how generalizable is this beyond France in the 1980s?