【正文】
es returned, while the second and third requests resulted in another 7%. These businesses were truly micro businesses, with two thirds employing nine or fewer people. The age of the respondents was typical for small business owners: 70%were between the ages of 35 and 54. To no surprise, 52% were female. According to the . Small BusinessAdministration, women are starting new businesses at a rate four times that of their male counterparts. We were surprised, however, to have a significant response from minority business owners at 77%, which is much higher than their representation as small business owners. Once more, the results of this study suggest that small business owners don’t base their AIS software choices entirely on cost. Instead, entrepreneurs overwhelmingly chose software packages that they found easier to use, and they were heavily influenced by consultants and business counselors. Some even use more than one AIS software package. Comments also suggest that many software packages don’t pletely meet their accounting needs, and, not surprisingly, call for improvements in what’s available. Further research may provide additional information from those small business owners who didn’t respond to the survey, but researchers are likely to find obtaining a significant number of responses an increasing challenge.