such as car manufacturing; this is perhaps not surprising, considering the era in which the majority of the surveys were carried out. However, as of 2006, the 3,800+ businesses contained within the database include data from the consumer, industrial and service sectors. It is also heavily weighted towards large companies, at the expense of small entrepreneurial firms. This resulted from the data collection method used. Generally, only larger firms are prepared to pay the consulting fee, provide the survey data, and in return have access to the database in which they can compare their business with other large businesses or SBUs. Mintzberg (1998) claims that because the database is dominated by large established firms, it is more suitable as a technique for assessing the state of "being there rather than getting there". (page 99) This criticism is very important because if one is trying to get "average" results across industries to give us the "laws of the marketplace", a dubious enterprise as it is, the sampling strategy is important if one wants to obtain results that are representative. → The PIMS master database at the heart of the PIMS program now includes more than 25,000 years of business experience across a broad spectrum of industries worldwide. These are more than 90% of the companies to be processed. About one-third of them manufacture consumer goods, 15% manufacture capital goods. The remaining business units are suppliers of raw materials and semi-finished products, components or accessories for industry and commerce. Trade and services companies account for less than 10% of total companies and yet represent a fairly large sample (over 250) of strategic business units in this category. About half of the business units in the PIMS database market their products or services nationally in the United States or Canada, while 11% serve regional markets in North America. European companies are also numerous today, with around 1,000 business units from continental European countries and 600 from the UK. The most important criticism leveled at PIMS is the fact that causation implies correlation but correlation does not imply causation. One of the most important "findings" of the PIMS program was to find a statistically significant relationship between profitability and market share (see Buzz ell and Gale (1987)). The empirical work conducted by PIMS suggested that high market share yielded high profitability, but this correlation cannot be considered a "true" causal relationship because correlation does