Where the words come from
The flat-bottomed long-run average cost curve letting firms of different sizes compete, diseconomies of scale, and firms shrinking back to a lower average cost — Principles of Economics 2e, OpenStax, licensed CC BY 4.0. https://openstax.org/books/principles-economics-2e/pages/7-5-costs-in-the-long-run. Changes: 7.5's "if the long-run average cost curve has a wide flat bottom ... then firms of a variety of different sizes will be able to compete with each other" and "Firms that shrink their operations are often responding to finding itself in the diseconomies region, thus moving back to a lower average cost" condensed; the dishwasher figures dropped; the village shop, plumber and furniture examples, the owners' choice to stay small, the chart and the recap's closing sentence are ours; the GSK and Haleon sentence is ours; British spelling.
Small firms relying on the owner's money and bank loans; large firms issuing shares and bonds — Principles of Economics 2e, OpenStax, licensed CC BY 4.0. https://openstax.org/books/principles-economics-2e/pages/17-1-how-businesses-raise-financial-capital. Changes: "For many small businesses, the original source of money is the business owner" and the point that bank borrowing suits smaller firms while larger firms issue bonds condensed into one sentence in the first explain block.
Regulators breaking up large firms or requiring them to sell off parts; a merger bringing a clash of corporate personalities; mergers defined — Principles of Economics 2e, OpenStax, licensed CC BY 4.0. https://openstax.org/books/principles-economics-2e/pages/11-1-corporate-mergers. Changes: Used in the second explain block (a merger can "lead to a clash of corporate personalities that makes both firms worse off", rendered as a clash of ways of working; the Johnson & Johnson condition to "sell off" brands generalised to a competition authority requiring a firm to sell off parts) and for the merger definition; the GSK and Haleon case is ours.
Questions, options, diagrams and feedback are our own. Figures credited to a source above are that source's; every other figure is invented to show the method.