If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The aim of this study is to advance the understanding of firm growth determinants by comparing the factors influencing young firms' growth in 13 countries corresponding to three contrasting regions. Design/methodology/approach -The authors propose an integrated model of venture growth where entrepreneurs' profile, firm resources and market characteristics are combined. This model is tested using three OLS regressions, one corresponding to each region. Findings -The results show that compared with the remainder two regions, the less favorable business conditions verified in Latin American countries emphasize the relevance of entrepreneurs' human capital endowments in determining business development and its further growth. On the contrary, market-related issues and the availability of financial resources are more important in South-East Asia and Mediterranean Europe. Team size and particularly its growth are positively associated with firm growth in all the studied regions. Practical implications -The results of this study confirm that a firm's growth determinants as well as their importance vary across regions. Consequently, policy interventions should take into account the specificity of each region when designing entrepreneurial policies, avoiding the adoption of "one size fits all" solutions. Originality/value -The main contribution of this paper is twofold: first, it collects empirical evidence about young firm growth in less studied regions; second, by comparing the results for each region differential effects of several determinants of firm growth in quite contrasting contexts are discussed.

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This paper aims to review how different approaches to social inquiry (e.g. positivist, postpositivist, interpretive, postmodernist and critical theory) have been used in strategy research and how these main paradigms engage with strategy. In a fragmented domain, debates typically match paradigms to schools of thought and use the paradigm concept, sometimes even promiscuously, to examine the underlying premises of different theories. Thus, scholars tend to overlook the debate on philosophical metatheoretical assumptions (ontological, epistemological and methodological) and prefer onto-epistemological approaches that are considered to be 'normal science', which underestimate the contributions of certain less traditional streams of research. This review offers a fresh view of the philosophical foundations of the strategic literature by combining author co-citation and content analysis of a sample of academic sources and analyses both the meta-theoretical assumptions and the basic paradigmatic assumptions for central constructs that strategy researchers attach to their frameworks (e.g. strategy, environment, firm and strategist). This endeavour enables scholars who work in a multidisciplinary field to gain a better understanding of the philosophical beliefs, principles and conventions held by different research communities and theoretical approaches. Exposing the underlying assumptions, as is done in this study, is a key step in theory development. Hence, this review can help researchers, young scholars and doctoral students navigate a confusing research landscape, problematize the existing literature and set new research questions. This is an open access article under the terms of the CreativeCommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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