Sudden change in a model of small firm growth

Aislabie, Colin

doi:10.1007/bf00388625

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Recent researches have shown that due to unpredictable intervening factors like knowledge and technology, absorption capabilities, appropriateness of the founder's judgment, and competitive environment, the sequences of stages may be heterogeneous in small enterprises. Phelps et al 2007, Aislabie 1992, Levie and Hay 1998, Rutherford et al 2003, and Stubbart and Smalley 1999 have argued that the life cycle models and the deterministic approach to growth are not relevant to organizations. The authors' points out that describing an enterprise growth through a series of stages is equivalent to assuming an organization growth as organism metaphor.…”

Section: Theoretical Frame Work To Study the Growth Path Of Enterprisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Firm growth and its determinants

2013

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Enterprise growth has been studied by researchers for many years. Different terms have been used by different authors to define the stages of an enterprise growth, but the events through which each enterprise passes remain more or less the same. Most of the researchers suggest that each enterprise has to start, then grow while facing various challenges and crises, and finally mature and decline. There are many factors which will contribute to an enterprise's success. There are many precursors also, which will allow an enterprise to move from one stage to another. There are two sets of thought prevailing among researchers; some suggest that the growth path followed by the enterprise is linear or predictable, and others suggest that the growth is fairly opportunistic or unpredictable. The understanding of the growth of an enterprise depends on the definition of what the firm is, how much has it grown, and what it offers to the market? What assets it controls and what is its legal form. It is critical to study how an enterprise manages its growth transitions and what pattern they follow. In this paper, a framework has been designed to study the path followed by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This framework considered the influence of internal and external environmental factor on the growth patterns of SMEs. The paper encompasses literature review on various theories of enterprise growth. It highlights that though there are many studies on the stages of enterprise development, there is a dearth of literature on finding patterns of growth followed by the small and medium enterprises. Also, there is lack of literature on the effect of environmental factors in determining growth path. There is a need of a framework which can help the industry to empirically test enterprise growth patterns under different conditions.

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Section: Theoretical Frame Work To Study the Growth Path Of Enterprisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Firm growth and its determinants

2013

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“…Infrequently, organizations with different characteristics have been examined: Bailey and Grochau (1993) studied non‐profit organizations and Mitra and Pingali (1999) family‐owned businesses. A separate body of literature addresses large firms and, assuming maturity, investigates causes of and proposes responses to rigidities of organizational process and practice (Aislabie 1992; Dougherty and Cohen 1995).…”

Section: Stages Of Organizational Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycles of growing organizations: A review with implications for knowledge and learning

Phelps

Adams

Bessant

2007

Int J Management Reviews

305

310

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Conceptualizing growth trajectories of organizations in organismic terms describing transitions through a series of stages, from birth to maturity, has considerable intuitive appeal. Recently, the assumptions underpinning the life‐cycle perspective (growth is linear, sequential, deterministic and invariant) have been argued not to pertain to organizations. This paper reviews the literature on life‐cycle growth models, traces the development of a growing sophistication of conceptualizing growth and highlights some of the limitations of the literature. The authors make a contribution by proposing an alternative conceptual framework for thinking about growing businesses. The framework consists of two dimensions. First, a typology of key issues that are likely to be faced by all growing firms, and the discussion is shaped by M. Gladwell's (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Little Brown, 2000) notion of ‘tipping points’. The second dimension is developed by drawing on the knowledge management literature and the concept of absorptive capacity (Cohen, W.M. and Levinthal, D.A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 128–152). This concept is applied to a discussion of the state of an organization regarding its ability to absorb and use new knowledge. Further, it is suggested that the framework has value for both policy and practice and can be used for the design and specification of interventional support and, to identify and evaluate their impact. If interventions are to help firms to grow, they must provide the right knowledge or support in forms that the firm can utilize. Together, these two dimensions provide a framework to examine firm growth issues and to analyse the effectiveness of different interventions on firms in different states within this framework.

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“…The latter group applies, for example, mathematical models from chaos theory to firm development (e.g., Aislabie, 1992). We follow the assessment by Lechler and Artmann (2005) that phase models emerging from organizational and managerial theories seem to be the ‘most recognized theory explaining the growth of new ventures’ (Lechler & Artmann, 2005, p. 228) and, while recognizing their inherent limitations, are widely employed to study firm growth and development.…”

Section: Firm Development and Development Speedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Management Competence and Growth of Young Technology‐Based Firms

Salomo¹,

Brinckmann

Talke

2008

Creat Innov Manage

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Acknowledging an increased research interest into the success factors for young technologybased firms in the last decade, the present study serves two main purposes. First, we aim at developing a comprehensive concept of functional management competence in young technology-based firms. Functional management competence covers the understanding of and proficiency in managing specific functional tasks (Katz, 1974). As we focus on young technology-based firms, it is suggested that marketing, financial and technology management tasks are at the core of functional management competence. Second, we aim at delineating and validating an appropriate measurement model for functional management competence. In order to test the model's nomological validity, we investigate the impact of functional management competence on firm growth. Therefore, building on established firm development approaches, we propose a phase model for the development of young technology-based firms. Our study builds upon data from 212 young technology-based firms in the field of microtechnology, nanotechnology, electronics, optics and lasers. We use formative measurement models to establish valid and reliable constructs and a path model based on partial least squares modelling to investigate the performance effects. The results suggest that functional management competences generally are significant drivers of firm development speed. In particular, technology and marketing management competences are shown to impact development speed. While technology management competence is positively driving development speed, the marketing management competence impact on speed is mediated by competitive advantage of the new products developed by young technology-based firms. Financial management competence has no significant link to firm development speed.

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Sudden change in a model of small firm growth

Cited by 13 publications

References 17 publications

Firm growth and its determinants

Firm growth and its determinants

Life cycles of growing organizations: A review with implications for knowledge and learning

Functional Management Competence and Growth of Young Technology‐Based Firms

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