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On the consequences of firm growth

Recent contributions to the literature on small firm growth have been marked by a growing sense of frustration with the state-of-the-art and what it implicates in both theory and policy. In short, while growth episodes appear relatively common, a tiny proportion of firms sustain growth and ‘scale’....

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Freel, Mark, Gordon, Ian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9483699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36147205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02662426221074053
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author Freel, Mark
Gordon, Ian
author_facet Freel, Mark
Gordon, Ian
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description Recent contributions to the literature on small firm growth have been marked by a growing sense of frustration with the state-of-the-art and what it implicates in both theory and policy. In short, while growth episodes appear relatively common, a tiny proportion of firms sustain growth and ‘scale’. This calls into question the very basis upon which policies seeking to target high growth firms (HGFs) rest. In addition, it cautions against perspectives that view growth as the essence of entrepreneurship. In this paper, we argue that understanding the frequency of growth episodes and the rarity of sustained growth requires a better understanding of growth consequences. To this end, we describe case study evidence from ambitious entrepreneurs whose firms experienced an episode of high growth followed by longer periods of mixed performance. Our goal is to shed light on how the experience of growing affects further growth. Our data provide initial insights into the mechanisms linking past growth to growth motivations and into the ways in which past growth lays the foundations for future performance.
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spelling pubmed-94836992022-09-20 On the consequences of firm growth Freel, Mark Gordon, Ian Int Small Bus J Articles Recent contributions to the literature on small firm growth have been marked by a growing sense of frustration with the state-of-the-art and what it implicates in both theory and policy. In short, while growth episodes appear relatively common, a tiny proportion of firms sustain growth and ‘scale’. This calls into question the very basis upon which policies seeking to target high growth firms (HGFs) rest. In addition, it cautions against perspectives that view growth as the essence of entrepreneurship. In this paper, we argue that understanding the frequency of growth episodes and the rarity of sustained growth requires a better understanding of growth consequences. To this end, we describe case study evidence from ambitious entrepreneurs whose firms experienced an episode of high growth followed by longer periods of mixed performance. Our goal is to shed light on how the experience of growing affects further growth. Our data provide initial insights into the mechanisms linking past growth to growth motivations and into the ways in which past growth lays the foundations for future performance. SAGE Publications 2022-09-17 2022-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9483699/ /pubmed/36147205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02662426221074053 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Articles
Freel, Mark
Gordon, Ian
On the consequences of firm growth
title On the consequences of firm growth
title_full On the consequences of firm growth
title_fullStr On the consequences of firm growth
title_full_unstemmed On the consequences of firm growth
title_short On the consequences of firm growth
title_sort on the consequences of firm growth
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9483699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36147205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02662426221074053
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