Abstract: In this paper, we examine the balancing of top management’s intent and entrepreneurial activities of lower-level managers to generate corporate growth. We study how entrepreneurial activities evolve, and how learning takes place in several dimensions of their life cycle. We examine initial conditions, the definition of emerging entrepreneurial initiatives, their gaining of impetus, the role of strategic and structural contexts in shaping their further development and final outcomes in a portfolio of 37 ventures and a couple of mainstream business cases at Nokia from 1998 to 2008. We study the competitive dynamics of the wireless communications industry, which require continuous exploration and exploitation of new opportunities to succeed; and we report how entrepreneurial behavior and strategic resource allocation processes work together to generate corporate growth. We also identify a corporate ‘success syndrome’ and associated critical factors that make it difficult to achieve breakthrough innovations.

Abstract: Franchising emerged as an important growth strategy in numerous industries. While antecedents of franchising are well researched, the findings about firm financial performance are mixed and inconclusive. We set out to address this deficiency by comparing firm financial performance of franchising and non-franchising restaurant firms industry. We use five different performance measures: the Sharpe Ratio, the Treynor Ratio, the Jensen Index, the Sortino Ratio, and the Upside Potential Ratio. After controlling for market and firm-specific factors, we find that franchising restaurant firms outperformed their non-franchising counterparts in all cases. Simply stated, franchising pays! That is, we obtained evidence that publicly-held restaurant firms during our study interval on average performed better if they franchised than if they did not.

Abstract: Entrepreneurial bricolage may enable resource-constrained firms to develop resources from seemingly nothing. However, only a few empirical study the relationship between bricolage and firm growth. Furthermore, it has been suggested that bricolage can hinder growth if the practice becomes deeply institutionalized in the firm’s routines. To examine these issues, we obtained survey data from 228 small Nordic software firms between 1 to 33 years of age using a novel bricolage scale. Using structural equation modeling, we find that bricolage has an inverted U-shaped relationship on growth. Furthermore, our model suggests that firm age may negatively moderate this relationship. This suggests that growth-driving effects of bricolage diminish as the firm grows older. Growth-oriented managers should therefore not be blinded by the initial successes created through bricolage.

Abstract: We focus on the determinants of venture growth using a framework that entails grouping applicable determinants into three overlapping categories: characteristics of the founder, traits of the firm, and strategies employed to achieve venture viability, growth, and success. Our focus is on organic firm growth as opposed to growth generated by acquisitions. Utilizing econometric models drawing upon 2004 base year variables and followup information collected annually from 2005-2008, our objective is to explain one-year growth rates as well as longer term growth rates of the young ventures. Controls for certain environmental factors -- such as macro variables capturing cyclical economic conditions -- are introduced into the econometric models explaining growth.