Entrepreneurial Growth Ambitions: The Case of Finnish Technology Startups

Abstract

Technology startups are expected to be a major driving force of economic growth in Europe. The search for new high-growth startups has been particularly topical in Finland, the country that is known for its high-tech products – and the fall of Nokia’s mobile phone business. Although a record number of startups has been established in recent years, the previously identified challenge is that only a small percentage of entrepreneuri- al businesses are responsible for the lion’s share of economic benefits typically associated with entrepreneurial activity. Hence, we need better understanding of what level of growth technology entrepreneurs aim to create and why there may be differences in growth ambitions among them. In this study, we undertook interpretivist case study re- search in pursuit of rich, empirically grounded understanding of entrepreneurial growth ambitions in the context of Finnish technology startups. We interviewed entrepreneurs at a Finnish startup event and supplemented this information with data available publicly on the Internet related to the growth ambitions of startups. Our study sought to increase understanding of the different aspects of entrepreneurial growth ambitions, and to ex- plore the relationship between context and growth. Based on the findings, we suggest that growth ambitions should be seen as a complex, socially constructed concept. The growth ambitions of entrepreneurs in our study were influenced, at least in part, by their startups' institutional and market contexts, the scalability of their business models, their personal characteristics and experience, and their perceptions of the barriers and con- straints of the field. We conclude that startups have very different growth pathways: al- though the growth of one startup may depend on the talent of a few software developers, the growth of another startup may be based on its success in building international sales networks. As a result, to get most out of the support provided for a startup ecosystem, sup- port activities should be tailored to different types of high-growth startups.