Generative Mechanisms of Growth of a New High-Tech Firm

Abstract

In this paper we conduct a review on the studies on firm growth and suggest some criticism towards growth research so far. We address that it could be time to approach firm growth from processual and cross-disciplinary starting point. Based on this assumption we carried out a literature review of the studies on firm growth, entrepreneurship, organizational change and high-tech industry. We identified the following factors to have an impact on the emergence of growth of a new high-tech firm: 1) resources of the firm, 2) firm’s strategic posture, 3) business opportunity, 4) business environment 5) growth behavior, 6) opportunity exploitation, and 7) outcome of the process. Building on these elements and interaction among them we describe the behavior which we call in this paper as generative mechanisms of growth. We also propose a theoretical framework for studying the emergence of growth of a new high-tech firm.