Buch, Englisch, 206 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 380 g
Interpretative Theory, History and Firm Growth
Buch, Englisch, 206 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 380 g
Reihe: Routledge International Studies in Business History
ISBN: 978-0-367-73341-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Firm growth. This concept has interested researchers for generations. Economists have sought to predict and measure firm growth using a host of different variables, while strategic management scholars depict growth as the result of clever analyses and rational resource exploitation. Entrepreneurship scholars - ever engrossed by successful start-ups - have pondered why growth sometimes comes fast and sometimes never at all, while the field of business history has given countless examples of growing firms in a range of different settings. Yet despite research across fields, our knowledge of how growth in a firm actually comes about is limited and we still know little about the process.
This book offers a new reading of economist Edith Penrose’s The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. The bold statement is that although Penrose’s work - across fields and generations - is amongst the most quoted on firm growth, the basic points of her work have yet to be realized and explored empirically.
Essentially, growth is created by a dynamic interrelation between the firm’s self-conception and its image of context. Based on these two subjective categories, the firm makes decisions and its actions lead it to develop along a particular path. To Penrose this is the basic engine that drives the growth and development of firms.
This book discusses how the engine of firm growth can be captured in empirical analysis using interpretative theory and narrative methods inspired by recent streams of research in business history.
Zielgruppe
Postgraduate
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
1. Introduction
Penrose and the historical study of firm growth
Subjectivity, entrepreneurial attitude, and image of context
The creation of meaning
The social nature of meaning
Change and Geertz’ concept of culture
Thick Description and narratives
The case of Fiberline and the use of empirical material
2. Founding a company and formulating a basic narrative
The circumstances of the start-up
Pultrusion
The basic narrative of Fiberline
Establishing a proper motive and a founder
Naming the product and the market
Specifying the production process and constructing the birth of a company
3. The prior experience of Henrik Thorning and the context of the Start-up
The plastic industry in Denmark in the 1970s and start 80s
The development of the composite industry in Denmark
Environmental concerns and organizing the industry
Dukadan and Henrik Thorning’s two years working there
Jotun
Innovation in the Danish plastic industry
4. Putting resources to service and strengthening the basic narrative in the start-up process
Getting started
The first sales
The everydayness of acute problems
5. How should the profiles of Fiberline be sold?
Pressure building
Strong export growth of the Danish plastic industry
A gradual focus on sales
Standard profiles and distributors
The origins of the international focus
The narrative of how profiles should be sold and to whom
6. The efforts of financing and opportunities for growth
Continued pressure after 1983
Financing behavior over time
Bootstrapping and effectuation in financing behavior
7. Productive opportunities and technological base
The growth of Fiberline and of the Danish plastic industry from the mid-1980s until the late 1990s
External inducements to diversification - Processed profiles and systems
Internal inducements to diversification – phenol based profiles and construction profiles
8. Market focus and developing the sales organization
The composites industry around the turn of the millennium
Seven good years of development and organization building
Establishing the sales organization
Diversification and uncertainty
Sales and strategic plans in the early 1990s
Operational systems and the strategic plans in the late 1990s
9. Discussion
The case of Fiberline and the theoretical choices I have made
The study of firm growth and path dependency
The study of business history
The study of entrepreneurship
The study of internationalization
10. Conclusion
