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Forms of growth: How SMEs combine forms of growth to achieve high growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Jose Luis Barbero Navarro ,
Jose Carlos Casillas  and
Bruce Barringer
Jose Luis Barbero Navarro
Affiliation:
College of Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain
Jose Carlos Casillas
Affiliation:
Business Administration and Marketing and Market Research (Marketing), University of Seville, Seville, Spain
Bruce Barringer
Affiliation:
College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
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Abstract

The majority of the literature on high-growth firms focuses on two main aspects: growth factors and rates of growth, but little information exists on how SMEs grow. Past research has implicitly considered high-growth firms as a homogeneous category of businesses, however, in reality, they use different forms of growth: domestic and international geographical expansion, the launch of new related and unrelated products, product improvement, client retention and the acquisition of new clients. This work attempts to identify how high-growth SMEs benefit from different combinations of forms of growth to perform successfully. A sample of 89 high-growth SMEs was selected – with an annual growth rate of more than 10% over a 5-year period – and, by means of a cluster analysis, we found four significantly different combinations of forms of growth. To externally test the robustness of those combinations, a group of demographic variables was considered (size, age, sector), as well as a set of variables related to the growth strategy (personnel involvement, the extent to which growth is a priority, perceived growth with respect to competitors), which support the existence of significant differences between the groups.

Keywords

high-growth firmsforms of growthcluster analysisgrowth profile
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 81 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2012

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