ACE research vignette 001 : benefits and drawbacks of start-up team heterogeneity

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Dr. Micheal Stuetzer considers some of the benefits and drawbacks associated with team start-up.

ACE research vignette 008 : acquisitions - a route to new growth opportunities?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team and other international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Professor Per Davidsson considers some of the dynamics associated with firm growth.

ACE research vignette 010 : when do sales and employment grow together?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team and other international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Professor Per Davidsson considers some of the dynamics associated with firm growth.

ACE research briefing paper 002: learning and adaptation in the business creation process

This year marks the completion of data collection for year three (Wave 3) of the CAUSEE study. This report uses data from the first three years and focuses on the process of learning and adaptation in the business creation process. Most start-ups need to change their business model, their product, their marketing plan, their market or something else about the business to be successful. PayPal changed their product at least five times, moving from handheld security, to enterprise apps, to consumer apps, to a digital wallet, to payments between handhelds before finally stumbling on the model that made the a multi-billion dollar company revolving around email-based payments. PayPal is not alone and anecdotes abounds of start-ups changing direction: Sysmantec started as an artificial intelligence company, Apple started selling plans to build computers and Microsoft tried to peddle compilers before licensing an operating system out of New Mexico. To what extent do Australian new ventures change and adapt as their ideas and business develop? As a longitudinal study, CAUSEE was designed specifically to observe development in the venture creation process. In this research briefing paper, we compare development over time of randomly sampled Nascent Firms (NF) and Young Firms(YF), concentrating on the surviving cases. We also compare NFs with YFs at each yearly interval. The 'high potential' over sample is not used in this report.

ACE research briefing paper 003 : international perceptions and aspirations

2010 marked the completion of data collection for year three (Wave 3) of the CAUSEE study. This report uses data from the first three years. Australia's population is noted for its mixed international background. The ABS 2006 census reports showed that almost a quarter of Australian population were born overseas, contributing to a high degree of cultural diversity. This report examines the international background and experience of Australian business founders as well as their aspired and actual participation in international markets. In this research briefing paper, we compare Nascent Firm (NF) and Young Firm (YF) groups and also 'Regular' start-ups in both categories with their High Potential counterparts. When we compare characteristics at one point in time and we compare developments over time. Unless otherwise stated the findings we comment on are 'statistically significant'. That is, there is less than 5 per cent risk that they would appear by chance if there is no true difference in the population form which the samples were drawn.

ACE research briefing paper 004 : emerging and young high potential start-ups

In this report we take a look at what separates high potential emerging and young start-ups from others. We compare the characteristics, intentions and behaviours of start-ups that we judge to be 'high potential' with other start-ups. We utilise the first two years of data from the CAUSEE study. We also compare Australian start-ups with a similar study conduced in the US.

ACE research vignette 023 : Does firm location make a difference to the export performance of SME's?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. This vignette, written by Mr. Darren Kavenagh and Professor Per Davidsson, deals with export capacity of Australian SMEs.

Small firm internationalisation and the objective characteristics of managers: An importer's relationship marketing perspective

As a result of competitive pressures, firms are transitioning to international sourcing and initiating complex relationships with suppliers. Despite a lack of inward internationalisation research, there is progressive support for the importance of importing. Heavier focus has been placed on downstream efforts in past years, despite the fact that many factors affecting exporting also influence importing. For small and medium sized enterprises (SME), the psychic distance construct is especially important for internationalisation behaviour but there is little evidence on how perceptual psychic distance, that is the individual’s experiences, influences the buyer-seller relationship. This study draws on internationalisation process theory and commitment-trust theory, in an effort to describe the relationship between objective characteristics (i.e. language, cultural background, education and international experience) and relationship marketing (trust and commitment). The study utilises a holistic, multiple case study design to gain a deeper understanding of the inherent complexities of the relationships in dyads and how objective characteristics, which reduce psychic distance, can facilitate trust and commitment development between importers and exporters.

ACE research briefing paper 001 : the role of family in new business start-ups

This report uses data from the first two years of the CAUSEE study and focuses on the role of family in new business start-ups. While CAUSEE was not designed specifically to probe deeply into family matters the study does reveal interesting information on family orientated aspects including parental role models, family involvement on the start-up team, and family as a source of funding and advice. These findings can also be related to other information gathered as part of the comprehensive phone interviews that are used to gather the research data for CAUSEE. Furthermore we are also able to compare firm founders and 'Regular' nascent firm and young firm start-ups with their 'High Potential' counterparts in terms of their degrees of family involvement. Unless otherwise stated any differences or effects we comment on are 'statistically significant' at the five per cent level - that is, they are likely to reflect true differences or effects in the entire population of Australian start-ups.

ACE research vignette 004 : growing profitable or growing from profits?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Professor Per Davidsson considers some of the dynamics associated with firm growth.

ACE research vignette 009 : to grow or not to grow - that's the question

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team and other international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Professor Per Davidsson considers some of the dynamics associated with firm growth.

ACE research vignette 015 : Australian entrepreneurship

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Associate Professor Paul Steffens, Dr Michael Stuetzer and Professor Per Davidsson investigate where Australia ranks on the world stage in terms of entrepreneurship.

ACE research vignette 026 : Do Entrepreneurs’ Personal Networks Influence Small Firm Performance?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. This vignette, written by Dr. Rene Bakker, examines the evidence on the effects of a entrepreneurs’ personal networks on small firm performance, and the factors that moderate this relationship.

The relationship between small firm growth and HRM practices

The relationship between small firm growth and HRM practices Rowena Barrett, Susan Mayson and Niel Warriner Introduction In this chapter we explore the relationship between small firms’ growth orientation, their business planning efforts and the role the owner plays and whether or not formal HRM practices are used. Formal HRM practices are assessed in terms of whether they are written down, regularly applied or assured to take place. We take on board Heneman et al.’s (2000) suggestion that ‘surveys of employer practices across SMEs [would] be [a] valuable addition to the strategic human resource management literature’ (p. 23) and report the results of an online and paper survey of a sample of 1753 small firms (defined as those employing less than 20 people) in the state of Victoria (SE Australia). Our particular interest in this chapter, which is based on an analysis of 410 responses to the survey, is whether growthoriented small firms adopt formal HRM practices. This research contributes to understanding whether more formal organizational systems and routines are more likely to be used (or not) to nurture human capital in growth-oriented small firms. Moreover by focusing on firm growth, this chapter, consistent with recent calls in the literature (see Baron, 2003; Barrett and Mayson, 2006; Katz et al., 2000; Tansky and Heneman, 2003), contributes to a better understanding of issues at the intersection of entrepreneurship and HRM research.

Small firm growth

We review and discuss the literature on small firm growth with an intention to provide a useful vantage point for new research studies regarding this important phenomenon. We first discuss conceptual and methodological issues that represent critical choices for those who research growth and which make it challenging to compare results from previous studies. The substantial review of past research is organized into four sections representing two smaller and two larger literatures. The first of the latter focuses on internal and external drivers of small firm growth. Here we find that much has been learnt and that many valuable generalizations can be made. However, we also conclude that more research of the same kind is unlikely to yield much. While interactive and non-linear effects may be worth pursuing it is unlikely that any new and important growth drivers or strong, linear main effects would be found. The second large literature deals with organizational life-cycles or stages of development. While deservedly criticized for unwarranted determinism and weak empirics this type of approach addresses problems of high practical and also theoretical relevance, and should not be shunned by researchers. We argue that with a change in the fundamental assumptions and improved empirical design, research on the organizational and managerial consequences of growth is an important line of inquiry. With this, we overlap with one of the smaller literatures, namely studies focusing on the effects of growth. We argue that studies too often assume that growth equals success. We advocate instead the use of growth as an intermediary variable that influences more fundamental goals in ways that should be carefully examined rather than assumed. The second small literature distinguishes between different modes or forms of growth, including, e.g., organic vs. acquisition-based growth, and international expansion. We note that modes of growth is an important topic that has been under studied in the growth literature, whereas in other branches of research aspects of it may have been studied intensely, but not primarily from a growth perspective. In the final section we elaborate on ways forward for research on small firm growth. We point at rich opportunities for researchers who look beyond drivers of growth, where growth is viewed as a homogenous phenomenon assumed to unambiguously reflect success, and instead focus on growth as a process and a multi-dimensional phenomenon, as well as on how growth relates to more fundamental outcomes.