Hae:

Oulun yliopiston väitöskirjat

UNDERSTANDING GROWTH AND NON-GROWTH IN ENTREPRENEURIAL ECONOMIES, ACTA UNIVERSITATIS OULUENSIS G Oeconomica 73

ISBN-13:	978-952-62-0812-1
Kieli:	englanti
Kustantaja:	Oulun yliopisto
Painosvuosi:	2015
Sidosasu:	pehmeäkantinen
Sijainti:	Print Tietotalo
Sivumäärä:	309
Tekijät:	SIPOLA SAKARI

32.00 €

The importance of high-growth firms for job creation is widely acknowledged and the promotion of such firms is a key area of industry policy in developed countries. However, despite the substantial development of firm growth research and the significant public investments, in many geographies the assumed good preconditions for high-growth entrepreneurship are not producing the desired results. The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of the emergence of high-growth startups by taking a systemic view of firm growth. Instead of examining individual firms, a high-growth startup focused systemic economic actor, defined as the startup industry, is taken as the research object. The startup industry is given a certain function in economic development and resource allocation, and its processual activity in particular contexts is examined under the experimental winner generation process. Critical realism is used for systemic reasoning of firm growth. The empirical study focuses on case startup industries of Finland, Israel and Silicon Valley. The emergence of startup-related actor structures and institutions, and their functioning is analyzed first from a cultural-historical and processual perspective. Second, the organization of the experimental winner generation process and its outcomes for each case are analyzed over a period of several decades, and a cross-case comparison is conducted between the cases. The results of the study propose that each startup industry develops in time a particular target for its activities. This target, defined as the perceived winner, is the key for alignment and functioning of the startup industry as a whole. Examination of this concept enables us to understand the logics of the firm growth at the wider system level and on that basis to suggest some key determinants of the performance of startup industries in the long run. The discussion of policy maker implications concludes the study.

Takaisin