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This study seeks to focus on factors characterizing a pool of hyper‐growth firms, trying to gather insights on how the hyper‐growth firms achieve hyper‐growth.

A theoretical framework is proposed, borrowing well established approaches from strategic management and entrepreneurship. Subsequently, some explorative case studies are described and help in understanding how much of a firm's hyper‐growth can be explained by the resource endowment and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). A revised framework and some propositions are eventually suggested.

Hyper‐growth seems mainly explainable by extraordinary business opportunities and extraordinary access to resources (especially knowledge‐based). Entrepreneurship appears much more as a moderating variable, rather than an explanatory variable per se of hyper‐growth.

Although the case study approach is robustly motivated as a research step that can contribute to the process of theory building, the findings are not statistically generalizable.

It has long been argued that policy makers and governments, especially in Europe, should concentrate their efforts on those industries and environments where rapid growth firms are likely to be found. The paper offers a practical example on a suitable environment to facilitate such growth, where practices like mergers and acquisitions in foreign countries as well as venture capital and private equity financing play a role.

No research has been performed so far on the explicit link between resources, EO and hyper‐growth. Moreover, the research suggests a possible reconciliation of resource‐based view (RBV) and EO frameworks in explaining such a pattern.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the forming and configuring of interfirm cooperation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) characterized by different rates of growth.

The study applies a qualitative approach. A multi-site case study was conducted in 26 Polish ICT firms.

The research indicates that SMEs manage alliances ad hoc and are characterized by a constantly emerging portfolio of partners. The results also indicate that “stable-growth” and “hyper-growth” firms adopt different approaches to managing alliances and they are characterized by different attitude of top managers towards uncertainty.

The results suggest that the managers’ attitude affects the formation and management of alliance portfolio in SMEs. The authors further highlight the importance of managerial agency within the firms and indicate that managers can actively shape the alliance portfolio of their firms.

The paper theoretically contributes to alliance portfolio literature through the adoption of both managerial and structural perspectives. More precisely, this study provides the factors related to managers that might affect a firm’s alliance portfolio configuration. All of these factors relate to managers’ approach to uncertainty. Furthermore, this study extends the previous research through focusing on SMEs.

By using the internet search engine Google™ as the primary example, this article illustrates: (1) that some high‐growth expectations are unsustainable over the short and medium term; and (2) that dependency on single revenue streams may provide growth over the short term, but may not be sustainable over the medium and longer terms, and may be a high‐risk scenario. An approach is presented that companies can undertake to critically evaluate current and future positions and consider such options as acquisition and integration as a means of building future growth potential.

Secondary research based on the analysis of published data.

Dependency on one revenue stream within a volatile market can impact upon growth expectations. Hyper‐growth expectations may be unsustainable, indeed unrealistic, over the medium term. Such growth expectations may be detrimental to the company. Companies who can spread the risk through acquisition and integration through strategic fit may have greater longer‐term growth potential, notwithstanding market and environmental dynamics.

Future opportunities for research could include, among other areas, how Google™ and similar online companies could use currently free products to generate revenues.

Companies need to consider the volatility of the marketplace. Dependency on one revenue stream could be a high‐risk scenario, especially in relation to sustainable high growth expectations. Companies also need to consider various strategic options for sustainable longer‐term growth, and continually critically review both internal and external environments, as well as product ranges and revenue streams. Companies should take action to sustain growth, whether that is through new market development, acquisition or even divestment.

While being flexible companies need to consider a realistic strategic direction for the business. Companies also need to consider realistic growth rates as compared to hyper‐growth expectations that are unlikely to be sustainable over the medium and longer term.

Business research and entrepreneurship literature typically examines external resources as input or output of entrepreneurial (or high) growth. The purpose of this paper is to combine these two perspectives in describing and modeling high growth.

The study tests the hypotheses on a sample of medium-sized, established manufacturing firms using structural equation modeling.

Results provide original contributions to the business research on firm growth and entrepreneurship. They are consistent with studies advocating the importance of adopting a process perspective when studying business growth to probe the causal mechanisms behind growth.

Being quantitative, this study does not address the dynamic interdependencies between proprietary and hybrid growth. However, the literature on entrepreneurship would benefit from qualitative studies that explore how successful and sustainable growth processes combine the two modes of growth.

Findings partially discard the input and output approach in favor of a vision of entrepreneurial growth as a process that unfolds over time with the development of external relationships. Only the process of collaboration, a core competence of entrepreneurial firms, reduces information asymmetries and agency problems, thus turning the corresponding inter-organizational relationships into formidable feeders of firm growth. Entrepreneurial growth is in fact a process that needs external relationships in order to flourish over time.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether innovation talent is predictive of business results. This question is important because companies exist to generate business results such as profitability and market expansion. To study this question, the authors conducted four phases of international research. They found that innovation talent is statistically predictive of business results. The Innovation Profiler (“the instrument”) is a web-based assessment tool based on the research. It was designed to detect the full array of specific innovation skills in individuals, skills that correlate with real-world business results.

The research presented in this paper follows four phases: a qualitative phase followed by two correlational studies; and finally, a validation research phase. The researchers wanted to answer the questions: “Is innovation talent predictive of business results?” “Which dimensions of innovation talent are most predictive of business results?” The research compares the attitudes, value and beliefs of innovators (both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs) to the business results they achieved and compares innovators to the general population.

The research findings are that: innovation talent is highly correlated with positive business results. Innovators have significantly higher Innovation Profiler scores than the general population. Within the population of innovators, top scorers are associated with a larger number of positive business results than bottom scorers. Intrapreneurs, while sharing many characteristics with entrepreneurs, tend to score higher on innovation skills. The Innovation Profiler does not produce adverse selection bias with respect to gender or ethnicity.

Most psychographic instruments are normative, including the Innovation Profiler; they rely on scaled responses that measure the extent to which individuals consider statements to apply to them personally. Normative instruments are faked more easily than ipsative (forced choice) measures, which ask people to choose from two to four answer options that are usually perceived as equally desirable. However, it has also been argued that the relative standing of respondents (i.e. their relative scores) in the samples is relatively unaffected by normative instruments.

This study provides significant statistical support for the validity of the Innovation Profiler as a predictor of innovation talent and of business results from innovation. The authors hope that by identifying the innovation characteristics that correlate with business outcomes, the authors have contributed to the field. Companies can use this knowledge to accelerate their organizational transformation.

This research, and the Innovation Profiler based on it, enable companies to see and measure innovation talent for the first time. This talent is not held by the few and the privileged. In fact, women score as high as men and non-whites score slightly higher than whites. Innovation talent, as measured by the Innovation Profiler, can be an equalizer in the workforce. Finally, we hope that this paper helps companies attract more innovators into their workforce and to recognize and use more of their valuable skills.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to ask. “Can we predict the business results from innovation based on who is involved?” After extensive review of the literature, the authors have not found any other study asking this question. This study is also novel for: including intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs; and for including samples across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. The study demonstrates a strong relationship between innovation talent and positive business results, with effect sizes that appear to exceed personality and other factors.

In the past 20 years, Macao has experienced phenomenal economic growth driven by the liberalization of its casino sector. This growth has been enabled by massive influxes of foreign capital and migrant labor that have dramatically altered the city’s ethnic landscape. In this paper, the author examines the demographic changes Macao has experienced as a result of the casino boom, and situates the city’s current economic growth and ethnic diversification within its long history as a multi-ethnic city.

Building on Nancy Foner’s notion of “contexts of settlement,” the study draws on census materials, policy statements, newspaper articles and ethnographic materials to examine how changing ideologies of globalization help shape the categories through which ethnic diversity itself is conceptualized.

The paper has three main findings. First, despite the Macao government’s multicultural rhetoric, its labor and residency policies that prevent migrant workers from settling in Macao may paradoxically serve to maintain the ethnic status quo ante. Second, the new contexts of settlement engendered by Macao’s casino globalization may be amplifying fissures within the ethnic category “Chinese.” And third, discourses of globalization, regulations on immigration, and classificatory systems governing ethnic diversity that were instituted under Portuguese rule have both helped shape these new contexts and been reworked in the process.

As the processes of urbanization, economic integration and transnational migration continue to accelerate throughout East Asia, the goal of creating inclusive, equitable multi-ethnic urban societies will require closer examination of the relationship between particular modes and ideologies of “global” engagement, patterns of and policies toward migration and the concepts and categories through which diversity is measured. This approach to understanding multi-ethnic Macao may serve as an example.

The purpose of this study is to assess the state at which lean and six sigma (LSS) are used as a management system to improve the national health system national health system of Mexico.

Cross-sectional survey-research. The survey was administered at 30 different hospitals across six states in Mexico. These were selected using convenience sampling and participants (N = 258) were selected through random/snowball sampling procedures, including from top managers down to front-line staff.

Only 16 per cent of respondents reported participation in LSS projects. Still, these implementations are limited to using isolated tools, mainly 5s, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and Fishbone diagram, with the lack of training/knowledge and financial resources as the top disabling factors. Overall, LSS has not become systematic in daily management and operations.

The sampling procedure was by convenience; however, every attempt was made to ensure a lack of bias in the individual responses. If still there was a bias, it is conjectured that this would likely be in overestimating the penetration of LSS.

The penetration of LSS management practices into the Mexican health system is in its infancy, and the sustainability of current projects is jeopardized given the lack of systematic integration. Hence, LSS should be better spread and communicated across healthcare organizations in Mexico.

This is the first research work that evaluates the use of LSS management practices in a Latin American country, and the first journal paper that focuses on LSS in healthcare in Mexico.

Research on high-growth firms (HGFs) or gazelles is expanding due to their significant contribution to job growth and economic development. However, the knowledge about the conditions and factors that set these firms on their rapid growth trajectory remains fragmented. Therefore, this chapter provides an abreast inventory of the surging gazelle studies by systematically reviewing the international gazelle growth literature and consolidating firm-level, industry-level, and macroeconomic-level growth factors and their interactions as elaborated in the studies. Based on the review of 62 international empirical studies, this chapter finds that the gazelle growth is complex and multidimensional in its scope and nature. The firm’s growth intention and entrepreneurial nature emerge as necessary but not sufficient conditions to guarantee rapid growth as it results from the impact of and interaction between various firm-level and external factors. The different growth-influencing factors are summarized using a theoretical gazelle growth model, which supports the rare and temporal nature of the gazelle growth.