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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the organization’s life-cycle stages influence the venture capital investor’s decision. The present study also aims to explore the relationships between life cycle stages and financing decisions of investors of an organization.

The research focuses on a qualitative approach and adopts descriptive and case study methods to perceive the data collected. By the multi-case research approach, the authors conducted interviews in analytics and technological companies. The data originates from semi-structured interviews and publicly available data with various venture capital firms.

In this research, 10 stages of the organization’s life cycle from the Adizes theory have been considered. It starts from the first two stages as courtship and infancy to bureaucracy and death to the final stages. The results and findings indicate that life cycle stages influence venture capitalist financing decisions.

The implications of the current research help venture capitalist to take investment decisions according to the life cycle stage of the organization. Furthermore, according to the stage of the organization, the owner of a venture capital firm can approach various venture capitalists for the betterment of the organization.

The novelty of this research is to consider a case-based approach involving Adizes’ life cycle in all 10 stages of venture capital firms that affect venture capitalists.

This paper aims to present the results of an exploratory study of the organizational life cycle. Rather than approaching the construct from a small‐ or large‐ firm perspective, a model appropriate for all organizations is employed.

A survey was administered to 107 practicing managers to determine life cycle stage of their organizations and environmental scanning pursuits.

The study revealed that small firms are not only found in the first two life cycle stages – existence and survival – but also in the decline stage. In addition, support was not found for environmental scanning patterns previously postulated in the literature.

Managers of SMEs who wish to grow their organizations must understand the Gestalt changes necessary for successful progression to a large organization.

One life cycle model is appropriate for all organizations and can be utilized as a transition guide for strategic managers who recognize that their decisions are the real determinants of life cycle stage.

The focus of this study was on successful, small, rapidly growing firms and on people who manage (entrepreneurs/ CEOs) or help manage (interventionists/consultants) these firms. Investigates the structural (complexity, formalization and centralization) changes that occur in firms as they move from the start‐up stage to the growth stage of development. One reason these structural changes were examined was that rapid growth often strains organizations′ existing structures and, in turn, threatens their very existence. Further, little empirical information exists about structural changes in small, growing firms. Using a sample of Inc. 500 firms, finds support for the hypotheses that organizations in their growth stage will exhibit greater complexity, greater formalization, and less centralization than in their start‐up stage.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how employees in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) practise and view workplace learning at three different life-cycle stages.

It is a qualitative study using a sample of 30 Hong Kong SMEs classified into inception, high-growth or maturity stage, from which firms in each stage were randomly selected and interviewed until data saturation was reached. Snowball sampling was adopted during interviews and data were examined through thematic analysis.

Consistent themes (patterns) from 134 semi-structured interviews are identified, addressing both similarities and differences in the nature of the practice of workplace learning in SMEs between life-cycle stages.

More similar comparative studies in other parts of the world, including quantitative surveys on larger samples, with either SMEs or multinational corporations, are encouraged to enrich the current findings.

If organisational growth is a priority, SME owner/managers should support employees’ work and learning in a timely fashion. As the study finds, individual learning and inter-organisational learning are considered “a must to have” for employees, regardless of which stage the firm is at. When an SME enters high-growth, however, more opportunities for group learning are particularly beneficial. For mature SMEs, it is essential for learning to move towards systemisation and include a professional development component to meet employees’ career expectations, not just their work demands.

The results advance the body of knowledge in SME learning from the life-cycle perspective. As one of the first studies in bridging these areas, it brings new implications to academic researchers and SME practitioners.

In this paper, we investigate whether internal control and whether corporate life cycle would affect firm performance in the emerging markets of China.

We use Chen, Dong, Han, and Zhou’s (2013) internal control index on the effectiveness of internal control and Dickinson’s (2011) definition on firm life cycle. We use multivariate regression analysis.

We find that the internal control improves corporate performance. When dividing firm life cycle into five stages: introduction, growth, mature, shake-out and decline, we find that the impacts of internal control on firm performance vary with different stages. The positive impact of internal control on firm performance is more significant in maturity and shake-out stages than other stages.

Our findings would have implications for the regulators and policy makers with regards to the importance of internal control in corporate governance and the effectiveness of implementing standards and guidelines on internal control in public firms.

In addition, our findings on the various roles of internal control at different stages of firm life cycle would help managers and board of directors find more focus in risk management and board monitoring, respectively.

Although the prior literature have examined the link between internal control, information quality and cost of equity capital (Ashbaugh-Skaife, Collins, Kinney, & LaFond, 2009; Ogneva, Subramanyam, & Raghunandan, 2007), our study would be the first attempt to investigate the link between internal control and firm performance during different stages of firm life cycles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the HR roles of Bangladesh HR professionals in the public and private firms in Bangladesh using Human Resource Competency Study (HRCS) model (2016). The impact of identified HR competencies on firm performance and moderation of this relationship concerning different stages of organisation life cycle (OLC) is also explored.

This quantitative study uses the HRCS model (RBL, 2015) as its underpinning analytical framework, and explores the impact of identified HR competencies on firm performance and analyses whether this relationship is moderated by different OLC stages. The sample for this study consisted of 202 HR professionals from both public and private organisations in Bangladesh.

Results confirmed that all the nine competencies of HRCS model were demonstrated by the HR professionals in Bangladesh. The “credible activist” competency achieved the top ranking and “paradox navigator competency” recorded the lowest. Minor variation in terms of levels of competencies was observed in the context of private and public firms. HR competencies positively impacted the firm performance and only the maturity and growth stages of a firm’s life cycle moderated this relationship.

There is a deficit of studies which have tested this relationship in terms of the moderating effects of OLC stages in the Asian developing country context. Focusing on this paucity of research concerning the transference of western human resource management models in developing economies and their resultant impact on firm performance, this is the first study set out to explore whether the most cited western HRCS model (RBL, 2015) is useful in understanding HR competencies in Bangladesh.

Evaluates the levels of strategic “integration” of human resource management (HRM) into the corporate strategy and “devolvement” of responsibility for HRM to line managers in the UK manufacturing sector. Summarises, initially, some of the primary theoretical debates existing in the HRM literature and then presents empirical results of a large‐scale study. Bases the findings on a questionnaire survey and in‐depth interviews. Not only highlights the present scenario regarding the concepts of integration and devolvement from the “subject‐matter experts”’ viewpoint, but also reveals the main logic surrounding them and the main factors and variables which determine these two practices in the UK. Contributes to the field of strategic HRM and opens avenues for further research.

Information Systems – IT Strategy Design and Implementation.

The case can be discussed in Marketing Management courses and IT Strategy classes in MBA, executives from NGOs who are participating in Management Development Programs, etc. It can also be used in entrepreneurship classes. The case serves as an illustration to entrepreneurship projects, and so this case can be discussed in training program for budding entrepreneurs intending to implement cloud in its IT infrastructure.

E-commerce is big nowadays in India. In e-commerce, particularly e-tail in India is witnessing a boom with players reporting achieving revenue targets earlier than anticipated. Though e-tail sites are now ubiquitous and dime a dozen with multiple offerings or specialized offerings, the e-grocery model is yet to take off on a large scale across India. E-grocery model has its unique challenges on both supply as well as distribution side unlike other e-tail business. As it deals with perishable items, it faces challenges in supply chain, procurement, inventory management, cold storage management, quality and logistics. To solve such problems, high degree of localization is needed for players in this business. It requires them to open up multiple warehouses at strategic locations in a city if they decide to have control over the goods they sell. Start-ups in this space face the problems in monitoring inventory levels across warehouses where they use disparate Point of Sales (POS) systems. There is a lack of synchronization among the POS applications across the warehouses for which they are able to take the benefit of economies of scale during procurement and distribution. Also, they face stock out and excess inventory across stock keeping units (SKUs). To solve this problem, a strategy is needed so that they can maintain data for all its warehouses through a single database and also by which they can scale up easily and at a lower investment without disturbing continuity in business.

Following are the learning outcomes: to learn about the business model and market ecosystem of an e-tailing business dealing in grocery items in a tier-II city in its introduction phase of organizational life cycle, to learn about various processes involved in online ordering of an item from an e-commerce website, to understand the various challenges faced by an organization dealing in e-tailing business in its introduction phase and to find out whether IT Strategy can be of help to overcome these challenges, to have an understanding of the Balance Score Card and Departmental Score Card, to understand how cloud can be of help to overcome the challenges and what are the possible cloud architectures to address such problems, to get an idea about how return on investment can be measured for finding feasibility of investment in cloud and to have the understanding of risk associated with implementing cloud and the cost of mitigating those risks.

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CSS:11 Strategy.

This paper investigates the relationship between organizational structures and the performance of FORTUNE 500 companies, which have always been among the most profitable and admired in the world. After a discussion of whether companies should organize regionally, nationally, or globally, the important assumption is made that each structural type utilizes resources differently in generating profit. Performance is conceptualized as Return on Capital Employed (RoCE) and Return per Employee (RpE). A sample of 50 companies was randomly selected. Testing revealed that structural types are positively related to financial performance, calculated as RoCE, with Multidivisional-structured companies outperforming Functional-structured ones; structural types are not related to human resource performance, calculated as RpE.

States that theoretical constructs of organizational technology in pervasive use in contingency research in management accounting and control can be criticized for failing to capture the open systems character of service processes. Attempts to reassess the conceptualization of service technology and applies an approach to responsibility accounting in professional services . Explores implications for two core elements of responsibility accounting: its character as a hierarchical control arrangement and the degree of controllability of performance measures, at a conceptual level and in the context of a public sector dental practice. Based on this empirical confrontation and previous research, develops a contingency framework linking responsibility accounting to modified service technology constructs through a number of research propositions.