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This study aims to seek to analyse the relationships between profitability, productivity, external debt and growth in SMEs. The authors also analyse firm size and age as explicative variables of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) growth.

In this paper the data were collected for 3309 SMEs for the period 2010–2019. The authors estimate the model using the system generalised method of moments dynamic estimator.

The results show that after a certain level of profitability, this determinant positively impacts SME growth. Productivity influences positively the firm growth. There is a positive effect of external debt on SME growth, which can be explained by the insufficiency of internally generated funds. The authors obtained a negative signal between size and firm growth, contradicting Gibrat's Law (1931). Moreover, the results suggest that SMEs grow less after a certain age, suggesting that small firms grow less after reaching the minimum scale of efficiency.

For SME owner-managers, this study enhances the importance of profitability and labour productivity for firm growth. For policymakers, the results suggest the need for favourable conditions for SMEs in accessing external finance.

Profitability negatively impacts on SME growth. However, the authors found that above a certain level of profitability, probably, as firms accumulate retained earnings, profitability has a positive effect on SME growth. Moreover, this study shows that labour productivity and debt positively impact on SME growth, evidencing the importance of the availability of financial resources to sustain the growth of these firms.

This paper explores key factors influencing high-performing, sustained growth, high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Korea.

A qualitative study is adopted to explore seventeen founder owner-managers of high-tech SMEs who sustained consistent employment growth, greater than the industry average, for seven years. Within the sample, those with higher (10% or over) employment compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) over this period are also compared to those with lower rates.

The study suggests that proactive approaches, such as flexible organization, risk management, fast decision-making and international market entry, are seen as important contributing factors to sustained growth. These findings contribute to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of sustained high-tech SME growth, in a country with a strong entrepreneurial and internationally competitive information technology sector. Also, collaboration across the SME was perceived as making an important contribution to staff development and growth, consistent with stewardship theory.

The sample is based on successful high-tech SMEs, so there are limitations in extrapolating results to other types of firms, sectors or countries.

Key factors identified in this study can be considered by entrepreneurs seeking to achieve sustainable business. These also provide improved understanding for policymakers into the complexity of factors related to sustained and high growth of technology-based SMEs, which many countries are keen to foster to aid national economic growth.

The research provides new evidence exploring the diverse perspectives of founder owner-managers, on the sustained growth and failure in South Korean high-tech SMEs, and how these have changed since the inception of their business.

This paper aims to examine the growth rates of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over a three-year period, the relationship between firm size and firm growth in the context of SMEs, and the effect of marketing capability (MC) on firm growth and how it relates to firm size. The theoretical framework is based on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities.

Data were gathered from Finnish SMEs (n = 214) and analyzed with Latent growth curve modeling (structural equation modeling). Respondents were chief executive officers or company owners.

Results show that firm size is unrelated to the rate of change, and MC has a significant effect on both the intercept and slope parameters. Smaller SMEs have less MC than larger SMEs.

While the overall human resources level of the SME is not linked to the rate of growth, MC is. This is an important point for small business growth studies, for it shows what type of personnel is called for during rapid growth. SMEs could advance significantly and rapidly if they invest in versatile human capital, especially in the marketing area.

Majority of the MC research involves larger corporations. This study brings new insights from SME perspective. In addition, this study suggests that it is imperative to consider different types of growth separately. This study contributes to this need by demonstrating the connection between employee growth rate and MC in SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to know which growth-impeding constraints are perceived to act upon operations of small- to medium-sized (SME) companies by their owner-managers and to recommend transitionary paths to elevate constraints and increase contribution levels made by SMEs’ operations. To do so, this research has been primarily founded upon Hayes et al.’s (2005) operations contribution model for differentiating between different levels of operations’ contribution, and secondarily on the theory of constraints philosophy to explain the perceptions of constraints found at each level – current and future.

An open-ended survey and a series of group workshops have gathered new empirical data about these perceptions, which were coded using the relational content analysis to identify a parsimonious set of perceptual growth-impeding constraint categories. The most popular transitions were identified and a correlation of frequency rank orders between “perceived current” and “perceived future” constraints categories was calculated, and likely transitionary paths for growth are discussed. Three SME case studies were documented in related action research to contextualise survey findings.

The most popular transition was from “neutral” to “leading”. A lack of people capability was perceived to be the most commonly reported growth-impeding constraint category, followed by a combined lack of process competence and product and service innovation, further followed by a lack of skills in information technology automation. In addition, a new conceptual model has been generated inductively to address shortcomings found in the original operations contribution model (Hayes et al., 2005) during its application to UK SMEs. The new model is referred to in this paper as the “Operations Growth Rocket”.

This research only used data from UK SMEs.

This work should help SME owner-managers to overcome growth-impeding constraints that act upon their operations and assist them to develop more effective actions and paths to increase the contribution levels made by their operations. This in turn should support growth of their organisations. Findings will also inform teaching about more effective operations management in SMEs.

This work should help UK SMEs to grow, which in turn will strengthen the UK economy.

A novel approach and new data from 208 SMEs modify a classical operations contribution model (Hayes et al., 2005). This is achieved by considering transitionary paths to be meta-categories continua abstracted from constraint categories combined with case data for moving towards higher levels of operations contribution, rather than using discrete growth-impeding and growth-constraining “levels”. This research has inductively generated a new version of the classical contribution model that should be more suitable for stimulating growth in (UK) SMEs.

This multiple case study research aims to identify the characteristics of scaling up SMEs in Chile for exploring how and why some entrepreneurship in the information technology (IT) sector are able to scale up and develop sustainable strategies, based on three consecutive years. The average sales of the companies during the last period analysed was around US$1,323,579, with an average annual growth rate of 66.7%. Scaling up SMEs may require several attributes to achieve positive revenue and develop effective high growth rates that allow them to succeed over several years.

To discern the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, the methodology of multiple case study research was conducted in three parts. The first was to define and design the research process, in which the study should settle the theory analysis and then show that research propositions and questions. The second part of the research was to prepare, collect and analyse the data through crafting instruments and data collection protocols as a source of evidence to conduct the pilot and multiple case study. In this stage, interviews were scheduled, transcribed, analysed and coded to explore how individual attributes may create a scaling-up entrepreneurial process for maintaining or developing high performance in the IT sector. The last part of the research concludes and validates the research propositions for the identification for potential attributes, which were obtained during the qualitative study.

Attributes were selected when 13 or more SMEs reported the importance of this initiative for the process of scaling up their SMEs. As a result of the data analysis, the empirical findings suggest on the importance of the academic background, budgetary control, negative entrepreneurial experiences, building teams, geographical expansion and first critical experience as key attributes for scaling-up. Additionally, the data propose that constructive entrepreneurial ecosystem and reforms financing markets and programmes are two additional components that could moderate the interaction between the scaling-up process and the achievement of rapid sales results as a key outcome measure.

The first limitation was the lack of consensus on the phenomenon of the scaling up of entrepreneurship. Information in Latin America and emerging countries is scarce, which also represents an opportunity for other researchers to deepen and validate the results reported here. Even though it was an attempt to understand the issue of environmental change, this additional limitation did not allow the evaluation of these adjustments over time that can positively or negatively drive the strategies corresponding to the evolution in each of the moderator variables.

Because of the characteristics of the sample in terms of size of the SMEs, industrial sector, location, culture, socio-economic environment and years of establishment of the company, the study cannot be generalised in terms of other industrial sectors or countries. The results of this research are also limited to SMEs in Chile, and to the extent that it can be applied to emerging countries IT sectors with similar sample characteristics, it must be done so with caution. Yin states that eight cases “are sufficient replications to convince the reader of a general phenomenon”.

Policymakers have the option to identify what skills and knowledge the entrepreneur requires to be trained to scale up their established ventures. In this context, they will also benefit from the empirical contribution of knowing what the restrictions that limit this process are, such as adverse tax systems and public strategies. Additionally, it is of public interest because no national records exist on the presence of theoretical terms.

Even though the literature promotes the present findings, it shows that there is an absence of empirical evidence in emerging economies to better comprehend which factors may affect the development process of scaling up entrepreneurship in the IT sector. Both deliberate and emergent strategic initiatives are necessary for the scaling-up process where six critical factors are the basis of the scaling-up. This empirical contribution for entrepreneurs will support the achievement of rapid and sustained sales results for scaling up their ventures.

This paper aims to identify the barriers that are linked to the institutional, external and social environmental factors in the emerging economies of South-East Asia (SEA). Through a comparative analysis of China, India and Pakistan, this study attempts to understand the constraints that might inhibit small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in this region from becoming more successful.

This study proposes an empirical research framework to identify the constraints to determinants of SMEs’ growth (the CDSG model) in an important geographic and industrial cluster of SEA countries including China, India and Pakistan. Six propositions are tested, using data from 1,443 SMEs obtained from Enterprise Survey Data Repository database from the World Bank. Ordinary least-squares estimation is applied for statistical analyses and testing of the research propositions.

The results show the differential effects of the proposed CDSG model in China, India and Pakistan. Access to external finance is found to be irrelevant to the growth of SMEs in China, while it has a positive influence in India and Pakistan. Furthermore, in terms of the innovation process, partial mediation is traced. Using the tax rate factor, negative mediation is found between CDSG variables and SMEs’ growth. Both mediators play different roles in firm growth activities, while the level of significance of some variables is found to be more relevant to a specific region rather than to all.

The prudent management of the proposed CDSG variables could revolutionize the constraints facing SME growth, making them into success factors. This could invigorate the growth of SMEs’ in SEA countries. The paper concludes with practical implications for policymakers and investors.

This SMEs’ theoretical framework is the first to use innovation and tax rate mediators to highlight the determinants of business growth in three SEA regional economies (China, India and Pakistan).

This paper aims to analyze the role of networking through formalization, namely, the adoption of specific contractual forms, in triggering small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs’) qualitative growth. The paper adopts an approach to SMEs’ growth that stresses the multi-dimensionality nature of the concept, which includes not only size but also relationship and capability growth.

A qualitative methodology is used, based on the study of cases of SMEs from an Italian fashion district, connected by a specific contractual form – the so-called “network contract” (NC) – promoted by the national government. Two cases of NCs are presented, a vertical and a horizontal network.

The paper highlighted the positive influence of NCs, intended as a managerial strategy not only aimed at collaboration, on the growth paths of SMEs but also stressed that the influence of NCs cannot be isolated, but acts virtuously together with other variables. Such variables include entrepreneurs’ and managers’ individual traits, the context – industrial district in the two cases under study – in which SMEs operate, the presence of an external actor that stimulates the adoption of NCs.

The focus on qualitative growth, which can be triggered by the formalization of business relationships through contractual forms, contributes to the debate on the nature and content of SMEs’ growth. The awareness of the variables that contribute to SMEs’ growth is crucial for both entrepreneurs and institutional actors who want to create the conditions to undertake paths of qualitative growth.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between ambidextrous organizational learning and performance among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Based on the resource-based view (RBV) and the dynamic capability approach, this paper uses the resource-capability-performance framework to construct the theoretical model of this study and tests the theoretical model with the questionnaire survey data of 189 SMEs in mainland China.

Ambidextrous organizational learning has different effects on SMEs' performance in terms of survival performance and growth performance. Both exploitative learning and exploratory learning have positive effects on absorptive capacity, and absorptive capacity has positive influences on both the survival performance and growth performance of SMEs. Absorptive capacity plays different mediating roles in the relationships between ambidextrous organizational learning and SMEs' performance: absorptive capacity plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between exploratory learning and SME growth performance, while absorptive capacity plays complete mediating roles in other relationships.

Managers must stress the use of exploratory learning in order to promote SMEs' growth performance. However, to foster both absorptive capacity and SME performance in terms of survival and growth, managers must pay more attention to take advantage of ambidextrous organizational learning. Government as policymakers should create a favorable environment that enable SMEs to benefit much more from the deployment of ambidextrous organizational learning and absorptive capacity.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to theorize and test the mediating role of absorptive capacity in the linkage between ambidextrous organizational learning and SME performance in terms of survival and growth. Additionally, this study also is the first to provide empirical support for the impact of ambidextrous organizational learning on absorptive capacity among SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how network competence is related to the growth of domestic and international SMEs originating from the Nordic region. Business networks have been found to drive internationalization of SMEs in the Nordic context, but the impact of network-related organizational competencies on them has not been considered.

The authors apply regression analysis on a sample of 298 Finnish SMEs across five industry sectors, gathered via an online survey in 2008, and with the data having been updated for its financial indicators up to 2010.

The authors find that cross-relational network competence is a significant predictor of growth in internationally operating SMEs. This result is robust across measures among the firms. In comparison, the network competence of domestically operating SMEs is not related to their growth, and relationship-specific competence does not influence growth.

The study does not account for longitudinal aspect of competence development. Growth is measured by the growth in sales and assets, and there are other ways to measure organizational growth. A single-country context also extends some restrictions on the generalizability of the results, although they could be expected to hold across small, open economies similar to Finland and the Nordic area.

The results imply that the strategic aims of SMEs determine their need for network competence, those SMEs seeking internationalization and growth through geographic expansion come to benefit from developing certain types of network competence.

Policy implications arise where governments in Finland and in the Nordic area may aid SMEs’ internationalization efforts by enabling the growth-seeking firms with increased resources for competence development.

This is the first study to examine how the organizational competencies to develop and manage business networks, in particular dyadic and network-level competencies, come to determine realized growth outcomes in domestic and international SMEs. It contributes to the theory of SME internationalization and international entrepreneurship from the business network point of view, while providing further knowledge on internationalization of SMEs originating from the Nordic area.

This study aims to investigate the impacts of procurement strategies on the growing proportion of construction small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and whether the size of the construction company moderates the effect.

This study adopted a quantitative research approach and a cross-sectional questionnaire survey in achieving its objectives. The survey requires the respondent to identify both the most successful and most outstanding project that the respondent was involved in between 2010 and 2016.

The study found that only traditional and management-oriented procurement strategies ensure the achievement of all growth plans for construction SMEs in South Africa; and that medium-sized construction enterprises achieve social growth such as community empowerment, managerial skills and advancement on the cidb Register of Contractors.

The findings of the study imply that policymakers should base their decisions regarding macroeconomic issues and growth plans for construction SMEs on the internal and external factors such as differences in the sizes of construction SMEs and differences in the suitability of procurement strategies affecting the growth of construction SMEs.

In past studies, the diversity amongst SMEs is often overlooked and SMEs are erroneously assumed to share similar objectives, possess equal capabilities and face challenges of the same magnitude. The original contribution of this study is shown in the investigation of the moderating effect of SMEs’ diversity (in terms of company size) on their growth proportion as influenced by procurement strategies.