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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether new and young firms are different from older firms. This analysis is undertaken to explore general characteristics, use of external resources and growth orientation.

Data from the 2008 UK Federation of Small Businesses survey provided 8,000 responses. Quantitative analysis identified significantly different characteristics of firms from 0‐4, 4‐9, 9‐19 and 20+ years. Factor analysis was utilised to identify the advice sets, finance and public procurement customers of greatest interest, with ANOVA used to statistically compare firms in the identified age groups with different growth aspirations.

The findings reveal key differences between new, young and older firms in terms of characteristics including business sector, owner/manager age, education/business experience, legal status, intellectual property and trading performance. New and young firms were more able to access beneficial resources in terms of finance and advice from several sources. New and young firms were also able to more easily access government and external finance, as well as government advice, but less able to access public procurement.

New and young firms are utilising external networks to access several resources for development purposes, and this differs for older firms. This suggests that a more explicit age‐differentiated focus is required for government policies aimed at supporting firm growth.

The study provides important baseline data for future quantitative and qualitative studies focused on the impact of firm age and government policy.

High-growth firms (HGFs) make a considerable contribution to economic growth, and in recent years they have received increasing interest from entrepreneurship scholars. By analysing recent findings in the literature of high-growth firms, this study identifies some Stylized Facts, as well as contradictory findings, and also some unknowns regarding the determinants and internal strategies of HGFs, particularly on the persistence of their superior growth performance and the implications of recent findings for economic policy.

In this chapter we review the recent and growing literature on medium-term growth patterns. This strand of research emerged from the realization that for most countries economic development is a highly unstable process; over a course of a few decades, a typical country enjoys periods of rapid growth as well episodes of stagnation and economic decline. This approach highlights the complex nature of growth and implies that studying transitions between periods of fast growth, stagnation, and collapse is essential for understanding the process of long run growth. We document recent efforts to characterize and study such growth transitions. We also update and extend some of our earlier research. Specifically, we use historical data from Maddison to confirm a link between political institutions and propensity to experience large swings in growth. We also study the role of institutions and macroeconomic policies, such as inflation, openness to trade, size of government, and real exchange rate overvaluation, in the context of growth transitions. We find surprisingly complex effects of some policies. For example, trade makes fast growth more likely but also increases the frequency of crises. The size of government reduces the likelihood of fast miracle-like growth while at the same time limiting the risk of stagnation. Moreover, these effects are nonlinear and dependent on the quality of institutions. We conclude by highlighting potentially promising areas for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the underlying drivers of sustained high performing companies based on a field study of 127 companies in Brazilian, Russian, Indian and Chinese (BRIC) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) emerging markets. Understanding these companies provides a complementary way of appraising the growth, development and transformation of emerging markets. The authors synthesize the findings in an overarching framework that covers six strategies for building and sustaining legacy that leads to the succession of intergenerational wealth over time: overcoming institutional voids, inclusive markets, deepening localization, nurturing government support, building core competencies and harnessing human capital. The authors relate these strategies to different levels of development using Prahalad and Hart’s BOP framework.

This study examines the underlying drivers of sustained high-performance companies based on field studies from an initial set of 105,260 BRIC companies and close to 500 companies in ASEAN. The methods employed four screening tests to arrive at a selection of the highest-performing firms: 70 firms in the BRIC nations and 58 firms from ASEAN. Following the selection, the authors constructed cases using primary interviews and secondary data, with the assistance of Ernst & Young and with academic colleagues in Manila. These studies were originally conducted in two separate time periods and reported accordingly. This paper synthesizes the findings of these two studies to arrive at an extended integrative framework.

From the cases, the authors examine six strategies for building and sustaining legacy that lead to high performance over time: overcoming institutional voids, creating inclusive markets, deepening localization, nurturing government support, building core competencies and harnessing human capital. To address the evolving state of institutional voids in these countries, the authors employ similar methods to hypothesize the placement of these strategies in the context of the world economic pyramid, initially formulated as the “bottom of the pyramid” framework.

This paper synthesizes and extends the authors’ previous works by proposing the concept of legacy to describe the emergence and succession of local exemplary firms in emerging markets. This study aims to complement extant measures of nation-growth based primarily on GDP. The paper also extends the literature on institutional voids in shifting the focus from the mix of voids to their evolving state. Altogether, the paper provides a complementary narrative on assessing the market potential of emerging markets by adopting several categories of performance.

The per capita GDP of the countries of Southeast Asia (SEA) varies from less than $5,000 to over $97,000. This paper aims to analyze the political factors behind such variation, such as wars, extreme politics, political instability, and kleptocratic governments and leaders, and how they affect the development experience within the region.

This paper uses the comparative political economy analysis approach to make a comparison among SEA countries using knowledge from well-known political–economic history and development data from World Development Indicators provided by World Bank.

A long period of political stability creates a favorable environment for investment that, in return, stimulates sustained economic growth in SEA. The countries have all grown rapidly, but their experience of development varies. The four countries that avoided political extremes (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei) have the highest per capita incomes today. Those that have had long periods of war and political instability, but which have also had substantial periods of stability (Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines), come next. Cambodia and Laos have suffered long periods of war and are the least developed. Myanmar’s military rulers, through civil wars and kleptocratic mismanagement of the economy, have prevented growth much of the time.

Most studies of Southeast Asian growth have analyzed the experience of single countries and missed the central role played by extreme politics, including wars, to explain why some countries have much higher per capita incomes than others. This paper is expected to fill this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the potential impact that collaboration between East and West could have on sustainable development. Greater emphasis in this paper will be placed on the benefit that developing countries gain from building collaborative relations with the West. Obtaining access to knowledge and technology will enable developing countries to speed up the process of socio-economic transformation and sustain development. Developing countries can leapfrog by making use of the existing knowledge in the West.

This paper provides descriptive assessment of the relationship between East and West to foster growth and sustain development. The paper uses newly developed ideas to build capacity for knowledge transfer to create linkages and accelerate the process of economic growth. The approach to knowledge-based development requires the creation of an enabling environment driven by skills, innovation, institutions and ICT.

The paper suggests that knowledge transfer enables developing countries to sustain development. Access to global/western knowledge allows developing countries to diversify their economic structure and increase productivity. Technological learning and knowledge absorption permit these countries to leapfrog by surpassing several stages in their development.

Information in this paper provides insight into the merits of the new economy and the potential benefits that developing countries can obtain from participating in the global economy. Indigenous knowledge and local innovation are important for local development, which can be enhanced through technology transfer and knowledge dissemination.

Unlike traditional economic theories in which capital and labor provide the main inputs in production, this paper discusses a new approach to development where knowledge, skills and innovation represent the main forces behind growth. The paper explores new ideas to generate linkage and sustain development.

Growth is the top priority on the CEO agenda, but the question they confront is “What factors constrain growth?” And, “How do successful companies drive growth?”

IBM Institute for Business Value conducted a global study that focused on three questions: Who are the successful growers and what patterns are associated with them? What do successful growers do differently? How can other companies apply what they do?

The major finding were: that limits to growth are often self‐imposed and, as such, can be overcome; firms with the will to be successful growers can break free of perceived constraints related to size, industry boundaries and geographic neighborhood; and despite the widely held belief that mergers and acquisitions inherently destroy value for the acquirer, companies that learn to become successful growers use M&A strategies effectively.

Looking at 1,238 Global S&P 1200 companies, the IBM team analyzed the patterns of revenue growth and shareholder value creation over the decade, segmenting results by four component geographies and 18 industry groups. It selected three industries (consumer products, telecom services and electronics) for detailed assessment, developing cases studies for about 20 companies in each industry, picked to represent a range of successful and unsuccessful results.

Winning the growth game requires companies to excel in three vital areas: course, capability and conviction. Successful growers set the right growth direction – the course – by forming a clear point of view on the future, evolving the product‐market portfolio without being limited by history, building a competitive model to win and pursuing reinforcing initiatives to sustain growth. They truly understand their capabilities – based on realistic assessments of their strengths and limitations – and evolve their operational model to support the growth strategy. Finally, while many companies develop excellent plans, truly successful growers build organization‐wide conviction that translates intent into action for everyone from top leaders to front line managers.

The message is clear: neighborhood is not destiny. Executives have more room to be ambitious than they tend to believe. Winning companies set ambitious growth plans regardless of industry or geographic “limits.” They aim for targets above and beyond what they and their peers typically expect.

This paper seeks to provide recent case study evidence for the remarkable growth of electronic resources in academic library collections and to analyze growth patterns and impacts.

A case study reviewed electronic resources growth at the University of Saskatchewan Library over a 12‐year time series, from 1996‐1997 to 2007‐2008. The researcher collected data from the library's databases A‐Z lists over the time series, compiled statistics and growth rates for both net holdings and new acquisitions, then analyzed and contextualized the results.

The study reveals three electronic resources growth or development stages corresponding to advances in electronic resource types – i.e. bibliographic, full text and reference – and a pattern of sustained rapid growth. It was found that growth doubled within the last four years of the time series, with ±100 resources being added annually in the same period. Both internal and external events impacted on growth. Just as internal and external events contribute to the growth of electronic resources, new events such as economic decline may contribute to growth decline.

While the study is limited to a single academic library case, it has applications to similar academic library profiles across North America, where sustained rapid growth has had a significant impact on reference workers and researchers.

This research provides a case study for describing electronic resources growth in academic libraries. The data and findings may help support funding increases, and an understanding of the extent of growth and its impact on reference workers and researchers.

Although generalizations from one case study cannot be made, this study of electronic resources growth and its implications substantiates the general conviction that overwhelming growth has occurred and that the consequences for library services and systems is considerable. The paper applies the concept of growth or development stages: bibliographic, full text and reference, to describe the evolution of electronic resources in an academic library.

The transformation of the Chinese economy is underway, and the process of reform has facilitated a sustained increase in economic growth. However, the state‐owned enterprise sector is being left behind by the dynamism of the other sectors of the economy. To sustain growth it is likely that further changes are necessary in the Chinese economy and society. The lessons of the Asian financial crisis are that economic progress can be halted without a commitment to the creation of independent institutions, and the individual freedoms necessary to promote entrepreneurship and innovation. The conservative social values of China, often promoted through the educational and training system, could act as a brake on the economic progress of the country.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the following stylized facts. First, the share of household production in total output has fallen over time as the economy has grown. Second, services as a percent of GDP have risen at the same time.

This paper constructs an original model of growth based on Adam Smith's notions of specialization and extent of the market. Growth depends on the specialization of labor in market production and learning‐by‐doing in transactions services. It is a model of sustained, but not infinite, growth.

It is found that the model can replicate the above stylized facts for reasonable parameterizations.

This paper shows that it is possible to build growth models that match the historic experience without relying in unbounded growth. Models like this may be very useful in understanding the processes that drive growth.