This study was undertaken by Durham Business School on behalf of the Small Business Service from February to July 2006 and is intended to provide a better understanding of the perceptions of small business about growth. In total, 73 small businesses took part in 10 in-depth focus groups...

Empirical work on micro and small firms has focused on developed countries.The little work that exists on developing countries is all too often based on smallsamples taken from ad hoc questionnaires. The census data we analyze are fairlyrepresentative of the structure of small business in India....

This paper presents an empirical study based on a survey of 399 owners of small and mediumsize companies in Lithuania. Applying bivariate and ordered probit estimators, we investigatewhy some business owners expect their firms to expand, while others do not. Our mainfindings provide evidence...

The paper explores the role of alliances in central European countries from the perspective of growth of enterprises. The analysis is based on a comparative overview of 26 cases studies of enterprises in Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary which have alliances with foreign partners. Most of the...

This paper shows that illiquid growth opportunities crucially impact the agency costs of risky debt. If the value of these growth opportunities is sufficiently high, they reverse riskshifting incentives into risk-avoidance incentives, creating a new agency cost of debt.(...)

Der Businessplan leistet nicht nur vor dem Betriebsstart wertvolle Dienste, sondern auchbei der Expansion von Unternehmen.Wesentliche Bestandteile sind insbesondere Finanzplanung und Finanzierung sowieMarktumfeld, Wettbewerb und Marketing, die auf den jeweiligen Adressaten zugeschnittenwerden...

Recent research has led to the empirical regularity that rm growth rate distributionsare heavy tailed. This nding implies that a few rms experience spectaculargrowth rates and decline, but that most rms have marginal growth rates. The literatureon high growth rms shows that high growth rms are...

This paper shows how cognitive human dispositions that take effect at the level of an individualfirm’s corporate culture have repercussions on an industry’s evolution. In our theory, the latter isattributable to evolving corporate cultures coupled with changes in a firm’s...