25 August 2009

Call for papers: Thresholds of Dynamic Growth

A special issue of International Journal of Innovation and Learning

The successful foundation of a business illustrates a first success, as a significant portion of those attempts to start a business fail. Business start-ups and new enterprises are then confronted with a multitude of different challenges and problems due to limited resources, insecurities, risks and deficiencies. If a company is able to meet those challenges and solve given problems, revenues and profits increase and new jobs are created. In summary, the company grows.

Growth thus represents an indicator for success. It can, however, not only be seen as something purely positive but also illustrates a challenge for companies, especially for those companies that have to cope with high growth rates. New employees have to be integrated into the organisation, the culture has to be preserved and further developed as well as the ability to recognise changes in the business environment and the flexibility to react in an appropriate way. Growth management can, as a consequence, distinguish the successful from the unsuccessful organisation or is simply the cause for survival or failure. Knowledge management and organisational learning play a key role in this context as they offer a foundation for understanding organisational processes and organisational change.

This special issue seeks to provide further insights into how to cope successfully with dynamic growth, especially in business start-ups and new enterprises. As growth influences all areas, processes and structures of an organisation as well as the individual within the organisation, we invite papers with different theoretical concepts and methods, in order to assemble a rich, vibrant and multi-faceted special issue, bringing together diverse perspectives. Theoretical contributions will be considered as well as empirical papers. We particularly welcome case research, theory-building qualitative research, and theory-testing quantitative research approaches.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Organisational change
  • Growth management
  • Habitual entrepreneurs in high growth industries
  • Public policies for high growth firms
  • Financing of growth
  • Organisational learning in high growth firms
  • Open innovation in high growth firms
  • Corporate culture in high growth firms
  • Strategic planning in high growth firms
  • Human resource management in high growth firms
  • Dynamic capability of high growth firms
Important Date
Submission of manuscripts due: 15 January, 2010

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