Exploring Firm Growth as a Process of Creation

In the present study, we contribute to research on firm growth in three particular ways. First, we demonstrate that firm growth is inherently about change and thus should be approached using processual methods. Secondly, we suggest that firm growth consists of interlaced behaviours to act on or enact an opportunity that form the generative mechanisms driving the creation of growth. Thirdly, we argue that growth is a process embedded in a particular context. This way we bring new knowledge on how firm growth can be conceptualized and approached. We propose that new understanding on firm growth could be achieved through examining processually over time the different kinds of opportunity-driven behaviours of the firm in relation to its environment. Our modelling of firm growth emphasizes type of opportunity, entrepreneurial behaviours for its realization and contextual determinants, dynamism and episodic nature of firm development. In the end, our conceptualization offers insight into how firms learn and develop capabilities for creating and sustaining competitiveness in rapidly changing and uncertain modern business environments