Jason R. Fitzsimmons

Performance Configurations over Time: Implications for Growth- and Profit-Oriented Strategies

Strategic entrepreneurship can be described as simultaneous opportunity seeking and advantage seeking. Younger firms are generally more flexible and therefore enjoy “discovery advantages,” whereas established firms tend to be resource rich and more experienced and consequently enjoy “exploitation advantages.” The resulting evolution of the two important performance dimensions, “growth” and “profitability,” by firm age is not well understood. In this article we integrate several theoretical arguments concerning profit–growth relationships to develop a dynamic model of firm development, which suggests different development pathways for young firms. This leads to several unidirectional, competing hypotheses that we examine by studying the profitability–growth configurations of approximately 3,500 small firms and how these configurations evolve over time. We find that for both young and old firms a focus on achieving above–average profitability and then striving for growth is a more likely path toward achieving sustained above–average performance than is first pursuing strong growth in the hope of building profitability later. In line with our hypothesis we find that younger firms are over represented as “Stars” (high on both growth and profitability) and underrepresented as “Poor” (low on both growth and profitability). However, young firms in the “Star” category are also less likely than their older counterparts to maintain that position. Furthermore, our results indicate that young firms are overrepresented not only among “Stars,” but also among growth–orientated firms, regardless of the level of profitability. The findings strongly caution against the blind pursuit of growth for young firms, in favor of a thoughtful analysis of how both growth and profitability might be developed by firms. The results also question whether simultaneous high performance in terms of growth and profitability among young firms usually reflects a successful entrepreneurial strategy. The results can also be interpreted as luck on the part of a subgroup of young firms who indiscriminately pursue growth opportunities with varying profit prospects, and in many cases, the high growth–profit performance will be short lived.

Growth and Profitability in Small and Medium Sized Australian Firms

This study investigated the longitudinal behaviour of growth rates and profitability for a large sample of Australian firms. Similar to previous studies, growth rates were found to be much more volatile than profitability measures. Using a regression equation with lagged profit and growth variables, we found no evidence of a consistent relationship between growth and profitability. The longitudinal behaviour of the growth profitability relationship was also investigated. Consistent with previous research, we found that higher growth firms were on average younger. Similarly, high and low profit firms were found to be younger on average. Our results found that a higher proportion of firms pursuing the profitability pathway were much more likely to achieve high growth and profitability in following years. A much lower proportion of firms pursuing the growth pathway were likely to achieve above average performance in profitability in future years.

MBA Admission Criteria and an Entrepreneurial Mind-Set: Evidence From “Western” Style MBAs in India and Thailand

We investigate the assessments of career attractiveness by 283 MBA students from India and Thailand, to use GMAT and work experience to explain variance in mind-sets that have previously been assoc...

A CHOICE MODELING APPROACH TO PREDICT ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS FROM ATTITUDES AND PERCEIVED ABILITIES

We are interested in the antecedents to an individual’s decision to become an entrepreneur. Our approach is to consider an individual’s choice between self-employment and becoming an employee using multiattribute utility discrete-choice modeling. The attributes in the model are based on the economic factors as previously identified in the entrepreneurship literature, with an individual’s utility function based on their preferences for income, risk exposure, work effort, independence and ownership (entrepreneurial attitudes). Our point of departure is to use market simulation techniques developed in marketing, to study an individual’s intention to become self employed by explicitly relating an individual’s beliefs concerning feasible employment options (their choice set) to their perceived abilities (self-efficacy). We test the model using a survey of 414 MBA students in Thailand, China, India and Australia. We find support for the theoretical approach to the discrete-choice modeling of entrepreneurial intentions. We find that the difference in perceptions of income and independence between self-employment and employment influence an individuals’ entrepreneurial intentions. Further, we find that individuals with low entrepreneurial self-efficacy expect income to be higher for employment, but expected income for selfemployment relative to employment increases as self-efficacy increases. We find no support for perceptions of risk and work effort influencing intentions.

Entrepreneurs and Intertemporal Decision Making

This paper investigates the decision making behaviour of individuals with respect to attributes considered relevant to the assessment of potential venture opportunities. Using a decision making experiment, we were able to consider the behaviour of individuals taking into account their risk and time preferences. We find that while the respondent as a whole placed most weight on the potential payoffs when considering the value of a venture opportunity, we find significant individual differences in preference weightings across the attributes used in the study. By using a series of hypothetical venture vignettes, we also find some evidence that these differences in preference weightings may be useful in predicting choice behaviour in a more realistic entrepreneurial environment.