Tage Koed Madsen

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to increase the scholarly understanding of managerial growth aspirations in small firms. Research has shown that managers' aspirations are important to ensure firms' growth, but researchers know less of where their aspirations come from and how variation in these aspirations shapes organizational outcomes. By focusing on two growth strategies of particular importance for small firms – innovation and internationalization – the authors map out how managers' ambitious aspirations may create negative organizational effects and also how they may counteract such effects.Design/methodology/approach: The study employs structural equation modeling (SEM) on a sample of 249 Norwegian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Findings: The findings of this study suggest that managerial experience is associated with high aspirations as well as high change effectiveness on the managerial team. The authors find that ambitious growth aspirations are associated with exploration in the form of radical innovation but also lead to reduced employee well-being. Managers' level of perceived change effectiveness, on the other hand, is positively associated with radical innovation and also raises employee well-being.Research limitations/implications: This study highlights the positive and negative effects of managerial aspirations on different organizational outcomes. Further, it shows that managerial teams working effectively together in the face of change is important for the well-being of employees. Results confirm the positive relationship between aspirations for growth and applied growth strategies in organizations. The data sample is, however, extracted from one country only, and the authors cannot exclude the possibility that findings will be different elsewhere.Practical implications: To ensure successful growth, managers should combine ambitious aspirations with attention to the top management team's (TMT) experience levels and change effectiveness. Assessment of possible needs for development and adjustments could ensure growth processes with limited negative effects for employee well-being.Originality/value: By distinguishing between growth through international sales (exploitation) and growth through a more change-intensive strategy of radical innovation (exploration), the authors investigate how variations in managerial aspirations and perceptions influence organizational growth processes. This paper paints a unique picture of how managers can be both the cause and cure of employee well-being in change-demanding situations.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and complete the existing lack of quantitative data at the crossroads between organizational support (OS) practices and project management success in global projects (GPs) and discuss implication of the results in perspective of the theory–practice gap. Design/methodology/approach: Building on classical organizational theory and GP knowledge areas, a survey addressing GP practitioners was designed. This paper focuses on OS practices as success factors and addresses a subset of the survey (1,170 respondents across 74 countries). Findings: OS practices included in the study were found to have high importance for managerial success. OS practices for selection and training of team members show significant correlation with project efficiency but have low adaptation in many organizations. Statistically significant correlations were found to be weaker than expected, indicating that the relation between OS practices (as success factors) and project efficiency (as success criteria) is more complex than expected. Research limitations/implications: The work constitutes opinion-based research and is vulnerable to variations in OS practices and the definition of success in different organizations and industries. The granularity level of the theoretical framework brought about relative high-level survey questions and may impact the applicability of the results. Practical implications: To improve the efficiency of GPs, better implementation of OS practices for selection processes and training personnel has been suggested. Originality/value: The theoretical alignment of classical organizational variables with GP knowledge areas and associated practices provides an original approach to the “theory–practice gap” discourse.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the process by which piggybacking partners attempt to overcome the challenges of interfirm diversity when entering foreign markets.Design/methodology/approach: The authors present a longitudinal case study following the collaboration between a rider (a small software developer) and carrier (a global player in software solution distribution) as a means of co-creating value for global customers in the pharmaceutical industry.Findings: The authors find that despite differential size and incongruent organizational cultures, top managers were still initially able to facilitate collaboration through various knowledge-sharing initiatives, but that these efforts were subsequently undermined by middle managers (due to misaligned incentives), which prevented both parties from reaping the gains of piggybacking on global markets.Research limitations/implications: The findings have a number of implications for academics and practitioners alike. Theoretical implications include treating piggybacking as a special case of indirect exporting with particular challenges for knowledge exchange and trust building.Practical implications: The authors offer managerial implications for reconciling divergent organizational cultures, partner selection and incentive alignment.Originality/value: This appears to be the first paper to empirically assess the viability of piggybacking as a foreign entry mode by examining the crucial processes of knowledge sharing and trust development within piggybacking arrangements.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedent and outcomes of different types of innovation as complementary growth strategies, which may enable exporting small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to achieve success in export markets.Design/methodology/approach: This study is based upon a quantitative survey on Norwegian exporting SMEs. A total of 380 questionnaires were received representing 16.8 per cent response rate. A structural equation modelling analysis is carried out on the sample.Findings: The study finds positive and significant associations between the firm’s growth ambition and the pursuance of product and business model innovations. Moreover, the firm’s export degree and scope has a significant and positive association with its product innovation strategy, but the association with its business model innovation is significantly negative.Research limitations/implications: The study’s findings indicate that future studies should incorporate different types of innovation strategies since their associations with export performance differ substantially. Treating innovation as a general construct appears to be too simplistic.Practical implications: The study’s results indicate that focus on product innovation enhances the export performance of SMEs, but that focus on business model innovation has a negative impact. The latter may be too costly and distract focus from the firm’s core competences, whereas product innovation can be assumed to provide further competitive strength.Originality/value: By taking a holistic approach towards innovation, this study addresses a gap in the literature on innovation and exporting in SMEs in order to investigate the association between different types of innovation-based growth strategies and the firms’ export prosperity.

Market orientation is often mentioned as a key factor for the success of domestic and international activities, but our knowledge about differences in degrees of market orientation remains limited for firms that have varying degrees of international activities. In particular, the literature is very sparse with regard to studies of newly established firms. Our study empirically explores this gap examining how different types of new ventures adopt two strategic components of market orientation – customer orientation and competitor orientation. Our empirical evidence is based on responses from CEOs of 249 Danish manufacturing firms that are categorized into four groups, depending on their degree of international operations within the first three years. We demonstrate that the most internationally oriented firms seem to be the most market oriented in general. They are significantly more competitor-oriented than domestically oriented firms, but the results regarding customer orientation are more mixed. Interestingly, we find indications that the strategic emphasis on customer orientation may be higher for firms with domestic operations than for those with limited international operations. We discuss implications for research and managers.