دانلود رایگان مقاله مسیر رشد شرکت و پاسخ به نظریه Gambler's Ruin

1. Introduction

Our response to the stimulating paper by Coad et al. (2013) setting out Gambler's Ruin Theory (GRT) has in turn now received its own response from Coad et al. (2015). This discussion is welcome because there is a tendency in the field of entrepreneurship for research to be conducted with little prospect for subsequent testing, attempts at replication and open discussion of implications for theory. Such testing, and verification, using datasets other than that on which the original theory was constructed, is fundamental to advances in understanding and theory building. There are many issues which we could take up in Coad et al.'s (2015) clarifications. We highlight one central issue overlooked by Coad et al. (2015) in their response to Derbyshire and Garnsey (2014). However, we first note areas of agreement between our point of view and that of Coad et al. (2015). In particular, we commend their adoption of analysis methods that examine firms’ growth trajectories rather than the usual reliance in firm growth studies on measures of growth such as mean growth rates that lose information on growth paths and processes, as shown in Garnsey and Heffernan (2005). The new analysis by Coad et al. (2015) now includes the analysis of stable periods and finds these to be the most frequent episodes in firms’ trajectories. The dataset used by Coad et al. and the measurement technique which they used to set out GRT in the first place provide useful corroboration of our position on the extent to which stability or stasis dominates firms' trajectories (Derbyshire and Garnsey, 2014)

3. Summary and reflections

In our view, envisaging firms as Complex Adaptive Systems not only explains failure of decades of entrepreneurship scholarship to uncover clearly the resource factors associated with growth; it also provides a useful lens to explore other patterns such as the stasis-dominated growth paths highlighted in Derbyshire et al. (2013) and Derbyshire and Garnsey (2014) and, now, also in Coad et al. (2015). Factors other than differential resources affect firm performance. They are subject to complex dynamic processes with unpredictable impact. Such systems tend to exhibit long periods of stasis punctuated by sudden qualitative changes in performance as we found in our analysis (Derbyshire and Garnsey, 2014). This pattern is corroborated by the new analysis provided by Coad et al. (2015) that also finds stasis to be the most common type of growth episode. The distinction between indeterminate systems and complex adaptive systems where feedback and initial conditions entangle the identification of causes can illuminate the question as to whether agency can be attributed to those founding and managing new firms. If new firms are no more than corks bobbing in a sea of randomness, there is no scope for agency. If new firms are complex adaptive systems, their founders and managers can understand processes at work and take corrective action in response to feedback.