Summary. How does growth transpire in the underrecognized midsize firm? In the authors’ research, they found that the owners, CEOs, and top managers of midsize companies tend to describe their competitive advantage in terms of who they know (connections) and what they’re able to do (capabilities) — and that these variables change and interact to facilitate growth. Their findings offer a model of how midsize companies can manage connections and capabilities to achieve desired growth objectives.
Much attention is paid to either the startup or stardom — the most exciting business idea (that has yet to make a profit) or the star that began in a garage and is now a worldwide powerhouse, trading actively for billions. But what do we know about the transition of growth between those two extremes? How does growth transpire in the underrecognized midsize firm? We sought to find out.
Over the course of our respective careers, we’ve had the opportunity to work with many different midsize firms, helping them enhance capabilities, expand operations, and enable exports. We’ve found that the owners, CEOs, and top managers tend to describe their competitive advantage in terms of who they know (connections) and what they’re able to do (capabilities). We’ve also noticed that these variables change and interact to facilitate growth. We made those variables the focus of our research.
In our study, we asked CEOs of established midsize manufacturing firms to describe the key variables that contributed to their companies’ growth over a period of five to 10 years and the processes they followed to achieve it. Their descriptions encompassed both personal connections and their companies’ capabilities. They identified personal rapport with executives at customer and partner firms, as well as their firms’ specialized expertise and ability to operate efficiently and/or adapt, as drivers of their growth. Then, it got interesting: We found distinctive patterns of connections and capabilities based on each firms’ revenue stage.
