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Growth Loops: From Perceptions of Growth to Motivations for Growth in High-Growth Women-Led Entrepreneurial Firms

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Strategic Entrepreneurship

Part of the book series: Contributions to Management Science ((MANAGEMENT SC.))

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Abstract

The growth of a firm depends on its adaptability (Barringer et al., J Business Ventur, 20(5): 663–687, 2005), or, in other words, on the evolution of its business model and its capacity to generate a flow, if not of innovations, then at least of innovative suggestions shared throughout the employee corpus (Foss & Saebi, J Manag, 43: 200–227, 2017). Amongst the factors at the origin of this flux, we should mention, in particular, the entrepreneurs’ regulatory role, and interactions between the head of the firm and employees based on the way in which they steer the company (Redien-Collot & Radu, Handbook of research on strategic management in small and medium enterprises, 2014; Fust et al., Entrepreneur Res J, 8(2): 1–11, 2018). The entrepreneurs’ growing cognitive skills in applying performance monitoring systems are rarely questioned. This study concludes that, for a significant sample of women founders and heads of high-growth firms, there are three steering options generating three types of fairly remarkable swathes of innovative propositions on the part of employees. Two of these steering models present fairly radical socio-cognitive breaks with traditional models. In view of these results, it is impossible to see female leadership as a single (repressed) alternative to masculine models of entrepreneurial success. Women entrepreneurial emancipation has several implications in the understanding of the strategic deployment of their firms. This research explores how the spirit of emancipation drives women’s entrepreneurship, including their strategic choices and the freedom to innovate experienced by their employees.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Ecole de Management Léonard de Vinci, Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci, Courbevoie, France

    Renaud Redien-Collot

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  1. Renaud Redien-Collot
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Correspondence to Renaud Redien-Collot .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cambridge, MA, USA

    Nezameddin Faghih

  2. Shiraz, Iran

    Amir Forouharfar

Appendices

Appendix 1

1.1 The Methodology of the Women Equity for Growth (WEG) Index

The WEG Index developed the first database with statistics on high-growth SMEs led by women, producing an annual index every year since 2010. The most recent index was presented to the press in December 2016.

Based on the Diane database of 40,000 French companies, the WEG database collects information about all SMEs that have been in existence at least 5 years at the time they are identified and have had an annual turnover of at least 4 million Euros on a continuous basis for each of the 3 preceding years. These companies must of course have had published and registered accounting data for at least 3 years. Out of this first group of companies, branches, cooperatives, semi-public companies, and franchises are then excluded. This leaves a total of 2500 companies that claim to be run by women, which is verified. These 2500 companies are then ranked according to their average results for five performance indicators:

  • Growth in turnover in the last year.

  • Average growth in turnover in the last 3 years.

  • Increase in turnover value in the past year.

  • Profitability in the past year (GOS/turnover).

  • Average growth of GOS over the last 3 years.

The programme has strong institutional support, namely from the General Assembly of the Council of Europe (Resolution 55—March 2011), which encouraged support for the Women Equity initiative through better funding for women-led high-growth companies.

Appendix 2 (Table 2)

Table 2 list of interviewed entrepreneurs’ companies extracted from the Index (“authors’ own table”)
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Redien-Collot, R. (2022). Growth Loops: From Perceptions of Growth to Motivations for Growth in High-Growth Women-Led Entrepreneurial Firms. In: Faghih, N., Forouharfar, A. (eds) Strategic Entrepreneurship. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86032-5_13

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