Growth beyond start-up : Entrepreneurship and firms in transition

The paper reports on the preliminary stages of a case-based study of regional, highgrowth SMEs. The study explores the actions, activities and processes undertaken by the firms and their start- up entrepreneurs. A framework for growth is proposed, supporting the notion of the growth process as a complex, multidimensional construct. Tentative suggestions are made about the nature of “distributed entrepreneurship” within a small, rapidly growing firm and the issue of regional impacts is also addressed.E