| The dissertation present recently founded startups that grew to be the largest firms in the U.S. economy. Chapter 1 show that 358 farms are newly enlisted in the 2003 Fortune 500 Index during a short ten-year period, and among them, 241 firms are new startups. In chapter 2, 44 startups established after 1975 is referred as "rapid-growth" startups. Four strategic behaviors are found to be highly associated with the rapid growth of these startups compared to their direct competitors, diversification, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), strategic alliances, and niche marketing. Empirical results indicate that non-related diversification, mergers and acquisitions for removing competitors and for acquiring technologies and labor force, alliance for co-marketing, and niche market creation have allowed rapid-growth startups to establish market leadership. Their success relies more on farm effects interacting with, four strategic behaviors than on industry effects. In chapter 3, a discrete choice single prize innovation race is used to explain the investment and licensing behaviors of rapid-growth startups. Based on the combination of technology and market shocks, four growth scenarios are tested. According to the model prediction, rapid-growth startups sell innovations to incumbent competitors and they are less likely to innovate if the scale of both shocks is relatively low. However, they are more likely to innovate and are able to market innovations as the scale of the technology and market shocks becomes larger, and their competitors sell innovations to the startups as well. Therefore, rapid-growth startups are able to grow to be the largest firms protecting their market leadership as they experience greater shocks. The survival and investment of rapid-growth startups depend more on technology shock compared to market shock. |
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