| The present study synthesizes various elements of prior research and extends its content to develop a sustainable growth rate model for the firm. This model provides a conceptual framework for linking and examining commonly discussed strategic management factors and objectives. Specifically, the effects of the corporate income tax, asset turnover, fixed asset replacement requirements, corporate financial and dividend policies, inflation rates for the factor inputs and the output, and unexpected technological breakthroughs on the firm's sustainable growth rate are thoroughly treated.;The developed model is shown to be the general case of many of the well publicized models, i.e., with additional restrictive assumptions, the developed model would simplify to many of these models. Moreover, it is more comprehensive in accounting for the factors that impact the growth potentials of a firm and has more realistic assumptions.;Since there is lack of empirical evidence on the reliability and validity of the different known sustainable growth rate models and for the sake of further showing the power and reliability of the developed model as compared to other models, a sample of 81 rapidly growing companies during the period 1983-1987 is used. It is shown that the developed model is empirically more reliable and valid.;Finally, to illustrate its usefulness, the developed sustainable growth rate model is applied in three different areas of strategic management: strategic investment and financing policy, strategic manufacturing management and technological forecasting, and strategic marketing management and pricing strategy. Accordingly, the proposed model is shown to be a powerful financial and strategic management tool. This dissertation concludes with a set of recommendations for future research. |
