| Which organizational processes and structures support “scalability” and performance in new enterprises? This thesis investigates competing hypotheses regarding this question offered by the entrepreneurial and technology management literatures. Some entrepreneurial management scholars have found that ventures go through an organic early stage of growth. In contrast, researchers in technology management have found that flexible organizational processes and hierarchical organizational structures can lead to higher product development performance in high technology ventures. This cross-sectional study of the organizational processes and structures of thirty one venture-capital-backed Internet startups provides insight into the links among venture design, scalability and sustained economic performance. Flexible processes and hierarchical structures are here shown to be correlated with greater scalability. As defined in this study, greater scalability is in turn a potential predictor of long-term economic performance. In contrast, the experience of founders, first mover status and access to capital are not related to scalability and performance in this sample of firms. The findings of this study are consistent with the suggestion that certain long term characteristics of an organization are established very early—close to the time of founding of the enterprise. |
