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A number of other areas did not directly translate into absorptive capacity domains but were important aspects of the high growth story.

4.6.1 Growth Mindset and Self-Efficacy

The evidence of a growth mindset and a strong predilection towards growth was evident within each case study (Ennis, 1999, p. 149; MacKenzie et al., 2016; Schofield et al., 2015).

literature (Pesämaa, 2017). The four perspectives identified by Schofield, et al (2015) were evident there was a strong growth intention, a predilection to action, a willingness to learn and a desire and ability to innovate (Schofield et al., 2015). Jenkins and Johnson (1997) suggested that “an entrepreneurial venture can be considered from two opposing theoretical perspectives: deterministic or voluntaristic” (Jenkins 1997 p 896). Whilst the “deterministic”

perspective is one of a relationship between the firm and its environment the voluntaristic perspective is about entrepreneurial intent. The voluntaristic perspective relates to the positive growth mindset of the entrepreneur and the “capabilities and motivation of the individual deliver entrepreneurial outcomes” (Jenkins & Johnson, 1997).

On growing the business:

“Could we do more – could we double our sales – double our turnover year on year?

So that’s – I love a big target, so that’s what I set out to do, so I, sort of, kind of built a – over the course of three months – a plan, a three to five-year plan to double our sales, double our turnover year on year to £30 million, £60 million then the absolute juggernaut which will be the £120 million, but we’ll see, we’ll see.” (Case Study E)

“And that was the change that delivered I suppose £10 million more of business and I think everything else has been managing scaling, so we focus very much on people development, six-month reviews, setting objectives, life objectives, helping people achieve the car they want, the house they want, so they buy in to everything we’re doing.” (Case Study A)

“Yeah we’ve done an awful lot of work last year laying the foundations. Which should allow us – looking at the numbers – what we’re forecasting, I mean we’re budgeting 16 in the UK this year so from 11.4 to 16 is huge growth. It’s a 50%

growth again. Yeah, and as I said we don’t know what the US could do. So, as a group, we could grow 30/40% this year and the group as a whole, when you add the US in, has gone from £10m to £20m sales in the last two years – in pounds.” (Case Study C)

“I decided to form our own business, so we could control the resources because then – nobody can say ‘no’ to me, so if I promise a customer I’m going to do something, I can make sure I can follow through. We had a business plan to do half a million and did £1.1 million.” (Case Study A)

As previously discussed there is a correlation between self-efficacy and a growth mindset.

Self-efficacy enhances focus, direction, persistence and intensity of action (Henley, 2007).

As stated previously, entrepreneurs with high levels of self-belief consider that they have all the resources available to them to accomplish their task goals.

On ambition to start business and self-efficacy:

“that hunger started; I wanted more. That’s right, the first year we proved that we could do it and it kind of – you get that kind of feel, you know, ??? where you think well I’ve survived my first year, that’s – Self-confidence, yeah, it just to ups the anti again, it just ups that anti a little bit further. So, when it got to sort of – when I got sort of seven/eight months into my second financial year, ??? into sort of 2013, that’s when I knew I wanted to expand.” (Case Study E)

Entrepreneurial self-efficacy has been found to be a strong predictor of growth orientation (Douglas, 2013). The thinking about the business was clear with regards to abilities to deliver against targets. That it is important to have the right people in place doing the right things.

4.6.2 Funding and financing

Although funding and finance did not figure significantly within the narratives and therefore did not show strongly in the causal mapping process. It was evident that each of the HGSFs used a different approach to fund the start of the business and their growth but these funding streams were all essentially derived from business debt sources, banks, supplier credit and factoring and invoice discounting. It has been recognised “that firms that use debt in their initial capital structure—in particular, firms that use business debt—are significantly more likely to survive their first three years of operations. If they survive, they also have significantly higher revenues three years after the firm’s formation”. (Cole & Sokolyk, 2015, p. 29).

On funding growth:

“I put my house up as security and borrowed fifty thousand pounds from the bank. I had never done anything like that before. It was a nervous time for my wife but she trusted in what I was trying to do.” (Case Study D)

“at one point, we were selling over 100,000 CDs a year at really good margins and they were what gave us a lot of the cash in the business to be able to fund all of the other activity that we were doing.” (Case Study C0

“it was literally the day before I was going – I was seeing this contractor, who had said he would put up the money, my wife’s Dad said, ‘look John, don’t do it, let’s keep the business as such within the family, the money – and I’ll invest the cash.” (Case Study E)

4.6.3 Knowledge and experience of the market

The way that the entrepreneurs made decisions about the BSTEs related to their cognitive style each had developed different mental models in the way that they made assessments of the growth opportunities. The common factor across the case studies was that they made judgements and evaluations based upon their knowledge and experience (Koryak et al., 2015). Baron and Ensley (2006) pointed out that prior experience, particularly entrepreneurial experience, meant that a greater number of opportunities were identified. All the participants had identified key opportunities, resulting from a BSTE, prior to entering certain markets (Baron & Ensley, 2006).

On experience of the market:

“I left the job where I’d served my time. The predominant reason for doing that was to make some decent money. But it wasn’t what I would call making real money and that’s what I wanted…. and long term, I knew this game would allow me to do that because it’s, like, if you get into the right thing at the right time and then expand it you can do it.”

(Case Study D)

“that’s when I was on the road and I was getting approached, you know, I was seeing some of the customers and large contractors and out of loose conversations they were kind of saying have you ever thought of going alone, independent and that kind of planted the seed, that guys, already business owners, were willing to kind of put money up.” (Case Study E)

4.6.4 Acquisitions

At different stages of their growth four of the HGSF had made very small acquisitions that had been transformative within their growth story. The idea that high growth is solely a consequence of organic growth within small firms is prevalent (Burghardt & Helm, 2015).

Each of the four HGSFs had been presented with a BSTE of an acquisition that had several effects; it more firmly established them within their market, it gave them access to new products and processes and importantly it facilitated the build of their absorptive capacity by giving access to people with the capabilities and skills that helped grow their businesses. Four out of the five case studies made relatively small acquisitions that had significant impact upon their growth prospects.

On an acquisition:

“so they said to Gary ‘do you think this new company that you work for would be

interested in taking us on, we’re not really bothered about having much money for the business but at least the staff will have continuous employment and everything we’ve done over the years won’t go to waste,’ so we picked the business up very very cheaply.” (Case Study C)

“we were getting into managing supply chains for one or two others but this company was buying this little bit of sticky tape, one of their interested parties said ‘look, I want out’ so we acquired them in 2014 which was E and they had a footing in - technology so we’d gone down and we presented to a couple of smaller customers but they had two decent-sized customers” (Case Study B)

“one of the biggest in the country and they – they just went downhill, for whatever reason, I don’t know, they got bought out be a big garden supplier company who didn’t have a clue about wrought iron, they’re selling stuff at ridiculous prices because they didn’t have a clue about margins in the wrought iron game and the business has just faded away and four or five months ago he rang us up and he went

‘this is blah, blah, blah, have you heard of’ – ‘oh aye I know who you are’ ‘we’ve got a load of stock for sale if you’re interested’… but we also bought his database and - his telephone line” (Case Study D)