Obstacles of growth in SME´s -What do the obstacles consist of and how dothe companies overcome them?

Sammanfattning: Background and problem: Growth has recently been a subject of extensive discussions.The field of research in entrepreneurship and growth has had a rapid development duringthe last two decades, though fragmented and unconnected. In most small businesses thenormal case is lack of willingness to grow. Therefore the question arise, what obstacleshave the selected growth company’s experienced during the growth period, and how havethe difficulties been solved?Purpose: The purpose with this paper is to make a descriptive study and thereby presentthe difficulties and obstacles a SME can meet during the years of growth. Furthermore anaccount is given for how the company has solved the experienced difficulties.Delimitations: The study is delimited to small and medium sized enterprises (SME´s)selected from the growth list Gaseller in “Dagens Industri” 2003. The questions arelimited to four areas; organization, management accounting, financing and otherdifficulties mentioned by the respondents. Due to the small amount of participatingrespondents, the result will merely be an indication and can not provide generalconclusions.Method: The primary data was collected by qualitative interviews with four respondents,managing directors for each company respectively. This data is summarized in theempirical part with a presentation of each company. The secondary data the authors haveused was collected from the Internet and from a database called Gunda at GöteborgUniversity as well as relevant literature to the subject area.Results and conclusions: The conclusion and the answer of the main question is that themajor difficulties can be derived to the area organization. The most important issue is tounite the employees in the task of achieving the jointly formulated goals by creatingmotivation, delegation, involvement and also participation in decision-making. Finallygrowth companies are active in a constantly changing environment that demands a greatamount of flexibility and incessant adjustments.Future areas of research: A study of former growth companies, which in spite of initialgrowth have gone bankrupt. Furthermore an interesting subject would be a deeper studyof the unwillingness of growth and external financing i.e. pecking- order theory versuscontrol and independence. Finally, a study focused only on the main problem area, theorganization.