Bad Vision, No Growth - An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Founders' Growth Motivation, Vision Statements and Venture Growth at Internet Start-ups

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Company formation, Business Plans, grade: 2,5, Maastricht University, course: International Business Entrepreneurship, language: English, abstract: ABSTRACT

This study seeks to identify the relationship between founder motivation, vision statements, and venture growth at small internet firms. Based on a review of small firm growth, motivation, and vision theory, five hypotheses are developed. To empirically test these hypotheses, data was collected with a self-administrated online survey from 75 founders of small internet firms and 56 unique vision statements.

The main findings from hierarchical multiple regression analysis reveal that Venture growth, measured by employment, is positively related to founder Growth aspiration and Vision attributes. Merely having a vision statement or including growth-related content is not associated with higher growth. However, the quality of a vision statement, as measured by several effectiveness attributes is positively related to venture growth. The perception of vision statements is very firm-specific, and perception gaps caused by founder and objective key-word evaluation are not significantly related to venture growth. The challenge for future research lies in developing more over-arching conceptualizations for the phenomenon of firm growth, but also in capturing the frequency and extent to which vision communication takes place at small firms.

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