Approaching rural firm growth: a literature review

Abstract

Purpose – This review investigates the extent and content of research into rural firm growth, and identifies and describes various approaches to studying firm growth. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is guided by the systematic literature review framework which, combined with a qualitative assessment, ensures a rigorous review. An initial set of 200 peer reviewed articles was included in the review. During the quality assessment stage this set was reduced to 50 articles which were analysed in depth. Findings – Three approaches to firm growth are identified and explored, focusing on the output, process and context of firm growth. The results further indicate increasing interest in rural firm growth and identify six themes constituting the research field. Originality/value – Firm growth is advocated as a solution to development challenges, especially in rural settings. However, the firm growth literature is dominated by outcome-based research, often focused on technology-based businesses in dynamic urban regions, whose results are not easily transferable to rural contexts. This review contributes by mapping the current state of knowledge in the field, by articulating and discussing taken-for-granted assumptions with regard to firm growth and by identifying three approaches to firm growth, of which the context approach is the least common but which may prove valuable to further increase in the understanding of rural firm growth.

Family firm internationalization: Past research and an agenda for the future

“…The urban versus rural dynamic (Tunberg, 2014) is another macro-level dimension highly relevant for family firms. Baù , Chirico, Pittino, Backman, and Klaesson (2019) find that Swedish family firms benefit from a rural setting, where it is easier to form alliances and build close connections with the community compared to urban areas.…”

Roots to Grow: Family Firms and Local Embeddedness in Rural and Urban Contexts

“…Moreover, rural areas often lack important resources needed for firm growth, such as skilled labor and/or financial capital, or at least the supply of these production factors is less diversified in rural regions than in larger and denser urban regions, which often offer the most favorable conditions (Backman, 2013). These factors may tend to lower the average firm growth in rural areas relative to that of firms located in more urban settings (Tunberg, 2014).…”

“…Fourth, we contribute to the field of regional economics by detailing the importance of considering the impact of the spatial dimension (i.e., the urban versus rural context) jointly with firm-level variables that account for family involvement and territorial embeddedness. More specifically, we contribute to the literature on urban versus rural firm growth (Tunberg, 2014) by investigating whether a rural context, properly leveraged by firm-level behaviors, can maximize the benefits of local embeddedness in specific organizational forms. Fifth, we contribute to the empirical studies on firm-level growth in family firms using a comprehensive dataset that includes both micro and small firms, whereas most previous studies have tended to exclude smaller companies due to identification constraints (Backman & Palmberg, 2015).…”

Entrepreneurship as a community phenomenon; reconnecting meanings and place

“…The software NVivo was used for organising material (Mueller, 2014, Tunberg, 2014. Different sources have been used including semi-structured interviews, participation in formal and informal meetings, shadowing, as well as basic statistics on, e.g., business start-ups, population growth and the density of clubs and associations (Silverman, 1993;Alvesson, 2002).…”