No / In this chapter we lay out a broad outline of Rostow’s Stages growth theory. Rostow in his seminal work identified five different stages of economic growth - the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption. Interest in Rostow’s stages theory was in 1960s and persists even now as researchers are still intrigued by the ideas and notions laid out in Rostow’s theory (Costa et al. 2016 a,b; McCartney 2018; Solivetti 2005). Interestingly in today’s world, the theory is being applied to different contexts and scenarios such as application of theory to environment, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor etc (Kesgingoz, H. and Serkan 2016; McCartney 2018). The stages of growth theory covered a broader spectrum of issues ranging from economic, social and political to US-Russia (the then USSR) cold war and their dominance at the global level. In this chapter we restrict ourselves to economic aspects of stages theory only. / The chapter is published under the title: 'Stages of Growth'

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniv. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

科技的變遷常因新產品或新服務的出現，創造出全新的商業機會及市場，因此容易吸引創業家的加入。此階段通常代表產業位於萌芽期或新興期，是新事業較有機會成功的時期。不過，因預期市場的成長性高，相對來說競爭的對象也非常多。新事業必須發展出獨特的競爭優勢，才能在這樣的環境中存活下來。 　　競爭優勢源自企業的核心能耐，為組織日積月累的成果。視企業的性質而定，核心能耐可自企業的核心資源或智慧資本中發掘而出。目前國內研究與核心能耐相關的文獻，多集中在從現有企業的核心資源中辨識出特定產業的核心能耐；較少有文獻探討核心能耐的形成過程，及其是否受創業時期的管理工作所影響。 　　因此，為探討新事業的創業管理與其核心能耐間的關聯性，本研究希望藉由研究結果回答三點研究問題：(1) 創業家在創業階段應注意哪些管理上的事項？(2) 新事業的核心能耐如何發展而得？(3) 創業家的創業管理決策是否影響新事業核心能耐的形成？ 　　本研究以一家IC設計公司–群聯電子，作為研究訪談的個案，從收集到的次級資料及個案訪談的資料中，先試著整理出個案在創業階段的管理歷程，之後再調查個案在新事業各成長階段的智慧資本累積狀況並從中辨識出個案的核心能耐，最後則分析個案在創業階段的管理決策與其核心能耐形成過程的脈絡。從個案研究的結果得到初步的結論如下： 1.創業家需以階段性的方式思考新事業在各個階段的目標及所需的資源，並針對各階段的需求調整作法。 2.新事業的各種智慧資本會互相影響彼此的累積，創業家需注意智慧資本的平衡發展才能建構出最佳的競爭優勢。 3.創業家在創業階段的管理決策會影響新事業智慧資本的發展，進而影響累積出的核心能耐。 / Technological changes often generate new products or services, and create new business opportunities and markets that attract entrepreneurs. This phenomenon tends to occur at the budding or emerging stage of an industry, where new ventures have a better chance to survive. Since the market has potential high growth, one can expect there would be many contestants competing in it. New ventures must develop a sustaining competitive advantage to succeed in such a perilous environment. For a company, its competitive advantages normally come from its core competences, which were accumulated over time. Depending on the nature of the company, its core competence could be developed from its core resources or intellectual capitals. Studies on core competence conducted by local researchers mostly focused on identifying the core competence of a particular industry, based on the existing core resources of well-established companies. So far, no study had been found that explored the relevance of a company’s core competence formation and its management processes during the start-up stage. In order to understand if the managerial decisions undertaken during start-up stage have any effect on a company’s core competence accumulated, we’d like to use our research results to answer the following 3 questions: (1) What are the key management guidelines an entrepreneur should pay attentions to during the start-up stage of a new venture? (2) How are the core competences developed by a new venture? (3) If the decisions made by an entrepreneur during the start-up stage have any effect on the core competences a new venture develops? In this study, we chose an IC design house – Phison Electronics, as our study case. From the case interview and secondary data collected, we tried to reproduce the management processes in Phison’s start-up stage; then identified the core competences accumulated from the intellectual capitals in each growth stage; finally, by inspecting the results summarized above, we would determine if the core competences of Phison could be traced back to its managerial decisions made at start-up stage. Our preliminary conclusions are as follows: 1.The entrepreneurs need to think stage-wise of their new ventures, and define the corporate goals and resources required for each stage of growth, then make adjustments accordingly. 2.Different aspects of a new venture’s intellectual capitals would influence each other’s developments. Entrepreneurs need to maintain a balanced intellectual capital composition within the company to facilitate the formation of the new venture’s competitive advantage. 3.The management decisions entrepreneurs made in start-up stage would affect the development of intellectual capitals in later stages, thereby affecting the accumulation of core competences.