Fall, 2002 65 This research note tests whether extraordinary high growth (e.g., sales growth rates of 500 percent to 31,000 percent over five years) is correlated to firm profitability. Using longitu- dinal data from three separate cohorts of Inc. 500 firms (from 1992 to 1996; 1993 to 1997; and 1994 to 1998), firm growth was operationalized in terms of sales and number of employ- ees. Controlling for industry sector and ranking on the Inc. 500 lists, analyses found that extraordinary high growth—in terms of sales and number of employees—was not related to firm profitability. Firm age, however, was significantly, and inversely, related to profitability; younger firms experience slightly higher profitability rates. Implications for management and future study of extraordinary high-growth firms are discussed. Introduction Many scholars have suggested that firm growth creates employment, wealth, and broad economic development. For example, “firms that grow at rates in excess of 20 percent”—or what Birch (1987) dubs “gazelles”—contribute prominently to job creation in the U.S. economy (Fischer, Reuber, Hababou, Johnson, & Lee, 1997). Surprisingly, and despite its economic upside potential, growth research has focused predominantly on “normal” to “high” growth rates (5 percent to 20 percent) (cf. Ardishvili et al., 1998; Davidsson & Wiklund, 2000; Delmar, 1997) while overlooking formidably high growth or “hyper-growth” such as 500 percent to 30,000 percent. To this end, this article explores whether extraordinary high-growth firms can achieve profitability while growing, or whether such firms are likely to be unprofitable as they attempt to overcome the hurdles of change while achieving significant size. The literature review suggests that value of growth for the success of firms is viewed in two conflicting ways. Briefly, the first perspective holds that firm growth is a precur- sor to the achievement of a sustainable competitive advantage and profitability. Larger firms have higher rates of survival compared to smaller firms (Aldrich & Auster, 1986) and firm size is often associated with favorable economies of scale (Porter, 1985). On P T E & Is Extraordinary Growth Profitable? A Study of Inc. 500 High- Growth Companies* Gideon D. Markman William B. Gartner 1042-2587 Copyright 2002 by Baylor University * A version of this paper was presented at Babson College/Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneurship Research Conference, Columbia, South Carolina, May 13–15, 1999. The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their insights and suggestions during the revision process.
Transcript
Fall, 2002 65
This research note tests whether extraordinary high growth (e.g., sales growth rates of 500percent to 31,000 percent over five years) is correlated to firm profitability. Using longitu-dinal data from three separate cohorts of Inc. 500 firms (from 1992 to 1996; 1993 to 1997;and 1994 to 1998), firm growth was operationalized in terms of sales and number of employ-ees. Controlling for industry sector and ranking on the Inc. 500 lists, analyses found thatextraordinary high growth—in terms of sales and number of employees—was not related tofirm profitability. Firm age, however, was significantly, and inversely, related to profitability;younger firms experience slightly higher profitability rates. Implications for managementand future study of extraordinary high-growth firms are discussed.
Introduction
Many scholars have suggested that firm growth creates employment, wealth, andbroad economic development. For example, “firms that grow at rates in excess of 20percent”—or what Birch (1987) dubs “gazelles”—contribute prominently to job creationin the U.S. economy (Fischer, Reuber, Hababou, Johnson, & Lee, 1997). Surprisingly,and despite its economic upside potential, growth research has focused predominantly on“normal” to “high” growth rates (5 percent to 20 percent) (cf. Ardishvili et al., 1998;Davidsson & Wiklund, 2000; Delmar, 1997) while overlooking formidably high growthor “hyper-growth” such as 500 percent to 30,000 percent. To this end, this article exploreswhether extraordinary high-growth firms can achieve profitability while growing, orwhether such firms are likely to be unprofitable as they attempt to overcome the hurdlesof change while achieving significant size.
The literature review suggests that value of growth for the success of firms is viewedin two conflicting ways. Briefly, the first perspective holds that firm growth is a precur-sor to the achievement of a sustainable competitive advantage and profitability. Largerfirms have higher rates of survival compared to smaller firms (Aldrich & Auster, 1986)and firm size is often associated with favorable economies of scale (Porter, 1985). On
PTE &Is ExtraordinaryGrowth Profitable? AStudy of Inc. 500 High-Growth Companies*Gideon D. MarkmanWilliam B. Gartner
1042-2587Copyright 2002 byBaylor University
* A version of this paper was presented at Babson College/Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneurship ResearchConference, Columbia, South Carolina, May 13–15, 1999. The authors would like to thank two anonymousreviewers for their insights and suggestions during the revision process.
the other hand, the second perspective sees the process of rapid firm growth as leadingtoward a series of sizeable hurdles that diminish a firm’s ability to generate profits(Gartner, 1997). This, in turn, may create internal friction capable of hindering normaloperating procedures or even lead to complete failure (Hambrick & Crozier, 1985). Following the method and results sections, we conclude this study with a detailed discussion, where we outline the implications and make concrete recommendations forfurther research on firm growth.
Literature Review
As suggested above, there are two dominant yet divergent views regarding firmgrowth. The view that rapid growth could lead to high profitability is based on evidencesuggesting that new firms become more profitable when they enter markets quickly andon a large scale (MacMillan & Day, 1987). High-growth firms that have achieved sub-stantial market share may be able to generate economies of scale or first mover advan-tages that will eventually result in profitability (Lee, Smith, Grimm, & Schomburg, 2000).For example, early access to distribution channels, securing favorable contracts with sup-pliers, buyers, and rivals, as well as spreading supervisory costs across larger numbersof employees may lead to more favorable prices. As larger firms have higher survivalrates (Aldrich & Auster, 1986) and firm size economies of scale are related (Porter, 1985;2001), firm growth is seen as an important indicator of firms’ health and market poten-tial. In addition to greater operational scope, some extraordinary high-growth firms, suchas Amazon.com, have created value and brand name recognition through high stock pricesfor shares sold through public stock offerings even though they have, often for prolongedperiods of time, generated substantial losses (Spector, 2000). Capitalizing sales gains intohigh stock valuations, without regard to profits, may be short lived and inappropriate for valuing firms (Porter, 2001), yet it is expected that—over time—profitability willreduce its lag time behind sales growth. Finally, growth-oriented firms may be more likelyto attract extraordinary management talent (Penrose, 1959) as well as financial supportfrom investors, allies, and competitors. Growth, therefore, is assumed to be beneficialand something that entrepreneurial firms should attempt to achieve (Sexton & Smilor,1997).
In sharp contrast to the above rationales, high growth might also create numerousproblems and challenges (Churchill & Lewis, 1983; Greiner, 1972; Kazanjian, 1988;Shuman & Seeger, 1986). To be more explicit, Hambrick and Crozier (1985) identifiedfour fundamental challenges—instant size, a sense of infallibility, internal turmoil andfrenzy, and extraordinary resource needs—that high-growth firms must solve. Findingsalso show that different organizational life cycles call for different managerial priorities(Smith, Mitchell, & Summer, 1985). For example, entering a high-growth stage maynecessitate shifts in firm structure, reward system, and methods of decision making. Afast-growing company may need to quickly hire many new employees, additional space,equipment, supervisors, and mechanisms to train, educate, monitor, control, and coordi-nate its new taskforce. While some high growth might successfully overcome the myriadproblems that growth engenders, many “stumble” (Hambrick & Crozier, 1985). Forexample, rapid growth in the number of employees hinders knowledge transfer; it mightalter a company’s internal structure and dilute or erode its original culture and entrepre-neurial spirit. Finally, expeditious expansion in marketing, sales, and consumer servicemay expose companies to additional perils (Barr, 1998). In a review of research on thestrategy of high-growth firms, Hoy, McDougall, and D’Souza (1992) concluded that the
pursuit of high growth may be minimally or even negatively correlated with firm profitability. In sum, addressing new needs, meshing fast changes into current operations,and coping with increased managerial complexity, may lead to a momentous upsurge incosts (Covin & Slevin, 1997).
Although the scope of research on new venture growth has increased in recent years,(cf. Ardishvili et al., 1998; Davidsson & Wiklund, 2000; Delmar, 1997), empirical evidence on the specific link between growth and profitability remains mixed. Using alongitudinal database of 45,525 firms, Sexton, Pricer, & Nenide (2000), found that firmprofitability was correlated with sustainable growth. Firms that could finance growththrough internally generated funding were more profitable than firms with uncontrolledor unbridled growth. On the other hand, Shuman and Seeger (1986) found no statisticalrelationship between firm growth and financial performance in their studies of small high-growth firms. In a similar vein, Chandler and Jansen (1992) discovered that sales growthand profitability were not correlated. Others report that although product innovation hasbeen associated with improved market share, rapid market expansion was negativelyrelated to financial and marketing performance (Manu, 1993). Likewise, profit increasewas not related to the growth and expansion of the law firms (Weisbord, 1994).
While arguments can be marshaled for both perspectives, conceptual and anecdotalevidence lean more heavily toward a view that extreme expansion—500 percent to 30,000percent growth over short periods of time—is exceedingly strenuous and thus to be negatively correlated to firm profits. Hence we suggest the following hypothesis:
Extraordinary high-growth rates—as measured by sales and employment—are negatively correlated to profitability.
Method
SampleThere are many challenges to identifying, selecting, and measuring the characteris-
tics of extraordinary high-growth entrepreneurial firms (Brush & Vanderwerf, 1992;Camp et al., 1999; Chandler & Hanks, 1993; Delmar, 1997; Mata, 1994; Weinzimmer,Nystrom, & Freeman, 1998, to name a few). A key difficulty, of course, is the lack oflongitudinal databases from which to draw a representative sample of the fastest-growingentrepreneurial firms in the country. While there is easy access to accounting informa-tion on any publicly traded companies, financial data on young, privately held, firmsremain largely undisclosed. To be fair, large-scale datasets—such as ones compiled byDun and Bradstreet, the Small Business Administration, or Kauffman Longitudinal Financial Statements database of over 45,000 firms—are quite useful for studying diversemanagement questions, but they are not designed to specifically spotlight the fastestgrowing companies in the nation. Indeed, firms in the Kauffman Longitudinal FinancialStatements database are growing at a rate substantially lower than the Inc. 500 firms (e.g.,from 22.1 percent in retail to 84.2 percent in construction) (Sexton, Pricer, & Nenide,2000). The Inc. 500 firms with their 559 percent to 31,000 percent hyper-growth rate,therefore, are firms with extraordinary growth no other dataset is currently providing.
Unlike most research on firm growth, our study focuses uniquely on the link betweenprofitability and very intense growth (i.e., hyper-growth as measured by hundreds to thou-sands of percent). As such, the Inc. 500 firms with their 559 percent to 31,000 percenthyper-growth rate were the focus of our study. Also, the Inc. dataset is checked and verified by certified public accountants, and unlike small-scale, regional, cross sectionalor survey-based studies, the sample is both large enough to be meaningful and it pro-
vides a five-year longitudinal perspective on companies from around the country. As sug-gested by Davidsson and Wiklund (2000), because growth is an ongoing process, researchon firm growth should be based on longitudinal data.
To be more precise, at the end of every year, Inc. Magazine publishes a list of the500 fastest growing privately held companies in the United States, where firms are rankedby sales growth over a five-year period. For example, at the end of 1996, Optiva had thehighest five-year sales growth rate of 31,507 percent, while Telogy Networks, had thelowest growth rate of 559 percent. Because the yearly ranking yields national publicity,many thriving companies apply to be listed on the Inc. 500. The selected firms must be privately held, report at least $200,000 in sales, and show a sales increase. In sum,the Inc. 500 is a longitudinal dataset of privately held, high-growth companies fromaround the nation. The data used in this study traced the growth of three cohorts of firms.These include firms on the 1997 Inc. 500 list (from 1992 to 1996); the 1998 Inc. 500 list(from 1993 to 1997); and the 1999 Inc. 500 list (from 1994 to 1998). We also used anaggregated dataset based on all three cohorts combined (1997, 1998, and 1999).
ProceduresInc. 500 publications provide rich longitudinal data that include: (a) company name
and “rank”—1 to 500—on the list; (b) date the company was founded and a short busi-ness description; (c) total number of employees for year one and year five; (d) five-yearsales growth; (e) absolute dollar sales in year one and year five; and finally, (f) profit inpercent range for year one and year five (e.g., A = 16 percent or more; B = 11–15 percent;C = 6–10 percent; D = 1–5 percent; E = 0 percent; and F = loss). Adhering to this presentation, two of our control variables included company age and rank, where rankreflects a firm’s relative growth. Analyses of U.S. firm-growth patterns indicate that indus-try may have an important effect on firm-growth rates and profitability (cf. Camp et al.,1999; Lumpkin & Dess, 1995; Sexton, Pricer, & Nenide, 2000). To this end, a contentanalysis, conducted independently by each author, sorted the business description givenin Inc. publications into four binary business-sector categories including service, manu-facturing, distribution, and retail. Thus, other control variables were three dummy codesto capture industry sectors.
Following suggestions made elsewhere, we operationalized growth as absolute andrelative measures of sales and number of employees (Delmar, 1997; Weinzimmer,Nystrom, & Freeman, 1998). For example, subtracting sales figures at year one form salesfigures at year five captured absolute growth in sales. Similarly, subtracting the numberof employees at year one from the number of employees at year five captured absolutegrowth in employment. We obtained the relative growth measures of sales and employ-ment by dividing the absolute growth measures described above by, respectively, salesand number of employees at year one. We focused our growth measures on sales becauseof the consensus that sales “are the best growth measure” and it “has high generality,”and on the number of employees, because of the broad economic implications of job creation (Davisson & Wiklund, 2000, p. 37).
Since firm profits were codified as letters rather than numbers, we operationalizedprofits for year one and year five by recoding the ordinal scale used by Inc. Magazine asfollows: A = 20 percent; B = 15 percent; C = 10 percent; D = 5 percent; E = 0 percent;and F = -10 percent. Two reasons motivated us to rely on uneven increments for loss.First, while Inc. Magazine is somewhat explicit about positive profits or breakeven, itsambiguity regarding losses hints that large negative earnings were likely. Second, andmore important, our phone interviews with Inc. Magazine’s representatives confirmed
that it was not uncommon to attain a 10 percent loss. Taken together, we operationalized“F” as minus 10 percent.1 All in all, the growth measures (i.e., absolute and relative sales,number of employees, and profits) offer important commonality with empirical work onfirm growth done in the past and, thereby, further future theoretical and construct devel-opment (Davidsson, 1991; Davidsson & Delmar, 1997; Delmar, 1997; Weinzimmer,Nystrom, & Freeman, 1998).
AnalysisWhile we performed stepwise hierarchical regressions on both absolute and relative
growth and profitability, since findings from both types of growth measure were highlysimilar, the correlation and regression tables showcase only the models on absolutegrowth and profitability. The four separate stepwise hierarchical regressions included onefor each of the three five-year cohorts (1992–1996, 1993–1997 and 1994–1998), and thenfor the dataset that encompassed all three cohorts. We reasoned that attaining similarresults on all four analyses would confer stronger convergent validity. Of the 1,500 firmsidentified in the combined dataset, 267 firms were listed on two or more lists. To avoidrepeated measures, we only retained data for the first year a firm appeared on the list. Ineach analysis, the control variables—firm age, rank, and three industry dummy codes—were entered as a block in Step 1. Next, in Step 2, we entered the variables that captureabsolute growth in employment and in sales. This allowed us to examine whether growthin employment and in sales—over and above the control variables—were significantlyrelated to growth in profits. The test of the hypothesis is provided from the findings thatindicate the sign and level of statistical significance of the regression coefficients of thegrowth variables (sales and employment). These analyses also show the amount of uniquevariance in profit growth that is accounted for by growth in sales and employment.
Results
Table 1 provides means, standard deviations, and correlations for the combineddataset (1992–1998) of the Inc. 500 firms.
While the correlation matrix presented in Table 2 provides limited insights aboutassociations among variables, it is interesting to note that only firm age and service andmanufacturing (industry sectors) were significantly related to profit growth. Nonetheless,the low correlations are admittedly weak despite the large sample size (N = 1,233). Fol-lowing assessment of the correlation matrix, separate stepwise hierarchical regressions—for each Inc. 500 cohort, as well as for a combined dataset of all firms from 1992 to1998—tested whether absolute or relative growth in either sales or in employment predictprofit growth. As explained earlier, the first step in each regression equation controlledfor company age, rank, and industry sectors, and followed with Step 2, which includedgrowth in employment and sales. Regression equations for each individual cohort andfor the combined cohort generated nearly identical findings: Neither absolute nor rela-tive growth (in either sales or employment) were associated with profit growth. Thus, ourhypothesis regarding the negative relationship between profitability and growth in salesand employees was not supported. Interestingly, company age was the only significant
Fall, 2002 69
1. Sensitivity analyses (with loss as low as 5 percent or high as 15 percent) yielded the same findings as wereport in our results section. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.
predictor of profit growth. That is, younger firms were more likely to have an increasein profitability, over time, than older firms. The models, despite the large sample size,explained less than 2 percent of the variance in profitability. In the interest of concise-ness and since all equations yielded very similar results, Table 2 presents only the equa-tions for absolute growth.
Discussion
Extraordinary-growth firms garner national visibility and esteem from the businesscommunity for their formidable high growth, yet they are largely excluded from acade-mic research. We attempted to correct this oversight. First, we classified Inc. 500 firmsas hyper-growth—rather than high-growth—companies. Second, by asking whetherextraordinary high growth corresponds to formidable profits, we provided an empiricalview about growth-profitability relationships among this sample of extraordinary high-growth firms. We found that growth rate (in sales or employees) of Inc. 500 firms is unre-lated to profitability. This finding was surprising as we, like others before us, reasonedthat extraordinary growth poses significant hazards to the longevity and viability ofemerging companies. For example, over a five-year period the high-ranked Inc. 500 firmsare growing hundreds of times their original size, whereas the lower-ranked Inc. 500 firmswere “merely” growing at five to six times their original size. One might assume, there-fore, that companies that are growing at rates that are 50 times higher than other firmsmight have lower rates of profitability. This was not the case.
70 ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY and PRACTICE
Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations and Correlations among Study Variables forCombined (1997, 1998, and 1999) Inc. 500 Companiesa
* Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed)
** Correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed)
a N = 1233
b Coding for industry sectors: Service = 1, else = 0; Manufacturing = 1, else = 0; Distribution = 1, else = 0; Retail = 1,else = 0.
Why was there no relationship between growth in sales and employment and profits?While our analyses and the data do not allow causal inferences, one plausible explana-tion is a larger lag effect. Lag effects have been identified in many performance studiesincluding strategic management and top management team (Murray, 1989), executive pay(Balkin, Markman, & Gomez-Mejia, 2000), operation management (Boyer, 1999; Riezebos & Gaalman, 1998), and marketing (Ganesh & Kumar, 1996). For example, thereis a 20-year lag effect between the appearance of research in the academic communityand its impact on productivity in the industry (Adams, 1990). Given the nonsignificantrelationship between extraordinary growth and profitability reported in this research,there may be a lag effect longer than the five-year data provided for these firms.
It is equally plausible that hyper-growth draws tremendous (external) capital, whichmore than offsets growth-related difficulties. Extraordinary growth creates an attractiveimage that bestows greater credibility and draws powerful strategic allies and partners(Kale, Singh, & Perlmutter, 2000). This, in turn, may facilitate economies of scale, accessto inexpensive distribution channels (to circumvent barriers to entry), knowledge fusion,and technology transfer. Extraordinary growth may also attract exceptional talent that inturn increases efficiencies and productivity. While it is possible that extraordinary growthgarners offsetting benefits, this proposition is beyond the scope of our study and is thusawaiting empirical testing.
The stepwise hierarchical regression analyses reported in Table 2 show that firm age
Fall, 2002 71
Table 2
Stepwise Hierarchical Regressions on Profits for 1997, 1998, and 1999 and forCombined Data (1997, 1998, and 1999) of Inc. 500 Firms
was significantly related to profitability; younger companies tended to be more profitablethan older companies. This is not a surprising finding, because as companies grow, so isthe difficulty of maintaining the same rate of growth (Christensen, 1997). Similarly, ageis a function of time, and as companies mature and grow they expand hierarchically andthus experience increased complexity (Baker & Cullen, 1993). This may necessitatecostly organization-wide changes in administrative policy, control mechanisms, and infra-structure, all of which may account for some of the inverse relationship between profitsand age.
Measuring growth based on initial size echoes caveats made by other scholars whosuggest that different firm sizes and different measures provide very different growthoptions (cf. Davidsson & Wiklund, 2000). Delmar (1997) noted that the decision to rank firms’ growth based on relative sales—rather than absolute—creates a bias in favorof small firms. As exemplified below, percentage sales growth will tend to celebrate the smaller firms who can have a larger percentage of sales increase on the same absolutesales growth as their larger counterparts (Christensen, 1997). Thus, measures of relativegrowth favors firms that start with smaller sales figures or fewer employees (Davidsson& Wiklund, 2000). To this end and as explained earlier, we used two measures, but neitherrelative growth in sales nor in employment was correlated to change in profitability.
Nonetheless, and as suggested above, once all but the dummy measures were log-transformed, our hypothesis was actually supported. To be more precise, under log-transformed analyses, sales and employees were statistically and negatively related toprofits. Hence, how growth is analyzed may have an abstruse impact on insights into organizational growth. To this end, we undertook a variety of additional tests (e.g., dis-criminant analysis, split sample, and so forth) on the data and we found consistent resultswith what we reported earlier. Most interestingly, even a test that compared the top and bottom 20 percent of the Inc. companies (i.e., companies ranked 1 through 100 withcompanies ranked 401 through 500; raw data) showed no significant differences in prof-itability. Thus, the convergent finding that—for our samples of Inc. 500 firms—growth insales and number of employees is unrelated to profitability, holding all else equal, appearsto be a fairly robust result. To recap, using different measures and analyses yet obtainingsimilar results suggests that (nontransformed) growth in sales and employment—for oursamples of extraordinary high-growth firms—is unrelated to profits.
This research note has several insights for research, theory, and practice. One clear conclusion from this study is that extraordinary high growth, as demonstrated bythe companies studied here, is probably not related to profitability. Extraordinary growthrates were distinct from profitability, even after we controlled for firm age, industry, andranking, despite the large sample size, and even when we compared the lower-rankingfirms with the highest-ranking firms. Lack of demarcation among extraordinary high-growth firms may suggest that while growth in sales and employment garnered thesecompanies’ prominent place on the Inc. list, these constructs foretell very little about acompany’s profitability and success. One plausible implication of this is that hyper-growth firms might not be fully amendable to traditional financial measures or that weshould apply more diverse performance measures. For example, traditional metrics suchas growth in sales or profits, return on capital employed (ROCE), or cash flow, are inap-propriate for young pharmaceutical and biotech firms that are illustrious for losing moneyduring their early years. We hope that future studies will pursue new economic andnoneconomic yardsticks (e.g., respectively, economic value added—(EVA)—and brandname recognition) to gauge the performance of super high-growth firms.
One factor that does seem to reflect a similarity for most firms in the database is age.The median age of firms at the beginning of their five-year extraordinary growth was two
years. Given the finding that firm age was a better (though clearly not perfect) predictorof profitability, it appears that Inc. 500 firms, as a sample, reflect a group of predomi-nantly young firms that undergo an extraordinary spurt of growth. Given that the mediansales for Inc. 500 firms at the beginning of their five-year extraordinary growth was above$600,000, one plausible conclusion is that Inc. 500 firms are able to handle change. Forexample, Inc. 500 firms grew substantially larger than most firms that are less than twoyears old (Aldrich & Auster, 1986).
While our research note provides the foregoing implications and conclusions, oneshould carefully assess some of the inherent limitations associated with growth studiesand possible avenues for future research. For example, our data came predominantly froma single source—Inc. 500 publications. While the fact that the business press endorsedthese firms after public accountants certified firms’ financial statements gave us con-fidence in the data, the problem of single-method bias in growth studies remains an issue(Davidsson, 1991; Davidsson & Delmar, 1997; Delmar, 1997; Weinzimmer, Nystrom, &Freeman, 1998). We therefore hope that future studies on growth and profitability mayaddress this challenge more thoroughly. Similarly, we hope that Inc. Magazine willexpand its data collection efforts to explore a wider variety of factors and firm charac-teristics that might be correlated to extraordinary growth, and that this information bemade available for empirical analysis. Finally, we conclude with a caveat. While failureto find any significant relationship between profitability and extraordinary growth in salesand employment might imply that a strategy of high growth would entail few conse-quences to a firm’s profits, managers who pursue high growth must be reminded that Inc.500 companies are the exception, rather than the rule.
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Gideon D. Markman is Assistant Professor of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship in the TerryCollege of Business at the University of Georgia.
William B. Gartner holds the Henry W. Simonsen Chair in Entrepreneurship in the Lloyd Greif Center forEntrepreneurial Studies, Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.
