The Business Platform: Developing an Instrument to Gauge and to Assist the Development of Young Firms

The research presented here addresses the following problems we perceive in research on the development of young firms. First, we feel there is a lack of holistic yet quantifiable and generalizable ways in which to assess the state of newly started firms. Quantitative research typically relies on additive models that are unable to explain more than half of the outcome variance at the most. Holistic approaches tend to be qualitative and therefore have unknown generalizability. Second, we feel there is a lack of action–oriented assessment models that are firmly anchored in research. Research models typically take a passive prediction position and often build on relationships that give little hands–on advice to managers. Numerous practical tools for assessing and developing firms during their early development can be found in how–to literature, but these typically are not anchored in systematic research and therefore have unknown validity. Hence, what we set out to do in the research presented in this article is to develop a quantifiable, holistic, and research–based instrument for assessing and assisting the development of young firms.