Identifying the Determinant Factors of Firms’ Growth in Emerging Markets: A Meta-Synthesis Study

1- Studies show that high-growth firms play a vital role in increasing the number of jobs, improving productivity, and creating new products. Accordingly, firm growth has been the focus of entrepreneurship, strategic management, and economics researchers in recent years. However, although a lot of research has been done on the factors affecting the growth of these firms in developed economies, our knowledge of emerging economies is scattered and little. Firms operating in emerging economies face unique challenges such as institutional gaps, lack of infrastructure, and political instability. Therefore, it seems that the theories developed regarding firm growth in developed economies are not suitable for explaining this phenomenon in the context of emerging markets. In addition, since studies conducted in emerging markets have dealt with firm growth through different lenses, including institutional, resource-based, and network approaches, this has led to the dispersion of existing knowledge in this field. According to this, A comprehensive framework for identifying factors affecting the growth of firms in these markets has not yet been provided. Therefore, it seems that the analysis and synthesis of existing knowledge in the field of firm growth in emerging markets will provide researchers with the possibility of a better understanding of this phenomenon.
 
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In general, firm growth is a multifaceted concept defined differently by scholars. Previous studies in the field of factors affecting the growth of firms have also examined this phenomenon from different aspects. A group of researchers has focused on market-oriented strategies emphasizing the importance of understanding and identifying customers' needs and preferences and competitors' activities to achieve competitive advantage. Another group of researchers, by adopting a resource-based perspective, emphasizes the role of valuable, rare, inimitable, and irreplaceable resources in gaining competitive advantage and growth. However, institutional theory is a more recent perspective to approach firm growth. This viewpoint points out that, in addition to the firm's strategy and resources, institutions determine the extent of its growth. Finally, the most recent perspective on firm growth comes from the network theory, which has been emphasized especially in the context of firms' growth in emerging markets. This theory highlights the importance of relationships and social capital in facilitating the growth of firms.
 
3- This research is a fundamental study concerning purpose, and regarding the data collection method, it is a meta-synthesis study. By comparing and combining the qualitative findings of previous research, meta-synthesis can help advance theories, resolve conflicts within a field, and identify future directions for research. The current research has utilized Sandelowski and Barroso's meta-synthesis model. This approach provides a systematic review of qualitative research findings and allows the researcher to interpret existing findings through a 7-step systematic process. According to the main research question in the first step, to collect research data, keywords and phrases related to firm growth in emerging economies were identified. Then, to systematically review and find the sources, the desired keywords were searched in the title, abstract, and keywords in the three subject categories of management and business, economics, and social sciences in the scientific databases of Web of Science and Scopus. Finally, after removing unrelated articles, 104 articles related to the research question were obtained, and in this way, the qualitative findings of these articles were used for the final analysis.
 
4- RESULTS & Regarding growth in emerging markets, the research findings indicated that organizational characteristics, managerial characteristics, resources, strategy, and environment are the five components of firm growth. Also, The research findings show that in the context of these economies, in addition to technical and market capabilities, firms should have organizational capabilities such as agility, organizational resilience, and political capabilities to protect themselves against environmental uncertainty. Moreover, it was determined that the firms' political capital is a multi-purpose concept, providing access to financial and physical resources in line with the firm's growth. Identifying the formal and informal market sectors in emerging economies, the findings also recommend the firms develop appropriate strategies for these sectors.
 
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
Previous studies regarding the factors affecting the growth of firms in emerging economies have addressed this phenomenon with different approaches, which has led to the dispersion of existing knowledge. This research was conducted to fill this theoretical gap and identify the factors affecting the growth of firms in emerging markets. The research results emphasize the market-political ambidexterity strategy, having complementary market and non-market strategies, and enhancing the team's professional characteristics. Also, according to these results, future research is suggested to identify the mechanisms of isolation of competitive advantage in emerging economies, identify non-market complementary strategies, investigate the effect of political capital as a multi-purpose capital on the growth of firms, and identify various strategies that firms use for the formal and informal sectors.