Looking inside the ‘black box’ of digital firm scaling: An ethnographically informed conceptualisation
基于对伦敦一家数字金融科技公司的深度民族志研究，提出了企业规模化的新概念，强调创业人力资本与成功规模化密不可分，对研究企业成长和创业管理的学者有参考价值。
In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in firm scaling. Owing to the fact our conceptual and theoretical grasp of this phenomenon remains under-developed, this paper offers a novel conceptualisation of the scaling process based on an in-depth ethnographic study of a London-based digital Fintech. Scaling involves deliberately enacting and surmounting a series of managerial challenges such as human capital re-positioning, business model reconfiguration, customer acquisition and the acquisition of external growth capital. Our theoretical contribution views the micro-foundations of scaling as a distinctive relational process-based phenomenon. Under the conceptual framework posited, entrepreneurial human capital and successful scaling are inextricably interwoven. Entrepreneurial founders and managers are pivotal for orchestrating scaling and our conceptualisation builds upon the trigger point model of firm development, which reinforces the primacy of entrepreneurial agency for optimising growth triggers.