The Dynamics of Growth within Global Organisations: Issues, Consequences and Implications

An ever-accelerating rate of growth is altering the
pace of change and making global organisations perform tradeo
®s in terms of organisational capabilities and quality of output.
This paper reports on the empirical ¯ndings of a case study
conducted at one of the world's largest software organisations
and analyses the implications of rapid growth within global
organisations. The paper further correlates the ¯ndings with the
problems and issues confronting the world's largest automobile
manufacturer, and establishes that growth needs to be planned
to allow organisational capabilities and systems to support rapid
expansion. Overall, the research highlights the important lessons
learnt from accelerated growth within global organisations, and
identi¯es the areas of future research required to gain a better
understanding of the phenomenon.