ABSTRACT
Firms face a tremendous range of pressures to grow: shareholders seek capital gain, managers pursue ever-increasing spans of control while employees aspire to the security and job potential offered by scale. Economics plays a role too, as we shall see. The desire for growth captures the essence of the capitalist dynamic but also exposes the limitations of the firm. Constrained by its capabilities, the individual company has a limited option set. In most texts on corporate strategy and strategic management this range is modelled on the concept of growth vectors first proposed by Ansoff (1965) in his seminal text on the subject. The Ansoff growth matrix is shown in Figure 6.1. Product–market growth opportunities matrix https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080503325/127387c8-11ca-427d-8de4-458d539608d5/content/fig6_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Source: Ansoff, I. (1987), Corporate Strategy, Harmondsworth: Penguin)
