ABSTRACT
Growth may involve internal expansion, possibly through innovations developed by the firm’s research and development department and external expansion through acquisition. The Marris model has been seminal as is evidenced by the conference in 1971 where many other dimensions of the questions of the growth of the firm were analysed. In specifying an objective function of ‘balanced’ growth maximisation R. L. Marris stresses that the firm must simultaneously maximise the rate of growth of the demand for the products of the firm and the growth of capital supply to finance the growth process. In the pursuit of growth, managers have a number of controllable variables at their disposal. The achievement of steady-state growth requires a once and for all choice of growth rate and a consistent choice of variables such as sales, research and development, marketing outlays and financial variables.
