Title: Making planning work: insights from business development

Authors: Hans Eibe Sørensen

Addresses: Department of Strategic Management and Globalization, Copenhagen Business School, Kilevej 14a, dk-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark

Abstract: Planning for a growth opportunity's success remains a challenge. Under which conditions does planning work, then? This exploratory study investigates the business development tasks and processes that span a growth opportunity's planning phase and its implementation phase and their unique performance implications. On the basis of 73 CEO responses from growth SMEs, the results show that business development increases firm performance and that the effectiveness of business planning depends on business development. Business developer support is found to positively influence firm performance per se. Business development is presented as an important organisational capability to pursue growth opportunities and subsequently theoretically anchored in the resource-based view of the firm. Implications for managers and for future business development research are discussed.

Keywords: business development; business developer; growth opportunities; business planning; developer support; implementation; integration; organisational capability; firm performance; innovation management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2018.089719

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2018 Vol.22 No.1/2, pp.33 - 56

Received: 18 Jan 2016
Accepted: 21 Dec 2016
Published online: 08 Feb 2018 *

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