Scale Deep Not Up for Sustainable Local Entrepreneurship, with Anna Kim and Suntae Kim

How would definitions of business growth and success change if entrepreneurship ventures decided that instead of scaling up, they would “scale deep”? On the Delve podcast, Desautels Faculty of Management professor Anna Kim and her co-author Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Professor Suntae Kim discuss their eight-year study of two entrepreneurship-nurturing organizations in Detroit, revealing important differences in resourcing modes and venture growth. What they observed in that city is happening in many other places, whether small towns or big cities, rural or urban, where the issue of revitalization is top of mind. 

“With the scaling deep approach, the more locally embedded approach, because you keep working with local partners, utilizing local resources, and making connections in those local contexts, your services and products become very, very meaningful locally,” explains Anna Kim. “But it doesn't actually mean a lot outside of Detroit or outside of a certain neighborhood. So it actually anchors them even more deeply in the local context.”

Read more on Delve.

Delve is the official thought leadership platform of McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management. Delve's Managing Editor, Robyn Fadden, is the host for this episode. You can find out more about Delve at delve.mcgill.ca. Subscribe to the Delve McGill podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, and follow DelveMcGill on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

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