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The purpose of this paper is to identify the growth barriers of women’s home-based businesses (HBBs) in Iran.

The qualitative approach was used by 22 in-depth interviews with Iranian female HBBs owners/mangers.

Business growth barriers of women were categorized in a multi-level framework of individual barriers (micro), business-related barriers (medium) and environmental barriers (macro). The most important micro-level barrier is lack of skills and experience, while the financial barriers identified as the most business-related one and, finally, the problems of having work interactions with men is the most important environmental barrier women-owned HBBs mentioned.

The results of this paper can help policy-makers better understand growth barriers for women-owned HBB and attenuate these barriers by developing purposeful supportive growth policies that are commensurate with the barriers. Also, HBB women owners themselves could better concentrate on removing barriers by deepening their understanding of their business growth barriers.

The paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about women-owned HBBs in Iran, a rapidly growing, developing country, which can provide better insights from a less explored context. Moreover, as there is only a limited understanding of HBB growth, especially in relation to women business owners, the paper results can prove helpful for researchers in the domain of female entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this study is to achieve an integrated understanding of the relationship between the desire of business managers for growth and their behavior toward business growth, with regard to variables affecting this relationship, within the framework of the theory of planned behavior. The main motivation for conducting this study was the lack of studies about the effects of cognitive factors on the growth of SMEs in Iran. In addition, behavior, personality, and specific characteristics of entrepreneurs, which have a great impact on the decision-making process and development of growth strategies, have been less taken into account in previous studies.

The present paper reviews the existing literature on growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), theory of planned behavior as well as previous studies on business growth of SMEs within the framework of planned behavior theory. The conceptual model of the research was compiled from the models of two previous studies. The mixed approach is implemented and the statistical population of the research comprises of the managers of exporting manufacturing SMEs. In the qualitative section, data were analyzed using open codification technique and the partial least squares software package was utilized to conduct the quantitative data analysis.

The results indicate that the desire of managers for business growth has a direct and positive impact on their behavior toward business growth. This means that the higher the desire of managers for growth, the higher the level of business growth they would achieve because the raising level of desire leads to making a greater effort for achieving the goal. In this study, personality traits of managers, business environment features and business features were analyzed as the factors influencing the desire of managers for business growth.

This paper will be useful for entrepreneurs, policymakers and researchers given its results about the effects of the desire of managers for growth on the measures and outcomes of business growth. This study suggests that the business environment has an important influence on its growth, and that the environmental dynamism paves the way for the growth of SMEs.

Most studies on business growth have focused on economic and political aspects affecting the growth of enterprises, and few studies have dealt with psychological traits of managers. The present study attempted to fill this gap in the literature and add to the very limited number of studies conducted about the effects of psychological factors on business growth. This means that the higher the desire of managers for growth, the higher the level of business growth they would achieve. In other words, higher levels of business growth are indicative of the desire of managers for growth, which itself is influenced by personality traits, business environment features and business features.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the growth motivations of women owning and managing home-based businesses (HBBs) in Iran.

The qualitative approach was used by 20 in-depth interviews with Iranian female HBBs owners/mangers.

The business growth motivations of women owning and managing HBBs were categorized in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Results show that women owning and managing HBBs are motivated to growth their businesses by intrinsic motivations including need for achievement, need for independence, proving competency and socio-cultural concerns. Also, they are motivated by some extrinsic motivations including financial issues, fame, positive feedback from others and the problems of working at home.

Given the importance of entrepreneurial growth, the findings provide additional insight into growth motivations of women entrepreneurs.

The results of this study can help policymakers to develop purposeful growth policies for women’s HBBs that are commensurate with the motivations.

Also, women owning and managing HBBs themselves could better concentrate on enhancing business growth by deepening their understanding of their business growth motivations.

The paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about women-owned HBBs in Iran, a rapidly growing, developing country, which can provide better insights from a less explored context. Moreover, as there is only a limited understanding of HBB growth, especially in relation to women business owners, the study results can prove helpful for researchers in the domain of female entrepreneurs. Also, this paper contributes to theory on the motivation for entrepreneurship and to research on growth motivation.

In recent years, decision-making regarding business growth has attracted the attention of many researchers. Also, considering the importance of scale in startups for their survival and the development of economies, investigating the scalability of startups in emerging markets that are booming, can be useful. Scaling for international business has taken on a new meaning: they must be leaders in both emerging as well as advanced markets; they must be responsive to customers in both departments, which require tremendous innovation and agility; they have to build the competency needed in designing, developing, and marketing the opposite for advanced world markets; and they need to demonstrate rapid decision-making, innovation, and opportunism in delivery to the cost-sensitive underdeveloped markets. As a result, decision-making about the scale of start-ups at the international level plays an important role. The internationalisation of start-up activities is an extremely important and attractive topic among researchers, entrepreneurs, and practitioners. But there is very little research and also projects on the internationalisation of start-up venture activities, particularly after the gain of scaling and exponential growth.