1 Networked Growth of High Tech Firms Anita Juho 1 ; Tuija Mainela 2 ; Vesa Puhakka 3 ; Sakari Sipola 4 1 Assistant, University of Oulu, Marketing, anita.juho@oulu.fi 2 Professor, University of Oulu, Marketing, tuija.mainela@oulu.fi 3 Professor, University of Oulu, Management and Entrepreneurship, vesa.puhakka@oulu.fi 4 Researcher, University of Oulu, Information Processing Science, sakari.sipola@oulu.fi Abstract In this article we build a conceptual framework for studying growth of high tech firms relying on two often separately used theoretical discussions. On one hand, we use the entrepreneurial opportunity creation perspective that suggests that entrepreneurs build their new ventures in a complex process of opportunity creation. This perspective lays conceptual emphasis on entrepreneurial orientation and dynamic capabilities of entrepreneurs in creating and effectuating novel types of business opportunities opened up by the environmental dynamism. On the other hand, we use the so called network action perspective that suggests there is value in analysis of firms as actors embedded in over time changing relationship networks and driven by the actions of their managers in relationship development. This perspective lays conceptual emphasis on networking for embedding the firm in networks that support appropriate ways of internationalization and emerging value networks. As a conclusion we suggest two alternative templates for analyzing the process of high tech firm growth. The templates can be seen as both competitive and complementary explanations for growth. Keywords Growth, High Tech, Networks, International Entrepreneurship Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Global Clusters Program. Introduction Growth of firms is regarded as a key issue in the development of national economies, and growth is at the top of the target lists in many companies (Haour 2005). Some firms manage to take temporary spurts of growth but are not able to keep it up. Many firms do not get to the growth track at all. This is especially true in high-technology industries in which continuous technological change and market globalization are the main drivers of business development (Schumpeter 1934; Solow 1957; Romer 1986; Pohjola 2002; Christensen & Raynor 2003). During the change of the millennium great expectations were placed on the growth potential of new technology firms, and especially on software firms (see Hoch et al. 1999). However, technological uncertainty and other industry characteristics caused many of them to fail and expectations were proven too optimistic. On these grounds it is not surprising that firm growth has attracted a lot of interest among researchers (see Davidsson & Wiklund 1999; Delmar et al. 2003). Many theories about