The Downside of Disruption: rapid Startup Growth Can Hurt employee Satisfaction, New Research Finds
By Dr. Michael Lee, World-Today-News.com – The relentless pursuit of growth is practically baked into the DNA of a startup. But a new study challenges the conventional wisdom that faster is always better, revealing a hidden cost to rapid scaling: declining employee satisfaction.
Researchers from Syracuse University, DePaul University, and the National University of Singapore have uncovered a surprising link between high-growth startups and decreased morale. The study, published in the Strategic Management Journal, suggests that while initial growth boosts job satisfaction, pushing expansion too quickly can lead to a meaningful downturn in employee happiness.
“There’s a lot of positive bias surrounding scaling,” explains Johan Wiklund, chair and professor of entrepreneurship at Syracuse University. ”The assumption is that scaling is great - bringing innovation and creating jobs. But we show it might not be great for everyone, especially the employees.”
the team, led by first author James Bort of DePaul University and including Wei Yu of the National University of Singapore, employed a novel methodology. They combined data from 7,692 employee reviews on Glassdoor.com with financial information from 263 startups. This allowed them to track the relationship between company growth and employee sentiment with unprecedented clarity.
Their findings revealed an “inverted U-shaped curve.” Job satisfaction initially increases with growth, as employees perceive opportunities for advancement and stability
