Modelo de crescimento de negócios: estágios iniciais de empresas do setor de serviços em Uberlândia

Abstract

Uberlândia is the 30th most populous city in Brazil, being the second largest in Minas Gerais and among the 20 cities that stand out in the concentration of small businesses. Considering that the service sector is the second largest among micro and small Brazilian companies, this work aims to identify the growth stages of companies in the service sector and understand business development in the context of the city of Uberlândia-MG, according to the model by Muhos et al. (2017). The specific objectives of the research are to analyze how the experiences of entrepreneurs from early stage service companies relate to the stages of growth proposed by Muhos et al. (2017); analyze whether there are gaps between reality and the proposed model, and highlight possible paths for future model developments; check for changes in the business structure and practical activities of early-stage service companies caused by the pandemic; and to identify and describe best practices of the companies studied in order to propose improvements and assist in the decision-making of other organizations. Muhos et al. (2017) propose that, by using the self-assessment framework, the special characteristics of growth in service organizations and in diverse cultural and geographical contexts can be analyzed. The research conducted had a qualitative approach with a descriptive character. A multiple case study was carried out in nine companies, conducted through structured interviews with the founders of the companies. The collected data were analyzed using Content Analysis, as proposed by Bardin (2016). It was possible to identify 25 categories related to the growth of technology-based service startups in Uberlândia-MG, seven categories related to the changes caused by the pandemic and to elaborate a synthesis of the managers' experiences on the positive and negative critical incidents related to the nine areas proposed by Muhos et al. (2017).