The Secret of Outlier Ventures: Developing Interpretive Capacity to Scale Up

A growing body of research seeks to understand why and how some ventures scale up while others do not. Ventures that succeed in scaling are outliers in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, recognized for adopting distinctive strategies to achieve exceptional growth. While emerging accounts suggest that scaling requires managing knowledge and synchronizing organizational development with growth, prior literature has paid limited attention to how outlier ventures create and mobilize knowledge, and how this process shapes their ability to scale. This study draws on a multiple-case study of three scaleups to show that scaling is rooted in the development of interpretive capacity: the process of attributing meaning to ambiguous or fragmented external information and spreading it across the organization to inform decision-making and guide action. We identify scoping, interpretive, and enabling practices that support the development of interpretive capacity in scaling ventures. Building on these findings, we respond to recent calls for theory on scaling and outliers, and extend the organizational learning literature to the context of new venture scaling. We also offer actionable implications for entrepreneurs, educators, and policymakers by illustrating how interpretive capacity can be purposefully developed through organizational practices.