Growth from chaos : developing your firm's resources to achieve profitability without cost cutting / Michael L. Pettus.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Firm growth is a strategic process -- Growth over time does not depend upon a friendly environment -- A framework for achieving long-term domestic and international growth -- Deregulation and growth: an inhibitor or an accelerator? -- Trucking deregulation: why firms failed -- Trucking Deregulation: patterns of growth -- The restructuring of the U.S. airline indusrty -- The radical transformation of the U.S. railroad industry -- The future of the U.S. airline industry -- Patterns generating long-term growth.

We live in a chaotic world. Some of the chaos results from poor decision-making (e.g., Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom). Yet other aspects of chaos (war, terrorist attacks, et cetera) are beyond a firm's control. This book demonstrates that firm growth is more dependent on how a firm develops its resource base over time. Examining actual firm growth in several industries, with a focus on trucking, the airline industry, and the North American railroad industry, Pettus shows that a specific resource sequencing leads to higher firm growth than other sequencing patterns.