Open Access

Janina Tessarek

• Abstract The primary purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to identify and understand organisational management challenges in digital media startups. The Growing Pains approach established by Flamholtz is used as foundational framework. The model provides thorough insights on analysing organisational management problems during rapid growth. Hence, this study aims at examining the applicability of the Growing Pains to digital media startups. In general, Growing Pains are symptoms indicating that an organisation's infrastructure is developed insufficiently to face challenges in growth phases. Therefore, they commonly occur when a company is transitioning from startup to established corporation. The first part of the paper gives an overview of the current research status on Growing Pains and related studies about digital media startups. Besides, an empirical study was conducted. Six interviews (one manager and one employee each from three digital media startups) were compared with a qualitative content analysis to determine common organisational challenges. In addition, every interviewee responded to a 5-point Likert scale Growing Pains survey. This hybrid method establishes seven areas in which organisational management problems occur: human resources, project management, communication, management monitoring, finance, business development and corporate culture. It is found that most issues arise in human resources, project management and communication. Throughout the thesis, it remains uncontested that these issues are related to the integration and effectiveness of management controls systems. Furthermore, a relevant disparity between employees’ and managements' responses is illustrated, implying an aggravation of organisational issues. In conclusion, the results suggested that the original Growing Pains target areas are that inaccurate and do not fully represent the organisational management issues in digital media startups. Therefore, a Growing Pains modification for better applicability on digital media startups is proposed, which considers the suitable distribution of each problematic area. Respectively, it is suggested that the management of fast growing digital media startups is well advised to focus on functioning knowledge management and management monitoring as well as employee turnover and leadership recruitment.