identification challenges in growth stage for small foundry firms

small and medium size firms have major influence on job creation. some researchers, believe most of the new jobs are created in existed firms rather than newly established ones. growth management, could be the most important tactic for the firms future success. although it has many advantages for the firm, growth process faces some challenges. in this research, these challenges were identified, and ranked through their influence on firms growth. to do so, using questionnaires' data and previous findings of literature and factor analysis technique, growth challenges were ranked with ahp method. results shows that in a descending order, lack of flexibility in products, inability to influence on markets, lack of resources, and competency shortage, are small and medium foundry firms challenges. the results indicate that, lack of intention to growth is not these firms challenge on growth.