Writing in The Independent, the economist Sir Alec Cairncross stated that the book brought Dr. Penrose "instant recognition as a creative thinker, and its importance to the analysis of the job of management has been increasingly realized".
When fellow academic Owen Lattimore was accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy of being a Soviet spy, Penrose and her husband played a central role in his defence.
After the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy, the couple were expelled from Iraq and drove across the Syrian Desert, through Turkey and on to the UK.
She also became involved in a number of academic and public bodies including the Monopolies Commission and was elected a fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society in 1985.
When her husband died in 1984 she retired from INSEAD and moved back to the UK settling at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire near to her surviving sons.
In the introduction to the book, she writes: "All the evidence we have indicates that the growth of firms is connected with the attempts of a particular group of human beings to do something."
In theorizing about companies that grow, Dr. Penrose wrote: "There are important administrative restraints on the speed of the firm's growth.