It is a well-established fact that a small number of firms, known as Gazelles, drive a disproportionately large amount of net job creation. This fact has attracted considerable attention from researchers, who have been focusing on trying to understand what differentiates this type of firms from their slow-growth peers. In this paper, we expand the ongoing survey on Gazelles by focusing on the Portuguese case. Particularly, we examine how is high-growth associated with the firms´ age, access to equity and external finance and the workforce human capital. We also test whether high-growth is linked with the firms´ ability to export and innovate through R&D. In this paper, we also explore whether high-growth episodes display some form of state dependency by adding a dynamic component in the form of the lagged value of the Gazelle status. As for results, we find no supporting evidence in favour of persistency, as past growth events are negatively associated with current growth. This is in line with the recent literature on the topic that points to the lack of persistence in the growth process as a consistent enough result worth of being considered as a stylized fact about Gazelles. Nevertheless, we do find that younger firms are more likely to grow at the fastest pace and that human capital is an important determinant for high-growth. Results also point to the fact that fast-growing firms were not hampered by lack of access to adequate external funding during the period, and that they relied primarily on equity to finance their growing needs. Moreover, we find that, once firms’ experience in the market is considered, being an exporter is a relevant factor when it comes to high-growth events. Similarly, the innovative capacity of firms seems to be crucial in outstanding job creation episodes. Finally, our results suggest that it is an enhanced innovative capacity, the availability of equity, as well as the ability of experienced firms to export that might set the difference between the average growth performance and the exceptional growth performance, pointing to nonlinearities in the growth process of firms.

众所周知的事实是，少数几家被称为Gazelles的公司所驱动的净工作岗位数量过大。这一事实引起了研究人员的极大关注，他们一直致力于设法了解这种类型的公司与那些成长缓慢的同行之间的区别。在本文中，我们将重点放在葡萄牙案例上，以扩展对Gazelles的调查。特别是，我们研究了高成长与企业的年龄，获得股权和外部融资以及劳动力的人力资本之间的关系。我们还测试了高增长是否与企业通过研发进行出口和创新的能力有关。在本文中，我们还通过以瞪羚状态的滞后值形式添加动态成分，探索高增长情节是否显示某种形式的状态依赖性。至于结果，我们找不到支持持久性的支持证据，因为过去的增长事件与当前的增长负相关。这与有关该主题的最新文献相一致，该文献指出在生长过程中缺乏持久性，因为足够一致的结果值得被视为关于瞪羚的典型事实。但是，我们确实发现，年轻的公司更有可能以最快的速度增长，而人力资本是高增长的重要决定因素。结果还指出，在此期间，快速成长的公司并未因缺乏获得充足外部资金而受到阻碍，他们主要依靠股权来满足其不断增长的需求。而且，我们发现，一旦考虑到公司在市场上的经验，当涉及到高增长事件时，成为出口商是一个相关因素。同样，公司的创新能力对于创造出色的就业机会似乎至关重要。最后，我们的结果表明，创新能力的增强，股权的可获得性以及经验丰富的公司的出口能力可能会导致平均增长绩效与出色增长绩效之间的差异，这表明增长的非线性公司的过程。