Purpose

This paper aims to analyze the effect of industry growth rates on the characteristics of high-growth firms (HGFs) that are active in a particular industry. By making a distinction between HGFs active in stable and declining industries and HGFs active in growing and high-growing industries, it is analyzed if the main dimensions of firm performance are significantly different for HGFs active in one of these different industry types. Gaining more insight into this industry aspect of high firm growth is important as governmental measures towards HGFs may be more effective if they have a specific sectoral focus.

Design/methodology/approach

A subset of 740 Belgian HGFs was analyzed. Data were gathered from the Belfirst database. HGFs were classified within their corresponding industry type: a declining industry (negative growth), a stable industry (0 −5% growth), a growing industry (5 −10% growth) and a high-growth industry (>10% growth). Four dimensions of structural firm performance that are expected to correlate with high growth were taken into consideration: productivity (value added per FTE), profitability (ROA), innovativeness (intangible assets) and financial health (solvency and liquidity).Tukey's range tests in conjunction with post-hoc analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were carried out to test for significant differences in all the mentioned variables for the HGFs in the four different industry types.

Findings

Results show that HGFs active in a stable industry are not significantly more profitable or innovative than HGFs active in a growth industry. However, significant differences could be encountered when it comes to the other two dimensions of structural firm performance: productivity and financial health. It is shown that HGFs active in declining and stable industries are significantly more productive than HGFs active in growth industries and high-growth industries. Also, HGFs active in declining and stable industries have significantly higher liquidity ratios than firms active in growth industries, pointing towards a better financial health for HGFs in nongrowing industries.

Research limitations/implications

The results confirm the conceptual logic that the differences between resource-based view (RBV) and industrial organization (IO) propositions will have an impact on the drivers of firm performance and high business growth. Every future study that focuses on the growth determinants of HGFs should be aware that considering the subset of HGFs as one homogenous group may be suboptimal. It is likely that the growth determinants of both HGF types will indeed be fundamentally different.

Originality/value

Until now, all studies on HGFs have considered the subset of HGFs as a whole. This paper tried to disentangle the subset based on the growth rate of the industry in which HGFs are mainly active. In this proposition, a reason for the lack of knowledge about characteristics of HGFs may – at least partially – be found in the fact that industry membership plays an important role in determining the characteristics of a high-growth firm. Future studies focusing on high-growth determinants may benefit from systematically taking the industry growth rates into account, with the knowledge that the propositions of two different theories – IO and RBV – may be the fundamental drivers of a firm's high-growth rates.

中文翻译：

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行业重要吗？高增长企业和行业增长率分析

目的

本文旨在分析行业增长率对活跃于特定行业的高增长企业 (HGF) 特征的影响。通过区分活跃在稳定和衰退行业的 HGF 与活跃在增长和高增长行业的 HGF，分析了活跃在这些不同行业类型之一的 HGF 的公司绩效的主要维度是否有显着差异。深入了解公司高增长的这一行业方面非常重要，因为如果政府针对 HGF 的措施具有特定的部门重点，则可能会更有效。

设计/方法/方法

分析了 740 个比利时 HGF 的子集。数据来自 Belfirst 数据库。HGF按其相应的行业类型进行分类：下降行业（负增长）、稳定行业（增长0 -5%）、增长行业（增长5 -10%）和高增长行业（增长> 10%） . 考虑了预计与高增长相关的结构性公司绩效的四个维度：生产力（每个 FTE 的附加值）、盈利能力 (ROA)、创新性（无形资产）和财务健康状况（偿付能力和流动性）。 Tukey 的范围测试结合事后方差分析 (ANOVA) 测试进行测试，以测试四种不同行业类型中 HGF 的所有提及变量的显着差异。

发现

结果表明，活跃于稳定行业的 HGF 并不比活跃于增长行业的 HGF 更有利可图或更具创新性。然而，在涉及结构性公司绩效的其他两个维度时，可能会遇到重大差异：生产力和财务状况。结果表明，活跃于衰退和稳定行业的 HGF 的生产力明显高于活跃于增长行业和高增长行业的 HGF。此外，活跃于衰退和稳定行业的 HGF 的流动性比率明显高于活跃于增长行业的公司，这表明非成长行业的 HGF 财务状况更好。

研究限制/影响

结果证实了基于资源的观点 (RBV) 和产业组织 (IO) 命题之间的差异将对公司绩效和高业务增长的驱动因素产生影响的概念逻辑。未来每一项关注 HGF 生长决定因素的研究都应该意识到，将 HGF 的子集视为一个同质组可能是次优的。两种 HGF 类型的生长决定因素可能确实存在根本不同。

原创性/价值

到目前为止，所有关于 HGF 的研究都将 HGF 的子集视为一个整体。本文试图根据 HGF 主要活跃的行业的增长率来拆分子集。在这个命题中，对 HGF 的特征缺乏了解的一个原因可能——至少部分——在于行业成员在决定高增长公司的特征方面起着重要作用这一事实。关注高增长决定因素的未来研究可能会受益于系统地考虑行业增长率，因为两种不同理论——IO 和 RBV——的命题可能是公司高增长率的基本驱动因素。