This work investigates the relationship between proxies of innovation activities, such as patents and trademarks, and firm performance in terms of revenues, growth and profitability. By resorting to the virtual universe of Italian manufacturing firms this work provides a rather complete picture...

Outsourcing is widely associated with accompanied job losses in the outsourcing firm, at least in the short run. However, the medium and long run effects of outsourcing on employment growth might still be positive. This paper particularly focuses on IT outsourcing and its medium-term effects on...

International engagement is often expected to improve firm performance. Especially for small technology-oriented firms, export activities may be important, being regarded as one way to amortise these firms' high product research and development costs. This paper examines the relationship between...

Based on German data between 1999 and 2007, we analyze the growth factors of SMEs and contrast them with those of large firms. Differences show up both in balance sheet and employment growth. While we confirm earlier results on inherent growth structures and the influence of firm age, we derive...

In this paper the relationship between firm growth and external knowledge sources, such as related firms and universities, is studied. The spatial characteristics of these relationships are examined by geolocating firms into a more realistic relational space using travel time distances and using...

We focus on the relationship of age and diversification patterns of German machine tool manufacturers in the post war era. Based on trade journals we track the entire firm populations' product portfolio development throughout each firm's lifetime. We distinguish between "minor diversification"...

While the majority of existing studies on the determinants of post-entry firm growth focus on the role of the founders or on the impact of firm-specific characteristics like size, age or industry affiliation, a possible impact of the characteristics of a start-up’s workforce on post-entry...

In this paper the relationship between firm growth and external knowledge sources, such as related firms and universities, is studied. The spatial characteristics of these relationships are examined by geolocating firms into a more realistic relational space using travel time distances and using...

The present article links business takeovers to the literature on serial autocorrelation of growth rates. The aim of the study is to identify the effects of successions on the performance of small German firms by analysing the growth pathways over a period of eight years after business takeover....

We examine firm growth in the German SME-sector using a sample of companies obtained by a survey of two well known German SME networks - Arbeitsgemeinschaft selbstandiger Unternehmer (ASU) and Bundesverband Junger Unternehmer (BJU). On the basis of the law of proportionate growth (Gibrat's Law),...