Growth Patterns and Trajectories of New ventures

Abstract

International audienceIn line with the work of Delmar and Davidsson, (1998) which examines the types of distinct growth patterns that high-growth firms exhibit and how these growth patterns and corresponding firms differ from each other in terms of their demographic affiliation, this paper discusses the existence of different growth trajectories of start-ups. Using financial data from all firms created from 1992 to 2002 in Belgium (N=152064), we identified all those that had grown in less than 10 years above micro-firm level. We developed a data set (N=741) and used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to identify emerging clusters of trajectories. Overcoming the limitations of the existing literature identified by Delmar et al (2003), the contribution of this research is that it combines going beyond traditional sector-based approaches and using a composite, multi-indicator measure of growth