High-Growth Small firms and their Characteristics Evidence from Manufacturing Small Firms in Iran During the Third Development Plan

Considerable attention in the extant literature has been devoted to new firm formation and growth of existing firms as the sources of job creation. However, most of the recent studies show that among the growing firm a small minority are ability to show high growth. Although this minority is created the vast majority of new jobs, there is a dearth of research on high growth firms. Furthermore, the majority of literature in this area focuses on large firms while research on high growth small firms is underdeveloped. This paper investigates the characteristics of high growth small firms in manufacturing industry in Iran during the Third Development Plan. Using a recent population of 7379 small firms (those with 10 to 50 employees), absolute and relative methods and Probit regression model, a number of drivers of high growth were identified and investigated. The results of this study indicate that high growth small firms are influenced by size in non-linear fashion. In addition, age of firm, profitability, skill of employees, transportation and advertising expenditure, as well as net entry rate are the main characteristics of high growth small firms in manufacturing industry in Iran during the Third Development Plan.