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Int Entrep Manag J (2017) 13:7596
DOI 10.1007/s11365-016-0392-9
Jos Miguel Giner1 & Mara Jess Santa-Mara1 &
Antonio Fuster1
Published online: 28 March 2016# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract The challenge for economies lies in boosting employment growth, not just by fostering entrepreneurship, but also by improving the growth potential of existing firms. Consequently, many studies have focused on assessing the dynamism of firms, and especially the capacity of high-growth firms (HGFs) to generate employment. This study aimed to identify HGFs in Spain during two periods, 20032006 and 20072010 and to analyse their characteristics and territorial distribution during the initial years of the economic crisis. Accordingly, a key area of inquiry of the study was the influence of agglomeration (in metropolitan areas, industrial districts and technological districts) on the locations of HGFs. To analyse the influence of location on the probability of firms being HGFs, a logit model was estimated. The main results supported the studys hypotheses that technological districts and large urban areas are significantly associated with the probability of firms being HGFs, because firms profit from comparative locational advantages offered by these areas. The importance of HGFs requires special emphasis in relation to Spains context of economic crisis and high unemployment levels because of their significant contribution to employment generation.
Keywords High-growth firms . Firm growth . Job creation . Location . Agglomeration
Introduction
In the last few decades, business dynamics has emerged as an attractive field of research. The focus of recent studies has been on the potential growth of firms and their capacity to create jobs as basic conditions for improving the adverse
* Jos Miguel Giner [email protected]
1 BIndustrial Economics and Local Development^ Research Group, Department of Applied
Economics and Economic Policy, University of Alicante, P.O. Box 99, E-03080 Alicante, Spain
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circumstances prevailing in many countries, such as Spain, as a result of the financial and economic crisis. Based on the premise that firms are the central pillars for improving economic growth, these studies have primarily focused on the capacity of firms to generate employment, especially in a context of high levels of unemployment. Thus, researchers have emphasised...