Characteristics of firms that grow from small to medium size

The foundation of this study is the analysis of firms that have made the transition from small to medium in our surveys: the Survey of Innovation 1999, the Research and Development in Canadian Industry survey, the Biotechnology Use and Development Survey, the Survey of Advanced Technology in Canadian Manufacturing (1998) as well as the Longitudinal Employment Analysis Program—Small Area File (LEAP [...] The definition of these categories and details on the methodology of this study are explained in detail in the “Concepts, definitions and data quality” section at the end of the paper. [...] Data from the Survey of Innovation 1999 has been linked to the Annual Survey of Manufacturers for 1997 and 1999 and the growth of firms has been determined based on this data. [...] In the case of the percentage of high growth firms with 50-99 employees using confidentiality agreements, there is no significant difference with growth or stable firms but the percentage is significantly higher than the declining ones. [...] Table 1: Summary of innovation indicators: a comparison of small (20-99) high growth manufacturing firms with small growth, stable and declining firms during the period 1997 to 1999 Are high growth firms with Are high growth firms with 20-49 employees significantly 50-99 employees significantly different than: different than: Growth Stable Declining Growth Stable Declining % of innovators Yes Yes