Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Krafft Jackie
Author-Email: jackie.krafft@cnrs.gredeg.fr
Author-Name: Quatraro Francesco
Author-Email: francesco.quatraro@unice.fr
Author-Name: Colombelli Alessandra
Author-Email:Alessandra.Colombelli@polito.it 
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Turin
Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://www.est.unito.it/
Title: High Growth Firms and Technological Knowledge: Do gazelles follow exploration or exploitation strategies?
Abstract: This paper analyzes the contribution of high-growth firms to the process of knowledge creation. We
articulate a demand-pull innovation framework in which knowledge creation is driven by sales
growth, and knowledge stems from creative recombination. Given the established literature on high
growth firms and economic growth, we wonder whether gazelles follow patterns of knowledge
creation mostly dominated by exploration or exploitation strategies. To this purpose, we derive
indicators able to describe the structure of knowledge and qualify firms’ innovation strategies. The
empirical results suggest that the reality is richer than the interpretative frameworks. Increasing
growth rates are indeed associated to exploration strategies, supporting the idea that high growth
firms are key actors in the creation of new technological knowledge. But in the meantime, firms
showing growth rates significantly higher than the average are able to command the exploration
strategies by constraining them within the boundaries of familiar technological competences,
suggesting that the exploration process is less random than anticipated. We end up with the result
that high growth firms, and especially gazelles, follow predominantly an exploration strategy, but
with the characteristics of an organized search which is often more observed in an exploitation
strategy.
Length: 33 pages
Creation-Date: 2011-12
File-URL: http://www.est.unito.it/do/home.pl/Download?doc=/allegati_wp/wp2011dip_l_b/14_wp_momigliano.pdf
File-Format: Application/PDF
Handle: RePEc:uto:labeco:201114