What Categories of High-Tech and Science-Intensive Companies Drive and Stall Growth in Their Industries

Abstract

The paper puts forward and tests the author’s methodology for assessing the contribution of certain categories of companies to the dynamics of sectoral development through the example of certain high-tech and knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy. The categorization of companies is based on their grouping by size and age, 16 size and age groups are distinguished in each industry. The application of the method is demonstrated by taking the chemical industry and software development activities as examples. It is shown that both industries are dominated by large mature companies (in the chemical industry this is much more pronounced). For each industry, the most and least dynamic types of companies were identified and their contribution in determining the industry dynamics was assessed. In addition, the simultaneous analysis of the two types of activities allowed us to make some inter-industry comparisons. Thus, in the chemical industry large companies are more common, but in the structure of total revenues smaller companies improve their positions more strongly. In the software development sphere, the opposite is true: against the background of quantitative dominance of small companies, large players are demonstrating faster growth rates. The proposed methodology can be used to analyze the dynamics of development of other industries as well as modified to analyze the dynamics of regional development.