Associate Professors of City and Regional Planning Yas Motoyama and Tijs Van Maasakkers have published “Reflections on high growth firms” in Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit (with co-authors Christina Henderson, Morgan Clevenger, Sameeksha Desai, and Sehun Oh).

Scholars and practitioners have investigated high growth firms because a small number of high growth firms contribute disproportionately to economic development. However, we find that the standard perception and support programs of high growth firms are heavily geared toward to firms in the high-tech sector that seek venture capital investment and hyper growth. The authors in this paper conducted multiple research projects of high growth firms in Kansas City, St Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, and Montana, and came to conclude that many high growth firms are sector agonistic, locally rooted, grow organically based on market niche, and exist in every city. This alternative model of high growth firms leads to a completely different set of policy and support implications, which we synthesize in eight points.

Read more at Local Economy