Firm age and performance

Abstract

International audienceAmid increasing interest in firm age and its effects on firm performance, this special issue offers an exhaustive review of the literature and a novel collection of evidence on the effects of firm age on performance, including a special focus of interest on innovation performance, financial performance, exports, survival and growth. This editorial positions the theme in the extant literature, and provides key definitions and challenges ahead in the field of evolutionary economics. It introduces the collection of articles composing the special issue. The papers offer a diversity of country contexts, as well as analytical approaches and methods. They include an exhaustive review of the literature on age and firms’ performance, and present original empirical studies focusing on the effects of age on firms’ economic outcomes on the one hand, and on innovation outcomes on the other hand. While most of the papers use econometric analysis, the level of analysis ranges from firm to individual

Environmental Proactivity and Firms’ Performance: Mediation Effect of Competitive Advantages in Spanish Wineries

“…The size of the company is measured on the basis of two items: number of employees and turnover; and was included to control the effect of scale economies on FP [2]. The age of the company is understood to be the total number of years that the winery has been operating and was included to control the effect of organizational rigidity on FP and MPP [84].…”

Why do Firms Live Longer than Others? The Elixir of (Eternal) Life of Blue Chip American Companies

“…Coad et al (2017) says that the dominant vision today is that each type of firm co-exists and contributes to economic growth in a different way, through product and/or process innovation. They state that firm age is more than a control variable, and the opposition between young and old firms deserves reconsideration.…”

“…Coad (2010) suggests that the firm age distribution of the population of firms is approximately exponential, implying that the modal age should be situated in the lowest age category, and the number of firms decreasing as age increases. Coad et al (2017) argue that the study over company age is undeniably still far from reaching a maturity and theoretical concepts related to age are still being refined. Coad et al (2017) defends that firm performance does not influence age, because age cannot be influenced.…”

“…Coad et al (2017) argue that the study over company age is undeniably still far from reaching a maturity and theoretical concepts related to age are still being refined. Coad et al (2017) defends that firm performance does not influence age, because age cannot be influenced. The opinion of the author is different because the duration of a company, as the duration of a human life can be for certain influenced by certain factors.…”

“…Firm age appears as a prolific field of research today in most relevant journals (Coad et al, (2017). Age has been used as a variable to explain performance (Van Stel et al 2017), survival (Carr, Haggard, Hmieleski, & Zahra, 2010, Reis & Augusto 2014b, firm risk taking (Chrisman & Patel, 2012;Desai, 2008), growth (Ahlstrom, Young, Chan, & Bruton, 2004), experience (Desai, 2008), valuation (Reis &Augusto (2013 and more recently in the influence of international entry modes choice (Xie, 2017).…”