Financing Unquoted High-Growth Companies: From Extending

terms) to a company with 20 employees, than for a company with 500 employees to growth with 100% to
a company of 1,000 employees. For a company with 500 employees, however, it will be easier to add 20
people (i.e. absolute terms) to its workforce, compared to a small company employing only 10 people.
Using the dataset from the first study in this dissertation, Table 1.2 demonstrates the critical nature of the
decision with respect to the growth concept and the growth formula researchers use. The overlap between
companies selected by using different growth indicators is low. For example, only 29% of the companies
selected as high-growth companies based on absolute growth in sales are also selected as high-growth
companies based on absolute growth in assets. This indicates that growth in sales is quite different from
growth in assets. These findings correspond with Delmar, Davidsson, and Gartner, (2003) for Swedish
companies.
Table 1.2 further demonstrates that the overlap between companies selected by using absolute or relative
growth measures is low. For example, only 19% of the companies selected as high growth based on
absolute growth in employment are also selected as high growth based on relative growth in employment.
Hence, the distinction between absolute and relative growth measures is critical. Interesting is the
observation that the overlap between the different groups of absolute growth companies is higher than the
overlap between the different groups of relative growth companies. It indicates that the typical absolute
growth company grows over more dimensions than the typical relative growth company.
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