Assessing how small and large enterprises are complementary for industry development and value creation

ABSTRACT

We assess how both small and large enterprises are crucial for industry development and value creation in a national context strongly dependent on natural resources. Drawing upon recent research, we illuminate how large enterprises, perhaps not surprisingly, have an advantage concerning economies of scales. They also emphasize green R&D investments along with sustainable strategies, and which are less emphasized by small enterprises. Large enterprises are more innovative than small enterprises, but taking into account R&D investments and inter-firm collaboration, small enterprises are genuinely more innovative than large enterprises. Lastly, we emphasize how small enterprises to a stronger degree than large enterprises develop spinoffs in new industries. Indeed, the smaller the enterprise, the more easily it can develop spinoffs in new industries that are cognitively very different from its current industry. Altogether, we conclude that small and large enterprises have complementary features that are crucial for industry development and value creation.

KEYWORDS:

• Enterprise size
• economies of scale
• green and sustainable strategies
• innovation
• new industry spinoffs
• cognitive distance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Jarle Aarstad http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6650-6667

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Norges Forskningsråd [grant number 272054].