Over the past two decades, considerable interest has grown in high growth firms (HGFs).
However, the concept of HGFs still remains controversial. One of the most controversial
issues is size and age of these firms. The present study argues that the current literature on
HGFs may offer little help in addressing this issue given the constantly changing population
of HGFs. This study uses an alternative conceptual framework and proposes a concept of
‘High Impact Group of Firms’ (HIGF). It explains the HIGFs in the framework of a new
stream of literature that focuses on business dynamics, productivity growth and industry
evolution, formulates testable hypotheses, and uses a novel methodology to identify it. The
empirical analysis is based on the plant level panel data of 22 manufacturing industries in
Indian manufacturing during the period 2000-01 to 2005-06. Our empirical results reveal
that much depends on the industry/sector specific characteristics.