Sustainable Growth and Exporting Performance of New Companies: What Is the Role of the Founders’ Human Capital and Social Capital?

This study analyses whether founders’ human capital and social capital affect the sustainable growth and exporting performance of new companies. This is achieved through a sample of Portuguese data gathered from the Staff Register database and a set of data on international commerce, covering 26,990 companies created in 2002, which were followed until 2007. Company founders were accompanied from 1996 to 2000, in order to assess the effects of different human and social capital attributes on the growth and exporting performance of their new firms.