A comparison of revenue growth at recent-IPO and established firms: The influence of SG&A, R&D and COGS

A dynamic view of the resource based theory (RBT) examines how a firm builds its resources over time, considering variations in resources' growth rates while the firm attempts to grow. Accordingly, we consider the elasticity of accumulated resources to assess conditions where these resources might serve as substitutes for rather than complements to COGS during periods of growth. We specify a production function that links aggregate resource allocation among SG&A, R&D and COGS expenses to a firm's revenue. This function yields a set of hypotheses on the elasticity of SG&A and R&D, and the productivity of COGS, while controlling for the revenue growth rate. We test these hypotheses on a dataset of 64 randomly selected firms that recently underwent an IPO, and a comparable set of 64 established public firms from four high-technology sectors. Results show that the accumulated stocks of resources can serve as substitutes for rather than complements to COGS, and the manner in which recent-IPO firms allocate and use resources differs from their established counterparts. We discuss the implications of associated elasticity and productivity results.