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Business research and entrepreneurship literature typically examines external resources as input or output of entrepreneurial (or high) growth. The purpose of this paper is to combine these two perspectives in describing and modeling high growth.

The study tests the hypotheses on a sample of medium-sized, established manufacturing firms using structural equation modeling.

Results provide original contributions to the business research on firm growth and entrepreneurship. They are consistent with studies advocating the importance of adopting a process perspective when studying business growth to probe the causal mechanisms behind growth.

Being quantitative, this study does not address the dynamic interdependencies between proprietary and hybrid growth. However, the literature on entrepreneurship would benefit from qualitative studies that explore how successful and sustainable growth processes combine the two modes of growth.

Findings partially discard the input and output approach in favor of a vision of entrepreneurial growth as a process that unfolds over time with the development of external relationships. Only the process of collaboration, a core competence of entrepreneurial firms, reduces information asymmetries and agency problems, thus turning the corresponding inter-organizational relationships into formidable feeders of firm growth. Entrepreneurial growth is in fact a process that needs external relationships in order to flourish over time.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of brands on small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance in the fashion industry, trying also to shed light on the different effect that corporate and product brands may produce.

The approach uses cross-sectional time series regression to investigate the relationship between trademarks and sales, controlling for firm size. A purposive sampling technique is adopted, focusing on a sample of Italian SMEs in the fashion industry.

Results indicate that trademarks do have a positive impact on SMEs' performance in the fashion industry, and in particular corporate trademarks seem to be effective in producing a sales increase, while product trademarks do not.

The main limit of this research is that no variable mediating the relationship between trademarks and performance was considered. Furthermore, the number of trademarks may not capture all the dimensions of brand.

The most important aspect is that SME managers in the fashion industry could benefit from a trademarking strategy; in particular, investments in building a strong corporate brand, thus concentrating SMEs' effort, instead of having many different product brands, seems to create greater effect in the minds of consumers, and thus result in sales increases.

This paper is one of first attempts to shed light on the issue regarding the association between SMEs' branding strategy and performance. Moreover, the distinction between corporate and product brands represents an innovative element in this type of study.