New service development and commercialisation within the domain of
information and communications technologies (ICT) is regarded, among
other knowledge-intensive industries, as one of the keys to the
maintained wellbeing of the European societies. However, despite the
large amount of on-going research conducted within this branch itself,
the actual business demography of the ICT sector - characterised by, for
instance, a large number of high-performing micro-scale companies -
should be taken under closer inspection. In this study, we use the
method of recognising high-impact companies introduced by Acs et al.
(2008) and evaluate its suitability for the ICT sector. Our special
interest lies in European small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and in
inspecting whether they may be recognised as 'high-impact actors' by
using the method. For the purpose of assessing the ICT companies and
testing the method, we utilise company data retrieved from Bureau van
Dijk's Orbis database, which is a repository of quantitative data comprising the
financial information of some 100 million companies worldwide. The
companies having the largest 'impact' to the society with regard to
their economic growth as well as employment growth are classified in a
more detailed manner in terms of their specific branch of activity and
target market(s). Furthermore, we present an analysis of the resulting
data in order to provide insight into the actual societal effect of the
ICT industry for the European society.