This does not portend well...
Our research shows that the slow productivity growth of the "average" firm masks the fact that a small cadre of firms are experiencing robust gains. OECD analysis shows that the productivity of the most productive firms -- those on the "global productivity frontier" in economic terms -- grew steadily at an average 3.5% per year in the manufacturing sector, or double the speed of the average manufacturing firm over the same period. This gap was even more extreme in services. Private, non-financial service sector firms on the productivity frontier saw productivity growth of 5%, eclipsing the 0.3% average growth rate. Perhaps more importantly, the gap between the globally most productive firms and the rest has been increasing over time, especially in the services sector.
The on the ground reality I observe is that the large, famous, exporting firms put together fantastic O-Ring teams of talent in a way the smaller, medium-size enterprises do not.