This work concerns the development of new methods of accounting for risk in high-technology ventures. The paper enquires into attitudes to risk and skills at risk management, in the relationship between high-technology firms and their venture capital backers. The basic prescription behind the...

This study examines the origins and characteristics of information systems of entrepreneurial firms going through that stage in their life cycle when serious growth ambitions are fuelled by an infusion of external capital. It does so by investigating the consequences of venture capital...

This paper has three contributions. First, it shows how field work within small firms in PR Chinese has provided new evidence which enables us to measure and calibrate Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), as ‘spirit’, and Intangible Assets (IA), as ‘material’, for use in models of small...

This paper presents new empirical evidence, obtained by fieldwork methods, on investor risk-handling practice in the UK venture capital industry. Its focus is on high-technology firms and the techniques their venture capital backers use for risk management. The active areas of risk management...

The theme of this paper is developed in three parts. The first is concerned with methodology. The case is argued for a 'grounded' approach to the analysis of business economics. The second is concerned with intellectual history. It argues that the great economists, such as Smith, used this...

This paper links the economist's analysis of free trade with the business strategist's analysis of the forces behind the globalization of competition. It argues that, although the drive to globalization may seem different from the seeking of superior outcomes in competitive markets, this may be...

The paper contains an empirical analysis of the strategy processes followed by new small firms to achieve speedy growth and success. It draws upon new evidence gathered by face-to-face semi-structured interviews with the owner-managers of such firms. These interviews followed an agenda which...

This paper examines the financial structure and performance of a sample of 150 young micro-firms. Their average age is one and a half years; and their average size is three full-time employees. Short-run performance is measured over one year, in terms of continuing to trade, and the evidence is...

This paper is designed to explore the nature of information system development in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), by appeal to three theories: contingency, agency and markets vs hierarchies. To address these theories empirically, use is made of new data which have been gathered from a...

The paper investigates financial management directed towards funding growth in the new small firm in Scotland. It makes appeal to two sources of first-hand data, gathered using fieldwork methods during the period 1993-97. The first evolved from interviews with 150 owner-managers of micro firms...