This paper examines, in a high technology context, how investor and investee behave, and interact, in the face of risk. The evidence on which it is based was obtained by fieldwork methods, over the period 2000-2, examining a sample of UK investors and investees active in high technology areas....

This paper is an empirical study, making appeal to firsthand evidence gathered by face-to-face interviews with the owner-managers of 150 small firms in Scotland. It investigates the performance of the micro firm in the early years of its life-cycle, by reference to four key behavioural...

The main hypothesis examines whether real options logic is applied by entrepreneurs in undertaking key organisational change (e.g. ownership, technology, location, line of business etc.). This is explored in a model of firm performance using data collected in face-to-face interviews with...

This paper seeks a good measure of new business performance, and then explains this measure by various dimensions of business strategy. Three criteria are used to create a one dimensional ordinal ranking of high, medium and low performance for new business starts: employment growth; return on...

The paper examines the co-evolution of different dimensions of information systems for a sample of fast-growing small firms. The investigation uses primary source longitudinal empirical evidence. The data are taken from a large database on the lifecycle experience of one-hundred-and-fifty new...

This paper argues that the informational requirements for good decision making in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are complex and adaptive. It identifies the basic information needs of the SME, and considers how information is used to guide decisions. It argues that accounting...

This paper examines dual distribution in franchising systems, which arises when franchisors simultaneously operate franchised and company-owned outlets. Dual distribution is explained in terms of non-separable externality, which increases the costs of franchising compared with separable...

This paper uses statistical analysis to characterise ‘industry practice’, in terms of concordance of investors concerning appropriate practice. The evidence was gathered by field work methods in 2000-01, and refers to the practices of twenty UK venture capital investors, who accounted for...

This paper examines the relationship between firm size, competitive strategy and performance, for the long-lived small firm in Scotland. It uses structural modelling to test the hypothesis that small firms need to remain small if they are to be long-lived. In a three-equation simultaneous model,...

This paper has two goals. First, to provide an accurate characterisation of the new small firm in Scotland by reference to markets, finance, costs, business strategy, human capital, internal organisation and technical change. Second, to use these same features to discover salient differences...