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...

The key conecpts of principal-agent analysis are utilised to investigate influences on venture capitalists' accounting information requirements as used in their dealings with investees. The findings are based on structured interviews held with twenty leading venture capitalists, managing funds...

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...

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...

Protecting intellectual property by trade secrecy has become an increasingly attractive alternative to more conventional modes of IP protection, like patenting and copyright. This paper provides a statistical, econometric and case study analysis of the protection and valuation of trade secrets...

This paper is inspired by articles in the last decade or so that have argued for more attention to theory, and to empirical analysis, within the well-known, and long-lasting, contingency framework for explaining the organisational form of the firm. Its contribution is to extend contingency...

This paper considers trade secrecy as an appropriation mechanism in the context of the US Economic Espionage Act (EEA) 1996. We examine the relation between trade secret intensity and firm size, using a cross section of 95 court cases. The paper builds on extant work in three respects. First, we...

This paper reports on one of the first empirical attempts to investigate small firm growth and survival, and their determinants, in the Peoples’ Republic of China. The work is based on field work evidence gathered from a sample of 83 Chinese private firms (mainly SMEs) collected initially by...

The basic framework of the discussion revolves around two samples of Scottish small firms for the periods 1985-88 and 1994-97. It is shown that both samples were drawn during similar (prosperous) phases of the macroeconomic cycle. Further evidence is advanced which indicates that grant and...

Principal-agent analysis is applied to contemporary evidence on venture capital investment. The investor (as principal) and investee (as agent) are analysed in terms of risk management, information handling and the trading of risk and information. Investors and investees were paired in 'dyads',...