High-growth firms appear to be key drivers of new industries and technologies. Here we investigate the contribution of these and other types of firm to a technology cluster, in the context of ‘creative destruction' shaping the evolution of the cluster. Evidence on the reallocation of scarce...

Investors have been showing interest in prospects for new environmental technologies launched by innovative enterprises. We analyse the experience of young environmental technology firms going public on London's alternative stock market, AiM. While firms that launched in the boom attracted...

Following the financial crisis of 2008, the UK government has set out new economic priorities which include jobs and returns from investment in science and technology-based activity. In this paper we show that the Cambridge area already provides a microcosm for such a future economy, one that it...

Questioning the widespread tendency to view academic spin-outs as a homogenous category, the paper explores typologies of these companies using a Penrosean conceptualisation of entrepreneurial activity. We initially identify five main types of business activities pursued by academic...

Young technology-based firms are widely recognised as important drivers of economic renewal and growth. Many statistical studies have been carried out to ascertain the attributes of the more successful ventures. Most studies are based associations between measures of firms’ growth and other...

The area around the city of Cambridge (the Cambridge Sub-Region) was the first centre of hightech activity to emerge around a university in Europe and remains one of the most active. It is seen both as a model for others to follow and as a source of increasing prosperity for the region and...

This paper examines setbacks in the early growth of new firms. Growth interruptions mark the unfolding, cumulative processes of firm growth overlooked in standard studies that use cross sectional methods. To probe for possible patterns in growth setbacks, we examined a cohort of 200 high...

This paper aims to identify how entrepreneurial responses to ‘barriers’ can give rise to opportunities for new firms. The poor predictive record of studies analysing success attributes and favourable initial factors as determinants of new firm growth reflects the diversity of entrepreneurial...

New entrants very often spin out from established firms and because they set on a course at founding, their learning and capabilities become inextricably linked to their organizational and technological heritage. But while this heritage may provide an initial advantage, it can also generate...

This paper explores ways in which new ventures not only adapt to but can transform their own business environment. It proposes a new way to combine evolutionary and Penrosian resource-based theories. A parallel is drawn between the proactive response to resource shortfalls and under-use in the...