The present study analyses the international activities of British start-up companies in high-technology industries. The research makes the following contributions. First, it is the first study that establishes the prevalence of internationally operating start-up companies in a particular country. Accordingly, we find that the majority of British hightech start-ups have engaged in international activities within a few years since formation. Second, it consolidates the existing knowledge in the fields of international entrepreneurship and subjects it to empirical testing. Third, it assesses the power of different theories in international business to explain the cross-border activities of start-up companies. Overall, the research lends support to a resource-based perspective of international entrepreneurship since the proxies for transaction cost-based arguments and the internationalisation process theory are of limited explanatory power.
There are 17 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the European Union which play an important role in economic life. Within this subset, increasing recognition is being given to "new technology-based ftrms. " 1 In the literature, different defmitions have been put forward to describe the term new technology-based ftrm (Oakey et a11988; Roberts 1991; Autio 1995; Storey and Tether 1998). Common denominators include that the activity is based on the exploitation of advanced technological know-how, the prior affiliation of founders with research establishments and the entrepreneurial character of the ftrm. Research studies in Europe, North America and the Paciftc Rim have identifted these ftrms' important contributions in new employment creation, export sales growth, product and process innovation and structural adjustment (e. g. Rothwell & Zegveld 1982; OECD 1986; Oakey et a11988; Acs & Audretsch 1991; Roberts 1991; Coopers & Lybrand 1996). While there is a growing body of literature on new technology-based ftrms that concentrates on strategic issues such as access to fmancial resources, growth processes and innovation behaviour (see Storey and Tether 1998, for a review), there has been relatively little research into the process by which young high technology companies have internationalised. Research activity in the latter fteld has historically been strongly oriented towards large ftrms or, more rarely, towards "traditional transnational SMEs" in the manufacturing sector that often act as suppliers of bigger ftrms and are characterised by simple production technologies and low-technology products (United Nations 1993). Introduction.- Literature Review: Technology-Based Start-ups / NTBFs.- Empirical Evidence on International Entrepreneurship.- Theories of International Business.- Research Objective and Development of Hypotheses: Research Objective.- Research Hypotheses.- Methodology: The Survey Instrument.- Definition of High-Technology Start-ups.- Identification of Data Sources: The Use of Credit Rating Data.- The Primary Data Base.- The Questionnaire.- The Pilot Case Studies.- Mailing and Response Pattern.- Non-Response Analysis.- Descriptive Data Analysis: Methodological Considerations.- Decriptive Data Analysis: General Firm Characteristics.- Descriptive Data Analysis: International Activities.- Multivariate Data Analysis: Operationalisation of Independent Variables.- Differences between International Start-ups and Domestic Start-ups, the Degree of Internationalisation and Timing of Foreign Market Entry.- The Choice of Market Entry Mode.- Conclusions.
...
Read Full Text
