High Technology Small Firms: Their Potential for Rapid Industrial Growth

Abstract

DR. RAY OAKEY IS A SENIOR LECTURER at Heriot-Watt University Business School, Edinburgh, Scotland. He is currently conducting wide ranging research into the problems of industrial innovation and growth in large and small firms in the United Kingdom and hungary. This paper examines the growth performance of British high-technology small firms throughout the 1980s. The analysis is divided between a consideration of employment growth, and of the extent ot which firms rely on self-financed growth, in samples of firms in the electronics, scientific instruments and boitechnologh sectors. It is noted that the observed growth, in both individual firms and in aggregate, has been unimpressive. It is argued that a generally high livel of observed introspection with regard to funding in survey firms is likely to be partly caused by a poor external industrial environment for the encouragement of small firm innovation. consequently, the paper concludes by arguing for a more 0proactive government approach to the encouragement of high-technology small firms.