The Internationalisation of British Start-up Companies in High-Technology Industries (ZEW Economic Studies (9))

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 high-tech 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. "The present study analyzes the international activities of British start-up companies in high-technology industries. The research makes the following contributions. 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 high-tech 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."--Jacket This study analyzes the international activities of British start-up companies in high-technology industries. The research establishes the prevalence of internationally operating start-up companies in a particular country. The majority of British high-tech start-ups have engaged in international activities within a few years since formation. The study also consolidates existing knowledge in the fields of international entrepreneurship and subjects it to empirical testing. Lastly, 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 internationalization process theory are of limited explanatory power Front Matter....Pages I-XIII Introduction....Pages 1-3 Literature Review....Pages 5-55 Research Objective and Development of Hypotheses....Pages 57-77 Methodology....Pages 79-94 Descriptive Data Analysis....Pages 95-140 Multivariate Data Analysis....Pages 141-185 Conclusions....Pages 187-195 Back Matter....Pages 197-230 The surge of interest in new, technology-based firms is to a large extent motivated by the US experience.