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...

Generic, radical technology is of interest because of its potential for value creation across a broad range of industries and applications. Advanced materials ventures are attracted by this opportunity yet face intensified challenges in commercializing technology of this kind as upstream...

The creation of novelty and its subsequent retention or elimination by evolutionary mechanisms is a central theme in complexity studies. By examining the evolution of three information and communication technologies, this paper explores linkages between variety generation, selection and...

This paper investigates opportunities and obstacles facing new environmental ventures. It does so first through a review of prior work on the growth of new ventures, then through an examination of new empirical research from the UK. Evidence from a database of 73 micro-SMEs allows a comparison...

This paper explores trends shown by technology based companies in the Cambridge area over the cycles of the past two decades. Influences from the macro-economy include the impact of the information revolution on the area, the recession of the early 1990s and the technology crash of 2000. The...

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...

Whether entrepreneurial firms discover or create opportunities is a classic debate, here explored in the context of disruptive innovations. In this paper we reframe the question to focus not on the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity but on how and for whom entrepreneurs undertake disruptive...

This paper examines the industrial incentives for commercialising advanced materials and, in particular, nanomaterials with reference to issues raised in the technology strategy and technology entrepreneurship literature. We draw on longitudinal empirical data to show that smaller and newer...

The promise of technological developments in advanced materials is attracting increasing attention, but their commercialization raises numerous challenges for incumbents and new entrant firms. These are summarized in a conceptual model of technological innovation as a matching process and in a...