ON THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF SOME SMALL, UK-BASED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FIRMS

The paper reports on the discovery of some small but successful inform ation technology firms. These firms, which are geographically and stru cturally highly mobile, were found in a recent survey of information t echnology firms in the north-west of England. Detailed investigation o f the firms as case studies, revealed that they have many distinctive and interesting properties. Eleven distinguishing characteristics in a ddition to small size are identified; among them being lack of hierarc hy, pervious boundaries, and extreme mobility including growth by repl ication. In the discussion, some differences in the organization of th e firms are identified, it being argued that although all the firms la ck hierarchy and tend to adopt very extreme forms of matrix organizati on, they do this to a greater degree the less they are dependent on te chnology for the creation of their products, and/or on the extent to w hich they retain proprietary products in their range. The paper conclu des with a consideration of other work on new technology firms and arg ues that these findings are not unique. However, it is also argued tha t small firm, researchers have not been very creative in their use of the available frameworks to account for the existence of the firms ana lysed in this paper, or to understand that it is the contingencies the y face which allow them to be highly mobile and adaptable.