Technology start-ups in context : A case study investigating how contextual factors impact the performance of New Technology-BasedFirms (NTBFs) in Sweden

Abstract: In recent decades, numerous prominent scholars have highlighted the fact that small and medium sized firms in general, and new technology-based firms in particular, represent an important source of innovation and economic growth. The success of new technology-based firms is further argued to be closely linked to innovation capacity and performance, which in turn depends on the context in which the company is located. This study investigates how contextual factors affect the performance of new technology-based firms in Sweden. This was done through a multiple case study, where a data set of 48 new technology-based firms were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative analysis outlined correlations between the firms’ context and their respective change in market value over time. The qualitative analysis examined these correlations in more detail by evaluating how firms were affected by specific contextual factors. This analysis was based on semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of 11 firms from the data set. The result indicates that firms located in metropolitan cities and university cities, on average, have a higher proportion of high-performing firms compared to firms from other cities. Stockholm further stands out with the highest proportion of firms among the top performing firms and the lowest proportion of firms among the bottom performing firms. The result further highlights three main contextual factors that were consistently emphasised by interviewees as being particularly important for their firm performance; these factors were local access to 1) skilled and specialisedworkforce followed by 2) risk capital and finally 3) customer proximity.