Flexibility and specialization in question; birth, growth and death rates of Cambridge new technology-based firms 1988–92

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Abstract
The industrial experience of Cambridge, UK is examined to assess, over a period of boom and slump, the local variant of flexible specialization in relation to the birth, growth and failure rates of new technology-based firms. There have been rapid start-up rates of new technology ventures, but little growth out of the small size category. By 1992 there were more than 700 new technology firms in and around the university city of Cambridge, employing over 20,000–rapid growth in a previously non-industrial area but still on a relatively small scale. Acquisition, often by foreign corporations, is on the increase and a third of these firms are no longer independent. Cambridge new technology-based firms have exhibited a resilience which indicates a viable and persisting mode of business activity. But it appears that these firms would benefit from complementary forms of innovative activity, especially in the British corporate sector, and from an improved regional support system.