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High technology small firms
Book management; computers that contain the distilled knowledge of leading specialists could make humdrum, or remove, the work of many routine professionals-lawyers, doctors, tax consultants, university lecturers.’ All this on page 3! I can thoroughly recommend this book, particularly to anyone who believes the Information Society is a theory concocted by academics and computer companies. GEOFF MCHUGH, Computer Analysis Ltd.
Modelling
Manager,
Pinpoint (1164)
High Technology Small Firms, RAY OAKEY, Francis Pinter (Publishers), London (1984). 179 pp. E16.50 (hardback). Small Business: Theory and Policy, Edited by CYRIL LEVICKI, The Acton Society, Croom Helm, London and Sydney (1984). 152 pp. A6.95 (softback). High technology and fashionwear are businesses with one feature in common: the need to respond rapidly to change. Arguably, the small firm has a particular facility for doing so, either by adaptation or, more drastically, through continuous extinction and creation. The first of these books is based on a survey of small hightechnology firms in three geographical areas: Scotland (54), South-East England (60) and the S;n Francisco Bay area of California (60), including Silicon Valley. The second, based on a series of seminars, reviews industrial concentration (suggesting that small is sometimes bountiful), finance in Europe and the development of small firms in four European countries. Especially illuminating is a chapter by Julia Bamford entitled ‘Small business in Italy-the submerged economy’. The author shows how socio-economic and cultural history has led to the emergence of specialized but highly fragmented industries (as knitwear, shoes, furniture, refrigerators, dishwashers, machinery, etc.) in particular localities of central Italy. There is a thriving textile industry in Prato, where each successive or complementary operation is completed by a different micro-factory (13,000 firms employing 63,000 people). Only the planning, coordination and marketing are handled by an entrepreneur, who, in response to changing tastes, is able to innovate and export profitably in the face of competition from newly industrializing countries. Extended families (once engaged in share-cropping and craftwork) provide a flexible organization, with high levels of skill, an industrious self-sufficiency, a diffused entrepreneurial spirit and smallholdings as a hedge against fluctuating manufacture. Critically perhaps, firms employing fewer than 15 people are exempt from labour laws-no doubt avoiding taxes too. Working hours in this black economy are 15 per cent longer than the national average. There are also 31 per cent more cars. Agglomeration through industrial linkage (from raw materials to marketplace) also features centrally in Dr. Oakey’s book. High-technology (as micro-electronic) elements, with their high value concentration, might be thought relatively transport-independent and therefore footloose. In practice, the input from suppliers and output to customers are accompanied by information flows, with corresponding
Reviews
129
feedback loops, giving proximity special importance in an industry where innovation and short life-cycles arc the norm. A succession of short life-cycles, with the pressing need for complementary and intensive R&D, do not, however, characterize all companies in the sample (174 firms employing less than 200 people in the three regions, embracing instruments and electronics). There are also subcontract firms, with minimal R & D, and long life-cycle firms (as in the case of certain instruments). Nevertheless, the method employed, namely the interview (as against the postal) questionnaire, yielded, not only many valuable tables, but also some unexpected insights. Although Silicon Valley is close to Stanford, less than halfas many firms as in the Scottish sample acknowledge links with local universities. Both books are addressed to policy makers, especially in government, but contain much fascinating matter for anyone interested in the ecology and evolution ofbusiness. Dr. Oakey notes that ‘an environment conducive to the formation and growth of high technology industrial production will not be achieved by merely renaming dilapidated industrial estates as science parks’. He recommends that high-technology ‘growth poles’ be rapidly established, near but not in the blackspots of industrial decline, having sufficient ‘critical mass’ to continue attracting broadly related investment. Like the French, we have tier upon bewildering tier of inducements and concessions to bring new industries to blighted areas. Perhaps it would be better to abandon these incentives in favour of the Italian principle that companies with less than 15 employees do not officially exist. E. PETER WARD, South
Godstone,
Surrey
(I 169) (1163)
MECHATRONICS: DEVELOPMENTS IN JAPAN AND EUROPE, Proceedings of a TECHNOVA Seminar. Edited by M. MCLEAN, Francis Pinter, London (1983), 129 pp. E16.50 (hardback). This book consists of a series of papers and discussions presented at a TECHNOVA Seminar. TECHNOVA Inc. of Japan promotes research on new industrial policies, advanced technology developments, innovative management systems and technology transfer to other countries. The term ‘mechatronics’ is an example of a sad trend of developing obscure jargon to describe the integration of technologies: in this case mechanics and electronics. Included in this book are such terms as micro-mechatronics (mechanics and microelectronics), productics (computers in production) and mechoptronics (micro-mechanics combined with optics and electronics). These papers in reality discuss the diffusion of the silicon chip into industry and the office. The inclusion of seminar papers in book form means that the reader has to read through all the material, including without the guidance contained in a well repetition, structured book in this field. Since there is no glossary or index the lay reader will find this book difficult to absorb. However, perseverance will reveal some useful facts: the decline of traditional industries in Japan, the average Japanese household contains 3040 silicon chip based products, 80 per cent of Numerical Controlled machines produced each year are being installed in small and medium sized Japanese firms, 100,000 robots are in use in Japan of which 80 per cent are very simple, the demand for products of a personalized nature is intensifying and diversifying, Japan suffers from an ageing
Modelling
Manager,
Pinpoint (1164)
High Technology Small Firms, RAY OAKEY, Francis Pinter (Publishers), London (1984). 179 pp. E16.50 (hardback). Small Business: Theory and Policy, Edited by CYRIL LEVICKI, The Acton Society, Croom Helm, London and Sydney (1984). 152 pp. A6.95 (softback). High technology and fashionwear are businesses with one feature in common: the need to respond rapidly to change. Arguably, the small firm has a particular facility for doing so, either by adaptation or, more drastically, through continuous extinction and creation. The first of these books is based on a survey of small hightechnology firms in three geographical areas: Scotland (54), South-East England (60) and the S;n Francisco Bay area of California (60), including Silicon Valley. The second, based on a series of seminars, reviews industrial concentration (suggesting that small is sometimes bountiful), finance in Europe and the development of small firms in four European countries. Especially illuminating is a chapter by Julia Bamford entitled ‘Small business in Italy-the submerged economy’. The author shows how socio-economic and cultural history has led to the emergence of specialized but highly fragmented industries (as knitwear, shoes, furniture, refrigerators, dishwashers, machinery, etc.) in particular localities of central Italy. There is a thriving textile industry in Prato, where each successive or complementary operation is completed by a different micro-factory (13,000 firms employing 63,000 people). Only the planning, coordination and marketing are handled by an entrepreneur, who, in response to changing tastes, is able to innovate and export profitably in the face of competition from newly industrializing countries. Extended families (once engaged in share-cropping and craftwork) provide a flexible organization, with high levels of skill, an industrious self-sufficiency, a diffused entrepreneurial spirit and smallholdings as a hedge against fluctuating manufacture. Critically perhaps, firms employing fewer than 15 people are exempt from labour laws-no doubt avoiding taxes too. Working hours in this black economy are 15 per cent longer than the national average. There are also 31 per cent more cars. Agglomeration through industrial linkage (from raw materials to marketplace) also features centrally in Dr. Oakey’s book. High-technology (as micro-electronic) elements, with their high value concentration, might be thought relatively transport-independent and therefore footloose. In practice, the input from suppliers and output to customers are accompanied by information flows, with corresponding
Reviews
129
feedback loops, giving proximity special importance in an industry where innovation and short life-cycles arc the norm. A succession of short life-cycles, with the pressing need for complementary and intensive R&D, do not, however, characterize all companies in the sample (174 firms employing less than 200 people in the three regions, embracing instruments and electronics). There are also subcontract firms, with minimal R & D, and long life-cycle firms (as in the case of certain instruments). Nevertheless, the method employed, namely the interview (as against the postal) questionnaire, yielded, not only many valuable tables, but also some unexpected insights. Although Silicon Valley is close to Stanford, less than halfas many firms as in the Scottish sample acknowledge links with local universities. Both books are addressed to policy makers, especially in government, but contain much fascinating matter for anyone interested in the ecology and evolution ofbusiness. Dr. Oakey notes that ‘an environment conducive to the formation and growth of high technology industrial production will not be achieved by merely renaming dilapidated industrial estates as science parks’. He recommends that high-technology ‘growth poles’ be rapidly established, near but not in the blackspots of industrial decline, having sufficient ‘critical mass’ to continue attracting broadly related investment. Like the French, we have tier upon bewildering tier of inducements and concessions to bring new industries to blighted areas. Perhaps it would be better to abandon these incentives in favour of the Italian principle that companies with less than 15 employees do not officially exist. E. PETER WARD, South
Godstone,
Surrey
(I 169) (1163)
MECHATRONICS: DEVELOPMENTS IN JAPAN AND EUROPE, Proceedings of a TECHNOVA Seminar. Edited by M. MCLEAN, Francis Pinter, London (1983), 129 pp. E16.50 (hardback). This book consists of a series of papers and discussions presented at a TECHNOVA Seminar. TECHNOVA Inc. of Japan promotes research on new industrial policies, advanced technology developments, innovative management systems and technology transfer to other countries. The term ‘mechatronics’ is an example of a sad trend of developing obscure jargon to describe the integration of technologies: in this case mechanics and electronics. Included in this book are such terms as micro-mechatronics (mechanics and microelectronics), productics (computers in production) and mechoptronics (micro-mechanics combined with optics and electronics). These papers in reality discuss the diffusion of the silicon chip into industry and the office. The inclusion of seminar papers in book form means that the reader has to read through all the material, including without the guidance contained in a well repetition, structured book in this field. Since there is no glossary or index the lay reader will find this book difficult to absorb. However, perseverance will reveal some useful facts: the decline of traditional industries in Japan, the average Japanese household contains 3040 silicon chip based products, 80 per cent of Numerical Controlled machines produced each year are being installed in small and medium sized Japanese firms, 100,000 robots are in use in Japan of which 80 per cent are very simple, the demand for products of a personalized nature is intensifying and diversifying, Japan suffers from an ageing