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The industrial development of Malaysia has moved towards capital-intensive, high technology and high value-added industries. The development of high technology industries is an important element in the country's industrialisation process. High technology small and medium-sized enterprises (HTSMEs) are considered a key feature of growth in the high technology sphere in Malaysia - the creation and development of indigenous HTSMEs is vital. The primary aim of this research is to examine the growth of HTSMEs and provide policy makers, owner-managers (OMs) and academics with a greater understanding of the factors affecting the growth of such firms in Malaysia. This study also identifies the main constraints faced by HTSMEs and explores ways in which these constraints might be overcome. The programme of research builds upon past studies, but it adds to existing knowledge in an area that is ripe for research. After a literature review, and the development of an overarching theoretical framework, a number of hypotheses are put forward. The methodological approach combines a questionnaire survey with case studies based on interviews with selected HTSMEs and key informants. The questionnaire is principally concerned with identifying the factors that contribute to growth in HTSMEs, whereas the case studies and interviews concentrate on exploring the constraints identified in the questionnaire survey. The questionnaires were distributed to firms in databases maintained by a number of Government bodies. All the sample firms are considered high technology, as defined by tile Promotion of Investment Act 1986. The sample includes firms involved in a variety of activities, from the manufacture of high technology products to the processing of resource-based products. Firms were randomly selected to reflect the size and racial composition of firms in the underlying population of HTSMEs. The questionnaire data were supplemented by 15 in-depth case studies. Two major findings emerge from this study. First, a number of detenninants did have a significant effect on growth of HTSMEs: age of OM; age and size of firm; process innovation and R&D. However, most the hypotheses relating to business strategy were rejected; the researcher offers some explanations for these rejections. Second, tile case studies demonstrate that labour constraints among HTSMEs are prevalent, whereas other propositions were not substantiated. In particular, the case studies raise a number of questions about the effectiveness of Government support programmes. On tile basis of tile research findings, the researcher is able to put forward a series of recommendations to enhance the growth of HTSMEs in Malaysia.

The suggestion is now widespread that fundamental changes within the advanced Western economies are part of the transition to a new era of capitalist development. The geographical repercussions of this change, the form of the new geography of production, has become the subject of much conjecture. The question has become one of explaining how the present period of economic restructuring is being translated into a period of spatial restructuring. A key element of such theories of change has been the "high technologies", defined both as a process of change and as the basis of new industries encapsulating new forms of production. Indeed, for the proponents of the New Industrial Spaces theory, the rise of "high technology" industry is the harbinger of structural change and its spatial development indicative of the new geography of production we may expect throughout North America and Western Europe (Scott and Storper, 1986; Scott, 1988a; 1988b). This thesis outlines a theoretical and empirical investigation of the New Industrial Spaces theory, an investigation framed by the principal claim of the theory to explain the processes structuring the emergent geography of production. Firstly, a critique of this claim argues that whilst the explanation provided (based on transaction costs) is plausible, it rests upon a particular and deficient conceptualisation of the firm. Secondly, allowing for such reservations, it is argued that the explanation of the New Industrial Spaces' theorists has yet to be shown as empirically valid. Thus, in the search for this evidence, an empirical investigation of Britain's own prominent candidate for the title New Industrial Space, namely "high technology Hertfordshire", is undertaken. Whilst this empirical investigation provides evidence for the New Industrial Spaces theory, it also highlights the theory's failure to explain fully the growth of "high technology Hertfordshire". In contrast, the thesis develops an alternative conceptualisation of contemporary agglomerations of production.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2008. / Adviser: Timothy Kotnour. Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-234).

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Foreign market knowledge has been at the epicentre of international business research for decades and differences in institutional practices across countries have been found to influence performance of internationalised firms. Dominant scholarship in this area has been significantly influenced by insights and experiences from developed countries, usually to the detriment of understanding the influence of foreign institutional knowledge acquisition at both the firm and country levels in developing economies. Using a developing country lens, the objective of this study is to determine if foreign institutional practices acquired by SSA firms has a significant effect on their home country's industrial development. The study employs a quantitative cross-sectional survey research approach and collects data from 874 formally registered manufacturing firms in 28 SSA countries. The countries are stratified along two dimensions, noticeable and unnoticeable levels of industrial development. This allowed for cross-country comparison across the industrial development spectrum. The data collected was subsequently analysed in MLWin 3.02 for multilevel and involved a two-tier regression analysis to examine the relative importance of foreign institutional practice adoption as a source of variation in the home country's industrial development. The study finds statistically significant influences with respect to foreign practice adoption. This implies that adoption of foreign institutional practices by an internationalised firm from a foreign country benefits the home country. This study further opens new discussions about firm internationalisation and home country industrial development by demonstrating the significant influence of interaction effects between adoption of foreign institutional practices by an internationalised firm and four firm level variables and one country level variable on home country's industrial development.