ABSTRACT
The importance of networks to the development and growth of high-technology entrepreneurial businesses has been highlighted both in Chapters 6 and 16, and elsewhere (Moensted 2003; Yli-Renko et al. 2001). These networks can be with customers, suppliers, supporters or information providers. Often we discuss them as ‘ties’ between ‘firms’, but what are they, and what do they mean for high-technology entrepreneurial businesses? At the root of our businesses are people — the entrepreneurs themselves — and the ‘ties’ are their relationships with others: we are dealing with the messy, complicated, infinitely varied world of inter-personal relationships.
