Biotechnology Start-ups: The Emergence of Employment Systems in New Ventures

High technology industries such as biotechnology and ICT face increasing tensions around issues of human capital. The increasing emphasis for the gathering of human capital and utilization of the knowledge and competence of the workforce, particularly within the technology start-up firm, has focused attention on the building of the employment system for exploitation of these technologies for innovation. Research shows that employment systems in high technology companies form homogenous typologies within industries. However, there are indications that technology firms in emerging industries and markets may show a different trajectory to traditional conceptualizations of employment system emergence. This paper reports on the emergence of employment systems in three biotechnology companies in the New Zealand sector. The results of the study highlight the building of the employment system by biotechnology founders, their emerging problems and resolution of the "human resource crises at the edge of the world."