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on Entrepreneurship |
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Issue of 2006‒09‒03
ten papers chosen by Marcus Dejardin Facultes Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix |
| By: | L. Sereno |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:554&r=ent |
| By: | Terttu Luukkonen; Mari Maunula |
| Keywords: | venture capital, biotechnology |
| JEL: | O16 G24 O38 L65 |
| Date: | 2006–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:dpaper:1032&r=ent |
| By: | Finn Valentin; Henrich Dahlgren; Rasmus Lund Jensen |
| Abstract: | Although biotech start-ups fail or succeed based on their research few attempts have been made to examine if and how they strategize in this core of their activity. Popular views on Dedicated Biotech Firms (DBFs) see the inherent uncertainty of research as defying notions of strategizing, directing instead the attention to the quality of their science, or the roles of boards, management, and collaborative networks etc. Using a unique comprehensive dataset on Danish and Swedish biotech start-ups in drug discovery this paper analyzes their research strategies. Adopting a Simonean point of departure we develop a contingency view on complex problem solving which structures the argument into three steps: 1) Characterising the problem architectures addressed by different types of DBFs; 2) Testing and confirming that DBFs form requisite research strategies, by which we refer to problem solving approaches developed as congruent responses to problem architectures; 3) Testing and confirming that financial valuation of firms is driven by achievements conforming to requisite research strategies. These strategies, in turn, require careful combination of multiple dimensions of research. Findings demonstrate that Shonhoovens classical argument that “strategy matters” is valid not only for the larger high-tech firms covered by her study, but also for small research-based start-ups operating at the very well springs of knowledge where science directly interacts with technologies. Even though a lot more research is needed along these lines, these findings offer new implications for the understanding, management, and financing of these firms. |
| Keywords: | Biotechnology; research strategy; discovery fields; valuation; performance measures |
| JEL: | L25 L65 O32 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:06-11&r=ent |
| By: | Erik Stam |
| Abstract: | Entrepreneurship is an important process in regional economic development. Especially the continued growth of a minority of new firms is of major significance to the commercialization of new ideas and employment growth. These growing new firms are transforming on a structural basis, like caterpillars turning into butterflies. However, like butterflies they are at risk to leave their region of origin for better places. This paper analyses how and why the spatial organization of firms develops subsequent to their start-up. A new conceptual framework and an empirical study of the life course of entrepreneurial firms are used to construct a theory on their locational behavior that explains that behavior as the outcome of a process of initiatives taken by entrepreneurs, enabled and constrained by resources, capabilities and relations with stakeholders within and outside of the firm. This study shows that entrepreneurs decide whether or not to move their firm outside of their region of origin for different reasons in distinct phases of the firm life course. Being embedded in social networks, for example, is an important constraint on locational behavior during the early life course of a firm, but over time this becomes less important and other mechanisms like sunk costs increasingly determine the locational behavior of fast-growing firms. The development of the spatial organization is also of major importance: when a multilocational spatial organization has been realized, it is much easier to move the headquarters to another region. The spatial organization of entrepreneurial firms co-evolves with the accumulation of their capabilities. A developmental approach incorporating evolutionary mechanisms and recognizing human agency provides new insights into the age-old study of firm location. |
| Keywords: | location, location behavior, spatial organization, theory of the firm, entrepreneurial firms, entrepreneurship, firm growth, regional economic development |
| JEL: | D21 L14 L22 M13 R11 R30 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:egpdis:2006-20&r=ent |
| By: | Czarniawska, Barbara (Gothenburg Research Institute) |
| Abstract: | In the present text, an institution is understood to be an (observable) pattern of collective action, justified by a corresponding social norm. By this definition, an institution emerges slowly, although it may be helped or hindered by various specific acts. From this perspective, an institutional entrepreneur is an oxymoron, at least in principle. In practice, however, there are and always have been people trying to create institutions. This paper describes the emergence of London School of Economics and Political Science as an institution and analyzes its founders and its supporters during crises as institutional entrepreneurs. A tentative theory of the phenomenon of institutional entrepreneurship inspired by an actor-network theory is then tested on two other cases described in brief. |
| Keywords: | higher education; institutions; entrepreneurs; actor-network theory |
| Date: | 2006–08–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:gungri:2006_007&r=ent |
| By: | Martimort, D.; Poudou, J.-C.; Sand-Zantman, W. |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the optimal contract design between an inventor and a developer. The inventor is privately informed on the value of his idea. The developer must exert some non-verifiable effort to improve the probability of success of this innovation but may also choose to opt out of the relationship upon learning the quality of the idea. While first-best efficiency requires that all marginal returns on innovation be left to the developer, second-best efficiency taking into account this bilateral asymmetric information leads to distort downwards the developer’s incentives to prevent innovators from overstating the value of their ideas. There exists a trade-off between inviting inventor to reveal their ideas and inducing both effort and participation from the developer. The extent of this trade-off depends on the regime of property rights on ideas, i.e., on how easy to steal ideas. Since decreasing the marginal share of developers makes it more difficult to have them participating to the contract, countervailing incentives might sometimes appear. Taking into account those various effects leads to reduce the responsiveness of the contract to the exact value of the idea and might force to give up additional rents to the developer. Some extensions of our framework, including the cases of limited commitment, partial disclosure and double moral hazard, are studied to show the robustness and limits of our previous findings. |
| Keywords: | Contracts, Innovation, Ideas Stealing, Bilateral Asymmetric Information |
| JEL: | D82 D86 L24 O31 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mop:lasrwp:2006.22&r=ent |
| By: | Kozo Kiyota; Miho Takizawa |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the pre-exit productivity performance and asks how productivity affects future survival, controlling for firm size and unobserved firm heterogeneity. Based on firm-level data in Japan for 1995–2002, we found that firms did not face "sudden death" but there was a "shadow of death." Future exiting firms had lower performance five years before their exit. Moreover, unobserved firm heterogeneity had a statistically significant effect on firm survival analysis. However, we also found that the effects of unobserved heterogeneity were not very large and thus did not reverse the conclusion. |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:06033&r=ent |
| By: | Ramon Marimon; Vincenzo Quadrini |
| Abstract: | We study how barriers to competition---such as restrictions to business start-up and strict enforcement of covenants or IPR---affect the investment in knowledge capital when contracts are not enforceable. These barriers lower the competition for human capital and reduce the incentive to accumulate knowledge. We show in a dynamic general equilibrium model that this mechanism has the potential to account for significant cross-country income inequality. |
| JEL: | L14 L16 O4 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12474&r=ent |
| By: | Areendam Chanda; Laura Alfaro; Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan; Selin Sayek |
| Abstract: | The empirical literature finds mixed evidence on the existence of positive productivity externalities in the host country generated by foreign multinational companies. We propose a mechanism that emphasizes the role of local financial markets in enabling foreign direct investment (FDI) to promote growth through backward linkages, shedding light on this empirical ambiguity. In a small open economy, final goods production is carried out by foreign and domestic firms, which compete for skilled labor, unskilled labor, and intermediate products. To operate a firm in the intermediate goods sector, entrepreneurs must develop a new variety of intermediate good, a task that requires upfront capital investments. The more developed the local financial markets, the easier it is for credit constrained entrepreneurs to start their own firms. The increase in the number of varieties of intermediate goods leads to positive spillovers to the final goods sector. As a result financial markets allow the backward linkages between foreign and domestic firms to turn into FDI spillovers. Our calibration exercises indicate that a) holding the extent of foreign presence constant, financially well-developed economies experience growth rates that are almost twice those of economies with poor financial markets, b) increases in the share of FDI or the relative productivity of the foreign firm leads to higher additional growth in financially developed economies compared to those observed in financially under-developed ones, and c) other local conditions such as market structure and human capital are also important for the effect of FDI on economic growth. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2006-13&r=ent |
| By: | R. Antonietti |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:538&r=ent |