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on Small Business Management |
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Issue of 2011‒02‒05
ten papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Filippo Randelli (Università degli Studi di Firenze,); Ron Boschma (Department of Economic Geography, Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | Italian industrial districts are undergoing fundamental changes due to globalization. Taking a firm perspective, we argue that the analysis of firm strategies, in particular the rise of business groups, is key to understand the organizational adjustments industrial districts have recently gone through. Due to the typical family structure of industrial district firms in the Marche region, as in other fragmented Italian districts, the organizational form adopted by firms to manage growth is that of the business group. We evaluate the empirical relevance of business groups in the Marche region, and we describe different transition strategies that turned firms into business groups. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Districts, Business Groups, Globalization, Marche Region |
| JEL: | L22 R12 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2011_05.rdf&r=sbm |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Thorwarth, Susanne |
| Abstract: | University research provides valuable inputs to industrial innovation. It is therefore not surprising that private sector firms increasingly seek direct access through funding public R&D. This development, however, spurred concerns about possible negative long-run effects on scientific performance. While previous research has mainly focused on a potential crowding-out of scientific publications through commercialization activities such as patenting or the formation of spin-off companies, we study the effects of direct funding from industry on professors' publication and patenting efforts. Our analysis of a sample of 678 professors at 46 higher education institutions in Germany shows that a higher share of industry funding of a professor's research budget results in a lower publication outcome both in terms of quantity and quality in subsequent years. For patents, we find that industry funding increases their quality measured by patent citations. -- |
| Keywords: | Scientist Productivity,University Research,Patents,Research Funding,Technology Transfer |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10105&r=sbm |
| By: | Paroma Sanyal; Catherine L. Mann |
| Abstract: | Using the Kauffman Firm Survey, we examine how characteristics of a startup's assets, information about the startup, and entrepreneur attributes relate to financial structure at inception. Startups with more physical assets or those where the entrepreneurs have other similar businesses are more likely to use external debt in the financial structure since these assets have a high liquidation value. Startups with human capital embodied in the entrepreneur or intellectual property assets have a lower probability of using debt, consistent with the higher asset specificity and lower collateral value of these assets. Startups characterized as small, unincorporated, solo, first-time, or home-office-based are more likely to be financed by self, family and friends, and importantly through credit cards, as these have both highly specific assets and information opacity. More educated founders and non-African American founders are more likely to be financed by external sources. Controlling for other attributes of the startup, the financial structure of women-owned startups does not differ from that of other startups. Hi-tech startups' financial structure differs significantly from that of startups in other business sectors. |
| Keywords: | Small business - Finance |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbwp:10-17&r=sbm |
| By: | Ben aoun , Leila; Dubrocard, Anne |
| Abstract: | This study has two main contributions summarized as follows: 1. Impact of ICT on the capacities of innovation: The most intensive firms in ICT are also those that tend more frequently to innovate and to combine several innovations types - i.e. they are also “intensive innovator”. However, this assertion must be moderate when the type of combination of innovation is taken into account and either only the number. 2. Innovation impact on firms’ performance: In first seen, effects of the innovation depend on the intensity of innovation activities measured as number of innovations of various types implemented during the last period. In the second approach, detailed analysis of the particular combinations of innovation deployed show different performance. Moreover, all combinations of innovation do not produce positive effects and, according to the desired effects, some combinations appear more effective. More precisely, the expected impacts of each type of innovation are more frequently reached when the innovation combined at least organizational change with others. |
| Keywords: | innovation; TIC; Luxembourg; effect; ACM |
| JEL: | D21 L25 C0 O52 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28375&r=sbm |
| By: | Victoria Castillo (Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security, Buenos Aires, Argentina); Alessandro Maffioli (Interamerican Development Bank, Washington, DC); Ana P. Monsalvo (Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Buenos Aires, Argentina); Sofía Rojo (Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security, Buenos Aires, Argentina); Rodolfo Stucchi (ECONFOCUS, Córdoba, Argentina) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the impact of the Argentine SME support program PRE on employment, real wages, and exports. The program aimed at increasing the competitiveness of SMEs by co-financing up to fifty percent of expenditures in professional services and technical assistance. We use a unique panel dataset constructed with administrative records. We combine Propensity Score Matching and Difference in Differences methods to control for selection biases in the estimations. We find a positive and quantitatively important impact of the program on employment and a positive although smaller impact on real wages and the probability of exporting. We also find that the effect of the program on wages and the probability of exporting take place one year after beneficiaries receive the program. The effect of the program on employment takes place one, two, and even, three years after beneficiaries receive the program. |
| Keywords: | Public Policy Evaluation, SMEs, Employment, Wages, Exports, Argentina, Difference in Differences, Propensity Score Matching |
| JEL: | C23 H43 L25 O12 O54 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:ovewps:0710&r=sbm |
| By: | André van Stel; Sierdjan Koster |
| Abstract: | Recent literature suggests that two types of competition may contribute to macro-economic performance: the extent of new-firm entry and the extent of competition among incumbent firms. In the present paper we explain employment growth at the region-sector level using direct indicators for both these types of competition -the start-up rate and the market mobility rate- as main independent variables. While previous studies in this field measured competition among incumbent firms in an indirect way, we use a direct measure called market mobility. The empirical analysis reiterates existing results in that we find the long-term economic effect of start-ups to be bigger than the short-term effect. We also find empirical indications that this long-term effect consist of two significant parts. First, the most successful start-ups grow out to become high-growth firms, and second, the entry of new firms stimulates incumbent firms to perform better. |
| Date: | 2011–01–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eim:papers:h201104&r=sbm |
| By: | Gál, Zoltán; Ptáček, Pavel |
| Abstract: | The paper focuses on the specific role of mid-range universities in knowledge transfer and explores the knowledge flows from these mid-range universities facing a number of extra constraints in transitional Central Eastern European (CEE) regions. Mid-range universities, very often located outside of the metropolitan regions, represent the keystones of regional innovation systems for the less developed regions where the “density of contacts” is much lower and possible spillovers emerge more sparsely. The first part of the paper focuses on the types of possible linkages between mid-range universities and industry, and limitations of these relations bringing examples from Western Europe where the position of universities in the collaboration with business sector and their role in the innovation system is quite different form their CEE counterparts. It is mainly due to the different development path of innovation systems and development trajectories in post-communist countries described in the paper. Based on case studies bringing examples mainly from the non-metropolitan regions of Hungary and the Czech Republic, where the number of constraints, such as the lack of critical mass in their techno-economic systems, the traditionally weaker role of university based experimental researches, the mismatch between the economic and knowledge sectors, the weak regional innovation systems and less intense university–industry links are the major impediments of knowledge transfer. The paper argues that ambitious university-based developmental models have to be revised in CEE regions and the future role of universities has to be reconsidered as potential engines of local economic development from a more realistic perspective. The paper also argues, that the regional techno-economic system needs to achieve a certain degree of maturity in order to be able to determine the foci of a research and innovation-oriented regional development within the reindustrializing CEE regions and makes policy recommendation for the mid-range universities to take on new role, which means a stronger regional engagement in also medium-tech innovations and in social and organizational innovation. |
| Keywords: | mid-range universities; knowledge transfer; non-metropolitan regions; Central & Eastern Europe; regional engagement; |
| JEL: | P36 I23 D83 O33 D8 O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2010–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28358&r=sbm |
| By: | Ibsen, Rikke (Aarhus School of Business); Westergård-Nielsen, Niels (Aarhus School of Business) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we will look at job creation and destruction in firms. We will answer the question if it is the large companies that create jobs, while the smaller companies are contributing much less. Or is it the young companies that create jobs? And who destroys the most jobs? In the crisis Denmark lost 186,000 jobs in the private sector. The question is where and how could these jobs be recreated. Are these issues specific to industries or are they universal? The data used is register data on workplaces and firms for the period 1980-2007. The base unit of data is the workplace. The company (firm) is the legal entity. A company can have many sites, and one of the ways companies can grow is by expanding with multiple sites. This can happen by mergers and acquisitions but can also happen by creating "daughter workplaces". It is therefore essential to look at workplaces and firms at the same time. A complication here is that firms switch ID over time because of change of ownership, mergers and divisions. Data must be corrected so that these administrative issues will not affect the survival of firms. The data are used in a way where we can cover firm birth and firm death, spin-offs and mergers. The analysis will make it possible to differentiate between net and gross creation of jobs because we can follow each single individual in and out of jobs. We have for Denmark found that size on its own does not have a big impact, but young firms are much more likely to contribute to a positive growth. For the U.S. it has been found that the growth in jobs comes from small businesses. A closer analysis though shows that the main factor here is the firm age. Thus, it is found that young firms net create the most jobs, but they are also responsible for the most job destructions. |
| Keywords: | job creation, job destruction, firm age, firm size, education, employer-employee data |
| JEL: | E24 L25 L26 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5458&r=sbm |
| By: | Fazio, G. |
| Abstract: | The thesis aims to bridge topics traditionally belonging to different areas of the subject: competition and entrepreneurship coming from microeconomics and industrial organization; and growth, from macroeconomics. It centres around the notion that market structure and conduct affect performance and hence growth. Firms optimize by anticipating changes in consumers' demand and in suppliers' behaviour, which are a function of the market structure and its changes. Market-entry can be explained by the level of competition in a market which can be altered by the implementation of specific policies (for instance, the way a competition authority handles mergers). Failing to have an appropriate antitrust regime will ultimately harm entrepreneurship since it will affect one's ability to understand and to handle the risks associated with launching a new venture. The thesis also explores how different definitions of entrepreneurship explain varying innovation mechanisms (neck-and-neck and leapfrogging) and how this dovetails with the structure and conduct within a market. For transition economies, we find that competition policy has played a growth-enhancing role and that this effect may be larger than the impact associated with privatization, and we also find evidence of policies' complementarities. These findings are also echoed by our individual-level analysis. We analyse the determinants of high growth expectations entrepreneurial entry (HGE) using individual data drawn on working age population, based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor surveys for the 1998-2004 period. We find that HGE is more likely to occur when the entrepreneur perceives a gap in the market with no other producers supplying the same product. This reinforces the theory that the amount of competition faced by an entrepreneur affects the rate of HGE and also provides a microeconomic foundation for the country-level growth effects described for transition countries. |
| Date: | 2010–11–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/624499/&r=sbm |
| By: | José Eduardo Gómez-González; Nidia Ruth Reyes |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of relationship lending on small firms´ failure probability using a uniquely rich data set comprised of information on individual loans of a large number of small firms in Colombia. We control for firm-specific variables and find that small firms involved in long-term liaisons with commercial banks have a significantly lower probability of becoming bankrupt than otherwise identical firms not involved in a long-term credit relationship. We also find that small firms with multiple banking relationships face a lower failure hazard than otherwise identical firms involved in a unique long-term relationship. |
| Date: | 2011–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:007873&r=sbm |