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on Small Business Management |
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Issue of 2011‒03‒19
ten papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Michele Cincera (Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles); Julien Ravet (Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to assess the impact of both geographic and industrial diversification of economic activities on the productivity performance of large European R&D Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). Based on the worldwide subsidiaries of these firms, we measure the performance of the firms according to their level of industrial diversification and globalisation that we proxy with the presence and importance of subsidiaries in the EU, North America and Asia-Pacific regions. The sample consists of large R&D firms that represent about 80% of total European R&D. In general, the results indicate a positive impact from globalisation on firms’ R&D productivity, especially in the US, while a negative impact for industrial diversification is found. |
| Keywords: | R&D; European MNEs; productivity; globalisation; industrial diversification |
| JEL: | O33 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201101&r=sbm |
| By: | Tilman Brück (German Institute of Economic Research); Fernanda Llussá (Universidade Nova de Lisboa); José Tavares (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) |
| Abstract: | We provide, for the first time, comparative evidence of the impact of various types of extreme events – natural disasters, terrorism, and violent conflicts – on the perceptions of entrepreneurs concerning some key entrepreneurial issues – such as fear of failure in starting a business venture, whether individuals expect that good opportunities are likely to emerge in the next six months, and the expected level of competition stemming from creating new ventures. The occurrence of extreme events is likely to be exogenous to the perceptions affecting it so that we can identify a causal link from events to entrepreneurs and their perceptions. Using individual-level data from 43 countries from the period 2002 to 2005, we find that neither indicator of the intensity of extreme events has a significant impact on entrepreneurial activity, when country characteristics are not controlled for. Once invariant country characteristics are taken into account, we find that Terrorist Attacks have a positive and significant impact on business creation, Natural Disasters have a positive and negative impact on entrepreneurial activity, and Violent Conflict has no significant effect. These results are consistent with differential impacts of extreme events on perception variables such as Fear of Failure, Expected Business Opportunities, and Expected Level of Competition. Our results suggest that extreme events, while costly at the aggregate level, may induce a positive response in terms of entrepreneurial activity in specific circumstances. There is hence scope for entrepreneurs, and policies supporting them, to create growth from the ruins of extreme events. |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:87&r=sbm |
| By: | Massimiliano Mazzanti; Sandro Montresor; Davide Antonioli; Annaflavia Bianchi; Paolo Pini |
| Abstract: | Several empirical works have shown the robust and positive relation between growth and innovation at macroeconomic level and between firm economic performance and innovation at microeconomic level. However, the economists have had less opportunities to study such linkages during severe global downturns of the economic cycle. Moreover, the present disruptive economic downturn has forced the firms to implement survival strategies. One of such strategic behaviour regards the way of intervention on product and process areas through innovative actions. Focusing the attention on the micro level, the present work provides an empirical analysis on the basis of more than 500 Italian manufacturing firms located in Emilia-Romagna region, with the aim of disentangling the relations between pre-crisis innovation strategies and firm economic performance during the crisis as well as the linkages between the innovative actions taken to react to the recession's challenges and the economic performance in the recession. The results suggest the existence of strong relationships between past innovative activities and the capacity to react to the challenges brought by the crisis through innovative actions along product, process and organization/HRM dimensions, although the role of complementarities among past innovative activities does not emerge robustly. When the dependent variables are performance indicators the impact of pre-crisis innovation strategies emerges as robust for technological and organizational spheres, while intense innovative activities before the crisis on spheres like ICT, training and environment are detrimental for performances in the crisis. It seems that when the crisis hits those firms in a process of quite radical transformation and change, then the negative economic consequences of the recession are worse than in the case of firms on a more stable, less dynamic path. |
| Keywords: | innovation strategies; economic crisis; firm performance |
| JEL: | L1 L23 L6 O33 |
| Date: | 2011–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:201102&r=sbm |
| By: | Massimiliano Mazzanti; Valeria Costantini; Anna Montini |
| Abstract: | The achievement of positive Environmental Performance (EP) at national level could strongly depend on differences in regional features, namely economic specialization, regulation stringency and innovation capabilities of both public institutions and the private business sector. We apply both shift-share and econometric analysis on a new NAMEA available for the 20 Italian Regions, in order to provide evidence of the role played by sector innovation, technological spillovers and regional policies in shaping the geographical distribution of EP. The Italian North-South divide regarding industrial development and productive specialisation patterns seems to affect regional EP. Nonetheless, such pattern presents some interesting differences, revealing a more heterogeneous distribution of emissions, which may reflect the role of other driving forces. In particular, agglomerative effects seem to prevail over purely internal factors - environmental efficiency of neighbouring regions strongly influence the internal EP. This means that together with the clustering of specific sectors into restricted areas as a standard result in regional economics, there is also some convergence in the adoption of cleaner or dirtier production process techniques. Finally, regional technological spillovers seem to play a more effective role in improving environmental efficiency than "sector internal innovation", revealing that accounting for spatial features is crucial to understand the key drivers of EP. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Performance; Technological Innovation; Regional Spillovers; regional NAMEA |
| JEL: | Q53 Q55 Q56 R15 |
| Date: | 2011–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:201103&r=sbm |
| By: | ARIKAWA Yasuhiro; KAWANISHI Takuya; MIYAJIMA Hideaki |
| Abstract: | Financial factors and ownership structure are both part of the determinants of corporate R&D investment. Considering listed firms in the R&D intensive industries during the 2000s, this paper examines whether financial factors and ownership structure explain R&D investment in Japan. Following the methodology of Brown et al. (2009), which extends the dynamic investment model of Bond and Maghir (1994) to R&D investment, we find that only small, young firms mainly listed on new emerging markets face financial constraints. We also find that large firms finance R&D investment partly from debt. For firms with relatively limited assets, however, higher leverage leads to lower R&D investment. Finally, we find no evidence that large shareholdings by foreign investors enforce myopic behavior on firms in R&D intensive industries. |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:11013&r=sbm |
| By: | Giulio Cainelli; Massimiliano Mazzanti; Sandro Montresor |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the drivers of the environmental innovations (EI) introduced by firms in local production systems (LPS). The role of firm network relationships, agglomeration economies and internationalization strategies is analysed for a sample of 555 firms in the Emilia-Romagna region, North-East of Italy. Cooperating with 'qualified' local actors - i.e. universities and suppliers - is the most important driver of EI for most firms, along with their training policies and IT innovations. The role of agglomeration economies is less clear and seems to depend on the EI propensity of more locally oriented firms playing in district areas, which might even turn agglomeration into dis-economies. Networking effects and agglomeration economies are instead found to strongly promote the adoption of EI by multinational firms, thus highlighting the importance of local-global interactions. We provide some interesting findings for particular kinds of challenging EI in fields as CO2 abatement and ISO labelling, generally extending the analysis EI driver by joining local and international factors. |
| Keywords: | Eco-innovation; foreign ownership; networking; district; agglomeration economics; local production systems |
| JEL: | C21 L60 O13 O30 Q20 Q58 F23 |
| Date: | 2011–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:201101&r=sbm |
| By: | Ale Ebrahim, Nader; Ahmed, Shamsuddin; Abdul Rashid, Salwa Hanim; Taha, Zahari |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the results of empirical research conducted during March to September 2009. The study focused on the influence of virtual research and development (R&D) teams within Malaysian manufacturing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The specific objective of the study is better understanding of the application of collaborative technologies in business, to find the effective factors to assist SMEs to remain competitive in the future. The paper stresses to find an answer for a question “Is there any relationship between company size, Internet connection facility and virtuality?”. The survey data shows SMEs are now technologically capable of performing the virtual collaborative team, but the infrastructure usage is less. SMEs now have the necessary technology to begin the implementation process of collaboration tools to reduce research and development (R&D) time, costs and increase productivity. So, the manager of R&D should take the potentials of virtual teams into account. |
| Keywords: | Small and medium enterprises; Collaborative tools; Questionnaires; Virtual teams |
| JEL: | O32 O14 M11 O43 Z0 L23 L15 O31 M21 |
| Date: | 2010–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29177&r=sbm |
| By: | Noble, Chris |
| Abstract: | The internal knowledge capabilities of small and medium beef cattle farm enterprises are examined using information economics to gain an understanding of how these organisations approach innovation. Enterprises are viewed as being embedded in the wider industry and are subject to both external and internal influences. However the discussion here is focused on internal activities in order to consider how enterprise specific knowledge is constructed allowing innovation to occur. Innovation is an incremental and continuous process because of the endogenous origins of the internally developed knowledge used to enact it. Learning theory is incorporated into this analysis to elucidate this connection between production undertaken and the historical shaping of knowledge capabilities into enterprise specific knowledge. Routines are introduced as units of analysis to show how resources are internally organised according to the knowledge producers possess. Routines provide a method of looking at processes by explicitly considering the time dimension while including the complex farming environment as a physical and biologically conditioned system. Analysis of changing routines through learning theory shows there are internal motivations for innovation directly attributable to the internal productive nature of beef cattle farm enterprises. Data has been sourced from in-depth interviews and focus groups conducted with producers in the New England area of New South Wales. Results show that much innovative activity is informal and not recorded; producers develop extensive knowledge in accordance with the physical capital they possess; and individual innovations should be considered as collections of ongoing refinements. |
| Keywords: | Farm Management, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare11:101227&r=sbm |
| By: | CARL KOCK (Instituto de Empresa); REMZI GOZUBUYUK (Instituto de Empresa) |
| Abstract: | In recent years, the development of the idea of “Open Innovationâ€(Chesbrough, 2004; 2006) lead to the emergence of “Innovation brokers†who connect those seeking for solutions with a rather large number of potential knowledge suppliers. In this paper we analyze the implication that the existence of such Innovation brokers has on other organizational interchanges firms may engage in. Specifically, we ask how the inter-organizational network of a particular firm evolves over time if they use an Innovation broker or not. Apart from contributing to both, network theory by shedding light on the evolution of network ties, and the innovation literature by adding to our understanding of how knowledg |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emp:wpaper:wp11-02&r=sbm |
| By: | Davide Antonioli; Paolo Pini; Rocco Manzalini |
| Abstract: | The shifting of labour demand towards relatively more skilled workers has been a hot issue in the economic field for many years. A consolidated explanation for the upskilling phenomenon is that technological-organisational changes have driven the labour demand with detrimental consequences for less skilled workers (skill-biased technological-organisational change). In order to upgrade the skill workforce the firm has at least two main channels at its disposal: the external labour market strategy, mainly based on hiring and firing mechanisms; the internal labour market strategies, which improve the skill base of the employees through training activities. The main objective of the present work is to verify the relations between innovative strategies and both the workforce composition and the training activities, within an integrated framework that also leads us to consider the role of specific aspects of the industrial relations system. The firm level analysis is based on original datasets which include data on manufacturing firms for two Italian local production systems, located in the Emilia-Romagna region. The results suggest that the firms use both the two channels to improve their skill base, which is actually related to the innovation activities, although there is weak supporting evidence of the use of external labour markets to upgrade the workforce skills: the upskilling phenomenon seems to be associated to specific innovative activities in the technological sphere, while specific organisational aspects emerge as detrimental for blue collars. On the side of internal labour market strategies the evidence supports the hypothesis that innovation intensity induce the firms to implement internal procedures in order to upskill the workforce, confirming the importance of internal labour market strategies. Moreover, we have recognized the important role of firm level industrial relations in determining the training activities for the blue collar workers. |
| Keywords: | technological change; organisational change; industrial relations; skills |
| JEL: | J24 J53 L23 L6 O33 |
| Date: | 2011–02–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udf:wpaper:201106&r=sbm |