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on Small Business Management |
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Issue of 2013‒03‒30
six papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Alessandra Colombelli; Francesco Quatraro |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between the creation of new firms and the properties of the local knowledge bases, like coherence, cognitive distance and variety. By combining the literature on the knowledge spillovers of entrepreneurship and that on the recombinant knowledge approach, we posit that locally available knowledge matters to the entrepreneurial process, but the type of knowledge underlying theses dynamics deserve to be analyzed. The analysis is carried out on 104 Italian NUTS 3 regions observed over the time span 1995-2011. The results confirm that local knowledge is important, and suggest that the creation of new firms in Italy is associated to the exploitation of well established technological trajectories grounded on competences accumulated over time, rather than to the commercialization of brand new knowledge. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge Coherence, Variety, Cognitive Distance, Italy, Knowledge-Spillovers Theory of Entrepreneurship, New Firms, Recombinant Knowledge |
| JEL: | L26 M13 R11 O33 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1303&r=sbm |
| By: | Isabel Tecu |
| Abstract: | What explains the location of industrial innovation? Economists have traditionally attempted to answer this question by studying firm-external knowledge spillovers. This paper shows that firm-internal linkages between production and R&D play an equally important role. I estimate an R&D location choice model that predicts patents by a firm in a location from R&D productivity and costs. Focusing on large R&D-performing firms in the chemical industry, an average-sized plant raises the firm’s R&D productivity in the metropolitan area by about 2.5 times. The elasticity of R&D productivity with respect to the firm’s production workers is almost as large as the elasticity with respect to total patents in the MSA, while proximity to academic R&D has no significant effect on R&D productivity in this sample. Other manufacturing industries exhibit similar results. My results cast doubt on the frequently-held view that a country can divest itself of manufacturing and specialize in innovation alone. |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-09&r=sbm |
| By: | Michael Fritsch; Alexander S. Kritikos; Katharina Pijnenburg |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether people become more willingly self-employed during boom periods or in recessions and to what extent it is the business cycle or the employment status influencing entry rates into entrepreneurship. Our analysis for Germany reveals that start-up activities are positively influenced by unemployment rates and that the cyclical component of real GDP has a negative effect. This implies that new business formation is counter-cyclical. Further disentangling periods of low and high unemployment periods reveals a "low unemployment retard effect". |
| Keywords: | Self-employment, business cycle, unemployment, start-up |
| JEL: | L26 E32 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1281&r=sbm |
| By: | Riccardo Crescenzi; Carlo Pietrobelli & Roberta Rabellotti |
| Abstract: | "This paper investigates the geography of multinational corporations’ investments in the EU regions. The ‘traditional’ sources of location advantages (i.e. agglomeration economies, market access and labour market conditions) are considered together with innovation and socio-institutional drivers of investments, captured by means of regional social filter conditions. The introduction of a wider set of attraction factors makes is possible to empirically assess the different role played by such advantages in the location decision of investments at different stages of the value chain and disentangle the differential role of national vs. local and regional factors. The empirical analysis covers the EU-25 regions and suggests that regional-socio economic conditions are crucially important for an understanding of the location investment decisions in the most sophisticated knowledge-intensive stages of the value chain."</HEAD |
| Keywords: | regions |
| Date: | 2012–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:leqsxx:p0053&r=sbm |
| By: | Michael Peneder (WIFO); Martin Wörter |
| Abstract: | To address the relationship between innovation and competition we jointly estimate the opportunity, production, and impact functions of innovation in a simultaneous system. Based on Swiss micro-data, we apply a 3-SLS system estimation. The findings confirm a robust inverted-U relationship, in which a rise in the number of competitors at low levels of initial competition increases the firm's research effort, but at a diminishing rate, and the research effort ultimately decreases at high levels of competition. When we split the sample by firm types, the inverted-U shape is steeper for creative firms than for adaptive ones. The numerical solution indicates three particular configurations of interest: 1. an uncontested monopoly with low innovation, 2. low competition with high innovation, and 3. a "no innovation trap" at very high levels of competition. The distinction between solution 1. and 2. corresponds to Arrow's positive effect of competition on innovation, whereas the difference between outcomes 2. and 3. captures Schumpeter's positive effect of market power on innovation. Simulating changes of the exogenous variables, technology potential, demand growth, firm size and exports have a positive impact on innovation, while foreign ownership has a negative effect, and higher appropriability has a positive impact on the number of competitors. |
| Date: | 2013–03–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2013:i:448&r=sbm |
| By: | Marco Bettiol; Eleonora Di Maria; Roberto Grandinetti |
| Abstract: | Studies on service management have broadly discussed the relationship between customization and standardization in services. Studies on modularity have enriched the debate by identifying an additional form of service provision able to couple the advantages of these two alternative approaches. However, at the theoretical and empirical level little attention has been given to explore how service firms adopt standardization and modularity on the one hand, and whether they are able to combine different types of services in their offering, on the other hand. This question is particularly interesting in the domain of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS). Literature on KIBS has stressed the high level of service customization KIBS can offer to their business customers, within a collaborative and interactive framework for innovation. However, scholars dedicated little attention on how KIBS develop their service offering and whether the customization is the only strategy they adopt. The aim of the paper is to explore the business service portfolio of KIBS to identify business service management strategies KIBS develop between bespoke services and standardization. Empirical analysis on about 500 Italian KIBS specializing in design and communication, ICT services and professional services show that there are KIBS providing fully standardized services and also the rise of combinatory KIBS able to mix bespoke and standard services with business characteristics similar to the other KIBS profiles. |
| Keywords: | KIBS; service standardization; customization; modularity; combinatory resources |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:13-08&r=sbm |