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on Small Business Management |
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Issue of 2014‒02‒15
ten papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao Universidade da Beira Interior and Universidade de Lisboa |
| By: | Beatrice D'Ippolito (MTS - Management Technologique et Strategique - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)) |
| Abstract: | Scholars dedicated increasing attention towards appreciating how design has changed individuals' perception of new products, firms' understanding and formulation of strategy, or other relevant actors' approach to innovation and technology management. By emphasising the importance of design for the definition of consumers' needs, the restructuring of firms' organisational structures and strategies, and the evolution of firms' value creation processes, this review paper identifies relevant research gaps and questions that would benefit from future scholarly attention. In particular, it is suggested that such effort should address the analysis of: how design consumption can help better comprehend consumers' needs; what are the implications of design thinking on the skill sets of design professionals; the organisational structure of firms, including the reconfiguration of other business functions, and their strategy; and whether and how design thinking can shape firms' value creation processes and contribute to the formalisation of design tasks. |
| Keywords: | Design; strategy making; consumers' needs; value creation; literature review; firm competitiveness; research gaps |
| Date: | 2014–01–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:gemwpa:hal-00936947&r=sbm |
| By: | Balsmeier, Benjamin; Czarnitzki, Dirk |
| Abstract: | This study examines how industry-specific managerial experience affects firms' innovation performance in the context of different institutional environments. Based on firm-level data from 27 Central and Eastern European countries we identify a robust positive relationship between industry-specific experience of the top-manager and the decision to innovate as well as the share of new product-related sales. These effects are particularly pronounced for small firms operating outside the European Union or, more generally, in institutionally less developed countries. The results suggest that managerial experience affects firm innovations largely indirectly, for example, by reducing uncertainty about future returns on innovations or by providing knowledge about how to cope with institutional shortfalls potentially hampering the commercial success of new products. -- |
| Keywords: | Corporate Governance,Innovation,Managerial Experience |
| JEL: | G38 L25 O32 P26 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14011&r=sbm |
| By: | Capasso M.; Treibich T.G.; Verspagen H.H.G. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the medium-term effect of RD expenditure on firm employment growth. Four cross-sectional waves of an innovation survey conducted in the Netherlands have been used to evaluate the effect on firm growth in the five years following the investment. Panel data fixed effect techniques, also allowing for selection bias corrections, indicate a positive influence of RD on growth. Limited dependent variable models have been used throughout the whole analysis to consider explicitly the cases of firms exiting the market in the analysed medium term. |
| Keywords: | Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance: General; Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior: General; Management of Technological Innovation and R&D; |
| JEL: | L20 L10 O32 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014001&r=sbm |
| By: | William R. Kerr (University, NBER, and Bank of Finland.) |
| Abstract: | High-skilled immigrants are a very important component of U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship. Immigrants account for roughly a quarter of U.S. workers in these fields, and they have a similar contribution in terms of output measures like patents or firm starts. This contribution has been rapidly growing over the last three decades. In terms of quality, the average skilled immigrant appears to be better trained to work in these fields, but conditional on educational attainment of comparable quality to natives. The exception to this is that immigrants have a disproportionate impact among the very highest achievers (e.g., Nobel Prize winners). Studies regarding the impact of immigrants on natives tend to find limited consequences in the short-run, while the results in the long-run are more varied and much less certain. Immigrants in the United States aid business and technology exchanges with their home countries, but the overall effect that the migration has on the home country remains unclear. We know very little about return migration of workers engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, except that it is rapidly growing in importance. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, innovation, entrepreneurship, diaspora |
| JEL: | F15 F22 J15 J31 J44 L14 L26 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wip:wpaper:16&r=sbm |
| By: | Ferreira Filipe, Sara; Grammatikos, Theoharry; Michala, Dimitra |
| Abstract: | In the European Union, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 99% of all businesses and contribute to more than half of the total value-added. In this paper, we develop distress prediction models for SMEs using a dataset from eight European countries over the period 2000-2009. We examine idiosyncratic and systematic covariates and find that the first discriminate between healthy and distressed firms based on their relative level of risk, whereas the second move the overall distress rates. Moreover, SMEs across Europe are vulnerable to the same idiosyncratic factors but systematic factors vary in different regions. Also, micro SMEs are more vulnerable to these systematic factors compared to larger SMEs. The paper contributes to the literature in several ways. First, using a sample with many micro companies, it offers unique insights into the European small business sector. Second, it is the first paper to explore distress in a multi-country setting, allowing for regional comparisons and uncovering regional vulnerabilities. Third, by incorporating systematic dependencies, the models can capture changes in overall distress rates and comovements during economic cycles. |
| Keywords: | credit risk, distress, forecasting, SMEs, discrete time hazard model, multi-period logit model, duration analysis |
| JEL: | C13 C41 C53 G33 |
| Date: | 2014–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:53572&r=sbm |
| By: | Gault F.; Kuusisto J.; Niemi M. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | Statistics Finland added questions to the Finnish Community Innovation Survey CIS for 2010 on the importance of user innovation. For firms engaged in innovation activity during the three year period, 2008-2010, 30 per cent reported that user modified products were of high or medium importance to them. For user developed products the figure was 13 per cent. These firms, compared with those that did not rank user innovation as highly, had a higher propensity to produce new to the market product innovations and they were more active in producing product innovations by themselves, by collaborating with others, by adapting and adopting products from other firms, and by using products from other firms. The results for user modified and user developed products were found to be consistent with responses to a standard CIS question on whether the product innovation of the firm was done by adapting products developed by others, but the results were not sufficient to say that responses to this question were a consequence, principally, of user innovation. The wider implications of the findings are discussed along with the need for confirmation of the findings in other countries. Both Portugal and Switzerland have incorporated the Finnish CIS 2010 questions into their CIS 2012 and have added additional questions which may show that existing CIS data provide information on the presence of user innovation. |
| Keywords: | Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis; Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes; |
| JEL: | D22 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2014003&r=sbm |
| By: | Mundt, Philipp; Milakovic, Mishael; Alfarano, Simone |
| Abstract: | The basic philosophy behind Gibrat's rule of proportionate effect has been to find some common mechanism in the growth process of business firms, based on the idea that growth rates are independent of size and drawn from the same distribution. After decades of research, however, it seems fair to say that the 'law' fails to provide a universal mechanism for the growth of firms. Here we take the position that it is more plausible for Gibrat's approach to apply to firm profitability rather than firm growth, in line with the classical idea of economic competition as a dynamic process of capital reallocation. Considering a sample of more than five hundred long-lived US corporations from virtually all sectors, we compare the statistical properties of growth and profit rates over a time span of thirty years, and find that profit rates and their volatilities are independent of size, which is not true of growth rates. We also find that the empirical densities of both profitability and growth can be described by exponential power (or Subbotin) distributions, but there are pronounced differences in their parameterizations and autocorrelation structures. We argue that a recently proposed diffusion process not only reproduces the cross-sectional distribution of profit rates, but is also consistent with the empirical time series of individual firms and their autocorrelations. In the natural sciences such a situation is commonly referred to as a statistical equilibrium, while econometricians speak of ergodicity and stationarity. Our economic interpretation of this property is that all surviving firms are subject to the same competitive pressures of capital reallocation, irrespective of their industry or particular line of business. They all face the same profitability benchmark and volatility, while their idiosyncratic efforts merely have an effect on the persistence of abnormal profits. In other words, survivors have to participate in the same game and can only choose to do so at different 'speeds'. We conclude with the empirical observation that the speed of convergence from abnormal profits to the system-wide average depends negatively on firm size, diversification, and capital intensity. -- |
| Keywords: | profit rates,diffusion process,statistical equilibrium,dynamic competition,persistence |
| JEL: | C16 L10 D21 E10 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bamber:92&r=sbm |
| By: | Bošková, Iveta; Ratinger, Tomáš |
| Abstract: | The effective knowledge transfer and innovation activities in the agri-food supply chain may push all producers in the vertical to improve their competitiveness while saving resources. In the paper the innovation activities and knowledge transfer in the dairy value chain in the Czech Republic are examined in order to assess the potential for enhancing sustainable dairy production. A particular attention is given to the collaboration with R&D organisations and other important agents. Concurrently the role of the structural changes is considered. The methodological approach builds on the concept of the sectoral system of innovation. Based on statistical figures and face to face interviews the increasing dynamics in the innovation process is observed, however, farmers and processors are in their innovation activities disconnected and their collaboration with research institutions and other companies is rather low. The main innovation objectives as well as drivers and barriers of the collaboration are specified. |
| Keywords: | innovation system, dairy farms, dairy processing, Agribusiness, O31, Q13, Q16, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa140:163349&r=sbm |
| By: | René Bohnsack (University of Amsterdam Business School - University of Amsterdam Business School); Jonatan Pinkse (MTS - Management Technologique et Strategique - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)); Ans Kolk (Amsterdam Business School - University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Sustainable technologies challenge prevailing business practices, especially in industries that depend heavily on the use of fossil fuels. Firms are therefore in need of business models that transform the specific characteristics of sustainable technologies into new ways to create economic value and overcome the barriers that stand in the way of their market penetration. A key issue is the respective impact of incumbent and entrepreneurial firms' path-dependent behaviour on the development of such new business models. Embedded in the literature on business models, this paper explores how incumbent and entrepreneurial firms' path dependencies have affected the evolution of business models for electric vehicles. Based on a qualitative analysis of electric vehicle projects of key industry players over a five-year period (2006-2010), the paper identifies four business model archetypes and traces their evolution over time. Findings suggest that incumbent and entrepreneurial firms approach business model innovation in distinctive ways. Business model evolution shows a series of incremental changes that introduce service-based components, which were initially developed by entrepreneurial firms, to the product. Over time there seems to be some convergence in the business models of incumbents and entrepreneurs in the direction of delivering economy multi-purpose vehicles. |
| Keywords: | Sustainable technology; business models, evolution; path dependencies; electric vehicles |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:gemptp:hal-00936886&r=sbm |
| By: | Maman Setiawan (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Padjadjaran); Rina Indiastuti (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Padjadjaran); Peggie Destevanie (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Padjadjaran) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role of information technology in its contribution toward the competitiveness of micro, small and medium enterprises. The data used in the analysis is based on a survey of micro, small and medium enterprises in Cimahi District, West Java Province, Indonesia. Variables to measure the degree of adoption of information technology, competitiveness, and other control latent variables are constructed by Factor Analysis using various relevant indicators. Path Analysis is also undertaken to investigate the effect of the adoption of information technology on competitiveness. It found that there is a lack of use of information technologies among the micro, small and medium enterprises surveyed. The information technologies are used for some purposes such as administration, marketing, production, and other activities related to the business. We also found the adoption of information technology has a positive contribution to competitiveness. |
| Keywords: | competitiveness; micro, small and medium enterprises; information technology; path analysis; factor analysis |
| JEL: | O0 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:201401&r=sbm |