a longitudinal study of the competitive positions and entry paths of european firms in the u s pharmaceutical market this paper combines the statistical insights of dynamic strategic group analysis with the qualitative richness of historical analysis to explore the modes of entry expansion paths and competitive postures of european firms in the u s pharmaceutical market patterns of entry and market development over a 20 year period are analyzed the roles of strategic assets and competencies in determining both the entry strategy and the final competitive posture of these firms in the u s market are discussed

urban wages and labor market agglomeration abstract using the 5 public use micro sample of the 1990 u s census we find that observationally equivalent workers in the manufacturing sector earn higher wages when they are in urban labor markets that have a larger share of national or metropolitan employment in their same occupation and industry groups quantitatively the effect is large with an elasticity measured at the means of between 1 2 and 3 6 for these effects we interpret the willingness of firms to pay more for equivalent workers in dense markets as evidence of an agglomeration economy in urban labor

discontinuance among new firms in retail the influence of initial resources strategy and gender abstract women owned businesses represent one of the fastest growing segments of the u s economy their rate has increased more than six fold since 1970 despite this growth rate the number of firms owned by women still lags behind that of men and the sales and income of women owned firms are significantly lower than those of men owned firms the discrepancy between the number of businesses owned by women and men and their economic success has been a popular theme among researchers some have suggested that performance differentials result from disparate structural positions women and men occupy in work and society whereas others attribute the differences to deep rooted interpersonal orientations this study examines whether the performance differences can be explained by variations in initial resources and founding strategy we test whether women have fewer start up resources and if they do whether they can compensate for these deficiencies through their founding strategy recent work in social psychology argues that strategic choice is shaped by experiences to which individuals have been subjected and that women and men have fundamentally different socialization experiences we test the assumption that if the strategy that women owners adopt exploits the unique capabilities they derive from their socialization they can improve the performance of their firms and ward off discontinuance we examine the discontinuance pattern of 203 new firms in the retail industry this industry was selected because women entrepreneurs often choose to operate in this industry giving us a basis for comparing women owned and men owned firms we classify the firms into six strategy archetypes the arche types range from a broad focus where founders emphasize multiple strategic foci simultaneously to narrowly targeted differentiation strategies we assume that the experiential base of women entrepreneurs limits their successfully executing pricing strategies we hypothesize that women led firms decrease the odds of discontinuing by adopting one of two strategy types 1 narrow differentiation strategies that seek to satisfy a narrow segment of the market and that do not rely on pricing or 2 broad generalists strategies that emphasize service and quality but not pricing and take advantage of women s capability for handling multiple stakeholders simultaneously the results offer support for using an integrative model to explain the performance of women owned firms women owned firms have higher odds of discontinuing than men owned firms and women appear to have fewer resources to start their businesses women owners were less likely to have instrumental experience from working in the retail industry and start their businesses on a smaller scale then men but were no less likely then their male counterparts to have access to credit from formal financial institutions or to be disadvantaged by starting fewer other new businesses despite some apparent situational disadvantage resource deficiencies do not appear to affect the odds of women owned businesses discontinuing as much as they do men owned initiatives the findings indicate support for the supposition that women owners can use founding strategy to decrease the odds of discontinuing business a broad generalists strategy that represents a multi focused approach was found to benefit women owned businesses most overall the results suggest that men use prior business experience and human capital to affect the survival status of their businesses women appear to find strategic choice more beneficial future research is recommended to further elaborate the integrative model special attention should be given to developing alternatives to measures traditionally used in gender research many researchers charge that those typically used reflect male derived measures similarly greater attention should be given to understanding why the scale of women owned businesses at start up is substantially smaller than that of men since scale has been shown to be related to subsequent growth and survival

the effect of teachers unions on education production evidence from union election certifications in three midwestern states using a unique data set on teachers union election certifications from iowa indiana and minnesota i estimate the effect of teachers unions on school district resources and on student educational attainment my empirical strategy allows for nonparametric leads and lags of union age i find no impact on teacher pay or per student district expenditures but that unions increase teacher employment by 5 i find no class size effect because of enrollment increases in unionized districts and i estimate that unions have no net effect on high school dropout rates these findings highlight the importance of correctly measuring unionization status

the internationalization of venture capital abstract u ntil a few years ago venture capital was as american as apple pie w e had the money the entrepreneurial tradition the over the counter market and the tax structure to make venture capital practically an american monopoly today venture capital is increasingly a conduit for the flow of capital and ideas on a global basis in 1987 according to the european venture capital association more money was raised for venture capital in europe than in the united states 5 1 billion versus 4 9 billion though activity is greatest in france and the united kingdom there are now venture capital associations throughout western europe japan has venture capital firms and even china has started to think of ways risk capital can help solve its development problems

the employment of black men trends in wages and employment of black men are contradictory wages are rising and employment is falling the article first describes employment trends using data from the five decennial censuses 1940 80 noting that education is becoming a more important determinant of participation next it is shown that ratios of average wages have not been severely biased by falling participation of those who would earn the least if they worked the final question asks whether falling participation of black men results from deteriorating job opportunities or from falling labor supply falling supply appears to dominate

technology based adolescent firm configurations abstract managers and stakeholders of entrepreneurial firms have an obvious vested interest in understanding those factors that contribute to the success or failure of such firms insight into strategic and contextual factors related to success for 162 adolescent 5 12 years old firms competing within a variety of rapidly changing technology based industries results from this study analyses focus on pinpointing patterns of strategy context and performance in the first stage of analysis six nonmutually exclusive dimensions of strategy were identified 1 technology product leader 2 product market breadth 3 marketing sales expertise 4 quality service 5 customer alliances and 6 specialization second cluster analysis was conducted to group the firms on their overall pattern of strategic emphasis six groups clusters were identified each group corresponded with one of the following four strategy quadrants 1 defenders k specialists 2 entrepreneurs r specialists 3 analyzers k generalists and 4 prospectors r generalists subsequent analysis of variance demonstrates significant differences across the six clusters on three contextual variables environmental instability stage of product development and firm age and on six outcomes rd direct sales and support these firms compete on their reputation in their targeted market segment their ability to find and sell to a narrow range of customers and customer service this strategy occurred in relatively stable and mature industries and resulted in high performance in operating efficiency market development financial stability and overall performance sales growth was average cluster 2 n 12 spin offs reliant on contracts with original employers these firms represent an outsourcing opportunity for larger companies not desiring to develop in house expertise in a product area they are the youngest and the smallest and have products in the earliest stage of development their environment is relatively stable given the dependence of their large customers for their product they are average performers except for having relatively high operating efficiency they trade high performance for the security of long term arrangements with major clients cluster 3 n 39 marketing and sales expertise targeted at narrow market these firms likely assemble and package others technological products or if they manufacture follow the technological developments of their competitors they create value through their marketing and sales expertise and effort and through customer service support they face average environmental instability and stage of product development this strategy however creates insufficient value added for the long term viability of the firms they have low performance on sales growth market development operating efficiency and financial stability and also have low expectations for their future prospects cluster 4 n 23 technology leaders with a high degree of specialization quality and service these firms differentiate their products based on technology leadership in a specialized product domain where high quality and service are emphasized they compete in relatively unstable environments attributable to rapid technological change and are in an early stage of product development they are relatively small consistent with their narrow product domain they have the highest performance on r d results sales growth and future prospects and are very high on overall performance cluster 5 n 24 lacking in a clear strategic profile these firms lack any clear pattern of strategic activity although faced with average environmental instability these firms compete in the most mature product areas therefore while other firms are becoming more entrenched in their competitive positions advantages these firms are floundering they are poor performers and lack long term viability they score low on sales growth market development r d results operating efficiency and overall performance cluster 6 n 46 broad and aggressive product market reach with relatively high quality and service these firms pursue a full line of products sold through a wide variety of methods this approach evolved in a highly unstable environment due to rapid change and growth yet has a large number of growth opportunities they are highly successful in market development sales growth and financial stability they are also highly optimistic about their future prospects this identification of firm configurations can help managers and stakeholders recognize the relationships among strategy context and performance for young technological firms this should lead to more effective managerial decisions on strategic and contextual issues leading to better performance

private equity investment decisions in family firms the role of human resources and agency costs abstract this study examines decision making criteria that are employed by private equity pe investors selecting family firms hypotheses test the likelihood of investment based on family firm characteristics findings show that pe professionals take into account family specific criteria including human resources and opportunities to reduce agency costs furthermore pe professionals prefer family firms that are already professionalized this research contributes to the family firm literature on both a theoretical and a methodological level exploring nonfamily succession routes and employing techniques conjoint analysis for data collection and multilevel models for data analysis that have seldom been used in this context

labor reallocation over the business cycle new evidence from internal migration this article establishes the cyclical properties of a novel measure of worker reallocation long distance migration rates within the united states combining evidence from a number of data sets spanning the entire postwar era we find that internal migration within the united states is procyclical this result cannot be explained by cyclical variation in relative local economic conditions suggesting that the net benefit of moving rises during booms migration is most procyclical for younger labor force participants therefore cyclical fluctuations in the net benefit of moving appear to be related to conditions in the labor market and the spatial reallocation of labor

pathways to impact and the strategic role of universities new evidence on the breadth and depth of university knowledge exchange in the uk and the factors constraining its development there has been an increasing focus on the strategic role of universities in stimulating innovation and economic growth primarily though the transfer of technology this paper interrogates some of the key aspects of much of the conventional wisdom concerning the transfer of technology and the knowledge exchange process in general it analyses the results from two unique surveys a survey of the uk academic community that generated more than 22 000 responses and a stratified survey of businesses that generated more than 2 500 responses the results suggest that much of the conventional wisdom concerning knowledge exchange involving academia is too narrowly confined or is misinformed first there is an excessive focus in much of the academic and policy discourse on commercialisation and technology transfer there are many knowledge exchange mechanisms used by academics these include commercialisation processes but also many other hidden connections second the focus on the science base ignores that knowledge exchange involves academics from all disciplines third the preoccupation with improving innovation and business performance tends to ignore that knowledge exchange involves partners from the public and third not for profit sectors as well as private sector businesses fourth the main constraints that hinder or limit the knowledge exchange process include a lack of time insufficient internal capability to manage relationships and insufficient information to identify partners problems concerning cultural differences between academics and business and disputes concerning intellectual property are not prominent overall the paper suggests that the notion of an academic ivory tower seems to be a myth as far as the uk is concerned it also suggests that a strategic focus on strengthening connections between academia and the rest of society may generate long term benefits but it will also face challenges and should not distort or divert from the wider foundations of scholarship on which the success of universities are built

ranking unemployment duration and wages it explores the implication of one central assumption when firms receive multiple acceptable applications they hire the worker who has been unemployed for the least amount of time this assumption ranking is contrasted with the assumption of random hiring no ranking by embodying this assumption in a model of the labour market with job creation destruction and matching the joint behaviour of unemployment the distribution of unemployment durations and wages are characterized the implication that the re employment prospects of employed workers were they to become unemployed are better than those of the currently unemployed appears to have been an important feature of european unemployment experience in the 1980 s this paper examines the effects of the composition of unemployment on wage determination it explores one central assumption when firms receive multiple acceptable applications they hire the worker who has been unemployed for the least amount of time we refer to this assumption as ranking and contrast it throughout to the assumption of random hiring or no ranking by embodying this assumption in a model of the labour market with job creation destruction and matching we characterize the joint behaviour of unemployment the distribution of unemployment durations and wages ranking has a number of important implications first in addition to the obvious result that the exit rate from unemployment is a decreasing function of duration we show that the effect of duration is stronger the higher the rate of unemployment second with the wage depending on the distributions of prospective unemployment durations the presence of long term unemployed per se has little effect on wages third looking at the relation between the wage and the aggregate level of unemployment and comparing ranking to the case of no ranking the wage moves less with the level of unemployment but more with the change in unemployment put simply ranking and no ranking models show exactly the same aggregate unemployment slightly different long run responses of wages to unemployment and sharply different wage dynamics the paper is organized as follows section i characterizes the matching process and derives a matching function based on an urn ball process with vacancies as urns and applications by unemployed workers as balls thus the distribution of applications per vacancy depends on aggregate unemployment and vacancies vacancies with at least one acceptable application are filled when a vacancy receives more than one acceptable application firms use a rule to choose among applicants thus the rule determines who is hired but does not affect the number of hires section ii uses this matching function in a model of the labour market with continual job creation and destruction and characterizes the equilibrium values of unemployment vacancies and hires

land use regulations and regional economic development this paper uses a data intensive computable general equilibrium cge model of a medium sized city with integrated commercial and residential land data to analyze changes to local land use regulations via changes in land supply elasticities on economic development measures employment household income housing prices and tax revenue under various types of regional growth that originate from different local sectors the cge framework overcomes difficulties of econometric modeling in this area namely measurement consistency impact isolation and endogeneity issues the results both link the sparse work in this area and provide a systematic analysis including marginal and total impacts

industrial shifts skills levels and the labor market for white and black males in this paper we estimate the effects of industrial shifts in the 1970s and 1980s on the wages and employment of black and white males we use micro census data for 52 msa s and estimate effects separately by age and education group the results show that industrial shifts did reduce demand for blacks and for less skilled males in the 1970s and 1980s demand shifts away from manufacturing in particular reduced employment and wages for black and white males while the magnitudes of these effects are fairly small for many groups they can account for one third to one half of the employment decline for less educated young blacks in the 1970s these results imply fairly large effects on the earnings of less skilled males in the 1980s as well authors

venture capital in western europe abstract western europe is in the process of an entrepreneurial renaissance an integral part of this renaissance is the emergence of a venture capital industry in europe although the venture capital institution in europe is very much modeled along the lines of its american counterpart it is significantly smaller in size both in absolute terms as well as in relation to the size of the economy substantial differences in venture capital activity are also found to exist within europe it is most prevaient in the united kingdom france and netherlands surprisingly it is less developed in west germany particularly given the size of this country s economy venture capital in western europe shares some characteristics with that in the united states its investment focus is in high technology and syndication between funds is common unlike the united states however banks are a major source of venture capital funds surprisingly in spite of the economic integration to which the european community aspires the mobility of venture capital across national boundaries is low the authors try to explain differences in venture capital activity in several countries of the european community by examining four aspects of each country s environment in particular the size of the technology sector the cultural influence on entrepreneurial risk taking the government s policy to stimulate risk capital and entrepreneurship and finally the ability of venture backed firms to turn to publicly traded markets as a source of future financing one common factor shared by the three countries with the highest level of venture capital activity is the presence of a secondary stock market geared to the needs of a small relatively new venture contemplating an initial public offering the unlisted securities market in the united kingdom the seconde marche in france and the parallel market in the netherlands serve these needs and provide the mechanism by which venture capitalists can liquidate their equity position after the venture is quoted on these financial markets to the venture it provides access to public financing for funding continued growth in the united kingdom and netherlands the business enterprise has historically been regarded as a tradeable entity and hence the concept of ownership by passive investors is well accepted in france where this is a relatively recent phenomenon the government has played a strong role in stimulating an interest in stock market investing in general it has also created some extremely attractive fiscal incentives for investors in venture capital funds

sectoral shifts and interindustry wage differentials the observed differences in wages across industries may arise from a lack of worker mobility particularly among experienced workers allowing the effects of industry shocks to persist for some time although young workers arbitrage wage shocks they will have little effect on the dispersion of experienced workers wages if young and old workers are poor substitutes in production this explanation is investigated using the five censuses of population between 1940 and 1980 the evidence strongly suggests that differences in pay are not temporary phenomena the data provide some support for the role of human capital and ability

evaluating the evidence on union employment and wages using current population survey data for the years 1973 86 this study tests the hypothesis that the steep decline of union employment shares since 1973 is related to increases in union wages relative to nonunion wages the authors show that although the aggregate union wage premium has changed little since 1973 some industry specific premiums have risen substantially and the industries with the rising premiums are those experiencing declines in union employment shares the increase in the premium explains from 21 to 64 of the decline in union shares depending on the equation specification the paper also presents a detailed set of union wage premiums and employment shares for the sample period

impacts of grants and contracts on academic researchers interactions with industry abstract based on a representative national sample of 1564 academic researchers we investigate the impacts of research grants and contracts on the nature and extent of faculty research and technology activities with industry a particular focus is on understanding the independent contributions of industry and government grant sources on levels of industrial involvement in addition to examining the source of grants the study controls for a number of independent factors including scientific field research center affiliation tenure status and gender results suggest independent effects of grants and contracts on industrial activities grants and contracts from industry have a significant effect on academic researchers propensity to work with industry as measured by an industrial involvement scale federally sponsored grants also have an impact in increasing work with industry but a more moderate one further those with more grants and contracts of each type have a greater propensity for industrial involvement than those who have such contracts but fewer this holds even when proxies for productivity and career stage are introduced in regression equations the analysis also considers whether provision of grants and contracts is best viewed as a predictor of industrial involvement or just another type of industrial involvement using factor analysis and nested multivariate modeling to compare effects

entry order market share and competitive advantage a study of their relationships in new corporate ventures abstract this research explored the extent to which entry order the decision to enter a market early as a pioneer or to wait and follow determines not only market share but other competitive factors such as position and promotion that late entrants might hope to employ to overcome a pioneer s advantages the study analyzed data on 119 nonservice new corporate ventures consumer and industrial from the profit impact of marketing strategy pims research data base str4 based on a review of the strategic management and marketing literatures three hypotheses on the effects of entry order were generated and subsequently tested the first hypothesis states that pioneers achieve higher market shares than followers since a priori the market share for the pioneer has to be larger than the market share split among later entrants the issue is the rate at which the early entrant s market share will decrease as additional businesses enter what we term the degree of lateness effect later entrants have the choice of being an early follower that is entering the industry soon after the pioneers or waiting until the industry matures late entrants a high degree of lateness effect would indicate that early followers would gain higher market shares than late entrants an analysis of the data indicated that pioneers have significantly higher market shares than followers and that little degree of lateness effect existed between early and late entrants the second hypothesis states that pioneers will achieve differentiation advantages in such areas as product and service quality promotion and technological positioning greater than followers there is considerable theoretical and empirical evidence that pioneers are able to generate competitive advantages through name recognition image leadership the establishment of technical standards which make switching to other products difficult and superior consumer information advantages due to market lead times an analysis of the data indicated that pioneers have significant competitive advantages in product service quality and technology over followers the one area where pioneers did not have a competitive advantage over followers was in advertising and promotion the third hypothesis states that followers will achieve cost advantages greater than pioneers while learning curve theory suggests that pioneers will enjoy cost price advantages contrasting arguments can be made that followers can enjoy lower costs by coattailing on the pioneer s efforts to educate consumers develop a dominant design and create an infrastructure to span the gap from raw material suppliers to finished good deliveries we suggest that because pioneers are likely to have attained differentiation advantages followers will have only one alternative left compete on the basis of price and become the lowest cost producer an analysis of the data indicates that while followers do appear to have lower prices than pioneers followers do not have significantly lower cost structures this result implies a lower level of profitability for a follower strategy overall the results of this study advance the notion that new corporate ventures should enter as pioneers rather than as followers pioneers had higher market shares and stronger competitive positions higher quality more differentiated products and better service than followers followers appear to have few successful competitive options available outside of promotion for gaining market share

an examination of the influence of industry structure on eight alternative measures of new venture performance for high potential independent new ventures abstract this study examined the influence of the structure of new ventures entered industries on eight alternative measures of new venture performance for 199 high potential independent new ventures each of the 199 entrepreneurial ventures had undertaken an initial public offering ipo within the first 6 years of the venture s founding date and were free of corporate sponsorship or prior corporate parentage specifically this research examined the influence of 1 stage of the life cycle 2 industry concentration 3 entry barriers and 4 product differentiation on eight alternative measures of new venture performance the eight measures of new venture performance examined in this research consisted of 1 change in sales 2 sales level 3 net profit 4 earnings before interest and taxes 5 return on sales 6 return on assets 7 return on invested capital and 8 return on equity most prior research examining the influence of industry structure on new venture performance has 1 utilized only one or two measures of new venture performance as indicators of the venture s overall effectiveness and efficiency 2 often failed to provide theoretical justification for the measure s of new venture performance or industry structure examined and 3 utilized data derived from questionnaires and or the pims data base of corporate sponsored new ventures in addition prior industry structure studies examining independent new ventures have often utilized relatively small sample sizes this study sought to advance the progress in the field of entrepreneurship with regard to understanding the influence of the structure of new ventures entered industries on new venture performance by 1 examining eight alternative measures of new venture performance 2 providing theoretical justification for the measures of new venture performance and industry structure examined and 3 utilizing the largest nonquestionnaire data base of independent new ventures developed to date this research found that the stage of the life cycle of the venture s entered industry was the most important determinant of new venture performance among the four industry structural elements examined stage of the life cycle had a statistically significant relationship at a 0 05 level with the majority of the new venture performance measures examined in this research in addition ventures entering industries in the introductory stage of the life cycle achieved the highest levels of venture performance particularly when compared with those ventures that entered industries in the mature stage of the life cycle however this study did not find a statistically significant relationship between stage of the life cycle and change in sales this suggests that there is a trade off between profitability and sales growth and that new ventures that undertake an ipo have a stronger focus on achieving profitable operations rather than sales growth during the initial years after their ipo this may be due to pressures placed on the new ventures to achieve profitability by the external credit market conversely this research found that 1 industry concentration 2 entry barriers and 3 product differentiation did not have statistically significant relationships at a 0 10 level with any of the eight alternative measures of new venture performance examined in this research however this research did find that over 90 of the new ventures entered industries characterized by 1 a low degree of industry concentration and 2 a high degree of product differentiation the relative absence of new venture entry into industries characterized by 1 high degrees of concentration and 2 low degrees of product differentiation provides support for prior theory which suggests that successful entry into such industry environments may be substantially more difficult in sum the results of this research suggest that high potential independent new ventures that undertake an ipo should enter industries in the introductory stage of the life cycle in addition the results of this research suggest that industries characterized by 1 relatively low degrees of industry concentration and 2 highly heterogenous products may be necessary but not sufficient conditions for successful entry by high potential independent new ventures seeking to raise equity capital through an ipo

contextual influences on the corporate entrepreneurship performance relationship a longitudinal analysis abstract over the past several years corporate entrepreneurship has been widely touted by executives and researchers alike as an effective means for revitalizing companies and improving their financial performance for the most part the call for greater entrepreneurial behavior on the part of established companies has been accepted on faith as an inherently desirable objective the implicit logic behind the pervasive belief in the value of corporate entrepreneurship seems to be that risk taking innovation and aggressive competitive action the key elements of entrepreneurial corporations will help in identifying and pursuing lucrative product market opportunities and in providing new bases for achieving superior competitive positions but what do we really know about the financial consequences of corporate entrepreneurship most of the evidence that corporate entrepreneurship pays off is anecdotal in nature or based on cross sectional studies that focus on the short term implications of entrepreneurial behaviors as such in a definitive sense we know very little about the financial consequences of corporate entrepreneurship in an attempt to improve our understanding of this issue this article describes a study of corporate entrepreneurship and its impact on company financial performance data were collected from three different samples over a seven year period to assess the longitudinal impact of corporate entrepreneurship on firm performance these samples consist of 24 medium sized manufacturing firms representing 14 industry segments 39 chemical companies and 45 fortune 500 industrial firms representing five industry segments data were gathered on each sample using both primary and secondary sources regression analysis was then used to analyze the data the results suggest that corporate entrepreneurship has a positive impact on financial measures of company performance this effect on performance which tends to be modest over the first few years increases over time suggesting that corporate entrepreneurship may indeed be a generally effective means for improving long term company financial performance moreover the results indicate that corporate entrepreneurship is a particularly effective practice among companies operating in hostile environments as opposed to benign environments the study has three principal implications for practicing managers first the study documents the general financial viability of engaging in corporate entrepreneurship this is not to suggest that corporate entrepreneurship is a panacea for improving financial performance however entrepreneurial behavior when considered on the whole i e across firms and industries is associated with superior financial performance second the study suggests a need to use a long term time horizon in order to adequately judge the financial consequences of corporate entrepreneurship the use of a shorter evaluation period may not allow sufficient time for entrepreneurial actions to have their full market and corresponding financial impact finally the study identifies the context specific character of effective entrepreneurial practice specifically corporate entrepreneurship appears to be a particularly effective strategic practice among firms operating in hostile business settings

a study of the impact of owner s mode of entry on venture performance and management patterns abstract this study examines if firm performance and the associated patterns of management vary with the owner manager s mode of entry into the firm in owner started os buyout bo and family firms ff prior research suggests that these three types of firms differ on certain managerial characteristics but has not examined the role of the owner manager s mode of entry in determining firm performance on the one hand and its influence on the firm s management pattern on the other we collected data from 345 firms employing four to 99 employees operating in four northeastern states self reported return on assets roa annual sales business strengths competitive strategies and management practices were compared for os bo and ff firms performance was found to vary with owner s mode of entry the 227 os firms average roa was significantly higher than that of the 61 family firms and the 57 bo firms successful start up owners may have enjoyed greater profits because they assumed greater risk compared to those who opted to buy an existing venture or took over a family firm annual sales were highest for ffs second for os firms and the lowest for bos in terms of management patterns owner started firms rated themselves significantly higher on business strengths and tended to have higher self ratings for competitive strategies and operations strengths than did ffs or bos all of these differences were significant after controlling for the age and size differences among the firms indicating that mode of entry did directly impact performance as well as the management patterns examining the impact of mode of entry versus management patterns on venture performance we found that while the os mode of entry was associated with greater roa this was primarily due to the different management patterns adopted by the oss looking at annual sales the ff mode of entry was associated with higher sales and this was independent of the types of management patterns adopted by the firms a priori bos would appear to be in a better position to achieve superior performance but this was not so in this sample further analysis revealed different paths to profitability for the three entry modes for os firms high roa was associated with operating in the service and retail sectors developing a broad range of business strengths and offering competitively priced but higher quality customized products for oss roa was also enhanced by using informal and personalized management practices sales performance was greatest when oss employed trained staff for functions such as budgeting and sales for ffs roa was enhanced by broad ranging strengths but it was hurt by price and quality competitiveness mainly because on average their lower prices were not supported by a competitive cost of goods sales performance was greatest when ffs had owner managers with extensive industry experience were conservative in adding workers emphasized product customization relied on written reports but avoided long range operations planning management patterns of bos were not related to their roa but their annual sales were marginally higher when the acquiring owners had extensive industry background and employed a large workforce thus this study confirms our hypotheses that performance and management patterns vary across mode of entry as does the effectiveness of strategic management patterns further our findings concurred with previous studies which suggested that sales performance and profitability were likely to be influenced by different management actions this study demonstrates that owner s mode of entry is an important explanatory variable for variations in performance as well as management patterns venture ceos need to recognize that different management approaches may be needed for success depending upon whether they founded purchased or inherited their firms

two views of the geographic distribution of unemployment this paper investigates the extent to which equilibrium and disequilibrium explanations can account for unemployment rate differentials between cities it shows that shocks that disturb the steady state relationship among the unemployment rates of metropolitan areas tend to be eliminated by mobility within a single year it also shows that high unemployment areas tend to be those with attractive climates and amenities high wages and high unemployment insurance it argues that the main effect of government programs that create jobs in high unemployment areas will be to lure additional job seekers to those areas

when unionization disappears state level unionization and working poverty in the united states although the working poor are a much larger population than the unemployed poor u s poverty research devotes much more attention to joblessness than to working poverty research that does exist o

international versus domestic entrepreneurship new venture strategic behavior and industry structure abstract international entrepreneurship is defined in this study as the development of international new ventures or start ups that from their inception engage in international business thus viewing their operating domain as international from the initial stages of the firm s operation one hundred and eighty eight new venture firms in the computer and communications equipment manufacturing industries are classified according to the percentage of their sales in the international market ventures with no sales derived from international activities are considered domestic new ventures and ventures with sales from international activities comprising greater than 5 of total sales are considered international new ventures the strategy and industry structure profiles of international new ventures are significantly different from domestic new ventures the internationals pursue much broader market based strategies seeking a strategy of broad market coverage through developing and controlling numerous distribution channels serving numerous customers in diverse market segments and developing high market or product visibility the internationals also emphasize a more aggressive entry strategy building on outside financial and production resources to enter numerous geographical markets on a large scale securing patent technology is also an important component of their strategy this suggests that the internationals compete by entering the industry on a large scale seeking to penetrate multiple markets with the recognition that external resources are necessary to support such an entry whereas both the domestics and the internationals characterize domestic competition as being relatively intense the international new ventures compete in industries with higher levels of international competition it is not clear from this research whether the new venture selects an industry with a high degree of international competition and therefore responds with an international orientation or because the new venture has an international orientation it perceives or recognizes a higher degree of international competition another industry structure difference is the internationals perceived higher degree of restrictiveness due to government regulation it is unclear whether this restrictiveness motivates new ventures to seek less regulated international environments or if it indicates that when competing internationally the new venture is confronted with increased regulatory requirements domestic new ventures are distinguished by their emphasis on a production expansion strategy and customer specialization strategy the production specialization strategy consists of focusing on limited geographical markets maintaining excess capacity and pursuing forward integration the customer specialization strategy incorporates the production of a specialty product that is purchased infrequently thus for both of the domestic strategies a consistent closeness between the producer and consumer is implied this may be an important basis underlining the new venture s decision to compete in an exclusive domestic context this study offers initial support for the notion of international entrepreneurship by its findings that there are significant differences between new venture firms competing domestically and new ventures choosing to also enter international markets

state and local impacts of a revenue neutral shift from a uniform property to a land value tax results of a simulation study this paper reports on the results of simulating a revenue neutral shift from a statewide uniform property tax to a land value tax the statewide economic impacts of such a tax reform are projected to be generally positive and also persistent in a state like new hampshire however substantial variations in those impacts among the state s counties could be expected to occur

relatedness and corporate venturing does it really matter abstract although many studies have focused on the issue of relatedness in corporate venturing it is still unclear whether high or low levels of relatedness between a new venture and the parent firm leads to success as measured by venture performance in this study we raise the question of whether or not relatedness plays a determinant role in affecting success at the venture level the study analyzes data on 88 new industrial product corporate ventures from str4 the corporate start up database of the pims project based on a review of the strategic management and corporate entrepreneurship literature this study generates five hypotheses concerning the relationships among relatedness the intangible assets of the parent firm the entry strategy of the new venture and the venture s market share two rival hypotheses on the general impact of relatedness on venture performance are generated theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that highly related ventures benefit from existing resources exploiting corporate know how and sharing experience effects this leads to the first hypothesis which states that high related ventures achieve higher market shares relative to low related ventures on the other hand the disadvantages generally associated with high levels of relatedness such as higher coordination costs political problems associated with resource sharing appear to negatively affect the profitability e g r01 or the direct costs of the venture leading to the rival hypothesis results indicate that there are no significant differences in the market shares achieved by high medium and low related ventures and that therefore relatedness does not affect venture performance the third hypothesis predicts that given the parent firm has developed high levels of intangible assets high related ventures achieve higher market shares than low related ventures prior research has shown that intangible assets have a positive effect on venture performance high related ventures make possible higher levels of exploitation of the intangible assets held by the parent firm than low related ventures other things being equal if well managed these assets can neutralize the negative effects of high relatedness thus a positive interaction between relatedness and intangible assets should take place results support the hypothesis and show that the highest market shares are achieved by those ventures with high levels of relatedness and high levels of intangible assets two rival hypotheses concerning relatedness and its effects on the aggressiveness of entry strategy of the venture as measured by relative price relative promotional effort and relative product quality are generated the first hypothesis states that the more related the venture the more aggressive the entry strategy high relatedness implies high levels of resource sharing that should decrease the incremental costs needed to launch the venture thus high related ventures have greater amounts of resources to be used for aggressive entry strategies than low related ventures the rival hypothesis states that the less related the venture the more aggressive the entry strategy there is empirical evidence that increased resource sharing is associated with increased direct costs thus as compared with low related ventures high related ventures might be handicapped in pursuing aggressive entry strategies results indicate that there is no significant relationship between relatedness and the aggressiveness of the entry strategy overall this study suggests that the decision concerning the degree of relatedness does not explain by itself venture performance nor does it explain the entry strategy chosen at the venture level only when combined with the intangible assets held by the firm at the corporate level does relatedness appear to determine venture success implications for practioners are top management cannot decide a priori whether or not a new corporate venture should be highly related to the parent firm high image firms should only venture in highly related businesses building image at the corporate level pays if various high related ventures are present suggestions for further research are also offered

the temporal nature of growth determinants in new bank foundings implications for new venture research design abstract several authors have suggested the founding period as a critical time in the development of a firm arguing that the resource and decision choices made at this point have a substantive impact on the firm s future yet historically most studies have measured new venture choices considerably after the founding period we suggest that the uniqueness of the founding event is important and test its validity through the examination of two implicit assertions these implicit assertions are those of temporal stability and temporal locus of growth determinants

the importance of focus to market entrants abstract one of the most difficult questions facing entrepreneurs is how broadly to serve a heterogeneous market that is whether it is better to serve a narrow segment of the market hoping to flourish by gaining a relatively high and increasing market share within that segment or whether it is better to attempt to appeal to a broader cross section of the market thereby allowing the firm to succeed with a lower market share among the customers whom it is targeting a narrower focus permits more concentrated use of fixed resources facilitates the building of customer loyalty and lowers the threat of retaliation from generalist incumbents but requires a much higher market share within the firms target market to succeed porter 1980 has identified three generic strategies available to firms low cost differentiation and focus by focus he means that the firm should develop the ability to serve a particular target customer group very well often at the expense of other potential customer groups implicit in the firm s choice to adopt a focus strategy is that it must address the question of how broadly to focus in terms of any given product attribute given its resources and opportunities a fundamental element of the firm s choice of focus is that it is affected by and in turn affects that of its rivals that is focus is a strategic variable in the sense of the word strategic meant by game theorists each firm s optimal choice of action depends on the actions taken by other firms the literature on the optimal degree of focus for new ventures has reached very mixed conclusions the early authors looking at the question were fairly consistent in their recommendation that a highly focused or niche strategy was generally most appropriate later authors recommended that new ventures should enter markets aggressively facing larger incumbents head on the latest studies develop what we describe as a contingency approach arguing that the best approach depends on industry conditions we think that this literature is now at a point where we can advance our understanding by looking at specific industries in some detail as our understanding expands broader empirical work is becoming increasingly difficult because of the number of factors that must be built into any cross sectional model of new venture performance we hope then to develop an understanding of one industry that is generally similar in nature to many other industries from this understanding conclusions of interest to both researchers and practitioners can be drawn future studies of other industries with different fundamental structures will provide similar benefits more specifically this paper is an empirical inquiry into the microbrewery segment of the u s brewing industry designed to investigate the relative merits of specialist firms different degrees of focus the question addressed is whether focus affects specialist firms short run performance in an industry where there are entrenched generalists as well as many new entrpreneurial specialist entrants the analysis confirms several widely held beliefs of industry participants and observers that microbreweries are far more likely to attempt to serve too broad a market segment than to focus too narrowly that microbreweries are in direct competition with imports and that microbreweries benefit from having many microbrewery rivals within the same state furthermore there appear to be some small learning and or reputation effects in the operation of microbreweries as well as a minor novelty factor that benefits recently opened establishments we must note however that the majority of the variation in the performance of microbreweries stems from differences in the management organization or market of individual breweries not captured explicitly by other variables included in the study this finding perhaps should not be surprising given the huge variation in the backgrounds skills and outlooks of microbrewery owners during the segment s early days the lessons learned from this research are of obvious importance to entrepreneurs in many industries it is a very common situation for an entrepreneur to enter a stable industry in which established firms are already in place serving a broad cross section of the market our findings show that in such circumstances a narrowly focused approach to the market is best we can think of numerous examples of where entrepreneurs have either succeeded by focussing on a particular segment of the market or failed by not doing so in fact there are many cases in which firms have done first one and then the other for example and people express airlines at first flourished by focussing on the needs of budget conscious leisure travellers and then collapsed in part because it began to try to serve business travelers and others who are less price sensitive on certain routes one of the hallmarks of an entrepreneurial business is that it suffers severe resource constraints because the entrepreneur s choice of breadth of focus will have profound effects on the resource requirements of the business it is clear that the choice of which segment or segments of the market on which to focus is a fundamental decision made by all entrepreneurs this paper serves to illustrate the importance of this focus decision and to provide some guidance for entrepreneurs concerning the appropriate degree of focus to adopt in entering an established market

the effect of unionism on fringe benefits this study analyzes the impact of unionism on fringes paid to production workers using data on individual establishments it compares fringe expenditures in establishments having the same level of compensation per hour and finds that unionism raises the share of compensation allotted to fringes particularly to pensions vacation pay and life accident and health insurance in addition since unionism also raises the straight time wage rate itself a prime determinant of expenditures on fringes unionism has a very sizeable impact on total fringe expenditures as well as on the fringe share of compensation the union fringe effect exceeds in percentage terms the union wage effect and is sufficiently large to suggest that standard union wage studies understate the union effect on total compensation the study also compares the fringe expenditures of production and non production workers within the same establishment controlling for within establishment pay policies the findings suggest that the pres

new venture strategy and profitability a venture capitalist s assessment abstract this study uses theoretically justified criteria from the industrial organization io strategy literature and applies it to a new domain namely venture capitalists decision making specifically the study investigates the types of information venture capitalists utilize when evaluating new ventures and how venture capitalists use this information to assess likely new venture profitability in the interest of advancing our understanding of the decision making policies of venture capitalists this study addresses many of the limitations of previous research a review of io research suggests important relationships between a number of strategy variables and new venture profitability some of the relationships proposed by io strategy research are contingent in nature the strategy variables and their relationships with profitability are investigated in the domain of venture capitalists decision making individual and aggregate decision making analyses identified those strategy variables criteria venture capitalists utilize in assessing likely new venture profitability namely timing key success factor stability lead time competitive rivalry educational capability industry related competence timing key success factor stability interaction timing lead time interaction and timing educational capability interaction on average the most important criterion for venture capitalists in their assessment of profitability is industry related competence the second tier of importance is competitive rivalry timing and educational capability the third tier of importance is lead time key success factor stability and timing lead time interaction other interactions are less important therefore while venture capitalists use contingent decision policies main effects dominate if venture capitalists use a reported 8 to 12 minutes on average to evaluate a business plan sandberg 1986 then this study s findings may help the inexperienced venture capitalist allocate time towards assessing those attributes of primary importance although more complex relationships exist between the attributes the inexperienced venture capitalist can take comfort from this study s findings that main effects dominant amongst senior venture capitalists senior venture capitalists may take less comfort from their importance placed on main effects in light of research from io which suggests the importance of contingent relationships the results may also have practical application towards training how should venture capital firms train their new employees should venture capital firms rely solely on experienced venture capitalists lecturing the inexperienced on the criteria they use in assessing a new venture proposal like most decision makers venture capitalists have limited insight into their assessments and venture capital firms need to be aware of the gap between espoused policies and policies in use the information being taught needs to be supplemented with venture capitalists decision making research that investigates decision policies in use such as this study venture capitalist training could also involve experiential learning in conjunction with cognitive feedback about the decision policies used to accelerate the learning process experiential learning using cognitive feedback maximizes industry related learning while minimizing the cost of inexperienced decisions for the entrepreneur seeking capital this increased understanding of venture capitalists decision making may help them better target their business plans and presentations at those criteria venture capitalists find most critical to the profitability of a new venture

what is different about urbanization in rich and poor countries cities in brazil china india and the united states abstract are the well known facts about urbanization in the united states also true for the developing world we compare american metropolitan areas with analogous geographic units in brazil china and india both gibrat s law and zipf s law seem to hold as well in brazil as in the u s but china and india look quite different in brazil and china the implications of the spatial equilibrium hypothesis the central organizing idea of urban economics are not rejected the india data however repeatedly rejects tests inspired by the spatial equilibrium assumption one hypothesis is that spatial equilibrium only emerges with economic development as markets replace social relationships and as human capital spreads more widely in all four countries there is strong evidence of agglomeration economies and human capital externalities the correlation between density and earnings is stronger in both china and india than in the u s strongest in china in india the gap between urban and rural wages is huge but the correlation between city size and earnings is more modest the cross sectional relationship between area level skills and both earnings and area level growth are also stronger in the developing world than in the u s the forces that drive urban success seem similar in the rich and poor world even if limited migration and difficult housing markets make it harder for a spatial equilibrium to develop

the order and size of entry into international markets abstract when entering markets managers must decide when to enter as well as how many resources to commit to the entry the study finds that larger initial resource commitments do not result in higher market share and market survival in international markets instead to improve performance in international markets managers should strive to be first entrants further first entrants typically commit fewer resources suggesting that this strategy can be pursued by firms with limited resources

aggressiveness of response to new business opportunities following deregulation an empirical study of established financial firms abstract certain researchers have argued that industry structure constrains a firm s ability to respond to new business opportunities an important research question is to determine the relationship between organizational structure and strategy and a firm s response to new business opportunities this article measures how established financial firms respond to new business opportunities following deregulation and then compares these activities to accepted well known strategy typologies and structural arrangements using secondary data the new business venturing activities of the entire population of texas savings and loans n 270 was determined following an industry deregulation forty four of these savings and loans s ls then were identified as having a high level of venturing activity whereas 71 s ls were characterized by a low level of venturing activity a questionnaire describing specific well known strategies and structural arrangements was mailed to the top managers of these 115 s ls telephone interviews were obtained from 99 of the 115 s ls receiving questionnaires chief executive officers and executive vice presidents from 37 high level venturing activity s ls and 62 low level venturing activity s ls responded twenty eight of the 37 high level venturing activity s ls reported the use of a prospector type strategy whereas 52 of the 62 low level venturing activity s ls reported having a defender strategy this final sample of 80 s ls 28 52 was used in all subsequent data analyses total assets of the s ls sampled ranged from 10 2 million to 4 1 billion dollars a covariance

urbanization in a developing country city size and population composition abstract in developing countries typically there is a very high correlation between city size and educational attainment of the local population which is less pronounced or even absent in developed countries such as canada the u s a or the u k two explanations are examined first the types of goods produced in larger cities require relatively high skill labor inputs second public and perhaps private services demanded by higher skill people are only offered in larger cities the paper econometrically tests these hypotheses for brazil estimating the elasticities of substitution or typically complementarity between high and low skill labor and the bright lights effect for high versus low skill labor

unionized construction workers are more productive this paper presents evidence on the effect of unionism on productivity in construction the linkages are distinct from those studied previously in industrial settings apprenticeship training and hiring halls probably raise union productivity while jurisdictional disputes and restrictive work rules lower it using brown and medoff s methodology union productivity measured by value added per employee is 44 to 52 percent higher than nonunion the estimate declines to 17 to 22 percent when estimates of interarea construction price differences are used to deflate value added occupational mix differences and possibly apprenticeship training account for 15 to 27 percent of this difference

individual heterogeneity and interindustry wage differentials estimates of interindustry wage differentials are obtained using a fixed effects estimator on a long panel the national longitudinal survey of young men nls after controlling for observable worker characteristics 84 percent of the residual variance of log wages across industries is explained by individual fixedeffects only 16 percent of the residual variance is explained by industry dummies since no controls for specific job characteristics are used job characteristics that vary across industries could potentially explain this rather small residual across industry log wage variance that is not attributable to individual effects clearly then these data do not force us to resort to noncompetitive explanations of interindustry wage differentials such as efficiency wage theory furthermore efficiency wage theories predict that wages in efficiency wage paying or primary industries should be relatively rigid therefore industry wage differentials should widen in recessions however no such tendency is found in the data

corporate ventures into industrial markets dynamics of aggressive entry abstract this article reports a study of the effect of aggressive entry by firms venturing into new industrial markets there are three main sets of results first there is a significant correlation between the competitive attractiveness of the target industry and the initial share objective set by the corporation venturing into that industry second the downstream share objective set at the launch of the venture is significantly correlated with several key marketing strategy and investment strategy options made by the firm at the start of operations third if most of these key strategy decisions are made under the assumption that a high share position will rapidly be achieved their resulting performance in terms of both market share and roi is superior to firms which enter with less aggressive share aspirations these results are particularly appealing to the large established firm which has the resources and thus can both afford to absorb the cost of failure and afford to make significant front end investments in aggressive initial marketing expenses and investments in initial plant capacity for such firms a feasible strategy for a new venture into an industrial market could be to if possible but not essential seek industries markets to enter which are less likely to provoke rivalrous responses set aggressive market share targets invest aggressively in initial plant capacity develop aggressive sales force sales promotion advertising service quality and or pricing programs relative to competitors as appropriate to the particular industry being entered the reason we suggest that the programs be aggressive as appropriate is that different strategic options are likely to be more effective in one industry than another for instance aggressive advertising and sales promotions could be more effective for consumables while aggressive sales calling programs and superior service delivery could be the more effective route for capital goods businesses

unions and the labor market status of white and minority youth this paper presents data showing that unions have a very substantial effect on the wages of young union workers particularly young blacks but that they also have a negative effect on the wages of young blacks who are not unionized the effects of unions on employment are negative for both groups and especially for blacks in addition the data indicate that young blacks within the labor force have union membership rates that are roughly comparable to those of young whites but rates for young blacks are lower after accounting for differences in the rate of labor force participation of young blacks and whites young blacks also continue to be underrepresented in strongly unionized crafts and in the construction industry while being overrepresented in the weakly organized and low wage service sector these results suggest the need to improve further the access of blacks to unionized employment

a profile of new venture success and failure in an emerging industry abstract this study examined three types of factors 1 the characteristics of the lead entrepreneur 2 startup processes undertaken during the founding of the firm and 3 firm behaviors after start up including management practices and strategic behaviors associated with new venture success and failure the research involved a field study of 26 small young firms 13 successful and 13 less successful or failed each engaged in the distribution of fresh juices in eight metropolitan centers about 30 of the total market in the united states both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through field work at each firm location a statistical analysis of data collected in a structured questionnaire was the primary method for testing the factors case studies of all of the firms were developed to provide qualitative support for the quantitative findings of the study results from these analyses indicated significant differences between successful and unsuccessful firms in all three categories lead entrepreneurs in successful firms were more likely to have been raised by entrepreneurial parents have had a broader business and more prior startup experience and believed they had less control of their success in business than unsuccessful entrepreneurs successful entrepreneurs seek to reduce risk in their businesses they work long hours have a personal investment in the firm and are good communicators successful firms were those initiated with ambitious goals lead entrepreneurs had a clear broad business idea which provided the adaptive torque required to overcome adversity confrontation and often a troubled financial condition effective startup or purchase required broad planning efforts that considered all aspects of the industry and firm successful firms spent more time planning 237 hours than unsuccessful firms 85 hours the use of outside professionals and advisors for help in solving specific problems during startup was important for success as well as the advice and information provided by other industry participants particularly customers and suppliers most ventures did not have written business plans nearly all purchased firms failed buyers of competitively troubled firms were negatively displaced generally unemployed managers who lacked broad management experience and while often well educated had no prior experience in purchasing a business successful firms were found to be more flexible participative and adaptive organizations these firms had employees who could perform the work duties of others and were likely to be managed in a way that provided these workers with the flexibility to modify their jobs to adapt to changing industry and organizational conditions lead entrepreneurs of successful firms were likely to spend more time communicating with partners customers suppliers and employees than the lead entrepreneurs of unsuccessful firms successful firms sought to become larger firms and embarked upon sales to broad sectors of the market successful firms achieved high market shares with market shares came higher financial returns less successful firms were restricted to narrow market sectors consisting of smaller customers and those more difficult to service while customer service remained an important concern the commodity nature of fresh juices failed to support differentiation and the narrowly focused firm was typified by high product costs and unprofitable operations

the long term effects of forcible assimilation policy the case of indian boarding schools for decades in north america and australia indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools these schools had the stated goal of cultural assimilation and are perceived as educational failures i offer the first causal evidence on the long run effects of these schools i identify these effects using the interaction of changes in canadian national policy and regional variation in the power of the catholic church i find that the average boarding school had substantial effects on both cultural and economic assimilation however i find suggestive evidence this is not true for highly abusive schools

who benefits from local job growth migrants or the original residents bartik t j 1993 who benefits from local job growth migrants or the original residents reg studies 27 297 311 this paper surveys research on whether the new jobs resulting from growth in a local economy e g a metropolitan area go to inmigrants or the original local residents the empirical evidence suggests that around one quarter of the new jobs from local growth increases the labour force participation rates of local residents in the long run these long run effects may occur because local growth provides residents with valuable employment experience research also suggests that minorities benefit most from growth and that higher wage industries provide greater employment benefits for local residents bartik t j 1993 qui est ce qui beneficie de la croissance d emploi locale les migrants ou la population autochtone reg studies 27 297 311 cet article etudie la recherche effectuee dans le but d evaluer si les nouveaux emplois dus a la croissance d une economic locale par exemple une

new venture internationalization strategic change and performance a follow up study abstract although many scholars business experts and government agencies enthusiastically advise all firms including new and small ventures to internationalize such advice does not appear to be based on empirical evidence few researchers have empirically examined the link between new venture performance and the internationalization of new ventures at best the evidence suggests that there is no significant relationship we used a sample of 62 u s new venture manufacturers in the computer and communications equipment industries during the late 1980s these industries were purportedly globalizing and may have been leading other industries into increased international operations we found that higher levels of internationalization percentage of foreign sales to total venture sales were associated with higher relative market share two years later however there was no significant direct relationship between percentage of international sales and subsequent return on investment roi perhaps international operations simply cost more than expected or perhaps as macmillan and day 1987 found in their study of corporate ventures over a 4 year time period increases in market share may be a prelude to higher roi as scale benefits translate into higher profitability however the 2 year time period of our study may simply not be long enough for investments in higher market shares to produce improved profits during the 2 year study period many of the ventures changed their level of internationalization of the 36 ventures who were domestic no international sales in the prior study 10 expanded into international markets over the 2 years of the 26 originally international ventures international sales of at least 5 half increased their percentage of international sales nine reduced it and four stayed the same whereas the average change in international sales percentage of the ventures was only 2 9 percentage points the large standard deviation of 13 0 percentage points and the leptokurtic distribution 9 2 reflected the dramatic changes made by some of the ventures using subgroup analysis we examined these changes in percentage of international sales in conjunction with changes in strategies and performance ventures that had increased international sales relative to those that had not exhibited more positive associations between the degree of strategic change and performance as measured in terms of both relative market share and roi increased international sales in technology based new ventures seems to require simultaneous strategic changes in order to positively impact venture performance this study is a follow up to mcdougall s 1989 finding that technology based new ventures that had sales in foreign markets had significantly different strategies than similar ventures that sold their products only domestically the current study enriches the previous findings by adding consideration of 1 changes in degree of internationalization 2 changes in strategy and 3 venture performance although we found no performance penalty associated with increasing international sales alone indiscriminant advice for new ventures to sell in foreign markets without other supporting strategic actions is inconsistent with our findings internationalization alone did not lead to increased profitability entrepreneurs of young technology based firms who are considering internationalization should take heed of our results internationalization of sales does not appear to be a simple matter of applying established strategies and procedures developed for a domestic arena successful internationalization appears to require changes in the venture s strategy as well

employment growth worker mobility and rural economic development a county level labor market model is estimated for north carolina the model accounts for inter county commuting migration and within county adjustments to labor demand shocks econometric results indicate that most employment growth 70 80 during the 1980s was accommodated by changes in commuting flows evidence is also presented indicating that labor force growth and by extension population growth and associated fiscal impacts in rural counties is sensitive to employment growth in nearby urban counties these results highlight two opposing forces related to spatial spillovers that are usually neglected in analyses of the economic and fiscal impacts of employment growth copyright 2003 oxford university press

employment unemployment and demand shifts in local labor markets this paper analyzes the effects of demand shifts within and between local labor markets on unemployment and employment outcomes observed in those markets the demand shifts are calculated from sales growth data at the firm and industry levels the results show that in general employment and wage adjustments by firms are primarily driven by shifts in labor demand demand shifts between local areas account for large fractions of the observed variation in unemployment and employment rate levels and changes across areas within area shifts cause much smaller and insignificant amounts of unemployment and only if they are between industry copyright 1991 by mit press

productivity gains from geographic concentration of human capital evidence from the cities abstract based on recent theoretical developments the argument is made that the average level of human capital is a local public good cities with higher average levels of human capital should therefore have higher wages and higher land rents after conditioning on the characteristics of individual workers and dwellings this prediction is supported by data for standard metropolitan statistical areas smsas in the united states where the smsa average levels of formal education and work experience are used as proxies for the average level of human capital the alternative explanations of omitted smsa variables and self selection are evaluated an estimate of the effect of an additional year of average education on total factor productivity is computed

a quantitative content analysis of the characteristics of rapid growth firms and their founders a group of firms that is attracting attention are rapid growth firms these firms are of particular interest because rapid growth is an indication of market acceptance and firm success by studying rapidgrowth firms researchers can help all firms better understand the attributes associated with firm growth despite these positive outcomes however rapid firm growth is difficult to achieve and maintain this study adds to the literature through a quantitative content analysis of the narrative descriptions of 50 rapid growth firms and a comparison group of 50 slow growth companies the purpose of the study was to draw from the narratives a list of empirically grounded growth related attributes that are associated with rapid growth firms the findings of the study resulted in the advancement of a conceptual model of the attributes of rapid growth firms in four areas founder characteristics firm attributes business practices and human resource management hrm practices

interindustry wage differentials in brazil why workers who have seemingly identical characteristics receive different wages has been a recurrent problem in labor economics and has received much attention lately in the debate on the efficiency wage models ewms in this article we extend this line of research to a less developed economy by testing the existence of interindustry wage differentials in brazilian industries the empirical analysis is based on cross sectional data on individuals working in the manufacturing industry in sao paulo one of the greater industrial areas in brazil the brazilian case shows a number of similarities to previous studies as there is a significant and stable pattern of interindustry wage differentials however it also raises additional issues namely a relationship between technology and wages that extends beyond the size effect as well as the similarities of the wage structure across countries even when workers characteristics are controlled the results have also proven to be quite robust to methodological estimation issues that is changes in the control variables and full correction for the least squares sampling error

determinants of trust in supplier relations evidence from the automotive industry in japan and the united states abstract this study examines the determinants of inter organizational trust by using survey data from over 1000 suppliers in the automotive industry drawing on transaction cost economics game theory and sociological exchange theory we define trust and derive a model of its determinants regression analysis results indicate that determinants of trust are different from determinants of opportunism us japanese differences are found in three respects i the way trust is conceptualised by suppliers is more complex in japan than in the us ii the level of trust is higher in japan than in the us and iii the factors facilitating trust and those attenuating opportunism differ in the us and japan

a taxonomy of new business ventures abstract in this study we develop and validate an empirically grounded taxonomy of new business ventures nbvs using qualitative and quantitative data generated from interviews of and questionnaire responses from 106 entrepreneurs the taxonomy describes eight different types gestalts of nbvs these eight types are profiled across four dimensions individual what kinds of background characteristics abilities skills and motivations do these entrepreneurs have organizational what kinds of competitive strategies and organization structures are used by nbvs environmental what kinds of competitive environments are nbvs created in process what kinds of activities are pursued and how much effort is devoted to the activities that entrepreneurs undertake to create their nbvs an nbv gestalt is an ideal type generated through cluster analysis it is a composite summary of the case descriptions of the nbvs that fell into each particular cluster although each nbv gestalt is a complex combination of many different characteristics a simplistic description of each nbv gestalt is outlined to provide an overall view of the taxonomy type 1 escaping to something new individuals who start these firms seek to escape from their previous jobs jobs that from their perspective offer few rewards in terms of salary challenging work and promotion opportunities the new venture is in a different industry and is a different type of work than the entrepreneur s previous job this firm enters an established highly competitive market and offers goods services similar to its competitors type 2 putting the deal together the concern of the entrepreneurs in this group is to assemble the different aspects of the business suppliers wholesale and retail channels customers into a deal in which each participant in the deal can be assured of winning contacts are a crucial factor type 3 roll over skills contacts before the start up the entrepreneur worked in a position using technical skills and expertise similar to those required in the new venture he or she spends little time selling marketing or advertising because customer contacts from a previous position are used this firm provides goods or services that are based on the owner s professional expertise and are usually generic services e g auditing advertising the firm competes by offering better service than competitors type 4 purchasing a firm since this is a purchase a great deal of time is spent acquiring capital for the acquisition the venture is viewed as a turn around situation from the previous owners upon acquisition a great amount of time is spent evaluating the firm s products and services the firm competes by adapting to the changing needs of customers type 5 leveraging expertise this entrepreneur is among the best in his or her technical field the firm starts with the help of partners the firm enters an established market and competes through flexibility in adapting to customer needs since the entrepreneur is keenly aware of changes in the environment a great deal of time is devoted to sales the environment is characterized by high technical change and complexity type 6 aggressive service the firm is a very aggressive service oriented firm usually a consulting firm in a very specialized area the environment requires that the entrepreneur have profes sional or technical expertise of some kind knowing the right people in this industry is very important for making sales or for gaining access to those who influence which firms have the opportunity to make sales type 7 pursuing the unique idea the firm is created because of a new idea for a product or service that is not being offered the products or services are not technically sophisticated or difficult to manufacture since this is the first firm in the marketplace to offer such products services there is some uncertainty as to whether customers can be found type 8 methodical organizing the methodical aspect of the start up is reflected in the entrepreneur s use of planning both in acquiring the skill venture the firm s products or services are similar to those of other firms but the firm has some new twist either a slightly different way to manufacture the product or provide the service or by selling to a slightly different customer the nbv taxonomy outlines a situation based framework that may be useful for helping potential entrepreneurs match their skills abilities and interests to possible new venture types

technology strategy and new venture performance a study of corporate sponsored and independent biotechnology ventures abstract new ventures companies eight years or younger play a major role in the development of an emerging high technology industry corporate sponsored new ventures those supported by an established corporation and independent ventures those founded by independent entrepreneurs frequently battle for industry leadership and financial success whereas both venture types use technology to achieve financial and market success little is known about the differences in their technology strategies technology strategy is the plan that guides a new venture s decisions on the development and use of technological capabilities this strategy covers six major areas the first is selecting the pioneering posture where a venture decides whether or not be among the industry s first companies to introduce new products technologies to the market the second is determining the number of products to be introduced to the market the third is choosing the extent of a venture s use of internal and external r d sources internal sources usually refer to in house r d activities external sources may include purchasing or licensing of technology from other companies or joining strategic alliances to acquire that technology the fourth is deciding the level of r d spending the fifth is selecting the combination portfolio of applied and basic research projects whereas basic r d advances science applied r d leads to new products and technologies the sixth and final dimension is the venture s use of patenting to protect any competitive advantages it might gain from its r d activities this article reports the results of a study that explored the differences in the technology strategies and performance of corporate and independent ventures the biotechnology industry was chosen to test the study s hypotheses using 112 ventures seven of the study s hypotheses focused on the potential variations in technology strategy between corporate and independent ventures independent ventures ivs were expected to surpass corporate ventures cvs in pioneering new products technologies using internal r d and emphasizing applied r d cvs were expected to surpass ivs in introducing new products using external r d sources spending on r d and patenting the study s remaining three hypotheses covered possible variations in new venture performance nvp and their sources the results showed that ivs focused more on pioneering pursued a more applied r d portfolio and emphasized internal r d more than cvs cvs utilized external technology sources spent more heavily on r d stressed basic r d and used patenting more intensively than ivs these results were consistent with the hypotheses however contrary to expectations there were no significant differences between cvs and ivs in the frequency of new product introductions probably because most ventures were at the invention rather than the commercialization stage the results on the nvp of cvs and ivs were counter to expectations ivs outperformed cvs probably because of the high motivation of the iv owners who reaped the rewards of growth and profitability also whereas cvs may have greater access to the resources of their sponsors political conflicts and rigid corporate controls might have reduced their ability to achieve competitive advantages the results also indicated that cvs and ivs appeared to gain competitive advantages from different technological choices pioneering a focus on applied r d and extensive use of the internal r d sources were also positively associated with the performance of ivs heavy r d spending the use of both internal and external r d sources frequent product introductions and patenting were positively associated with the performance of cvs finding that technology strategies significantly impacted nvp should encourage executives to consider pursuing a formal technology strategy likewise the finding that different dimensions of technology strategy influenced the performance of cvs and ivs in different ways has practical implications cv managers can learn from their higher performing iv rivals also because established companies frequently acquire ivs information about their technology strategies can be valuable in assimilating the acquired ventures overall the results show that technology strategy is an important factor in enhancing new venture performance

union density and varieties of coverage the anatomy of union wage effects in germany collective bargaining in germany takes place at either industry or firm level and bargaining coverage is much higher than union density the share of a firm s employees covered can vary between 0 and 100 suggesting that researchers should distinguish union density coverage at the firm level and coverage at the individual level using linked employer employee data the authors estimate ols and quantile regressions of wages on these dimensions of union influence they find that a higher share of employees in a firm covered by industrywide or firm specific contracts is associated with higher wages but find no clear cut effect on wage dispersion yet holding coverage at the firm level constant individual coverage is associated with lower wages and less wage dispersion higher union density reinforces the effects of coverage but for employees in firms without coverage density s effect is negative and thus compresses the wage distribution in firms without coverage

intra metropolitan shifts in labor demand and the adjustment of local markets abstract i offer new evidence on the adjustment of local labor markets to geographic shifts in labor demand within us metropolitan areas using a unique data set in which metropolitan subregions are geographically matched across the 1970 1980 and 1980 1990 decades the evidence uncovered paints the following picture workers especially those with less education make incomplete adjustments within metropolitan areas in response to intra metropolitan demand shifts although blacks may not make especially limited adjustments they have disproportionately suffered deleterious effects from job movements because the demand shifts have tended to be away from their places of residence

nominal and real union wage differentials and the effects of industry and smsa density 1973 83 many studies have examined the influence of union density union members as a percentage of all workers on earnings in the private sector but few such studies have looked at the public sector using data from the 1991 current population survey this

characteristics of smaller company leveraged buyouts abstract while stories abound in the business press about multibillion dollar leveraged buyouts lbos scant attention has been paid to this type of buyout financing in smaller companies some observers argue that lbos are little more than financial manipulation while others suggest that they are an alternative form of entrepreneurial endeavor and that smaller company lbos may serve to rejuvenate formerly stodgy organizations in this study data from 56 firms that experienced an lbo between 1981 and 1987 were analyzed to ascertain the current state of smaller company lbos and what changes if any occur after the lbo takes place most of the smaller company lbos occur in industries far different from the high growth high technology environments of the glamorous start up the cash flow requirements of the high debt component seem to favor industries in which growth is very slow or even negative and in which the technology is stable likewise smaller lbos are relatively immune from foreign competition the typical smaller company lbo individual has generally been associated with the company as an officer or director prior to the buyout and possesses at least a college education while it was presumed that the typical lbo individual would be between 40 and 55 years of age a substantial number of both older and younger individuals were discovered in the study in terms of internal operating changes after the buyout it was expected that the locus of decision making would shift toward the lead investor and that managerial compensation would become increasingly incentive based unexpectedly little change in the locus of decision making occurred but there was a pronounced shift away from salaried compensation sample firms indicated that asset stripping or personnel layoffs occurred relatively infrequently and the most common operating changes focused on such revenue generation efforts as increased sales and marketing and on imposing more stringent capital budgeting requirements the study suggests that the once stable environments in which these firms operated may become far more exciting in the future on the positive side these smaller companies are being operated by owner managers experienced in both the company and the industry the financial requirements of the high debt levels and the resulting emphasis on cash flow rather than profitability may make these firms extremely fierce competitors on the negative side is the instability that may be caused by the high debt levels because most of these companies have not yet faced an economic recession their long term viability remains to be tested

modeling new venture performance an analysis of new venture strategy industry structure and venture origin abstract this study examined the relative role of strategy industry structure and origin independent vs corporate or parental venture on the profitability and growth of 247 new ventures in two segments of the information processing industry computer related and communications related equipment manufacturing each of the 247 ventures was eight years old or less most previous research examining the role of these three factors in new venture performance has examined them singularly or in limited combinations with very few firms in their sample the theoretical agenda in this study was to advance this research stream by simultaneously examining origin strategy and industry structure as well as the interaction between strategy and industry structure using a large sample of new ventures the applications agenda in the study was to uncover patterns in the interactive role of strategy structure and origin that might provide meaningful insights to aid strategic decisions in new ventures from the theoretical perspective the study found that variability in new venture performance was better accounted for when all three factors were included in a statistical model overall these results suggested that new venture strategy and industry structure and their interaction are essential for understanding new venture performance while origin is secondary more important in explaining market share growth than higher profitability several study findings may be of interest to the practicing new venture strategist the study uncovered eight basic strategy patterns across the 247 firms a detailed description of these eight distinct patterns is provided in appendix a of this article overall performance results suggest that no one strategy is always the best new venture strategy but when we examined the fit of different strategies with different industry structures we were able to distinguish high from low performing new ventures dramatically in other words specific new venture strategies were very effective in some industry settings and ineffective in others for example new venture entrepreneurs were able to successfully enter and compete in high barrier industries by employing strategies emphasizing superior product quality and higher customer service alternatively when entry barriers were low strong marketing skills offered the best advantage the key to the success of these marketing oriented ventures was the establishment of a distribution system in which products were pulled through by their strong brand identification and name recognition these venture managers supported brand identification and name recognition with a high level of advertising and promotion experience and gave constant attention to adding new channels of distribution although earlier studies suggested that parented new ventures are more effective in achieving profitability origin was not a significant explainer of profitability for the new ventures in this study much has been written recently that argues for creating an entrepreneurial climate in a corporation many corporations have wholeheartedly embraced efforts to foster an independent spirit among parented ventures so much so that many corporations have attempted to replicate an independent climate in their corporate sponsored start ups rather than an origin difference between new ventures perhaps it is the difference in the climate or spirit of the venture or more specifically the manner in which the corporation manages the start up that accounts for profitability differences

migration and interregional employment redistribution in the united states during the 1970 s the south and west census regions accounted for 89 9 percent of incremental u s population and 72 5 percent of incremental nonagricultural employment these figures are sharply higher than corresponding figures for any other decade in u s history for example during the 1930 s the south and west gained 65 4 percent of incremental national population which was the highest share previously recorded the immediate cause of the interregional population shifts is fairly heavy net out migration from the northeast and north central regions to the south and west combined with birth rates that are near historical low levels interactive relationships that cause employment growth and migration to reinforce one another are probably operating but these relationships are not well understood they are the focus of this paper using a new and unique set of time series data on migration and employment we develop and estimate a time series model of migration and employment growth for each of 171 u s regions our primary emphasis in this paper is on the 57 major metropolitan

venture capital and management led leveraged buy outs a european perspective abstract management and leveraged buy outs became phenomena of the 1980s from beginnings in the u s they quickly traversed the atlantic spreading first to the u k and then throughout europe the venture capital industry has played a crucial role in the development of buy outs in europe particularly in smaller deals in the u k the netherlands and france this paper examines three aspects of the market for venture and development capital funded management led buy outs in europe it provides a framework for analysis of the different levels of development of each country s market it examines performance of u k buy outs and addresses the extent and nature of exits throughout the paper use is made of the extensive database of european buy outs developed by the authors the main conclusions to emerge are as follows european experience can not be compared to that in the u s as a single economy there are important differences between european countries in respect of the level of buy out activity and the extent to which conditions are or will be favourable for the development of such transactions conceptually a buy out market may be considered as requiring three main factors to be present if it is to develop the generation of buy out opportunities the infrastructure to complete a transaction and opportunities for the investors in a buy out to realise their gains these broad groups may be further sub divided the generation of opportunities will be heavily influenced by attitudes to entrepreneurial risk and hence willingness of managers to buy the ownership structure of industry and hence the generation of entities which are for sale and the state of development of mergers and acquisition markets the infrastructure to complete transactions includes sources of funding both in respect of venture capital availability and the ability of banks to fund transactions the nature of legal and taxation regimes and the existence of intermediaries and advisors who can both identify and negotiate buy outs the existence of suitable exit routes comprises stock market flotation sale to another group and recapitalisation possibly through a secondary buy out many of these factors are similar to the conditions necessary for venture capital deals to develop the generation of entities for sale may take various forms with succession issues in family firms divestment of unwanted divisions privatization of public sector activities and going privates of companies quoted on a stock market being the most important this framework was used to analyze european buy out markets through a combination of interview and desk research the evidence shows that the most highly developed buy out markets and those with the greatest short term potential are not necessarily to be found in the largest economies u s investors who turn towards europe to develop their markets at a time when the u s buy out market is experiencing a downturn and european investors seeking to broaden their activities need to be aware of these differences as in comparable studies in the u s u k lbos on the evidence from our survey of 182 buyouts on average produce performance improvements u k lbos appear to undertake a greater level of new product development and asset purchase after buy out than do their counterparts in the u s and have placed less emphasis on asset disposals than u s lbos managers buying out frequently tightened up their control of working capital the results of our survey indicate support for both the entrepreneurial and agency cost reduction perspectives about buy outs with the former perhaps being somewhat more in evidence exit routes are an important aspect of the buy out market but evidence presented here indicates that buy outs are unlikely to exit in the way in which they originally envisaged in particular buy outs that initially were aiming for flotation on a secondary tier stock market have almost invariably been sold to third parties

universities as strategic actors in the knowledge economy the university plays a particular role in the global knowledge economy as provider of both public and private goods related to education research and societal impacts at the same time universities in the plural play many different roles and exhibit a rich experimentation in organizational forms and knowledge foci adapting to local and global conditions there is also an aspect of uneven regional development and agglomeration of competencies as the individuals and organizations must also balance local interests and stakeholders with global networks in science technology and innovation thus we can identify empirically that universities are changing their strategies organizational structures and competencies in order to respond to new external demands and internal management practices bonaccorsi and daraio 2007 the question is how to explain this theoretically and identify empirical trends and pathways little previous research has focused upon how universities are learning to compete and why they try to act strategically this article as well as the selected articles in the special issue focus upon how and why this transition is occurring as well as the impacts for understanding universities as strategic actors in the knowledge economy section 2 provides an overview it introduces the three themes and articles collected in this special issue providing a summary of the main contributions section 3 then provides our perspective on how to analyze and understand universities as strategic actors it discusses relevant literature as a way of beginning to provide our perspective of the necessity and elements involved in a more united theoretical and empirical understanding this includes statement of predictions as well as empirical evidence that these trends are occurring section 4 concludes with relevant research themes for the future

unemployment hysteresis and the natural rate hypothesis i introduction rod cross et al university of st andrews ii reflections on hysteresis and the natural rate 1 the irrelevance of the natural rate lawrence summers harvard university 2 on the history of hysteresis rod cross university of st andrews iii the characteristics of the unemployed 1 unemployment vacancies and the long term unemployed peter smith l b s paul levine south bank polytechnic alan budd l b s 2 characteristics of the long term unemployed evidence from the labour force survey stephen creigh department of employment 3 is unemployment irreversible peter r hughes department of employment gillian hutchinson queen mary college london iv analysis of hysteresis effects 1 union activity and wage employment movements assar lindbeck institute for international studies university of stockholm and dennis snower birkbeck college london 2 a simple model of imperfect competition with walrasian features huw dixon birkbeck college london 3 unemployment and worker quality simon price university of bristol 4 screening in labour markets with heterogeneous workers inge schnell university of bonn and l s e iv hysteresis effects and the explanation of aggregate unemployment 1 testing for multiple natural rates of unemployment in the british economy alan carruth university of kent and andrew oswald centre for labour economics l s e 2 why is wage inflation in britain so high stephen nickell university of oxford 3 phillips curve estimates incorporating a natural rate with hysteresis effects david coe o e c d 4 hysteresis and european unemployment olivier blanchard m i t and lawrence summers harvard university 5 the natural rate empirical fact or theoretical straitjacket tim jenkinson merton college oxford iv panel discussion the implications of hysteresis effects for unemployment policy 1 david stanton employment market research unit department of employment 2 charles adams i m f 3 marcus miller university of warwick 4 peter mcgregor fraser of allander institute university of strathclyde

local pay determination theoretical models of local pay are reviewed ranging from neoclassical perspectives unemployment wage trade off models and segmented labor market approaches the empirical work on u s north south differentials is discussed for the u k studies of the extent of and trends in geographical pay differentials are considered as well as behavioral explanations focusing on the role of excess demand the issue of adjustment processes is then discussed both in theory and in relation to empirical work for the u s and u k this discussion focuses largely on geographical spillover effects in terms of origins evidence and issues of identification finally the impact of certain impediments in the adjustment process are considered specifically in relation to the u k these concern the role and influence of national wage bargaining as well as factors inhibiting labor migration stemming from the housing market and the climate of the national labor market copyright 1992 by blackwell publishers ltd

paying to queue a theory of locational differences in nonunion wages abstract traditional theories of the effect unions have on nonunion wages are difficult to reconcile with firm and worker mobility we show how differences in nonunion wages can persist in a two city search model nonunion wage differences across cities are driven by transition rates into the union sector should union queues form in the nonunion sector union power decreases nonunion wages as workers are willing to take lower wages to line up for union jobs however if queues are formed in the unemployed sector union power increases nonunion wages as nonunion firms pay premiums to induce workers to leave the queue

intangible assets entry strategies and venture success in industrial markets abstract this study assesses the impact of intangible assets on the venture success of firms as they enter into industrial markets that are new to them a new market is one that is geographically new for the firm or is a product market where this firm did not originally compete the analysis is based on the profit impact of market strategy database which contains information on 91 new ventures into industrial markets five hypothesis were tested in this study 1 h1 high levels of intangible assets will be positively associated with performance of firms entering new markets 2 h2 high levels of intangible assets increase the likelihood of success regardless of the timing of entry 3 h3 in explaining venture performance there will be a positive interaction effect between promptness of entry and level of intangible assets pioneer entrants will benefit substantively more from high levels of intangible assets then will later entrants 4 h4 high levels of intangible assets enhance success irrespective of aggressiveness of entry 5 h5 in explaining performance there will be a positive interaction between level of intangible assets and aggressiveness of entry firms with high levels of intangible assets will gain substantively more from aggressive pricing promotion and high quality than firms with low levels of intangible assets one specific intangible asset corporate image is empirically analyzed and the results support our hypotheses a strong corporate image enables the firm to achieve greater success when they enter into new ventures and the interaction of image with aggressive promotional pricing and quality strategies is significant in explaining this success implications for practioners are high image firms reap enormous benefits from increased promotional efforts high quality and aggressive entry low image firms are severely penalized when they aggressively enter a market and may he better off entering the market slowly and at low prices

union effects on nonunion wages evidence from panel data on industries and cities the authors test for threat and crowding effects of unions on non union wages at the industry and city levels using panel data on the percent organized and nonunion industry and city wage differentials constructed from current population surveys over the period 1973 89 at the industry level increases in the percent organized were associated with decreases in the nonunion industry wage differential suggesting that crowding effects were the predominant union effect on nonunion industry wage differentials in contrast at the city level increases in the percent organized were associated with increases in the nonunion city wage differential suggesting that threat effects predominated the authors also find evidence of negative cross occupation union effects on nonunion industry wage differentials supporting their hypothesis that the industry level results were partly driven by complementarity between union and nonunion labor

the union threat this paper studies the impact of unions on wage inequality output and unemployment to do so it proposes a search and matching model of union formation in which unions arise endogenously through a voting process within firms in a union firm workers bargain their wages collectively in a nonunion firm each worker bargains individually with the firm because of this wage setting asymmetry a union lowers the profit of a firm and compresses the wage distribution of the workers furthermore to prevent unionization nonunion firms distort their hiring decisions in a way that also lowers the dispersion of wages after being calibrated on the united states the model shows that even though a partial equilibrium estimate would predict a small impact of unions on inequality removing the threat of unionization increases the variance of wages substantially completely outlawing unions increases wage inequality further moreover outlawing unions increases welfare and output and lowers unemployment these results suggest that even with a small membership unions might have a significant impact on the economy through general equilibrium mechanisms and the way they distort firms decisions i am greatly indebted to nobuhiro kiyotaki esteban rossi hansberg and oleg itskhoki for their invaluable advice and support throughout this project special thanks go to esteban for suggesting the title i also wish to thank manuel amador orley ashenfelter francisco buera jeff campbell pablo fajgelbaum henry farber baris kaymak david lee thomas lemieux benjamin moll justinas pelenis edouard schaal andrew shephard christopher sims liz tennant as well as seminar participants at princeton university and the chicago fed rookie seminar for helpful comments and suggestions i gratefully acknowledge financial support from the fonds quebecois de recherche sur la societe et la culture email mtascher princeton edu address 001 fisher hall department of economics princeton university princeton nj 08544 for the most recent version go to http sites google com site mathtd

understanding young women s marriage decisions the role of labor and marriage market conditions using the 1970 1980 1990 censuses the authors investigate the impact of labor and marriage market conditions on the incidence of marriage of young women age 16 24 they first estimate the effects on marriage of personal characteristics and metropolitan statistical area msa indicators separately by race and education group they then regress the first stage msa effects on msa level labor and marriage market conditions and welfare benefits taking account of fixed effects and time trends specific to each msa better female labor markets worse female marriage markets worse male labor markets are found to lower marriage rates fr whites in all education groups results for these variables for blacks are sensitive to estimation technique although stronger results are obtained for an older age group 25 34 while welfare benefits have a negative effect in cross sectional analyses the association becomes considerably weaker in fixed effects specifications

unions norms and the rise in u s wage inequality from 1973 to 2007 private sector union membership in the united states declined from 34 to 8 percent for men and from 16 to 6 percent for women during this period inequality in hourly wages increased by over 40 percent we report a decomposition relating rising inequality to the union wage distribution s shrinking weight we argue that unions helped institutionalize norms of equity reducing the dispersion of nonunion wages in highly unionized regions and industries accounting for unions effect on union and nonunion wages suggests that the decline of organized labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality an effect comparable to the growing stratification of wages by education

new firm survival industry strategy and location abstract how important is the physical location of a new firm for its chances of survival location of a new firm whether in urban metro or rural vicinities can have important impacts on performance outcomes urban locations often contain a wealth of diverse resources but may also have a greater number of competitors rural locations may lack diversity but can enable the firm to exploit a niche with limited competition we suggest that a simple examination of new firm location will not adequately predict survival chances rather the impact on location of the new firm will be influenced by the industry in which the new firm operates and by the strategy the new firm pursues the industry of the new firm is examined by focusing on where the new firm is located in the value chain we predict that a new firm upstream in the industry value chain will have better chances of survival than new firms downstream in the industry value chain new firms with broadly focused strategies are hypothesized to have greater survival chances than new firms strategically positioned to exploit a narrow market focus and we predict that new firms in urban locations will have greater chances for survival than new firms in rural locations

differences in wage levels among metropolitan areas less educated workers in the united states easton t and king m c 2000 differences in wage levels among metropolitan areas less educated workers in the united states reg studies 34 21 27 this work investigates the causes of low wages for workers with a high school education or less in the us using a sample of 241 metropolitan areas drawn from the 1990 census it examines the influence of five labour market characteristics on between metropolitan area wage differences labour demand the minimum wage unionization industry mix and the race gender composition of the labour force the first four factors seem to affect both men s and women s wages but the relative importance differs for example the evidence suggests that unionization is the most important influence on men s wages while for women industry mix matters most easton t et king m c 2000 des ecarts de salaire dans les zones metropolitaines les salaries moins instruits aux etats unis reg studies 34 21 27 a partir d un echantillon de 241 zones metropolitaines tirees du

crossing the rubicon exploring the factors that shape academics perceptions of the barriers to working with industry although academics are under increasing pressure to engage industry in their research they often find it difficult to do so conflicts with industry over the timing of disclosure and the choice of topics are common moreover collaborations with industry may require academics to negotiate formal contracts about the ownership of intellectual property to help understand the factors that might mitigate these conflicts this paper examines how the professional and collaborative experiences of academics shape their perceptions of the barriers to industry collaboration using a rich dataset of uk academics we find that perceived barriers to collaboration are lower for academics with industrial and collaborative experience and for those who trust their industry partners however for the transactional costs of industry engagement we find entrepreneurial experience and the diversity of methods used to collaborate with industry increases the perceived barriers to collaboration

urban attributes and wage disparities in brazil a multilevel hierarchical model fontes g g simoes r f and hermeto camilo de oliveira a m urban attributes and wage disparities in brazil a multilevel hierarchical model regional studies this paper examines the effects of urban scale and productive structure on individual wage levels in brazilian cities and metropolitan areas in 1990 and 2000 the estimation through hierarchical linear models enabled the inclusion of variables in different levels individual and urban and the decomposition of total wage variance the results showed significant and huge wage disparities among workers who share similar personal attributes but live in different regions of the country in addition the disparities persisted from 1990 to 2000 finally the results provided evidence that local economic and labour market factors played an important role in wage determination

locate your nearest exit mass layoffs and local labor market response large shocks to local labor markets can cause long lasting changes to employment unemployment and the local labor force this study examines the relationship between mass layoffs and the long run

the effect of wage bargains on the stock market value of the firm the author estimates the change in the value of common stock resulting from an unexpected change in collectively bargained labor costs using bargaining unit wage data and nyse stock returns he estimates a dollar for dollar trade off between these variables this result is consistent with stock valuations based on present value maximizing managerial decisions that is the results are consistent with hotelling s lemma the author also finds support for the hypothesis that collective bargains maximize the sum of shareholder and union member wealth that is the results are consistent with strong efficiency in the contracting environment copyright 1989 by american economic association

entrepreneurial ability venture investments and risk sharing a number of issues that relate to the desirability and implications of new venture financing are examined within a principal agent framework that captures the essence of the relationship between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists the model suggests 1 as long as the skill levels of entrepreneurs are common knowledge all will choose to involve venture capital investors since the risk sharing provided by outside participation dominates the agency relationship that is created 2 the less able entrepreneurs will choose to involve venture capitalists whereas the more profitable ventures will be developed without external participation because of the adverse selection problem associated with asymmetric information 3 if a costly signal is available that conveys the entrepreneur s ability some entrepreneurs will invest in such a signal and then sell to investors these entrepreneurs however need not be the more able ones the implications for new venture financing of these and other findings are discussed and illustrated by example

stumblers and stars in the management of rapid growth this article examines the problems of managing a rapid growth firm we contend that instead of being a time for entrepreneurial celebration and relief a period of over 50 growth is a time for wariness and some very difficult decisions such firms face a fragile transition they are beyond being intimate cohesive entrepreneurial ventures but they have not yet become secure stable entities not only are they in flux but these firms are often disoriented by the pace at which change is occurring firms such as atari cray research cullinet osborne computers people express and rolm recently have faced or now face these challenges with very different degrees of success this article presents observations drawn from several sources a study of thirty rapid growth firms which we have underway literature and press accounts of rapid growth and our consulting and discussions with executives in such firms while far from definitive the article reports several themes that are very pronounced in the situations we have studied these themes are of two types 1 recurring challenges and traps faced by rapid growth companies and 2 characteristics af firms which seem to avoid or surmount these traps these are the four fundamental challenges that we see confronting rapid growth firms 1 1 instant size these firms double and triple in size very quickly this in turn creates problems of disaffection inadequate skills and inadequate systems 2 2 a sense of infallibility by virtue of their success to date rapid growth firms often view their strategies and behaviors as infallible the unfortunate irony is that they become convinced of their wisdom while the environment is turbulent and large competitors are entering 3 3 internal turmoil as a social organism a firm growing at 50 per year is under great strain there is a stream of new faces people who do not know each other and who do not know the company decision making suffers turf battles abound and people burn out 4 4 extraordinary resource needs rapid growth firms are typically cash starved instead of abundance they often face a bare bones existence each of these challenges calls for its own solutions but we have observed some overarching themes in firms that have successfully traversed a period of rapid growth the chief executive is able to envision and anticipate the firm as a larger entity the team needed for tomorrow is hired and developed today the original core vision of the firm is constantly and zealously reinforced new big company processes are introduced gradually as supplements to rather than replacements for existing approaches hierarchy is minimized employees hold a financial stake in the firm beyond developing these themes for success the article concludes with a brief discussion of the effectiveness of owner founders in rapid growth situations

trade union membership and earnings in kenyan manufacturing firms this study analyses the effect of trade unions on male earnings in the kenyan manufacturing sector using a regression method which takes into account endogeneity of the union status of workers in contrast to earlier studies of the kenyan labour market that report a negative effect of unions on wages a positive effect is found the study further shows that elite workers tend to abstain from union membership

shirking sharing risk and shelving the role of university license contracts abstract in this paper we develop a theoretical model of university licensing to explain why university license contracts often include payment types that differ from the fixed fees and royalties typically examined by economists our findings suggest that milestone payments and annual payments are common because moral hazard risk sharing and adverse selection all play a role when embryonic inventions are licensed milestones address inventor moral hazard without the inefficiency inherent in royalties the potential for a licensee to shelve inventions is an adverse selection problem which can be addressed by annual fees if shelving is unintentional but may require an upfront fee if the firm licenses an invention with the intention to shelve it whether the licensing contract prevents shelving depends in part on the university credibly threatening to take the license back from a shelving firm this supports the rationale for bayh dole march in rights but also shows the need for the exercise of these rights can be obviated by contracts

patterns of growth competitive technology and financial strategies in young ventures abstract young independent technology based ventures have an increasingly complex array of strategic choices about how they can grow while simultaneously competing on the basis of their technological capacity and skills in their markets given the central importance of these choices to the success of the venture there should be a close integral relationship among them similarly financial strategy choices also enter this relationship growth and competition place tremendous resource demands on the young technology based venture and financial strategy choices therefore must also be factored into the choice taking process the choice taking perspective is basic to this inquiry as other researchers have pointed out young entrepreneurial ventures typically do not utilize highly formalized strategic planning processes robinson and pearce 1983 strategy formation in such firms tends to be informal and episodic strategy may be revealed best through the pattern or set of choices taken at a point in time and over time from a choice taking perspective then the critical questions become the following a are there identifiable patterns of growth technology and financial choices b what factors shape or determine which choices are taken and c are these patterns related to venture performance these questions were explored by using data from a survey of 100 ceos of young independent technology based firms across three industries the results generally support the idea that patterns of choices can be identified several of these patterns are related to the ventures demographic characteristics such as form of ownership and scope of sales importantly stage of development was not related to those patterns nor to the performance of the ventures the highest performing ventures were found to be pursuing internal innovation through r d for product breakthroughs this finding is surprising since young ventures at the stage at which most were found in this sample would traditionally be expected to emphasize product extensions and modifications we need to better understand why young ventures would choose to innovate internally for breakthroughs in their growth stages and how well they are able to do so a major implication of this research is that the ceos of young technology based ventures are being presented with a much larger menu or array of choices at many points in time than conventional stage based models of venture development have postulated one explanation of this possibility is that the firm life cycle is being compressed by relatively new conditions such as the availability of more and earlier capital through joint venturing and alliances and shorter product life cycles indeed a follow up survey a year later with 77 ceos from this sample confirmed that joint ventures and alliances were the number one choice being pursued to gain access to distribution channels and new markets what is troubling about this possibility is that the skills and capacities of these young ventures may be limited in comparison with the richness and complexity of the available choices in the follow up survey the sources of information that were by far the most relied upon for strategic decision making were other internal senior managers and board members outsiders such as lawyers ranking distantly behind the leaders of these ventures need to be fully supported in evaluating negotiating and managing these often highly complex relationships