asset transformation and the challenges to servitize a utility business model abstract the traditional energy utility business model is under pressure and energy services are expected to play an important role for the energy transition experts and scholars argue that utilities need to innovate their business models and transform from commodity suppliers to service providers the transition from a product oriented capital intensive business model based on tangible assets towards a service oriented expense intensive business model based on intangible assets may present great managerial and organizational challenges little research exists about such transitions for capital intensive commodity providers and particularly energy utilities where the challenges to servitize are expected to be greatest this qualitative paper explores the barriers to servitization within selected swiss and german utility companies through a series of interviews with utility managers one of them is asset transformation the shift from tangible to intangible assets as major input factor for the value proposition which is proposed as a driver for the complexity of business model transitions managers need to carefully manage those challenges and find ways to operate both new service and established utility business models aside policy makers can support the transition of utilities through more favorable regulatory frameworks for energy services and by supporting the exchange of knowledge in the industry

financialisation income distribution and aggregate demand in the usa this paper investigates the effects of financialisation and functional income distribution on aggregate demand in the usa by estimating the effects of the increase in rentier income dividends and interest payments and housing and financial wealth on consumption and investment the redistribution of income in favour of profits suppresses consumption whereas the increase in the rentier income and wealth has positive effects a higher rentier income decreases investment without the wealth effects the overall effect of the changes in distribution on aggregate demand would have been negative thus a pro capital income distribution leads to a slightly negative effect on growth i e the usa economy is moderately wage led

regulation and efficiency in transition the case of telecommunications in italy abstract in regulating the telecommunications industry the separation between network and retail functions which is designed to countervail the market power of incumbent operators is a relevant issue despite its importance little empirical research has addressed the effects of such a separation accordingly this paper provides insights into the consequences of the italian communications regulatory authority s agcom decision to impose this type of separation on the incumbent telecommunications operator telecom italia in particular the studied separation is between the firm s network related functions and those used for provision of its communication services the present research finds that the type of separation implemented by agcom allows a provider to maintain the advantages of operational scale in its network structure without dampening competition in the existing market for communications services the study also offers further empirical evidence on the advantages of a composite vs translog function in analyzing the multiproduct cost structure of a telecommunications operator

understanding corporate coherence theory and evidence abstract multiproduct firms are perceived to be coherent in their scope yet there is no strong theoretical foundations to explain coherence in modern industrial organization theory this paper shows that as u s manufacturing firms grow more diverse they maintain a constant level of coherence between neighboring activities this finding runs counter to the idea that firms with many activities are generally more incoherent a framework is then presented which appeals to the nature of enterprise learning path dependencies and the nature of the selection environment to explain the ubiquity of coherent diversifiers

platform economy as a new form of capitalism a regulationist research programme the terms platform economy or sharing economy have become widespread with the development of digital platforms like uber this economy is transforming capitalism and raising important questions about its nature is it a new process of embeddedness or is it the next step for deregulation following the crisis of the financialised regime of accumulation ra is it a possible new growth regime using the approach of the french regulation school of thought we describe the nature and transformations of the form of competition inherent in platforms although this may favour some forms of re embeddedness we show that it will accelerate some of the trends and characteristics of the institutional forms of the financialised ra and that it is an endogenous product of its crisis this raises further questions and uncertainties related to the ability of platforms to generate stable long run growth due to the dysfunctionality of the mode of regulation and the conflicts it could generate

timing based business models for flexibility creation in the electric power sector energy policies in many countries push for an increase in the generation of wind and solar power along these developments the balance between supply and demand becomes more challenging as the generation of wind and solar power is volatile and flexibility of supply and demand becomes valuable as a consequence companies in the electric power sector develop new business models that create flexibility through activities of timing supply and demand based on an extensive qualitative analysis of interviews and industry research in the energy industry the paper at hand explores the role of timing based business models in the power sector and sheds light on the mechanisms of flexibility creation through timing in particular we distill four ideal type business models of flexibility creation with timing and reveal how they can be classified along two dimensions namely costs of multiplicity and intervention costs we put forward that these business models offer coupled services combining resource centered and service centered perspectives this complementary character has important implications for energy policy

executive incentives and the horizon problem an empirical investigation abstract this paper investigates the hypothesis that ceos in their final years of office manage discretionary investment expenditures to improve short term earnings performance we examine the behavior of r d expenditures for a sample of firms in industries that have significant ongoing r d activities the results suggest that ceos spend less on r d during their final years in office however we find the reductions in r d expenditures are mitigated through ceo stock ownership there is no evidence that the reduced r d expenditures are associated with either poor firm performance or reductions in investment expenditures that are capitalized for accounting purposes

the composite cost function and efficiency in giant japanese banks abstract this study provides further empirical investigation in the context of giant japanese banks of the recent claim by pulley and braunstein 1992 a composite cost function for multiproduct firms with an application to economies of scope in banking review of economics and statistics 74 221 230 that their new composite model for the multiproduct cost function has important advantages over the separable quadratic generalized translog and standard translog models in addition to assessing the composite model s relative ability in measuring global scope and scale economies the study also extends the p b analysis to assess measurement of product specific scope and scale economies pairwise cost complementarities between outputs changes in the marginal costs of outputs and technological change the results appear to confirm p b s chain the persistent finding of scale economies for large japanese banks is also investigated and confirmed

sustainable business models as boundary spanning systems of value transfers abstract sustainable innovation requires collaboration across organizational boundaries hence in this research we take a boundary spanning perspective on the business model this perspective focuses on how value is created and captured across organizational boundaries by investigating the value transfers between the focal organization and the external network of business model actors we analyze the business models of 64 innovative sustainable organizations from the netherlands in terms of how environmental and social sustainability is manifested in the content structure and governance of their business models we find that environmental sustainability is mainly represented in value creation content whereas social sustainability is achieved by serving underprivileged user groups and mainly is reflected in value capture content we observe that social sustainability in both for profit and non profit organizations is often achieved by having an imbalance in value exchanges that is compensated elsewhere in the business model in terms of business model structure we show that sustainable organizations use the same underlying business model structures as can be found in conventional firms all in all we demonstrate that analyzing the environmental and social sustainability of organizations using the boundary spanning perspective on business models provides complementary insights to the traditional component based view of the business model

going beyond best technology and lowest price on renewable energy investors preference for service driven business models abstract renewable energy is becoming increasingly important for economies in many countries but still in an emerging industry renewable energy requires supportive energy policy helping firms to develop and protect competitive advantages in global competition as a guideline for designing such policy we consult well informed stakeholders within the renewable energy industry investors their preferences serve as explorative indicator for assessing which business models might succeed in competition to contribute to only limited research on renewable energy investors preferences we ask which business models investment managers for renewable energy prefer to invest in we report from an explorative study of 380 choices of renewable energy investment managers based on the stated preferences we modelled three generic business models to calculate the share of investors preferences we find exiting evidence a customer intimacy business model that proposes best services is much more preferred by investors than business models that propose lowest price or best technology policy makers can use those insights for designing policy that supports service driven business models for renewable energy with a scope on customer needs rather than technology or price additionally we state important implications for renewable energy entrepreneurs managers and research

explaining the attacker s advantage technological paradigms organizational dynamics and the value network abstract understanding when entrants might have an advantage over an industry s incumbent firms in developing and adopting new technologies is a question which several scholars have explained in terms of technological capabilities or organizational dynamics this paper proposes that the value network the context within which a firm competes and solves customers problems is an important factor affecting whether incumbent or entrant firms will most successfully innovate in a study of technology development in the disk drive industry the authors found that incumbents led the industry in developing and adopting new technologies of every sort identified by earlier scholars at component and architectural levels competency enhancing and competency destroying incremental and radical as long as the technology addressed customers needs within the value network in which the incumbents competed entrants led in developing and adopting technologies which addressed user needs in different emerging value networks it is in these innovations which disrupted established trajectories of technological progress in established markets that attackers proved to have an advantage the rate of improvement in product performance which technologists provide may exceed the rate of improvement demanded in established markets this mismatch between trajectories enables firms entering emerging value networks subsequently to attack the industry s established markets as well

corporate governance and innovation a survey abstract the traditional economics of innovation inspired by schumpeter and more recent advances on his work seem unable to explain why firms with similar external conditions may show greatly different performance in innovation contrastingly the literature on corporate governance provides some useful insights for understanding corporate innovation activity to the extent that such literature examines the economic effects of different modes of coordination between firm members the process through which individuals integrate their human and physical resources within the firm is central to the dynamics of corporate innovation this paper provides the first survey of the literature on this issue we start by discussing how various theoretical approaches to the analysis of the firm deal with technological innovation we then describe three main channels corporate ownership corporate finance and labour through which a system of corporate governance shapes a firm s innovation activity finally we examine the relationship between country level institutional settings national patterns of corporate governance and the aggregate innovation activity of corporations we conclude by suggesting that future research should focus more deeply on the interrelation between the various dimensions of corporate governance and on their joint effect on firm innovation

training turnover and search this article explores a model of firm specific training in a job search environment with labor turnover the main substantive finding is a positive association between training and wages when dispersed the article then precisely characterizes how both wage dispersion and firm profitability depend on the flow value b 0 of workers unmatched time it is shown that i for all high values b no equilibrium exists ii for intermediate values b multiple equilibria arise where firms earn zero profits and choose from a general wage distribution iii for all lower values b there is a unique equilibrium with firms earning positive profits and choosing from an atomless set of wages

scaling up local energy infrastructure an agent based model of the emergence of district heating networks abstract the potential contribution of local energy infrastructure such as heat networks to the transition to a low carbon economy is increasingly recognised in international national and municipal policy creating the policy environment to foster the scaling up of local energy infrastructure is however still challenging despite national policy action and local authority interest the growth of heat networks in uk cities remains slow techno economic energy system models commonly used to inform policy are not designed to address institutional and governance barriers we present an agent based model of heat network development in uk cities in which policy interventions aimed at the institutional and governance barriers faced by diverse actors can be explored three types of project instigators are included municipal commercial and community which have distinct decision heuristics and capabilities and follow a multi stage development process scenarios of policy interventions developed in a companion modelling approach indicate that the effect of interventions differs between actors depending on their capabilities successful interventions account for the specific motivations and capabilities of different actors provide a portfolio of support along the development process and recognise the important strategic role of local authorities in supporting low carbon energy infrastructure

the role of business models in firm internationalization an exploration of european electricity firms in the context of the energy transition this article ties in directly with recently intensified interest in business models in international business ib using the energy transition as empirical context to explore their relevance in firm internationalization the global energy transition presents a challenge for almost all industries but some face specific difficulties particularly important from an ib perspective we study a set of european firms that used to operate in a highly regulated context with partial state ownership until government directed market liberalization started to allow further competition and internationalization existing firms were prompted to adapt their business models to these changes with new ventures entering the market to reap opportunities with novel energy related technologies and business models linking insights from strategic management to the ib literature we conceptualize business model related specific advantages bmsas and explore the role of bmsas in the internationalization of the firms in our sample we also uncover barriers to bmsa recombination in potential host countries consider bmsa location boundedness and discuss implications for firms international expansion by presenting a new framework consequences for the energy transition and the actors already involved and in directly confronted with it are explicated while outlining promising areas for further research building on the insights and limitations of our study

speciation through entrepreneurial spin off the acorn arm story abstract can the concept of speciation explain evidence on how technologies branch and advance can evidence on innovation through spin off usefully inform the concept of speciation these questions are addressed through a case study of detailed processes enabling the shift of technology to new domains of application an innovative it firm developed its own semiconductor technology to remedy supplier deficiencies but it required a joint venture with a completely new business model to adapt and move the technology into new market domains we propose the concept of techno organizational speciation to delineate this phenomenon competing perspectives on speciation compatibility niche and lineage approaches are found to illuminate the evidence while complementarities between these conceptual dimensions are revealed by the case causal processes uncovered include the following 1 techno organizational speciation through spin off may be needed to launch a dominant technical standard compatible with multiple applications 2 this can be achieved through niche creation from which develops a new business ecosystem 3 inherited knowledge together with organizationally based learning foster the branching and renewal of technological lineages

diversification strategies and scope economies evidence from a sample of italian regional bus transport providers a growing number of local public transport lpt companies diversify their production lines by providing a large set of services we investigate the cost structure of a sample of lpt companies operating in italy and assess the presence and the magnitude of scope economies we split the whole sample of firms according to their diversification strategy private firms mainly diversifying in competitive transport related services and public firms providing nontransport services in regulated markets scope economies appear sizeable for both groups but higher for firms pursuing a transport related strategy suggesting caution in the multiutility development pursued by public lpt firms in italy

success factors for agricultural biogas production in sweden a case study of business model innovation as government officials policymakers and the general public increasingly express their concern about global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions scientists search for alternative sources o

business models as drivers of the low carbon power system transition a multi level perspective abstract decarbonising the electrical power system holds a critical role in climate change mitigation recent developments in technology are helping change the current centralized paradigm into one of integrated distributed clean energy resources in spite of these developments radical transformation is not occurring at a speed to effectively meet environmental targets mostly due to the incumbent carbon lock in trajectory we argue that business model bm innovation dynamics are key drivers in accelerating the low carbon power system transition often operating irrespective of the underlying technology we combine bm theory with the multi level perspective on sociotechnical transitions to present a useful framework to analyze this potential transition this paper presents the application of this framework characterizing relevant bm dynamics of niche and regime business actors and supporting these with illustrative examples particularly we find that new actors in the distributed energy business are achieving market scale by offering financially innovative bms that do not require upfront costs from customers higher penetrations of renewable energy sources in liberalized electricity markets are destabilizing the historical bm of large centralized utilities through erosion of wholesale prices furthermore a shift towards distributed and dynamic energy resources further challenges incumbents and might bring opportunities for bms focused on active customer participation and social value creation as these tendencies are expected to accelerate we find analyses of bms will have important relevance for future power system transition research

sectoral patterns of technical change towards a taxonomy and a theory abstract the purpose of the paper is to describe and explain sectoral patterns of technical change as revealed by data on about 2000 significant innovations in britain since 1945 most technological knowledge turns out not to be information that is generally applicable and easily reproducible but specific to firms and applications cumulative in development and varied amongst sectors in source and direction innovating firms principally in electronics and chemicals are relatively big and they develop innovations over a wide range of specific product groups within their principal sector but relatively few outside firms principally in mechanical and instrument engineering are relatively small and specialised and they exist in symbiosis with large firms in scale intensive sectors like metal manufacture and vehicles who make a significant contribution to their own process technology in textile firms on the other hand most process innovations come from suppliers these characteristics and variations can be classified in a three part taxonomy based on firms 1 supplier dominated 2 production intensive 3 science based they can be explained by sources of technology requirements of users and possibilities for appropriation this explanation has implications for our understanding of the sources and directions of technical change firms diversification behaviour the dynamic relationship between technology and industrial structure and the formation of technological skills and advantages at the level of the firm the region and the country

towards a new taxonomy of circular economy business models abstract circular economy has undoubtedly become one of the hot topics in public debates about new and more sustainable industrial paradigms and strategies in this respect the fashion of circular economy is in the fact that it aims at overcoming the dominant linear take make disposal economy model i e a traditional open ended economy model developed with no built in tendency to recycle which is reflected by treating the environment as a waste reservoir su et al 2013 circular economy indeed bases on the establishment of closed production systems where resources are reused and kept in a loop of production and usage allowing generating more value and for a longer period despite the interest for circular economy by politicians and practitioners scholars particularly in the strategic management field are still struggling with a lack of a framework explaining how companies willing to become circular adapt their existing business model or create a new one by extensively reviewing through the lens of business model literature the extant contributions on circular economy we propose a taxonomy of circular economy business models based on the degree of adoption of circularity along two major dimensions i the customer value proposition interface i e the implementation of the circularity concept in proposing value to customers ii the value network i e the ways through which interacting with suppliers and reorganizing the own internal activities the taxonomy is then initially tested through some explorative case studies showing in practice the ability of the framework to properly distinguish different modes of adoption of circular economy

financial liberalization private investment and portfolio choice financialization of real sectors in emerging markets abstract using firm level panel data we analyze the impacts of rates of return gap between financial and fixed investments under uncertainty on real investment performance in three emerging markets argentina mexico and turkey employing a portfolio choice model to explain the low fixed investment rates in developing countries during the 1990s we suggest that rather than investing in irreversible long term fixed investments firms may choose to invest in reversible short term financial investments depending on respective rates of returns and the overall uncertainty in the economy the empirical results show that increasing rates of return gap and uncertainty have an economically and statistically significant fixed investment reducing effect while the opposite is true with respect to financial investments

profiting from business model innovation evidence from pay as you drive auto insurance the emergent business model literature revolving mainly around the mechanisms through which new business models create and deliver value has left the value capture challenge under explored this paper examines how an incumbent firm profits from business model innovation through the study of pay as you drive auto insurance although business models do not warrant formal intellectual property ip protection their constituent components e g business methods and brands often do drawing on the profiting from innovation framework we find that formal and strategic ip protection methods play complementary roles initially formal ip rights are used primarily as a defensive strategy as vehicles for packaging and trading know how and most importantly as a means of buying time to build specialised complementary assets long term competitiveness however depends on whether the innovator builds a strong position in specialised complementary assets and is capable of reconfiguring them over time in line with changes in the market environment thus we explicate the complex mechanism and dynamic capability for capturing value from business model innovation

technological change in large u s commercial banks this article examines technological change its relationship to firm size and its impact on the efficient scale of output and product mix for large u s commercial banks the results suggest that technological change lowered real costs by about one percent per year increased the cost minimizing scale of outputs and affected product mix the authors do not find support for the galbraith schumpeter hypothesis this suggests that the largest banks cannot use innovation alone to outpace smaller banks the major implications are that public policies allowing freer banking combinations do not necessarily run counter to the public interest copyright 1991 by university of chicago press

explaining the role of incumbent utilities in sustainable energy transitions a case study of the smart grid development in china abstract smart grids sgs have been widely recognized as an enabling technology for delivering sustainable energy transitions such transitions have given rise to more complex government utility consumer relationships however these stakeholder relationships remain largely under researched this paper critically examines and explains the role of incumbent utilities in sustainable energy transitions using sg developments in china as a case study we have three major findings first china has developed an incumbent led model for deploying sgs second two incumbents the major state owned grid companies act as enablers of sg deployment they are strategic first movers and infrastructure builders of sgs they have also developed five types of networks as they increasingly reach out to other state actors businesses and electricity consumers thirdly these two grid companies also act as a fundamental block to structural changes in socio technical regimes disincentives to these large existing grid companies coupled with excessive reliance on them to provide public goods have resulted in major weaknesses in china s incumbent led model our findings have clear policy implications innovation in regulating incumbents is needed in order to provide sufficient regulatory incentives for advancing sg developments in china

demand as a source of entry and the survival of new semiconductor firms the performance of new companies coming from the demand side of the semiconductor industry is examined and compared with the performance of entrants coming from the semiconductor industry itself and with other types of entrants by using a dataset of more than 1000 start ups founded between 1997 and 2007 around the world the article shows that start ups with a background in application sectors survive longer than spin offs from the semiconductor industry itself or than inexperienced firms founded by people previously active in university or other industries these results point strongly to the major role of demand not just as a source of innovations but also as a major driver of entry into an industry and of successful performance of new firms copyright 2010 the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

financialisation and capital accumulation in the non financial corporate sector a theoretical and empirical investigation on the us economy 1973 2003 recent research has explored the growing financialization process in the u s and other advanced economies the term is a catch all phrase used to denote important changes in the structure of non financial corporations balance sheets including the growth of income from financial subsidiaries and investment as well as growth in the transfer of earnings to financial markets in the forms of interest payments dividend payments and stock buybacks this paper seeks to empirically explore the relationship between financialization in the u s economy and real investment at the firm level using data from a sample of non financial corporations from 1973 to 2003 i find a negative relationship between real investment and financialization first increased financial investment and increased financial profit opportunities may have crowded out real investment by changing the incentives of firm managers and directing funds away from real investment second increased payments to the financial markets may have impeded real investment by decreasing available internal funds shortening the planning horizons of the firm management and increasing uncertainty these two channels can help explain the negative relationship i find between investment and financialization

the prospects for smart energy prices observations from 50 years of residential pricing for fixed line telecoms and electricity this study focuses on how energy and communications have evolved over the last 50 years and what we can learn from history in order to examine the prospects for smart energy pricing by 2050 we begin by discussing the nature of energy and telecoms products and why price discrimination should be expected we then review various business and pricing strategies that have evolved in the two industries we find that business models for both the telecoms and energy sectors have changed from the traditional services business model i e offering of calls and messages for telecoms and utility supply services for energy to more dynamic integrated and complex business models these new business models include the managed services provider model the bundled services model and the prosumer business model among others similarly several changes in pricing structure have evolved there has been a reduction in the number of distanced based and increasing time based price differentiation in fixed line telecoms and the abolition of residential floor area based differentiation in electricity pricing we conclude with a discussion on how the rollout of the next generation of electricity meters smart and advanced meters may further shape electricity pricing in the future

technical and scale efficiency of japanese commerical banks a non parametric approach not only are the nature and extent and scale efficiency of japanese commerical banks studied but a relationship between both organizational status and size efficiency is also announced the efficiency measures are computed from a 1990 sample of cross sectional data for the estimation we employ the non parametric approach which has recently been gaining popularity for the studies of banking efficiency outside japan

strategic choices for renewable energy investment conceptual framework and opportunities for further research this paper introduces the special issue on strategic choices for renewable energy investment which is a collection of best papers presented at an international research conference held in st gallen switzerland in february 2010 substantial private investment is needed if public policy objectives to increase the share of renewable energy and prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change are to be achieved the aim of this paper and the entire special issue is to draw scholarly attention to the processes underlying strategic choices for renewable energy investment and how they are influenced by energy policy we disentangle the role of risk return perceptions portfolio effects and path dependence in explaining energy investment decisions and suggest that the heterogeneous universe of investors requires a segmentation of policies the paper outlines some of the rich opportunities for further research in this emerging area

the role of the business model in capturing value from innovation evidence from xerox corporation s technology spin off companies this paper explores the role of the business model in capturing value from early stage technology a successful business model creates a heuristic logic that connects technical potential with the realization of economic value the business model unlocks latent value from a technology but its logic constrains the subsequent search for new alternative models for other technologies later on an implicit cognitive dimension overlooked in most discourse on the topic we explore the intellectual roots of the concept offer a working definition and show how the xerox corporation arose by employing an effective business model to commercialize a technology rejected by other leading companies of the day we then show the long shadow that this model cast upon xerox s later management of selected spin off companies from xerox parc xerox evaluated the technical potential of these spin offs through its own business model while those spin offs that became successful did so through evolving business models that came to differ substantially from that of xerox the search and learning for an effective business model in failed ventures by contrast were quite limited

managerial turnover and the theory of short termism abstract this paper presents a novel theory of managerial short termism that is based on managerial turnover the key feature is that if managers rewards are based on current profitability and there is some probability of managerial turnover then rational own reward maximizing managers may choose projects that have intrinsically lower net present values but yield higher returns in the earlier part of their lives this is because managers recognize that the existence of turnover means that there is some probability they won t be around to enjoy the returns generated by long term projects

equilibrium price distributions equilibrium price distributions for a homogeneous product consistent with individual incentives are investigated they arise in informationally imperfect markets in which the only primitive datum is the distribution of search costs it is shown that single multi and continuous price distributions are all viable long run phenomena depending on the nature of search costs a method for computing equilibrium price distributions is also provided jevons law of one price has long been an accepted dictum in economic theory in a classroom presentation it still serves sometimes implicitly as a major premise in many micro models of market interaction much of the descriptive theory as well as welfare analysis hinges on this assumption yet one s day to day experience reveals that price differentials are a viable phenomenon and that looking for lower prices may very well be a rewarding activity the prospects of eventually hitting a bargain and the resulting price reduction would more than compensate for the cost incurred during the search process moreover the existence of price dispersions appear to be an empirically stable phenomenon snapshots of markets for relatively homogeneous products reveal substantial and recurring price differentials stigler 1961 and pratt wise and zeckhauser 1979 for example report some evidence supporting this claim an important article by stigler 1961 focused economists attention on the crucial role played by the informational structure of markets it gave rise to the study of the

associative sustainable business models cases in the bean to bar chocolate industry abstract this study contributes to the growing literature of sustainability business models sbm by introducing a new category coined as associative sustainability business models asbm we theorize that this category encompasses firms with innovative business models that rely on partnership association and collaboration to create value in the triple bottom line and address pressing sustainability challenges following an inductive research approach we analyze four case studies of asbm ventures in the chocolate industry our findings reveal the emergence of two key theoretical constructs firm location and claimant identity that help to identify differences across asbm designs and lead to four different subcategories of asbm in addition drawing on the literature of sustainable business models we develop theoretical propositions that link our four subcategories of asbm to the business case for sustainability therefore we extend the literature on sbm by providing new insights on how business model innovations based on strong association and collaboration can generate solutions to social and environmental challenges

real investment implications of employee stock option exercises this paper examines a real cost of awarding employee stock options based on the observation that managers are extremely concerned about earnings per share dilution in equity related compensation we predict and find that firms experiencing significant employee stock option eso exercises shift resources away from real investments towards the repurchase of their own stocks we further find weak evidence of a decline in subsequent firm performance as measured by return on assets for several years following the cut in discretionary investments as a result of stock option exercises though this result is sensitive to the metric used to measure performance collectively our findings indicate that eso exercises potentially impose a real cost on the firm in terms of foregone investment opportunities

contracts and exits in venture capital finance using a sample of european venture capital vc investments i study the relation between vc contracts and exits the data indicate that ex ante stronger vc control rights increase the likelihood that an entrepreneurial firm will exit by an acquisition rather than through a write off or an ipo my findings are robust to controls for a variety of factors including endogeneity and cases in which the vc preplans the exit at the time of contract choice my findings are consistent with control based theories of financial contracting such as aghion and bolton 1992

how do business model and health technology design influence each other insights from a longitudinal case study of three academic spin offs abstract academic spin offs often lack business expertise face uncertainties regarding their innovation and their markets and do not have a clear idea of how their product will create value in spite of this vagueness academic entrepreneurs must articulate a business model and rapidly establish trustworthy relationships with potential users purchasers and capital investors one may thus wonder how their technology development process is influenced by the long term expectations of their putative customers as well as the short term requirements of capital investors this longitudinal case study examines how the business models of three canadian health technology spin offs sought to address the value expectations of clinical users and capital investors how tensions were resolved and the impact this had on technology design we describe the synergistic readjustments drastic reconfiguration and mismatch between business model and technology design we observed our discussion highlights the mediating mechanisms by which business models and technology design influence each other clarifying why the initial value proposition of the spin offs was either refined or reframed beyond confirming the importance of differentiating business models in the health technology industry our study suggests that it is not only who makes decision that matters but also how stakeholders value expectations get embedded in a spin off s value proposition

what is the impact of bankrupt and restructured loans on japanese bank efficiency the japanese banking system provides a distinctive platform for the examination of the long lasting effect of problem loans on efficiency we measure technical efficiency by modifying a translog enhanced hyperbolic distance function with two undesirable outputs identified as problem loans and problem other earning assets our unique database allows us to distinguish between bankrupt and restructured loans to investigate the underlying causality between these loans and efficiency from the flexible panel vector autoregression specification primary results reveal that bankrupt loans have a positive impact on efficiency related to the moral hazard skimping hypothesis with the causality originating from bankrupt loans in contrast findings for the relationship between restructured loans and efficiency support the bad luck hypothesis

three is a crowd exploring the potential of crowdfunding for renewable energy in the netherlands there is a huge gap between demand and supply of finance for energy transitions and the financial and economic crisis have had a negative impact in the already meagre funds for transforming the energy system towards renewable sources in this paper we explore whether crowdfunding for renewable energy as a novel sociotechnical practice developed in a niche has the potential to break through and transform both the energy and the financial regimes utilising the multi level perspective theory we empirically investigate crowdfunding platforms linked to renewable electricity projects in the netherlands the main conclusion is that the volume of crowdfunding today is low but the dynamic of these projects holds potential there is limited indication of learning processes until now as well as limited support from regime actors pointing at a low level of niche stabilization and break through potential which may however be related to the early stage of development of crowdfunding in the netherlands on the other hand the heterogeneity of crowdfunders is very promising platforms dedicated to renewable electricity exclusively and with an investment based business model seem to be the most successful we show how governmental market regulation and support mechanisms are shaping crowdfunding as a business model and discuss the implications for other countries

co ownership of intellectual property exploring the value appropriation and value creation implications of co patenting with different partners combining both interview data and empirical analyses at the patent and firm levels we explore the value appropriation and value creation implications of r d collaboration resulting in the co ownership of intellectual property i e co patents we make an explicit distinction between three different types of co patenting partners intra industry partners inter industry partners and universities our findings indicate that the value appropriation challenges of ip sharing are clearly evident with intra industry co patenting where partners are more likely to encounter overlapping exploitation domains co patenting with universities is associated with higher market value since appropriation challenges are unlikely to play a role and collaboration may signal novel technological opportunities although we find some evidence that co patenting corresponds to higher patent value patents co owned with firms are significantly less likely to receive self citations indicating constraints on the future exploitation and development of co owned technologies

a decoupling perspective on circular business model implementation illustrations from swedish apparel drawing on the concept of decoupling from institutional theory in organizational studies this paperexplains how organizations mitigate demands for circularity seven swedish apparel companies tha

an eco critical perspective on business models the value triangle as an approach to closing the sustainability gap abstract despite business models having been discussed thoroughly by academics there are still some epistemological and ontological issues that have yet to be resolved business models seem to have stalled at the technological era and have not fully engaged with the era of sustainability the purpose of our paper is to add a new lens and richness to sustainable business model research by building on the need for more interdisciplinary approaches this paper applies an eco critical approach to analyse the 20 most often cited business model frameworks we explore the conventional understanding of the business models based on the language applied and reflect on gaps in the current perspectives of sustainability the analysis shows that existing business model frameworks exclude natural and social aspects of organisational environment from the discussion and tend to neglect the interrelationships between economic and not economic actors as well as the intertemporal trade offs based on the results of the analysis we propose a new sustainable business model framework named value triangle which explicitly includes as core elements society incorporating the natural environment and future generations and three types of co created and co delivered value public partner and customer the value triangle together with the corresponding canvas is presented through a business case for sustainability represented by italian company loccioni the results show that the proposed business model framework and canvas allow managers to understand analyse and evaluate their business models along all three dimensions of sustainability economic social and environmental simultaneously such an understanding helps drive the field towards making a meaningful contribution to solving the un global challenges and sustainability agenda

investigating e business models value retention for start ups the moderating role of venture capital investment intensity abstract business models help firms to set a right path to create grow and retain their business value while previous research shows that business model affects the performance of entrepreneurial firms there is still limited understanding about how likely different business model selections of internet of things iot startup firms retain their value and whether the venture capital investment intensity does play any role in the business model s value retention process in this study we suggest that the e business model selections i e novelty efficiency lock in and complementarity of an iot mobile application app may affect its value retention based on contingency theory an organization must match its structure and decisions to its external environments we propose that the venture capitalist s involvement may moderate the strength of the relationship between e business models and an iot mobile app s value retention we have collected data from 470 start ups in china the results show that efficiency centred and complementarities centred e business models increase while lock in centred e business model reduces the iot mobile app s value retention furthermore our findings also indicate that the venture capitalist s involvement does not help all types of e business model s value retention the relationship between novelty centred e business model and value retention is positively only when venture capital investment intensity is high in contrast the relationship between efficiency centred e business model and value retention is positive only when venture capital investment intensity is low theoretical and managerial implications are discussed and some limitations and future research directions are proposed

institutional influences on business model choice by new ventures in the microgenerated energy industry abstract business model choice plays an important source of competitive advantage for new ventures in the microgeneration sector yet existing literature focuses on strategic management of internal resources as the constraints in this choice process in the energy sector external factors may be at least as influential in shaping these business models this paper examines the roles of politico institutional and socio institutional dynamics in the choice of business models for microgeneration ventures business models have traditionally been viewed as constructions of the internal values strategies and resources of organizations but this perspective overlooks the role that external forces have on these models particularly in more highly institutionalized contexts like microgeneration when these factors are introduced into the existing framework for business model choice the business model based less on firm decision making and more about variables that exist within national innovation systems and political structure local socio technological conditions and cognitive abilities of the entrepreneur and corresponding stakeholders

governed by history institutional analysis of a contested biofuel innovation system in tanzania initially hailed as a miracle crop for biofuel production jatropha has recently attracted criticism for competing with food production causing adverse biodiversity impacts and jeopardizing land access by rural populations in tropical countries this paper analyzes the contested development of jatropha biofuel sector in tanzania by anchoring two new concepts of organizational models and institutional arrangements to the sectoral systems of innovation perspective the notion of organizational models brings into relief the heterogeneity of actors in an innovation system and the ways in which the actors form networks within and across national borders to organize innovative activities the concept of institutional arrangements refers to the ensemble of formal and informal institutions assembled during tanzania s colonial and post colonial eras which directly govern innovative activities in specific organizational models based on a location specific and historically grounded institutional analysis within the innovation system framework implications are drawn for the future development of tanzania s jatropha sector including its links with european markets and for the regulation of next generation biofuels

economies of scale technical change and persistent and time varying cost efficiency in indian banking do ownership regulation and heterogeneity matter abstract banks with different ownership types adjust differently to changes in regulatory environments although this topic has been widely studied all the previous studies fail to control for bank heterogeneity bank specific effects in estimating cost structure and efficiency we propose a model where we control for bank heterogeneity and introduce persistent and time varying inefficiency additionally we incorporate determinants of both persistent and time varying inefficiency as well as production risks furthermore our model allows estimation of different technologies for different ownership types jointly we use this model to analyze the effect of regulation in indian banking we find that private banks have not exhausted their economies of scale foreign banks are operating under diseconomies of scale especially after the reforms and scale economies of state owned banks are unaffected by regulation banks of all ownership types have enjoyed technical progress however foreign banks have benefited the most followed by state owned banks only state banks were able to improve their cost efficiency while private banks and especially foreign banks were lagging behind their cost frontiers

who profits from innovation in global value chains a study of the ipod and notebook pcs in an era when new ideas are brought to the market by global value networks of specialists rather than by one company a key question is who captures the most value from innovation in such a structure and why this paper addresses the question of who benefits from innovation in global value chains by looking at specific computer and electronics products we apply a novel industry studies methodology for measuring the distribution of financial value across the supply chains for two models from apple s ipod family and notebook pc models from lenovo and hewlett packard hp these are all examples of globally innovated products combining technologies from the u s japan and other countries and assembled in china our analysis shows that the gross margins of apple for its high end ipod products are generally higher than those earned by hp and lenovo for notebook pcs although not so high as to be considered supernormal a key reason for the difference is that apple s control of the core software proprietary standards and complementary infrastructure of the ipod enables it to retain greater profits whereas a large share of the pc industry profits are siphoned off to microsoft and intel who control key technical standards consistent with teece 1986 our results confirm the importance of stages of technical evolution appropriability regimes and complementary assets as determinants of profiting from innovation on the other hand we find that manufacturing has become commoditized and is no longer a key to profiting from innovation in final electronic products also contrary to recent suggestions in the literature we find no evidence of a causal link between product and industry architectures instead there is a vast electronics industry architecture that can easily support product level value chain configurations ranging from modular to integrated

a man on the inside unlocking communities as complementary assets abstract since teece s seminal paper explaining who were the gainers from technological innovation increased globalization and the information and communication technology revolution have brought new ways for firms to organize and appropriate from innovation a new more open model of innovation suggests that firms can benefit from sources of innovation that stem from outside the firm the central theme of this paper is how firms try to unlock communities as complementary assets these communities exist outside firm boundaries beyond ownership or hierarchical control because of practices developed by communities to protect their work firms need to assign individuals to work in these communities in order to gain access to developments and to an extent influence the direction of the community using network analysis we show that some software firms sponsor individuals to act strategically within a free and open source software foss community firm sponsored individuals interact with more individuals than interact with them and also they seek to interact with central individuals in the community however we can see differences in how individuals interact depending on whether their affiliation is with a dedicated foss firm or an incumbent in the software industry apparently some firm managers believe they need a man on the inside to be able to gain access to communities

the effects of financialization on investment evidence from firm level data for the uk this paper estimates the effects of financialization on physical investment in the uk using panel data based on balance sheets of publicly listed non financial companies supplied by worldscope for the period 1985 2013 we find robust evidence of an adverse effect of not only financial payments interests and dividends but also financial incomes on the rate of accumulation the negative impacts of financial incomes from interests and dividends are particularly strong for the pre crisis period our findings support the financialization thesis that the increasing orientation of the non financial sector towards financial activities is ultimately leading to lower physical investment hence to stagnant or fragile growth as well as long term concerns for productivity

a composite cost function for multiproduct firms with an application to economies of scope in banking the composite cost function the authors propose combines a quadratic output structure with a log quadratic input price structure and is well suited for examining economies of scope subadditivity and other important properties of multiproduct firms to compare the composite model with an appropriate set of alternative functional forms they develop a parsimonious but general specification that nests the standard translog cost function the generalized translog cost function a separable quadratic cost function and the composite cost function an application to economies of scope in banking confirms the advantages of the composite model copyright 1992 by mit press

r d and ceo departure date do financial incentives make ceos more opportunistic the purpose of this article is to examine whether research and development r d expenditure is biased downward because of self serving behavior of highly incentivized managers this offers an insight into the general relationship between incentives and opportunism using instrumental variables and panel data methods for a sample of high r d spenders in the uk we examine whether r d is reduced in cases of imminent departure of the ceo results show evidence for this but only for the sample above the median in intensity of stock and options in the compensation package this suggests that opportunism is enhanced by inappropriately strong incentives the main results are robust to the inclusion of a number of corporate governance variables jel classification g30 o30

business model innovation in electricity supply markets the role of complex value in the united kingdom this research investigates the new opportunities that business model innovations are creating in electricity supply markets at the sub national scale these local supply business models can offer significant benefits to the electricity system but also generate economic social and environmental values that are not well accounted for in current policy or regulation this paper uses the uk electricity supply market to investigate new business models which rely on more complex value propositions than the incumbent utility model nine archetypal local supply business models are identified and their value propositions value capture methods and barriers to market entry are analysed this analysis defines complex value as a key concept in understanding business model innovation in the energy sector the process of complex value identification poses a challenge to energy researchers commercial firms and policymakers in liberalised markets to investigate the opportunities for system efficiency and diverse outcomes that new supplier business models can offer to the electricity system

business models for sustainable biofuel transport the potential for intermodal transport the use of solid wood biofuels for energy production in heating plants has increased drastically during the last decades great interest has been shown in replacing unsustainable road transport of wood fuel with more sustainable intermodal transport this paper maps the common business models for biofuel transport in sweden and suggests how these models may be developed to accommodate intermodal transport a view of the biofuel supply chain as five overlapping networks industry material operations transport and infrastructure connected by four transaction markets sourcing operations transport and traffic have been used four typical business models have been found regional national biofuel company local biofuel company heating plant own account and wood processing industry cooperation and vertical integration among the actors are important to reach the large transport volumes required for intermodal transport key issues to increase the intermodal potential are increased vertical integration and cooperation sharing of transport resources and infrastructure joint purchases outsourcing to expert actors building trust and open communication and not underestimating the complexity of intermodal transport the results have implications for any actor interested in developing intermodal transport or policy measures the contribution includes the new approach of developing business models by using the five layer network market model

conceptualising the heterogeneity of research based spin offs a multi dimensional taxonomy abstract research based spin offs rbsos have become an important aspect of the technology transfer process emanating from what is conventionally a non commercial environment rbsos pose major challenges if they are to realise their potential to meet the objectives of their founders and the parent research organisations pros from which they emerge an important issue is to understand the heterogeneity of rbsos this paper reviews the literature on rbso typologies to develop a taxonomy of rbsos we identify common themes in relation to these typologies in relation to 1 spin off creation and 2 spin off development the dimensions that differentiate between firms are the type of resources the business model and the institutional link we identify gaps in current typologies in order to propose avenues for future conceptual and empirical research

the financialisation offshoring nexus and the capital accumulation of us non financial firms the financialisation of the nonfinancial corporation has drawn the attention of many scholars who have identified two channels by which financialisation happens a higher proportion of financial assets compared to nonfinancial ones and a higher amount of resources distributed to financial markets one of the consequences of this is the decrease in investment parallel to financialisation many nonfinancial corporations have also engaged in an internationalization of their productive activities organizing them under global value chains surprisingly the intersections between the literature on financialisation and the literature on global value chain are still underdeveloped although for example offshoring may also explain the decrease in investment of nonfinancial firms this paper fills this gap using panel regressions for u s nonfinancial corporations between 1995 and 2011 we find evidence that both offshoring and financialisation are determinants to the decrease in investment and that financialisation occurs mainly for firms belonging to high offshoring sectors la financiarisation des societes non financieres a attire l attention de nombreux chercheurs qui ont identifie deux canaux par lesquels elle se produit les bilans des societes sont composes d une plus grande proportion d actifs financiers relativement aux actifs non financiers et une plus grande part des ressources est redistribuee vers les marches financiers l une des consequences qui en resulte est la baisse de l investissement parallelement a ce mouvement de financiarisation beaucoup de societes non financieres ont developpe l internationalisation de leur production en l organisant selon des chaines globales de valeur il est surprenant de constater que les liens entre la litterature sur la financiarisation et celle sur les chaines globales de valeur soit peu developpee bien que par exemple le transfert de la production a l etranger puisse aussi expliquer la baisse de l investissement des firmes non financieres cet article vise a combler cette lacune en menant des regressions sur un panel de firmes americaines entre 1995 et 2011 nous montrons que tant le transfert de production a l etranger que la financiarisation sont des determinants de la baisse de l investissement nous montrons egalement que la financiarisation touche surtout les firmes appartenant a des secteurs fortement inserees dans les chaines globales de valeur

why financialisation hasn t depressed us productive investment the rate of capital accumulation in the usa has fallen markedly in recent decades works in the financialisation literature have tried to explain this phenomenon by arguing that rising financial payments and purchases have come at the expense of productive investment this article shows that such arguments are not supported by the data it also explains theoretically why rising dividend payments and the growth of corporations portfolio investment are compatible with the fact that corporations productive investment did not decline during the first two decades of neoliberalism in the usa there would necessarily be a trade off between these uses of funds if they were all funded out of current profits but there is no necessary trade off because borrowed funds are an additional source finally the article shows that the fall in us corporations rate of profit rate of return on investment in fixed assets fully accounts for the fall in their rate of capital accumulation

on the management of open innovation abstract in an open innovation relationship the party that owns a key asset enjoys bargaining power that discourages the investments of the other party in the collaboration we show that these incentives can be restored by conferring on the weak party the power to take decisions during the research process e g a pharmaceutical firm with manufacturing and commercialization assets offers the direction of a joint research project to a biotech partner however on many occasions the strong party still captures more value from the collaboration by retaining the power to take decisions during research even if it produces less innovation value and fewer aggregate profits we conclude that the potential of open innovation is underexploited in particular owners may not release enough power to take decisions on the use of their assets

financialisation and the dynamics of offshoring in the usa imports are linked to higher cost mark ups and firm profits and the gains from such non competitive imports the result of offshoring are increasingly associated with the reinvestment of these higher profits our regression analysis of 35 us manufacturing and service industries over the period 1998 2006 supports aggregate and firm level studies showing that offshoring is associated with a higher share of corporate profit in total value added but the dynamic gains from offshoring have not been fully realised because firms have purchased financial assets especially share buybacks and higher dividend payments to raise shareholder value rather than investing in productive assets that raise productivity growth employment and income despite the corporate sector s contribution to national savings over the past decade the offshoring financialisation linkage reduces the capacity of non financial corporations to act as a driver of the recovery from the economic crisis that emerged in 2008

decoding the adaptability rigidity puzzle evidence from pharmaceutical incumbents pursuit of gene therapy and monoclonal antibodies the emergence of radical technologies presents a significant challenge to incumbent firms we study firms management of radical technological change by separating their actions into upstream research the r of r d and downstream development the d of r d we introduce two contingencies to explain when incumbents research investments in radical technologies translate into product development and when these upstream investments may get voided by organizational inertia downstream first radical technologies can differ in how they conform to incumbents existing business models impacting the extent to which the movement of research outputs toward development will be subject to inertial pressures second incumbents can invest in a radical technology through a variety of modes internal research external research contracts alliances acquisitions these modes represent unique combinations of who does research and who is involved in the decision for subsequent development and hence differ in the extent to which they are shielded from inertial pressures this difference helps explain why incumbents despite responding to radical technologies may still be unable to adapt as well as what types of investments will be more effective in helping firms navigate technological change evidence from pharmaceutical incumbents pursuit of monoclonal antibodies and gene therapy offers strong support for our arguments

journey and impact of business model innovation the case of a social enterprise in the scandinavian electricity retail market abstract organizations such as social enterprises engage in business model innovation when they wish to create deliver and capture value for their various stakeholders in ways that effect positive environmental and social change despite the increasing research attention paid to social enterprises the literature on business model innovation in this context is still scarce therefore the purpose of this paper is to explore business model innovation driven by sustainability issues at a social enterprise operating in the scandinavian electricity retail market a single case study research approach is taken and data are collected from sixteen individual interviews and two focus groups with executives managers and directors the study contributes to business model innovation as an organizational change process as well as an outcome of this process the findings show that business model innovation over time at social enterprises reflects a shift in focus from novelty via lock in of customers to efficiency in internal management routines additionally the study concludes that social enterprises with innovative business models driven by sustainability issues can introduce novel practices that lead to changes in the dominant business model of their industry the study also suggests how social entrepreneurs might innovate their business models as they focus on environmental and social sustainability

financialisation and the slowdown of accumulation over the past decades financial investment of non financial businesses has been rising and accumulation of capital goods has been declining the first part of the paper offers a novel theory to explain this phenomenon financialization the shareholder revolution and the development of a market for corporate control have shifted power to shareholders and thus changed management priorities leading to a reduction in the desired growth rate in the second part the link between accumulation and financialization is tested econometrically by means of a time series analysis of aggregate business investment for usa uk france and germany extensive test of robustness are performed for the first three countries evidence that confirms the negative effect of financialization on accumulation is found author s abstract

selective attention and the initiation of the global knowledge sourcing process in multinational corporations multinational corporations mncs frequently use their foreign subsidiaries to identify new opportunities to access external knowledge this article builds on the attention based view to examine how selective attention the focus on certain issues or answers at the exclusion of others works in the global knowledge sourcing process in mncs the results reveal an intriguing paradox while mncs may establish foreign subsidiaries far from headquarters to identify diverse novel knowledge and overcome local search headquarters decision makers tend to favor opportunities that are market proven and simply confirm what the mnc already knows subsidiary managers pre selling and selling efforts however can play a pivotal role in overcoming that bias this study combines detailed qualitative data with access to a proprietary database on 137 external knowledge sourcing opportunities in one of the world s largest mncs in the telecommunications sector

financialization and productive models in the pharmaceutical industry this study analyzes the effects of financialization and competition on productive models in major pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies and discusses current theses which may help explain the transformation of productive models occurring under growing pressure from institutional investors and shareholder value management we provide evidence of a large dispersion of shareholding and an increase in distribution of shareholder value occurring through large pharmaceutical companies we show that large pharmaceutical companies have adopted a blockbuster model in an effort to maximize shareholder value which is explained by various factors including financialization technical change product market regulations and market competition the stock market is used to make large acquisitions and control the us drug market creating a growing dependency on stock performance and blockbuster drug sales we describe how the process of financialization has impacted the biopharmaceutical industry and argue that the blockbuster model as a dominant productive model for the industry since the 1990s is unsustainable copyright 2013 the author 2013 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

towards an economic theory of the multiproduct firm this paper outlines a theory of the multiproduct firm important building blocks include excess capacity and its creation market imperfections and the peculiarities of organizational knowledge including its fungible and taut character a framework is adopted in which profit seeking firms are seen to diversify in order to avoid the high transactions costs associated with using various markets to trade the services of various specialized assets neoclassical explanations of the multiproduct firm are shown to be seriously deficient

comparing drivers barriers and opportunities of business models for renewable energies a review abstract this article systematically reviews the emerging field of research on business models for renewable energies differentiating between developing and industrialized countries the key findings on developing countries are as follows first there is a lack of quantitative data second opportunities are driven primarily by unfulfilled basic needs and micro finance whereas corruption and weak electricity grids are the main barriers and third business models should be replicable the key findings on industrialized countries are as follows first opportunities are driven primarily by climate change mitigation and energy efficiency improvements second stuck thought patterns and high costs of energy storage are important barriers and third cooperation is a key in future business models to handle increasing complexity this review reveals implications for researchers and policy makers promising avenues for future research are the analysis of intermodal business models and opportunities concerning energy self supply and renewable district heating policy makers are advised to design legal frameworks that account for the global nature of the renewable energy challenge and are simultaneously adapted to regional disparities

business models for sustainable innovation an empirical analysis of frugal products and services sustainable innovations are inventions providing an essential progress concerning social economic and ecological concerns the emergence of base of the pyramid markets and the growing importance of the developing economies as new sources of frugal innovations has attracted the interest of scholars and practitioners frugal innovation is an inclusive approach to innovation that maximizes value for customers shareholders and society while significantly reducing the use of financial and natural resources in developing countries reverse innovations are frugal products and services successful in developing markets that make their way back to industrialized countries by creating new market segments therefore both concepts are crucial for facing sustainability challenges in developing countries and may also lend insights to business models in industrialized countries as the relationship between frugal and reverse innovation and sustainability remains largely unexplored in the literature this study aims to fill in this gap and answer the research question how can frugal and reverse innovation strengthen sustainable development and how can business models in this context be systemized and described employing a multiple case study design a total of 59 frugal products and services were investigated from a business models and sustainability strategy perspective from june 2014 until june 2015 the direction of innovation was distinguished between a from developing countries to developing countries b from industrialized countries to developing countries c from industrialized countries to industrialized countries and d from developing countries to industrialized countries with the purpose to find differences between different directions of innovation and economies findings show that entrepreneurs and companies offering frugal and reverse products and services manage to combine the business model elements in an insightful manner and create economic social and environmental value

choosing among alternative cost function specifications an application to italian multi utilities abstract the paper investigates the cost properties of a sample of italian utilities providing in combination gas water and electricity services the estimates from a multi product composite cost function rev econ stat 74 1992 221 are compared with the ones coming from other traditional functional forms such as the standard translog st the generalized translog gt and the separable quadratic sq the results show that the composite model provides a better description of data and highlight the presence of global scope and scale economies for the median firm of the sample

equilibrium steady state price distributions abstract a unique steady state equilibrium is derived in a market where each firm sets its own price and consumers search for price information it is shown that such an equilibrium involves a non degenerate price distribution the relationship between this distribution and the market parameters is revealed

understanding complex organization the role of know how internal structure and human behavior in the evolution of capabilities this article begins with some notes on the intellectual climate in which the article of winter 1968 towards a neo schumpeterian theory of the firm the rand corporation 2006 industrial and corporate change 15 1 was first written it identifies core ideas and contentions sidney winter helped put on the research agenda for scholars interested in complex business organization we point out that winter s early contentions have implications for strategic thinking in both business and military contexts and that a promising research agenda lies in the further development of notions of organizational capability copyright 2006 oxford university press

motivations for fdi and domestic capital formation changing patterns of foreign direct investment fdi stock have raised important questions about their impact on domestic economies for example it is often thought that increased inward fdi contributes to domestic capital formation whereas increased outward fdi reduces it we demonstrate that such generalizations are inappropriate we develop hypotheses linking the impact of fdi to the underlying motivation for investment these hypotheses are tested using available canadian industry level data the implication of our results is that rapid growth in outward fdi relative to inward growth should not be considered as a negative development and may reflect success

the rejuvenation of inventors through corporate spinouts this article focuses on corporate spinouts as a strategy that can rejuvenate the inventive efforts of inventors with a long tenure in the same company we rely on an unbalanced panel of 5 604 inventor year observations to study a matched sample of 431 inventors employed by the xerox corporation and find evidence in support of three predictions first inventors who join a spinout increase the extent of exploration in their inventive activities second they decrease the extent to which they rely on the parent organization s knowledge third because long tenured employees through socialization tend to progressively adopt more exploitative behavior than short tenured members they benefit relatively more from the spinout experience these results are robust to several econometric specifications that try to account for the endogeneity of the inventors decision to join the spinout for the fact that spinouts inventive activity may be intrinsically different from that of the parent company and for the possible presence of novel external stimuli for those who join spinouts the data provide large sample evidence consistent with the idea that socialization reduces opportunities for organizational learning we discuss the implications for theory and practice