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

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

entry mode organizational learning and r d in foreign affiliates evidence from japanese firms this paper develops hypotheses concerning the role of entry mode and experience based organizational learning as determinants of the r d intensity of foreign affiliates and tests these hypotheses on a sample of 420 japanese manufacturing affiliates abroad entry mode has a major impact on r d activities the r d intensities of acquired affiliates substantially exceed those in wholly owned greenfield affiliates while the r d intensities of minority owned ventures are higher if japanese parent firms lack strong r d capabilities at home for greenfield operations support is found for an incremental growth pattern of foreign r d as a function of organizational learning and affiliate capability building the results are consistent with the view that part of the explanation for japanese firms relative lack of involvement in overseas r d must be sought in their status as latecomers in the establishment of overseas manufacturing networks at the same time a number of japanese firms have actively used foreign acquisitions and joint ventures to gain access to overseas technology and to establish overseas r d capabilities at a faster pace copyright 2002 john wiley sons ltd

cost value and foreign market entry mode the transaction and the firm this paper compares and contrasts the mode of foreign market entry decision from the transaction cost internalization and organizational capability perspectives each of these perspectives operates at a different level of analysis respectively the transaction and the firm and consequently differs in the primary arena of attention namely transaction characteristics and the capabilities of firms in making the comparison a key distinction is made between the cost and the value aspects in the management of know how based on which issues pertaining to the transfer of knowledge within and across firm boundaries and the exploitation and enhancement of competitive advantage are closely examined the main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the implications of a shift in frame from cost to value in the analysis of decisions related to firm boundaries entry into foreign markets is used primarily as a vehicle for the accomplishment of this purpose the paper shows how the value based framework of the organizational capability perspective radically and fundamentally shifts the approach towards the governance of firm boundaries and argues that even though tc internalization theory raises some valid concerns the organizational capability framework may be more in tune with today s business context some of the assumptions of the tc internalization perspective both direct opportunism exploitation of existing advantage and indirect preservation of the value of know how across locational contexts asymmetry between bounded rationality for transaction and production purposes are critically examined and questioned implications of a shift from a cost to a value based framework are discussed and the need for a shift in research focus is emphasized

internationalize to live a study of the post internationalization survival of new ventures despite a growing number of studies on the survival of new ventures who pursue an international entry strategy research in this area is not yet conclusive one line of argument tells a story of unprepared novices making a risky move and thus predicts negative consequences another line of argument tells a story of prepared entrepreneurs making a strategic decision and thus predicts positive consequences the problem of estimating the true effect involves an important endogeneity problem that can only be overcome by accounting for the fact that new ventures self select into internationalization the goal of this research is to add to the post internationalization survival literature by accounting for this self selection using an endogenous switching model in a potential outcomes or counterfactual inference approach leveraging a panel of us new ventures from the kauffman firm survey our results paint a picture more in line with the preparedness logic of new venture internationalization after controlling for this self selection we find a positive average treatment effect of internationalization on survival and we find evidence that early internationalization is better for post internationalization survival than late internationalization we argue that these results suggest that the new theories of new venture internationalization needs to be further unchained from the process theories of internationalization

impact of ownership on the international involvement of smes this paper analyses the relationship between the internationalisation strategies of smes and types of ownership different types of ownership affect firms and this in turn will influence the internationalisation strategy adopted using a sample of spanish smes our results show that internationalisation is negatively related to family ownership and positively related to corporate ownership we have also observed that the presence of a corporate blockholder in family firms encourages internationalisation these results support the idea that ownership type influences the decision to internationalise

asset specificity and economic organization abstract this paper examines the optimization problem of firm and market organization in which both production cost and transaction cost differences are expressed as a function of asset specificity in general markets enjoy advantages by aggregating the demands of many buyers thereby realizing economies of scale or scope such production cost savings need to be assessed in relation to the transaction cost advantages that internal organization sometimes enjoys over markets in adapting to changed circumstances as it turns out both production cost economies and the transaction cost differences between firm and market organization vary systematically with the characteristics of the investments this paper employs a unified framework to assess the choice of organization form the condition of asset specificity is featured

internationalization in the information age a new era for places firms and international business networks the new techno economic paradigm of the information age has brought about new structures and processes in international business ib in this article we examine the changing nature of the competitive advantages of places the competitive advantages and strategies of firms and the governance structure of ib networks in what has also been called the third industrial revolution these three areas of change in ib activities can be mapped respectively to the location l ownership o and internalization i advantages of the eclectic paradigm we interpret these oli factors as dynamic constructs in order to depict analytically the shifts in the ib environment and their implications for ib

labor flexibility and innovation in new ventures the study investigates how labor flexibility affects innovation in new ventures more specifically drawing upon a sample of 143 greek ventures less than 8 years old it examines empirically the individual and interactive effects of functional and numerical flexibility on product innovation it also considers how these effects are moderated by the entrepreneur s political skill results suggest that functional flexibility has a positive direct effect on incremental innovation whereas numerical flexibility has a positive direct effect on radical innovation the interactions between numerical and functional flexibility affect both types of innovation the results also suggest that the labor flexibility innovation relationship is positively moderated by the entrepreneur s political skill these findings point toward aspects of knowledge related with flexible labor engagement and entrepreneurial relational capital that affect innovation

a theory of international new ventures a decade of research oviatt and mcdougall s jibs article identified and defined international new ventures invs and their prominent role in the global marketplace the article spurred worldwide interest in invs by raising questions about the validity and efficacy of existing theory especially about the uppsala process model of internationalization the article also laid an important theoretical foundation for research into international entrepreneurship ie where younger and wellestablished companies use their entrepreneurial activities to create value as they internationalize their operations this paper reviews oviatt and mcdougall s original propositions highlighting their important contributions to the field the paper also highlights the progress made in research using oviatt and mcdougall s framework the major debates that persist about the nature and role of invs the source of their competitive advantages and the key issues to be explored in future research

joint economic lot sizing problem for a three layer supply chain with stochastic demand abstract this paper considers the joint economic lot sizing problem jelp for multi layer supply chain with multi retailers and single manufacturer and supplier the paper extends the work of ben daya et al 2013 and relaxes the assumption of deterministic demand and constant holding and ordering costs the paper proposes modifying four computational intelligent algorithms to solve mixed integer problems and compares their performance for solving the problem at hand the paper further compares between adopting a centralized safety stock policy versus a decentralized policy results showed cuckoo search to outperform other tested algorithms and also favored adopting a centralized policy

can the new forms of investment substitute for the old forms a transaction costs perspective this paper uses transaction costs theory is used to explain the features of the new contractual alternatives to foreign direct investment the new forms to assess their efficiency and to forecast their future development

the agenda for growth theory a different point of view it is argued here that the basic assumptions of neoclassical growth theory inherently limit the ability of models within that theory to cast light on economic growth as we have experienced it this holds for the new growth theory as well as the older growth theory of the 1950s and 190js it is proposed that to make real headway with understanding economic growth a growth theory needs the following elements 1 the ability to treat technological advance as an essentially disequilibrium process 2 to incorporate a theory of the firm in which firm capabilities and differences across firms are central elements and 3 to incorporate into the theory a richer body of institutions than currently are treated in standard growth theory including at the least universities copyright 1998 by oxford university press

internationalisation conceptualising an entrepreneurial process of behaviour in time this paper presents a three stage process of conceptual development in response to the call for a unifying direction for research in the emergent field of international entrepreneurship drawing on classic approaches to internationalisation and importing insight from entrepreneurship as a separate and distinct field of study the paper develops three potential models of internationalisation as a time based process of entrepreneurial behaviour the models evolve from the simple through general to precise levels of conceptualisation research implications are discussed

knowledge market failure and the multinational enterprise a reply debate is an indication that an issue warrants discussion the comments of james love and donald mcfetridge in this issue are fine statements that articulate a received wisdom their comments differ with each other and these differences remind us that there is less consensus in our understanding of internalization and transaction costs than commonly supposed if we do not address all of the commentators specific points it is not for lack of appreciation but because it is our belief that a fuller vision of the terrain already mapped and that which is yet uncharted would provide a more useful basis for exploration and discovery a listing of issues is the task of a referee while a published debate might perform a useful task by laying out the contours of the research tradition and future

explaining the effect of rapid internationalization on horizontal foreign divestment in the retail sector an extended penrosean perspective we adopt a penrosean perspective to study the effect of rapid international expansion on the subsequent divestment of international operations we draw on regional strategy theory and differentiate penrosean managerial resources by their geographical fungibility to argue that the effect of rapid international expansion on the divestment of international operations varies with the regional patterns of firms international expansion and international experience we test our hypotheses using two stage least squares 2sls estimation on data that capture the international expansion and divestment of retailers over the period 2003 2012

on the relationship between firm size and export intensity export marketing literature supports the view that firm size is positively related to export intensity although the empirical findings have been mixed a number of theoretical arguments are used to support this proposition i e international marketing economies of scale limited managerial and financial resources of small firms decisionmaker s risk perception based on a large survey of the italian manufacturing industry the article falsifies the proposition and challenges some widely held assumptions in export marketing literature

asset exploitation versus asset seeking implications for location choice of foreign direct investment from newly industrialized economies this study examined several hypotheses regarding the location choice of foreign direct investment from newly industrialized economies nies using a sample of 328 taiwanese firms in the analysis this study found that the firms motivations had a significant impact on the choice of their investment location developed countries vs less developed countries yet this impact was moderated by the capabilities that the firms possessed the results suggest that both asset exploitation and asset seeking aspects of investments are predictive of the nie firms location choice of investment

internationalization of business services an interregional analysis o farrell p n wood p a and zheng j 1996 internationalization of business services an interregional analysis reg studies 30 101 118 internationalization behaviour by business service firms in scotland and the south east of england is analysed evidence is outlined on level of internationalization time profile of entry into foreign markets location of foreign markets mode of entry into first and largest foreign markets and behavioural aspects of international market selection and entry mode choice initial foreign market entries occurred in the early 1960s with south east business service organizations entering foreign markets earlier while there was a surge in internationalization by scottish businesses after 1988 few firms engaged in a process of explicitly choosing a foreign market to enter since the most common entry mechanism was responding to a particular ad hoc order similarly almost 70 of firms made the mode choice decision without considering any alternative modes o farrell p

the internalisation theory of the multinational enterprise a review of the progress of a research agenda after 30 years this paper reviews the progress of the research agenda initiated by the future of the multinational enterprise 1976 focusing initially on the problem of explaining the existence of the multinational enterprise the agenda soon broadened to encompass the analysis of alternative modes of foreign market entry the role of international joint ventures the impact of innovation on corporate growth and the role of culture in international business the core philosophy based on the coasian nature of the firm and on rational action modelling has remained constant while the widening range of applications has encouraged synthesis with theories developed in other fields of research success in answering any one question invariably generates new questions which must in turn be answered through a further extension of the theory and this dynamic continues to drive the development of the theory today internalisation theory has retained its validity and its vitality over the past 30 years and is currently being extended into new fields of international business research

analyzing foreign market entry strategies extending the internalization approach a new fully integrated analysis of the foreign market entry decision is presented encompassing the choice between exporting licensing joint venturing and wholly owned foreign investment the choice between acquisition and greenfield investment is examined and so too are options based on subcontracting and franchising the model extends the insights of internalization theory and draws on concepts from the economics of industrial organization a special feature of the model is the distinction between investment in production facilities and investment in distribution facilities an important practical distinction that has been overlooked in much of the international business literature the strength of competition from indigenous rivals is emphasized as a determinant of entry strategy into both production and distribution

accounting for endogeneity when assessing strategy performance does entry mode choice affect fdi survival firms choose strategies based on their attributes and industry conditions therefore strategy choice is endogenous and self selected empirical models that do not account for this and regress performance measures on strategy choice variables are potentially misspecified and their conclusions incorrect i highlight how self selection on hard to measure or unobservable characteristics can bias strategy performance estimates and recommend an econometric technique that has been developed to account for this effect although this concern applies to a wide range of strategy questions to demonstrate its effect i empirically examine if entry mode choice acquisition versus greenfield influences foreign direct investment survival in specifications that do not account for self selection i find that greenfield entries have survival advantages compared to acquisitions this confirms previous findings however the significance of this effect disappears once i account for self selection of entry mode in the empirical estimates the results confirm that estimates from models that do not account for self selection of strategy choice can lead to incorrect or misleading conclusions

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

growth oriented smes in unfavourable regional environments vaessen p and keeble d 1995 growth oriented smes in unfavourable regional environments reg studies 29 489 505 in this paper the research focus is on counterfactual cases of growth oriented smes in peripheral regions of britain scotland northern england wales and merseyside these firms are systematically compared to three control groups made up of growth oriented smes in the south east slow growth firms in the periphery and slow growth firms in the south east apart from some performance measures such as profits and exports three key characteristics of the firms are analysed these are the extent of competition in the markets served levels of innovation and r d and work force and labour market characteristics the analysis is conducted for manufacturing firms and professional and business services separately firms of the research group stand out against the other firms in the sample as businesses with a very favourable r d input output ratio and greater propensity for providing a

organizational entrainment and international new ventures from emerging markets organizational entrainment captures the temporal fit in the activity cycles between exchange partners we argue that organizational entrainment between international new ventures invs and their most important international customers positively moderates the relationship between the degree scope and speed of internationalization and performance of invs we test our hypotheses on invs from china india and south africa the results support the contingent role of entrainment for degree and scope of internationalization but not for speed findings suggest that when invs attain temporal fit with their most important international customers they can implement their strategic goals in international markets more effectively

new firms societal contribution versus survival potential abstract new business firms are now considered a major source of new jobs economic growth technical innovation and economic flexibility they may provide a major strategic advantage for the united states in world competition a more complete precise understanding of the dynamics of new firm development their societal contributions and factors affecting their survival has considerable policy and managerial significance a study of new firm contributions and survival was completed to determine whether the same factors would account for both they do not the research began with a substantial body of descriptive information on 551 new firms initiated in minnesota between 1978 and 1984 the initial data were collected in the summer of 1984 a one year follow up was completed in 1985 to determine new firm survival the sample was representative of all major industry sectors and all regions of the state about 60 were located in the minneapolis st paul urban area attempts to predict current 1984 contributions indicated that age was not a significant factor older new firms did not contribute more than younger new firms the developmental pattern primarily the average annual growth rate was highly related to sales or jobs provided in 1984 next most significant was the industry of the new firm manufacturing distributive services and business producer service new firms provided more significant contributions the one year follow up was able to determine the survival status of 548 of the 551 firms slightly less than 10 48 had not survived major factors related to survival appeared to be age high death rates at 2 3 years and attention to financial matters

survival patterns among newcomers to franchising abstract this study examines survival patterns among franchisee and nonfranchise small firms and establishments that entered business during 1986 and 1987 aspiring entrepreneurs purchasing franchises choose this path to small business entry in part because they expect to improve their chances of survival during the turbulent early years of operation evidence to date has been mixed some studies conclude that franchising is a low risk route to small business ownership while others suggest that independent start ups are more likely to remain in operation than franchises this study utilizes two distinct methodological approaches to investigate franchisee survival patterns the first approach demonstrates that franchise units have better survival prospects than independents and the second approach demonstrates that young firms formed without the benefit of a franchisor parent are more likely to remain in operation than franchised start ups reconciliation of these seemingly inconsistent findings is explored survival measurement is heavily influenced by the unit of analysis in franchising firm specific data show different patterns than establishment specific data when young franchise units are tracked through time analysis of establishments owned by corporations is undertaken for restaurants opened nationwide in 1986 and 1987 using census bureau data describing corporate owned restaurant establishments that reported payroll to the irs in 1987 52 088 young establishments were identified 22 5 were franchises comparison of the franchisee and independent restaurant units indicated that independents were more likely to cease operations by 1988 than franchises the fact that franchisee establishments had a better survival track record than independent restaurants does not however demonstrate that aspiring entrepreneurs improve their survival prospects by purchasing a franchise in fact 84 of the new franchise establishments under consideration were units of multi establishment corporations and few of these corporate parents were new businesses envision a corporation in operation for 15 years that owns 20 mcdonalds restaurants in 1987 they opened their twenty first unit the findings of this study indicate that this twenty first unit has excellent survival prospects more so than either an independent start up or a franchisee opening a restaurant for the first time new franchised restaurant units overall may be a safe investment although simultaneously the newcomer opening a franchise may face a high risk situation the analysis then shifts from establishments owned by franchisees to young firms not establishments started in 1986 and 1987 as proprietorships partnerships or s corporations among these young firms franchisees are found to have lower survival rates than independent start ups and these differences persist when various firm and owner traits are controlled for statistically retailing is found to be a particularly difficult field for young franchised firms risk of firm closure is high and mean profits are negative the most common route into retailing entailed purchasing an operating franchise unit from its previous owner that is an ongoing franchise over 53 of the young franchised retailing firms started in 1986 and 1987 were ongoing operations by 1991 only 52 4 of these firms were still operating with the owner of record present in 1987 the findings of this study indicate on balance that purchase of a franchise is unlikely to reduce the risks facing a new business start up this does not imply that the multi establishment franchisee adding another new franchise unit to its existing chain of operations faces a high risk situation rather the high risk facing the franchisee newcomer is partially rooted in the fact that so many of the newly opened units in mature franchising niches are owned by multi unit franchisees that have greater experience and resources than newcomers who are attempting to enter the industry

the eclectic paradigm of international production a restatement and some possible extensions this article reviews some of the criticisms directed towards the eclectic paradigm of international production over the past decade and restates its main tenets the second part of the article considers a number of possible extensions of the paradigm and concludes by asserting that it remains a robust general framework for explaining and analysing not only the economic rationale of economic production but many organisational and impact issues in relation to mne activity as well

the perception and measurement of transaction costs the chapter discusses various explanations of how transaction cost minimising corporate configurations come about it contrasts darwinian with rational explanations finding both unsatisfactory what matters rather than computation of fully recognised transaction costs are managerial perceptions of transaction costs these perceptions are not expressed in numbers but in language this is related to arguments derived from bounded rationality and from transaction cost economics the chapter argues that issues of managerial perception must become central to analysis existing academic traditions which accord primacy to perception and to language are drawn upon and argued to be of great relevance to future work

motivations to remit evidence from botswana in this article a theory of motivations to send remittances is described and tested with data from botswana altruism is one of the motivations tested and found to be an insufficient explanation for remittances among migrants in botswana a refinement of the model stipulates a modified altruism or enlightened self interest in this model the relationship between the migrant and family is tempered by an implicit understanding of mutual benefit the household strategy may be to encourage some members to migrate as a means of spreading risk and sharing gains the household strategy is similar to an insurance policy where migration is to places where market potential is high the risks incurred might be high the example is given of migration during a drought in botswana migrant remittances were greater in households with more cattle or households with more to lose drought alone was not statistically related to remittances increases in remittances were related to increased levels of education it is suggested that repayment was the motive for parents investment in migrants education migrants gains are identified as the potential for an inheritance the security of channeling investments through a trusted family member and security in having a home to return to it is pointed out that the altruism and family remittances from urban migration were strategies that bridged the simple dynamic of either urban development or rural development impacting on family welfare it is suggested that household models of economy adopt some measure to express the relationship of household wealth to remittances from urban migrants

international entrepreneurship research versus international business research a false dichotomy international entrepreneurship ie research draws from work in both international business ib and general entrepreneurship it examines inter alia entrepreneurial behaviour when crossing borders first stream and makes international comparisons of entrepreneurship as found in different countries and regions second stream see wright and ricks 1994 1 two influential ie articles have been bestowed with the jibs decade award namely oviatt and mcdougall 1994 and knight and cavusgil 2004 both articles suggested the need for new theory to explain the empirical phenomenon of early internationalization these papers developed the concepts of international new venture inv and born global bg respectively and stimulated a lively debate on early internationalizing companies oviatt and mcdougall defined an inv as a business organization that from inception seeks to derive significant

capabilities as a mediator linking resources and the international performance of entrepreneurial firms in an emerging economy this study investigates an under researched topic the relationships between capabilities resources and international performance among entrepreneurial firms in an emerging economy we combine the resource based view of the firm and the capability building perspective of rent creation to shed light on the crucial role of firm specific capabilities that transform key resources into performance outcomes employing a large sample of chinese entrepreneurial firms our investigation demonstrates that while the resources of institutional capital and managerial ties are important in the internationalization effort their effects on international performance are channeled through each firm s adaptive capability this adaptive capability is the firm s ability to coordinate recombine and allocate resources to meet the different requirements of foreign markets specifically our research is able to demonstrate support for the mediating role of capabilities in the relationship between resources and international performance the implications of these findings for theoretical development and future research are discussed

a heuristic algorithm for solving large location inventory problems with demand uncertainty abstract in this paper we analyze a location inventory problem for the design of large supply chain networks with uncertain demand we give a continuous non linear formulation that integrates location allocation and inventory decisions and includes the costs of transportation cycle inventory safety stock ordering and facility opening then relying on the fact that the model becomes linear when certain variables are fixed we propose a heuristic algorithm that solves the resulting linear program and uses the solution to improve the variable estimations for the next iteration in order to show the efficiency of the algorithm we compare our results with those of the conic quadratic formulation of the problem computational experiments show that the heuristic algorithm can be efficiently used to find fast and close to optimal solutions for large supply chain networks finally we provide managerial insights regarding the ways in which demand uncertainty risk pooling and safety stocks at retailers affect the design of a supply chain

legitimating first organizing activities and the survival of new ventures abstract the process by which firm founders create new organizations is of considerable interest to evolutionary theorists and entrepreneurship researchers this article tracks the life histories of 223 swedish new ventures started between january and september 1998 by a random sample of firm founders we explore the effect of legitimating activities on the hazard of disbanding and the transition to other firm organizing activities during their first 30 months of life we find that undertaking activities to generate legitimacy reduces the hazard of venture disbanding and facilitates the transition to other organizing activities

an evolutionary approach to understanding international business activity the co evolution of mnes and the institutional environment this paper examines the co evolution of mne activities and institutions external and internal to the firm we develop a theoretical framework for this analysis that draws on the more recent writings of douglass north on institutions as a response to complex forms of uncertainty associated with the rise in global economic interconnectedness and of richard nelson on the co evolution of technology and institutions we link historical changes in the character of mne activities to changes in the institutional environment and highlight the scope for firm level creativity and institutional entrepreneurship that may lead to co evolution with the environment we argue that the main drivers for institutional entrepreneurship are now found in the increasing autonomy of mne subsidiaries thus mne agency derives from more decentralized forms of experimentation in international corporate networks which competence creating nodes of new initiatives can co evolve with local institutions unlike most other streams of related literature our approach connects patterns of institutional change in wider business systems with more micro processes of variety generation and experimentation within and across individual firms this form of co evolutionary analysis is increasingly important to understanding the interrelationships between mne activities and public policy

the positive role of global leaders in enhancing multicultural team innovation this study contributes to the empirical research on leadership of multicultural teams from the positive organizational scholarship perspective pos following the information decision making processes perspective on team cultural diversity we examined the positive effect of leaders global identity on multicultural team innovation we proposed that r d multicultural team leaders with high global identity foster team shared innovation goals and motivate team members to adopt communication inclusion behavior making sure that they all understand each other furthermore we propose that the effect of fostering team shared innovation goals on communication inclusion will be stronger for teams with perceived high rather than low cultural diversity and that team communication inclusion will positively affect team innovation participants were 574 r d multicultural team members their leaders and their leaders managers in 82 co located teams in a chinese branch of a large german global organization using sem analysis our findings supported our research model demonstrating that multicultural team leaders with high global identity leveraged cultural diversity to promote innovative goals which further enhanced team communication inclusion and its positive impact on team innovation we discuss the theoretical and practical implications to the pos perspective on cultural diversity

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

market attractiveness resource based capabilities venture strategies and venture performance abstract this research seeks to identify variables that should be related to venture performance it is hypothesized that both market attractiveness and resource based capabilities are directly related to new venture performance in addition specific resource based capabilities are hypothesized to be directly related to the competitive strategies chosen by a firm finally the fit between strategies and resource based capabilities is hypothesized to be related to venture performance the sample consisted of all manufacturing businesses sic codes 20 39 started or reorganized in the corporate form between 1980 and 1991 in nine counties in northwestern pennsylvania as identified by a major marketing research service of the 800 companies surveyed completed questionnaires were returned for 155 representing a 19 response rate the 155 responding companies had a median age of 5 years with a median of 15 employees the major products of companies in the sample included flour lumber household and office furniture plastic containers tools and dies ready mixed concrete pipe fittings measuring devices paint and varnish machine tools electroplate carbon and graphite composite products plastic laminated products circuit boards electronic components and parts for internal combustion engines in general the results confirm the validity of the measures of environmental and organizational characteristics as we have adapted them for new ventures as hypothesized perceived market attractiveness and the overall abundance of resource based capabilities were significantly related to venture performance also in two of three cases the evidence suggests that specific resource based capabilities are related to the firm s stated competitive strategies finally although the relationship between fit and performance is not supported in all cases the performance of the emerging manufacturing ventures included in this sample appears to be enhanced when resource based capabilities are supportive of a cost leadership strategy and when firms seeking to differentiate based on product and service quality have the resource based capabilities to support that strategy the results of this emerging research stream will make an important contribution to our understanding of the factors that impact firm performance for scholars the results provide additional information needed to develop comprehensive new venture performance models a clear understanding of the factors that have a strong influence on venture performance will enable practitioners to better identify viable business opportunities and academicians to provide potential business founders with tools to help them recognize opportunity in addition the identification of appropriate levels of abstraction will provide building blocks for future research that seeks to integrate environmental and firm level constructs

managerial cognition and internationalization how do the senior decision makers within a multinational enterprise mne think through and determine an internationalization decision despite the cognitive foundations of several key constructs standard internationalization models do not explicitly incorporate managerial cognition we argue that the boundedly rational decision maker is underspecified in international business models and this oversight contributes to weak empirical findings on experience learning internationalization strategy and mne performance drawing on these extant models we identify seven knowledge domains and interdependencies that may make up decision makers mental models granted rare access to senior executives and board members engaged in a foreign direct investment decision we find substantial heterogeneity in the mental models these individuals used to make sense of the opportunity this variance aligns with differences in individuals experience along four dimensions international breadth depth diversity and prior strategic decision making we argue these cognitive processes how individuals exercise judgment about information search parameters assessment and decision integration and how decision teams coalesce in their thinking are crucial microfoundations for modeling heterogeneity in firm level internationalization strategies and performance

extending the theory of the multinational enterprise internalization and strategic management perspectives this paper assesses the continued relevance of buckley and casson s 1976 book on the future of the multinational enterprise mne against a background of increasing criticism of transaction cost related scholarly work we demonstrate that the schism that can currently be observed in the field between international business and international management is misguided as the transaction cost internalization school may offer useful insights to both management scholars and managers for this to occur however it is necessary first to extend the empirical scope of transaction cost based reasoning to include the functioning of differentiated network mnes the paper suggests that buckley and casson s book still represents a beacon of clarity and a superb starting point for the study of the mne even if the complexity of this governance structure has grown far beyond what any international business scholar or even international management scholar could have predicted 25 years ago

98 effective integer ratio lot sizing for one warehouse multi retailer systems a warehouse supplies n retailers constant external demand occurs at each retailer and shortages are not allowed there are linear holding costs and fixed costs for ordering at the warehouse and at each retailer the goal is to minimize the long run average cost over an infinite time horizon we define a new class of policies for this problem whose simple structure facilitates both computation and implementation the cost of a policy that is optimal within this class is shown to be within 2 of the cost of an optimal policy for the original problem in the worst case such a policy can be computed in on log n time

revisiting international business theory a capabilities based theory of the mne an introduction to this issue of the journal of international business studies in which the author discusses a capabilities based theory of multinational enterprises mne is presented

new directions in entrepreneurship research with the kauffman firm survey data is a fundamental impediment to a better understanding of the multifaceted process of new firm creation with better data we can form a better understanding of the causes constraints and outcomes associated with the decision to launch a new business towards this end the kauffman foundation commissioned an eight wave panel of businesses that were formed in 2004 chronicling a single cohort s evolution from birth through important business milestones this issue of small business economics focuses on papers that use the kauffman firm survey to examine new research questions in entrepreneurship articles in this issue analyze new research topics in entrepreneurship as well as shed light on enduring questions in the literature

regional influences on foreign market development by business service companies elements of a strategic context explanation o farrell p n wood p a and zheng j 1998 regional influences on foreign market development by business service companies elements of a strategic context explanation reg studies 32 31 48 the internationalization literature both of manufacturing and services has concentrated upon the issue of entry and largely ignored post entry behaviour and market development a major aim of this paper therefore is to present evidence on foreign market development by business service firms in two uk regions scotland and the south east of england and the amsterdam urban region of the netherlands following a review of the relevance of the internalization approach the development stages paradigm network analysis and a strategic choice framework to internationalization by business services empirical findings are presented from the three regions on trajectories of foreign market development modal shifts the incidence of proactive market strategies and the characteristics of major clients a behaviou

knowledge market failure and the multinational enterprise a comment the purpose of this note is to comment briefly on two papers published in this journal kogut and zander 1993 and love 1995 kogut and zander k z argue that market failure is not necessary to explain the existence of multinationals or indeed any firm love argues that the existence of a firm necessarily reflects a market failure but that opportunism is not necessary for market failure to occur i have problems with the logic of both papers

motives for private transfers over the life cycle an analytical framework and evidence for peru abstract this paper tests for the motives for private income transfers we consider two motives altruism and exchange the question of private transfer motives is important because such motivation can influence the effects of public income transfers on the distribution of income using a household survey for peru we find that transfer amounts received increase with recipient pre transfer income which contradicts a key prediction of the strong form of the altruism hypothesis but is consistent with exchange we also find that capital market imperfections are likely to be an important cause of private transfers and that social security benefits crowd out the incidence of private transfers

the interactions of organizational and competitive influences on strategy and performance despite much debate in the strategy literatures there is little consensus as to whether organizational capabilities or market competition are more important in shaping firms actions and performance we suspect that simply comparing firm level and industry level influences will continue to prove fruitless for two reasons in the first place both organization and competition are clearly important in shaping strategy and performance in the second place we suspect that the inconclusive nature of much of the existing research reflects the fact that organizational capabilities competition strategy and performance are fundamentally endogenous that is reciprocal interactions at multiple levels of analysis between the environment and the firm shape business strategy and performance while interactions between strategy and performance in turn shape both organizational capabilities and competitive environments this special issue of the strategic management journal includes papers that focus attention on several dimensions of these interactions a common theme emerges from the work concerning the sequential nature of the interrelationships the papers suggest that firms develop organizational capabilities as they act in competitive institutional and cognitive environments where capabilities arise both by design and as the unexpected by products of firm actions the capabilities managers understanding of the capabilities and the historical context that surrounds them then condition firms reactions to changes in their environment the reactions and firm performance in turn affect the structure of the industry and all these changes generate new information which in turn creates new learning opportunities thus the papers view strategy and performance as an ongoing sequence of capabilities conditioned adaptations by firms which in turn become exogenous events in the environments of the managers of other firms for strategy researchers the important question is not that of which disciplinary perspective or mode of explanation is a more appropriate one but rather that of the conditions under which a given mode of explanation is most appropriate 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

mnes as border crossing multi location enterprises the role of discontinuities in geographic space spurred by the classic work of dunning mne location has become the focus of a growing body of research in the field in this paper we argue that international business ib research examining the spatial dimension has serious weaknesses stemming from its traditional assumption of the country as the location unit of analysis while border crossing remains the key research context of ib placing it within a general spatial framework that recognizes both international and subnational spatial heterogeneity opens up vast new vistas for research analyzing mnes as border crossing multi location enterprises allows the researcher to distinguish between discrete border effects and continuous distance effects and undertake a more fine grained analysis of location within such analysis national borders may appear as qualitative discontinuities in space that is points at which spatial heterogeneity changes abruptly however subnational spatial heterogeneity is often the characteristic that drives firm strategy as mnes decide to locate in particular agglomerations and not at random locations within a country the complex firms that ib scholars study typically include multiple units within the same country so that a complete analysis requires considering both subnational distance effects as well as international border effects

inside the black box technology and economics economists have long treated technological phenomena as events transpiring inside a black box and on the whole have adhered rather strictly to a self imposed ordinance not to inquire too seriously into what transpires inside that box the purpose of professor rosenberg s work is to break open and examine the contents of the black box in so doing a number of important economic problems be powerfully illuminated the author clearly shows how specific features of individual technologies have shaped a number of variables of great concern to economists the rate of productivity improvement the nature of learning processes underlying technological change itself the speed of technology transfer and the effectiveness of government policies that are intended to influence technologies in particular ways the separate chapters of this book reflect a primary concern with some of the distinctive aspects of industrial technologies in the twentieth century such as the increasing reliance upon science but also the considerable subtlety and complexity of the dialectic between science and technology other concerns include the rapid growth in the development of costs associated with new technologies as well as the difficulty of predicting the eventual performance characteristics of newly emerging technologies

is knowledge power knowledge flows subsidiary power and rent seeking within mncs in recent years as multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries have become more closely linked to international networks their knowledge intensity has risen and some of their r d has gained a more creative role simultaneously and often connectedly many subsidiaries have acquired considerable strategic independence in all aspects of their operations and therefore are able to exercise considerable intra firm bargaining power to influence the distribution of the firm s resources in this context we suggest that intra mnc knowledge flows are a key determinant of subsidiary bargaining power we argue that subsidiary managers can exploit such power to pursue their own ends such rent seeking behavior is implicit in much of the literature on managerialism but our analysis suggests that such behavior can now occur in headquarters subsidiary and subsidiary subsidiary relations thus subsidiary strategic independence designed to enhance the competitiveness of outputs market knowledge and inputs asset seeking and learning can be corroded when the pursuit of subsidiary objectives encourages rent seeking empirical analysis of a sample of high technology subsidiaries in the uk provides strong support for the theory we examine several avenues whereby the incentives of units within the mnc can be aligned

using weather variability to estimate the response of savings to transitory income in thailand this paper measures the extent to which farmers are able to use savings and dissavings to smooth consumption in response to unexpected shocks to income time series information on regional rainfall is used to construct estimates of transitory income due to rainfall shocks the relationship between these measures of transitory income and savings indicates that farm households save a significantly higher fraction of transitory income than nontransitory income jel d91 016 the incomes of farm households in developing countries are notorious for being both low and uncertain policies that increase the incomes of farmers may well be different

full insurance in the presence of aggregate uncertainty this paper tests implications of full consumption insurance the object is to determine how much mileage can be obtained from a model with complete markets with such features as private information or liquidity constraints omitted the implication exploited is that individual consumption responds to aggregate risk but not to idiosyncratic risk the test involves regressing the change in household consumption onto the change in aggregate consumption and other right hand side variables such as the change in household income and change in employment status all variables other than the change in aggregate consumption are predicted to be insignificant in explaining the change in household consumption with observations on consumption and income for 10 695 households from the consumer expenditure survey the results are mixed the results for one specification exponential utility are mostly consistent with full consumption insurance the results for the other specification power utility are not

novice portfolio and serial founders are they different abstract there is growing interest in entrepreneurs who have been involved in more than one venture yet to date there has been relatively little theoretical development and systematic empirical examination of the topic in particular there has been little attention to the potential heterogeneity of habitual entrepreneurship this study aims to contribute to this emerging area in two ways first it outlines a conceptual typology of habitual entrepreneurs who have founded purchased or inherited businesses second the empirical part of the study focuses on owner managers providing an exploratory analysis of the characteristics and effects of independent business ownership by novice portfolio and serial founders novice founders are those that have no prior entrepreneurial experience as either a founder an inheritor or a purchaser of a business portfolio founders retain their original business and inherit establish and or purchase another business serial founders are those who sell their original business but at a later date inherit establish and or purchase another business the study derives propositions suggesting differences among the three types of founders at the individual founder level of analysis similarities as well as differences in the personal background work experiences reasons leading to the start up of businesses and personal attitudes to entrepreneurship of these three types of entrepreneurs are explored at the organizational level of analysis finance employment and performance differences among the businesses owned by the three types of entrepreneurs are presented the issues are examined using a sample of entrepreneurs who were the principal owner managers of independent businesses in great britain the sample included 389 novice founders 62 6 75 portfolio founders 12 1 and 157 serial founders 25 3 no statistically significant differences were found among the three groups of entrepreneurs with regard to the main industrial activity geographical location and the age of their businesses univariate and multivariate tests were used to examine potential differences between the groups the results of the study show significant differences between portfolio and serial founders with regard to their parental background work experience and their age when they started their first business differences were also found with respect to reasons leading to start up personal attitudes to entrepreneurship and sources of funds used during the launch period of the surveyed business these findings suggest that habitual entrepreneurs cannot be treated as a homogeneous group the analysis however failed to find any significant differences between the performance of the surveyed firms owned by habitual founders and novice founders and between the two types of habitual founders the findings of the study indicate for researchers that there is a need to carefully define the unit of analysis in any examination of entrepreneurs in particular there is a need to take note of the heterogeneity of types of entrepreneur and to consider the entrepreneur as the appropriate unit of analysis rather than simply the firm although this study focused on habitual founders of businesses the theoretical section of the study also identified other types of habitual entrepreneurs such as serial corporate entrepreneurs and serial management buy out and buy in cases these other types of habitual entrepreneurs would appear to warrant further analysis the findings of this study have a number of implications for practitioners especially venture capitalists the absence of significant performance differences between novice and habitual entrepreneurs which is consistent with the results from other studies emphasizes the need for venture capitalists screening potential investees not to rely solely on previous experience the study also has implications for policy makers especially with respect to decisions concerning the allocation of resources to assist nascent entrepreneurs novice entrepreneurs and habitual entrepreneurs the similarities in business performance among novice serial and portfolio entrepreneurs suggests that policy makers need to be careful in targeting scarce resources most notably targeting resources to encourage talented nascent entrepreneurs to become novice entrepreneurs may offer returns which are at least as good as targeting resources to more experienced entrepreneurs

a note on the transnational solution and the transaction cost theory of multinational strategic management this article assesses the extent to which the results of bartlett and ghoshal s 1989 work can be incorporated in what has now become one of the core explanations of multinational strategic management i e the transaction cost based theory of international production we demonstrate that the transaction cost approach fully incorporates the empirical findings of bartlett and ghoshal s work to do so requires that we make a new distinction between location bound and non location bound firm specific advantages in addition three possible uses of country specific advantages by multinational enterprises need to be identified while the transnational solution as proposed by bartlett and ghoshal is not itself a new theory of multinational strategic management it is compatible with the transaction cost based model of multinational strategic management

adapting and sustaining operations in weak institutional environments a business ecosystem assessment of a chinese mne in central africa multinational enterprises mnes sometimes pursue opportunities in largely uncharted distinctive institutional environments how do these firms sustain operations in such settings we explore how mnes tailor and maintain operations in institutionally weak precarious and challenging host country environments such as those devastated by conflicts we draw on the business ecosystem framework and analyze a qualitative longitudinal case study of a chinese state owned mne that entered and developed its operations in the democratic republic of congo drc in central africa our findings indicate that after entry the mne sustained its operations in the drc by engaging in collective actions and coevolving with key stakeholders within its business ecosystem these stakeholders included the home and host governments state owned enterprises privately owned enterprises and local communities our qualitative data further suggest that the mne s business ecosystem evolved through three stages exploring establishing and embedding and that within this ecosystem the key stakeholders also coevolved with the mne by adopting new roles over time

strategies of high performing new and small firms a reexamination of the niche concept abstract entrepreneurs seeking to position new or small firms in industries populated by well established competitors are frequently advised to seek the protection of a market niche there shielded by market characteristics which render the niche uninteresting to larger rivals small firms are urged to compete at the fringe of the market this article challenges this conventional wisdom citing industry and firm characteristics which under certain conditions create opportunities for successful direct competition by some small or new firms against much larger and established competitors however the authors caution that the conditions which created the opportunity may erode in time rendering the successful challenger vulnerable either to retaliation by the larger firm or challenge from subsequent entrants examples of successful direct confrontation by relatively small competitors are drawn from mature low tech industries a rapidly growing high tech industry and the service sector

the evolutionary view of the mne and the future of internalization theory kogut and zander s 1993 jibs article which developed an evolutionary perspective on the multinational enterprise mne has had three critical impacts on mne research first it has stimulated scholars to conduct more eclectic empirical analyses which should include both transaction cost related parameters and broader learning competence related variables second it has usefully argued that the rigorous study of mne behavior does not need to reply upon the williamsonian behavioral assumption of opportunism third it has implicitly suggested a new path to be followed by internalization theory scholars in order to remain relevant to the field of international business the transaction cost economics lens adopted in internalization theory clearly remains critical to any analysis of mne strategy with impacts on the boundaries of the firm in addition the co evolution of the mne s governance structure and its technological competences determines present and future strategy choices here both transaction cost considerations and learning effects influence strategy selection

initial human and financial capital as predictors of new venture performance abstract this research seeks to predict the performance of new ventures based on factors that can be observed at the time of start up indicators of initial human and financial capital are considered to determine how they bear upon the probability of three possible performance outcomes 1 failure 2 marginal survival or 3 high growth four categories of initial human and financial capital are examined general human capital represented here by the entrepreneur s education gender and race may reflect the extent to which the entrepreneur has had the opportunity to develop relevant skills and contacts management know how embodied in the entrepreneur or available through advisors or partners reflects management specific skills and knowledge without regard to the kind of business industry specific know how reflects specific experience in similar businesses financial capital is one of the most visible resources it can create a buffer against random shocks and allow the pursuit of more capital intensive strategies which are better protected from imitation the study utilizes a longitudinal study of 1053 new ventures representative of all industry sectors and geographical regions the research departs from most previous studies in considering different measures of performance marginal survival and growth and in considering explicitly whether the factors contributing to marginal survival differ from those contributing to high growth it was found that measures of general human capital influenced both survival and growth except for gender with women owned ventures being less likely to grow but just as likely to survive management know how variables had more limited impact having parents who had owned a business contributed to marginal survival but not to growth number of partners contributed to growth but not to survival management level prior employment in non profit organizations or not having been in the labor force and the use of professional advisors did not have significant effects industry specific know how contributed to both survival and growth amount of initial financial capital also contributed to both the usefulness of the model is enhanced by the fact that the resource variables considered are relatively easy to assess and all can be considered at the time of start up although some of the human capital variables cannot easily be changed the benefits or risks associated with each can be assessed in some cases potential problems can be identified so that plans can be modified to improve prospects overall it appears that using a model based upon the initial human and financial capital of the venture it is possible to predict the performance of new ventures with some degree of confidence

designing two echelon supply networks a modern distribution network design model needs to deal with the trade offs between a variety of factors including 1 location and associated fixed operating cost of distribution centers dcs 2 total transportation costs and 3 storage holding and replenishment costs at dcs and retail outlets in addition network design models should account for factors such as 4 stockouts by setting appropriate levels of safety stocks or 5 capacity concerns which may affect operating costs in the form of congestion costs the difficulty of making such trade offs is compounded by the fact that even finding the optimal two echelon inventory policy in a fixed and uncapacitated distribution network is already a hard problem in this paper we propose a generic modeling framework to address these issues that continues and extends a recent stream of research aimed at integrating insights from modern inventory theory into the supply chain network design domain our approach is flexible and general enough to incorporate a variety of important side constraints into the problem

the internationalization of new and small firms a resource based view abstract this paper seeks to enhance understanding of the internationalization of small and medium sized enterprises smes the study focuses upon the following issues can the characteristics of principal founders businesses and the external environment at one point in time be used to explain at a later date whether a firm is still an exporter or a nonexporter whether exporting firms are larger in size than nonexporting firms whether exporting firms report superior performance than nonexporting firms and whether exporting firms are more likely to survive than nonexporting firms to address these questions this study draws upon a sample of 621 manufacturing construction and services businesses located in twelve contrasting environments in great britain surveyed first in 1990 91 and then re interviewed in 1997 a resource based view is reviewed to identify the range of factors encouraging some owner managed smes to enter export markets four categories of human and financial capital are examined general human capital resources the principal founder s management know how the principal founder s specific industry know how and a principal founder s ability to obtain financial resources that can act as a buffer against random shocks variables relating to resource availability in the external environment were also collected and considered control variables previous studies have highlighted substantial industry differences in the propensity for businesses to enter export markets as well as to survive the principal industrial activity of each business in 1990 91 was therefore considered a control variable variables collected during the 1990 91 survey were selected to explain variations in the propensity to export reported by surviving independent firms in 1997 after elimination of missing values the working sample was reduced to 116 independent firms for this study 86 nonexporters and 30 exporters in 1997 in addition the 21 variables were selected to explain variations in business size in 1997 profit performance relative to competitors reported in 1997 changes in employment over the 1990 91 to 1997 period and business survival over the 1990 91 to 1997 period 213 survivors and 395 nonsurvivors multivariate statistical analysis confirmed that previous experience of selling goods or services abroad is a key influence encouraging firms to export businesses with older principal founders with more resources denser information and contact networks and considerable management know how are significantly more likely to be exporters further businesses with principal founders that had considerable industry specific knowledge are markedly more likely to be exporters businesses principally engaged in the service sectors and those located in urban areas are significantly less likely to be exporters a key finding of this study is that the explanatory variables significantly associated with the propensity to export sales abroad are not the same as those significantly associated with selected size and performance measures the resource based explanatory variables selected fail to significantly detect employment growing firms over the 1990 91 to 1997 period they also fail to significantly distinguish surviving independent firms from nonsurviving firms results from this study will provide policy makers and practitioners with additional insights into the key resource based factors associated with the decision by new and small independent firms to export sales abroad practitioners and policy makers can focus upon the characteristics of principal founders businesses and the external environment to predict the subsequent propensity of an independent firm to be an exporter policy makers and practitioners who want more new and small firms to export outside their local areas may prefer to target their resources and assistance to the relatively smaller proportion of firms that have the business and principal founder profiles that are significantly associated with a firm being an exporter

explaining the formation of international new ventures the limits of theories from international business research abstract international new ventures invs represent a growing and important type of start up an inv is defined as a business organization that from inception seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries oviatt and mcdougall 1994 their increasing prevalence and important role in international competition indicates a need for greater understanding of these new ventures oviatt and mcdougall 1994 logitech as described in a case study by alahuhta 1990 is a vivid example of an inv its founders were from two different countries and had a global vision for the company from its inception the venture which produces peripheral devices for personal computers established headquarters in both switzerland and the u s manufacturing and r d were split between the u s and switzerland and then quickly spread to taiwan and ireland the venture s first commercial contract was with a japanese company using 24 case studies of invs we found that their formation process is not explained by existing theories from the field of international business specifically neither monopolistic advantage theory product cycle theory stage theory of internationalization oligopolistic reaction theory nor internalization theory can explain the formation process of invs these theories fail because they assume that firms become international long after they have been formed and they therefore highlight large mature firms they also focus too much on the firm level and largely ignore the individual and small group level of analysis i e the entrepreneur and his or her network of business alliances we propose that an explanation for the formation process of invs must answer three questions 1 who are the founders of invs 2 why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries and 3 what form do their international business activities take who are the founders of invs we argue that founders of invs are individuals who see opportunities from establishing ventures that operate across national borders they are alert to the possibilities of combining resources from different national markets because of the competencies networks knowledge and background that they have developed from their earlier activities following the logic of the resource based view of the firm we argue that the possession of these competencies is not matched by other entrepreneurs only the entrepreneur possessing these competencies is able to combine a particular set of resources across national borders and form a given inv why do these entrepreneurs choose to compete internationally rather than just in their home countries the founders of invs recognize they must create international business competencies from the time of venture formation otherwise the venture may become path dependent on the development of domestic competencies and the entrepreneur will find it difficult to change strategic direction when international expansion eventually becomes necessary as the founder of one inv explained the advantage of starting internationally is that you establish an international spirit from the very beginning mamis 1989 38 what form do their international business activities take founders of invs prefer to use hybrid structures i e strategic alliances and networks for their international activities as a way to overcome the usual poverty of resources at the time of start up this study has important implications for the practice of management in financing decisions relating to invs venture capitalists and other venture financiers should look for entrepreneurs who have a global vision international business competence and an established international network when entrepreneurs start invs they should create hybrid structures to preserve scarce resources finally given the path dependence of competence development founders of new ventures should consider whether establishing a domestic new venture with plans to later internationalize will be as successful a strategy as establishing a new venture that is international from inception

location and the multinational enterprise in the early development of the international business field the focus of attention moved from the country level to the firm level and interest in location issues declined more recently firm based research has itself become increasingly concerned with the study of firm location interactions when examining two way knowledge flows or spillovers between multinational enterprises mnes and other actors in specific locations the diversity or heterogeneity of firms matters as does the diversity of locational environments the localization of knowledge sources depends on mne group level strategies for growth and organizational decentralization on subsidiary level evolution towards local competence creating efforts and on the development of suitable business networks within locations mnes now have a greater potential to benefit from a synergistic locational portfolio of complementary sources of knowledge the locational composition of the international network for knowledge sourcing of a given mne depends upon the extent of institutional compatibility between the locations in which the mne is active this compatibility between locations in turn affects the capacity of the mne to become an insider in local business systems and to influence the local institutional environment

knowledge connectivity an agenda for innovation research in international business the innovation driven multinational enterprise mne has dominated international business ib research for several decades now beginning with the award winning research of dunning there have been calls for ib researchers to rediscover the importance of locations recent work has emphasized that firms and locations co evolve with one another as knowledge is transferred and leveraged across space integrating insights from ib and economic geography we propose a research agenda for ib scholarship on spatially dispersed yet connected innovation processes this agenda is premised on the current reality of global value chains in which mobile mnes people and immobile locations factors interact the research perspective suggested recognizes that locations are host to increasingly fine sliced activities whose nature and composition are continuously changed by mne driven innovation processes as today s specialized activities become tomorrow s standardized ones the shifting distribution of global value creation depends on the pattern of international knowledge connectivity

timing is everything curvilinear effects of age at entry on new firm growth and survival and the moderating effect of ipo performance abstract theory suggests that an earlier age at international entry results in improved growth but also decreased survival chances empirical studies tell a different story providing mixed and equivocal results that challenge the tenets of extant theory to begin to bridge the gap between theory and results we develop theoretical explanations for curvilinear inverted u shaped relationships between age at entry and both firm growth and firm survival as well as the moderating impact of resource providing initial public offering ipo on the resource intensive internationalization process our findings support the inverted u shaped relationships and that ipo performance steepens the growth curve and flattens the survival curve taken together our study enhances understanding of the effects of age at entry bridges the ipo and international entrepreneurship literatures and offers avenues for extending the micro foundations of the development of capabilities for new foreign market entry in doing so we advance knowledge about the conditions under which earlier or later internationalization leads some firms to thrive while others fail

sequencing the expansion of geographic scope and foreign operations by born global firms born global firms are not actually born global but rather internationalize rapidly from their inception by expanding their geographic scope and extent of foreign operations however it remains unclear whether such firms 1 simultaneously expand along both dimensions 2 focus on expanding along a single dimension at a given time and switch interchangeably between expanding geographic scope and extent of foreign operations in subsequent periods or 3 stick solely to a specific internationalization path over several subsequent periods this study theorizes and empirically demonstrates that born global firms stick to a dominant internationalization path over subsequent periods arguably this phenomenon reflects managerial efforts to reduce the perceived risk of internationalization and their preference to develop and leverage capabilities that are specific to either of the internationalization paths until the economies of further expanding this path are exhausted

determinants of the internationalization of regions the role and effectiveness of public policy measures banno m piscitello l and varum c determinants of the internationalization of regions the role and effectiveness of public policy measures regional studies this paper assesses the role of public policy measures on outward internationalization of regions by including financial and non financial incentives among the determinants of the international competitiveness of regions it is found that the former are important to enhance their active internationalization but that variables related to the knowledge and competence base of regions are even more so financial incentives related to equity participation as well as non financial incentives related to the provision of information come out highly significant in stimulating outward internationalization the empirical analysis is conducted for the twenty italian nuts 2 regions over the period 2003 2008

a continuous approximation approach for the integrated facility inventory allocation problem abstract in today s retail business many companies have a complex distribution network with several national and regional distribution centers this article studies an integrated facility location and inventory allocation problem for designing a distribution network with multiple distribution centers and retailers the key decisions are where to locate the regional distribution centers rdcs how to assign retail stores to rdcs and what should be the inventory policy at the different locations such that the total network cost is minimized due to the complexity of the problem a continuous approximation ca model is used to represent the network nonlinear programming techniques are developed to solve the optimization problems the main contribution of this work lies in developing a new ca modeling technique when the discrete data cannot be modeled by a continuous function and applying this technique to solve an integrated facility location allocation and inventory management problem our methodology is illustrated with the network from a leading us retailer numerical analysis suggests that the total cost is significantly lower in the case of the integrated model as compared with the non integrated model where the location allocation and inventory management problems are considered separately this paper also studies the effects of changing parameter values on the optimal solutions and to point out some management implications

consumption smoothing migration and marriage evidence from rural india a significant proportion of migration in low income countries particularly in rural areas is composed of moves by women for the purpose of marriage we seek to explain these mobility patterns by examining marital arrangements among indian households in particular we hypothesize that the marriage of daughters to locationally distant dispersed yet kinship related households is a manifestation of implicit interhousehold contractual arrangements aimed at mitigating income risks and facilitating consumption smoothing in an environment characterized by information costs and spatially covariant risks analysis of longitudinal south indian village data lends support to the hypothesis marriage cum migration contributes significantly to a reduction in the variability of household food consumption farm households afflicted with more variable profits tend to engage in longer distance marriage cum migration the hypothesized and observed marriage cum migration patterns are in dissonance with standard models of marriage or migration that are concerned primarily with search costs and static income gains

are remittances insurance a basic theoretical result is that if there is a pareto efficient allocation of risk across individual entities in this case individual household members in a risk sharing arrangement individual consumption should not be affected by idiosyncratic income shocks data and sample construction the empirical analysis uses data from linked household surveys conducted by the philippine national statistics office covering a nationally representative household sample the labor force survey the survey on overseas filipinos the family income and expenditure survey and the annual poverty indicators survey the variables included in the vector of controls wh are a set of household characteristics in the first period january june 1997 an indicator for urban location five indicators for the household head s highest level of education completed elementary some high school high school some college and college or more less than elementary omitted six indicators for head s occupation professional cl