the birth of a new industry entry by start ups and the drivers of firm growth the case of encryption software the paper analyses the birth of the encryption software industry esi a new niche in the software industry using a chandlerian perspective this work reports the main facts about fir entry and growth with a particular focus on start up strategies and actions since scale economies do not play a major role in esi the paper investigates the different sources of fir competitive advantages this work shows that innovation and product differentiation along with investments in co specialised assets are variables strongly correlated to young fir probability to survive and grow in doing so we have collected highly detailed information on product introduction us patents granted worldwide alliances and biographical data of fir founders 2004 elsevier b v all rights reserved jel classificatio m13 l86 o32

exploring the potential for energy conservation in french households through hybrid modeling although the building sector is recognized as having major potential for energy conservation and carbon dioxide emissions mitigation conventional bottom up and top down models are limited in their ability to capture the complex economic and technological dynamics of the sector this paper introduces a hybrid framework developed to assess future household energy demand in france res irf a bottom up module of energy consumption for space heating has several distinctive features i a clear separation between energy efficiency i e investment in energy efficient technologies and sufficiency i e changes in the utilization of energy consuming durables which allows the rebound effect to be assessed ii the inclusion of barriers to energy efficiency in the form of intangible costs consumer heterogeneity parameters and the learning by doing process iii an endogenous determination of retrofitting which represents trade offs between retrofit quantity and quality subsequently res irf is linked to the imaclim r computable general equilibrium model this exercise shows that compared to a 37 reduction in final energy demand achievable in business as usual in existing dwellings an additional reduction of 14 could be achieved if relevant barriers to efficiency and sufficiency were overcome

financial incentives to mobilise local citizens as investors in low carbon technologies a systematic literature review abstract mobilising greater levels of private finance through local citizen investment in low carbon technologies can help bridge the capital shortfall to meeting climate objectives while also building societal support for the low carbon transition within this context we undertake a systematic review of literature assessing the impact of technology specific economic and financial incentives promoting greater levels of investment in low carbon technologies from local citizen investors both individuals and community groups we focus in particular on the impact of feed in tariffs compared to quota schemes grants tax incentives and soft loans the analysis suggests that local citizen investors do not necessarily act in an economically rational manner in response to these incentives it underscores the importance of understanding the preferences of target demographics the local context as well as the characteristics of the technologies in question and suggests interventions should be considered as part of wider policy packages while identifying challenges to be overcome through instrument design we find that feed in tariffs grants and tax incentives can be successful in mobilising greater levels of investment from local citizen investors but that soft loans tend to be less effective as a stand alone instrument the review identifies areas meriting further exploration in this emerging field of research

industry and firm specific factors of innovation novelty this article investigates the underlying factors that might shape the firm s choices with respect to degrees of innovation novelty using a sample of 2983 firms observed under the portuguese community innovation survey we assess the relative relevance of a set of firm and industry specific factors in explaining firms choices about incremental or radical innovation the results indicate that both the firm s idiosyncratic historical factors giving rise to heterogeneous r d capabilities and the industry context have power to shape the firm s innovation choices even though firm specific factors appear to be more powerful the estimated impacts on firm s innovation novelty are nonetheless significantly moderated by the type of firm and industry

pioneers and followers competitive tactics environment and firm growth abstract market pioneering where a firm is first to offer a distinctively new product to the market is a commonly recognized form of corporate entrepreneurship as with other forms of corporate entrepreneurship the linkage between market pioneering and firm performance has received limited empirical attention much of which has yielded inconsistent results nonetheless two conclusions regarding when and how pioneering relates to firm performance are revealed in the literature first theory and past research suggest that pioneering is an environment specific phenomenon that is certain types of environments may be most likely to encourage or reward the actions of pioneers while these same actions may meet with limited success in other environments second theory and past research suggest that firm performance is affected by the fit between a firm s pioneer follower status and its competitive tactics in other words market entry order moderates the effectiveness of a firm s competitive tactics such that certain tactics will be most effective when employed by market pioneers while other tactics will be most effective when employed by market followers considered jointly the preceding observations suggest that insights might be gained regarding the effective management of market pioneering and market following by seeking to understand a how these phenomena are manifested in different industry environments and b what pioneers and followers do differently in these environments to promote their performance the research described in this paper addresses these issues in particular this paper develops theory that describes how particular competitive tactics are thought to relate to firm sales growth rate among market pioneers and market followers in two distinct environmental settings hypotheses are developed based on the following research propositions p1 in hostile environments pioneers and followers will differentially benefit in achieving high sales growth rates from their reliance on relatively high prices relatively broad product lines relatively broad served geographical markets relatively advanced process technologies and relatively advantageous purchasing arrangements p2 in benign environments pioneers and followers will differentially benefit in achieving high sales growth rates from their reliance on relatively high quality products relatively strong product warranties relatively high advertising and promotion expenditures relatively strong control over distribution channels employed and relatively large numbers of distribution channels employed to test the hypothesized relationships data were collected from the senior managers of 103 independent nondiversified manufacturing firms operating in 75 industries cluster analysis anova and correlational analysis were employed as the principal analytical techniques the results suggest that market pioneers grow neither more nor less rapidly than market followers however in hostile environments pioneering may enable firms to break out of the dominant price based mode of competition and grow in spite of charging high prices this ability of pioneers to excel in hostile environments seems to be further facilitated by limiting product line breath to a small number of product offerings that provide a tight fit with market needs pioneers in hostile environments also appear to be relatively better served than followers from gaining a wide geographical distribution for their products followers in hostile environments on the other hand should seek to reduce their cost structures in order to effectively sustain low price strategies the employment of advanced process technologies and the pursuit of purchasing advantages were actions which proved to be more advantageous for followers than for pioneers in hostile environments the managerial implications of this research applicable to benign environment firms are quite different other things being equal relatively high prices may not be as detrimental to growth among followers in benign environments as they are among followers in more hostile environments benign environment followers may in fact be better off when they charge relatively high prices and compete on non price bases the results also suggest that in benign environments offering products with warranties superior to those of competitors may have a significantly more positive effect on sales growth among pioneers than followers moreover employing a large number of distribution channels appears to benefit pioneers more than followers however among the sampled firms benign environment pioneers that realized the greatest growth did not have extensive control over distribution channel members therefore benign environment pioneers may grow more quickly if they target their distribution related resources toward expanding their channels rather than toward controlling some smaller number these channels this study contributes to the pioneering literature by having corroborated several findings of the pims based studies regarding tactical differences between pioneers and followers and by having further documented the relevance of market entry order or pioneer follower status as a moderator of the performance associated with particular competitive tactics moreover by having examined the tactics performance relationships of pioneers and followers in two distinct environmental settings this study adds specificity and empirical support to the emerging theoretical paradigm that depicts pioneering as an environment specific phenomenon finally this study contributes to the literature on coping with hostility by having theorized about and empirically identified common and effective bases for competition under varying levels of environmental hostility

an empirical investigation of success strategies for businesses along the product life cycle since the introduction of the concept of the product life cycle plc some decades ago a great deal has been written on the subject and several empirical studies have been conducted however empirical research to date is often limited in scope it is oriented towards the analysis of the growth and saturation stages and focused primarily on the study of consumer goods furthermore the application of the plc concept in strategic planning is largely disappointing the normative orientation of most of this literature being somewhat naive and misleading the aim of the present research is to study the efficiency of different strategies for achieving market share and cash flow objectives this study is performed on different types of businesses producing both consumer and industrial products situated at various stages on the product life cycle growth maturity and decline a sample of approximately 1 100 businesses 217 in the growth stage 315 in the maturity stage 569 in the decline stage is drawn from the pims data base a cluster analysis is run to identify natural groups of homogeneous businesses for each of the nine identified groups linear regression models are estimated to study the influence of strategic actions finance marketings production r d personnel on two criteria of performance market share and cash flow the research indicates that strategies not only depend on the life cycle stage but also are influenced by the goal orientation of the firm short term cash flow or long term market share and that success strategies appear to be contingent upon the business and the environmental characteristics

businesses without glamour an analysis of resources on performance by size and age in small service and retail firms abstract research on factors influencing performance in new and small companies is extensive earlier work found that strategies e g cost quality differentiation etc affected performance contingent on industry conditions the environment and the entrepreneur s background although this work provides a solid basis for understanding differences in entrepreneurial performance some firms are limited in their choices of strategy due to size age or industry often these firms are in industries where entry barriers are low and competitive advantages are easily imitated small service and retail businesses operate in sectors where these conditions are apparent comprising more than 50 of all small firms they require minimal start up investments but face intense competition lacking the glamour of high innovation high growth firms service and retail companies are at the end of the value chain their fortunes rising and falling as a result of the direct influence of the owner founder hence performance variation may be better explained by the capabilities of the firm or individual competencies of the owner founder that is the resource base and resource combinations rather than strategy the strategic importance of an organization s resources and capabilities is the foundation of resource based theory resources are tangible and intangible assets tied to the firm in a relatively permanent fashion their combinations are heterogeneous and form the basis for product market strategies studies of resources strategies and performance are emerging in the entrepreneurial area research shows that various resources in concert with different strategy types can lead to above average performance over the business life cycle and that combinations of resources are related to survival yet the vast majority of work focuses on high growth high tech or manufacturing businesses less is known about the relationships of resources to performance in less glamorous sectors in these small service and retail businesses we speculate that resources in particular human and organizational resources may play a greater role in explaining performance than strategy further as other authors have suggested it is expected that the combinations of these resources will vary across age and size this study examines the influence of human and organizational resources on performance in a sample of 195 service and retail firms operating in central new jersey using a structured questionnaire all companies utilized a focus strategy either focused cost or focused differentiation and employed a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 100 employees all measures had theoretical and or empirical precedent and were tested statistically for reliability we used factor analysis to reduce the independent variables to two human resource variables owner resources and commitment one organizational resource variable comprised of planning systems and staff skills and one strategy variable focused cost and focused differentiation control variables were business age business size environmental benignness and industry growth the dependent variable performance was measured in two ways net cash flow and log of growth in employees over 3 years the study first examined whether strategy or resources had a greater influence on performance results showed that strategy influenced performance less than human and organizational resources both individually and interactively the influence of owner resources background and attitudes on net cash flow was stronger than on growth where the only significant variable was industry market growth to analyze effects of resources on performance by size we divided the sample by size groupings selecting the smallest maximum five employees and largest quartiles minimum 16 employees which were comprised of 55 and 50 companies respectively these analyses showed that owner resources commitment and organizational resources contributed positively to net cash flow in very small firms however interactive effects of these resource combinations were negative for instance owner resources and organizational resources together and organizational resources and commitment together resulted in less positive cash flow than when analyzed separately this implies that different resource combinations can have negative influences in these very small firms we examined age effects in the same manner as size dividing the sample into age group quartiles and conducting an analysis only for very young fewer than 5 years and very old minimum 19 years groups which comprised 54 and 52 companies respectively these analyses showed that although growth was more rapid among the youngest firms there were no distinctive resource based correlates to growth in either age group substantive increases in formalized systems and procedures were not apparent among the oldest of these companies compared with the youngest contrary to previous work showing the evolution of these over business life cycles results of this study are applicable only in the context of service and retail firms and readers should note this sample was nonrandom and geographically concentrated our purpose was not to predict but describe associations between resources and performance this study shows that for firms in competitive industries at the end of the value chain type of strategy is less important than resource combinations for certain types of performance human and organizational resources are associated with more positive cash flow whereas industry and market factors are related to growth these results imply that firms seeking growth are best served by selecting and entering growth markets and industries on the other hand if strong positive cash flows are the primary objective attention to combinations of resources is more important for instance owner founders having a strong business and managerial background and industry experience will need less formalized systems whereas those owner founders with weaker managerial resources might benefit from more formalized procedures and skilled staff

measures for increasing demand of solar energy abstract renewable energy sources res will have to play the main role in moving towards sustainable economic development talking about the perspectives of the use of solar energy it is evident that the main market is decided by the consumer the most important problem determining the slow absorption process of solar energy on the part of the consumer is the lack of knowledge and organisation deterrent amount of investments and especially the differences between energy suppliers and users in the heating sector the main focus of the research is what conditions are needed for heat energy that is produced by users on the basis of solar technology and how it would be able to compete with other energy sources district heating dh may be appropriate infrastructure to implement res technologies both on production and demand side due to the simultaneous production of heat and electricity in combined heat and power generation plants conclusions have been made concerning the scale and assumptions of how solar technologies may be competitive

evaluation of property tax bonus to promote solar thermal systems in andalusia spain abstract this paper evaluates the effects of a property tax bonus to promote the installation of solar thermal energy systems in buildings in andalusia southern spain the propensity score matching methodology is used the treatment group consists of municipalities of andalusia that established property tax bonuses in their municipalities in 2010 the control group consists of municipalities that did not the response variable measures the number of new square meters of solar thermal systems installed in 2010 the analysis leads to the conclusion that municipalities that established a property tax bonus had installed on average 102 245 to 122 389 square meters more these results indicate that the percentage increase in squares meters installed in municipalities which adopted the tax bonus promotion ranged from 70 74 to 98 38 these percentages were lower for rural municipalities 49 00 to 77 06

promoting renewable energy sources for heating and cooling in eu 27 countries abstract in addition to public policies aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings eu authorities have also promoted the use of renewable energy sources for heating and cooling uses res h c this paper analyses the main policy measures implemented in eu 27 countries up to 2009 i e subsidies tax incentives financial support and feed in tariffs twenty three member states mss have developed some of these policy measures the most widespread measure is the subsidy 22 mss have implemented these because from a political point of view subsidies provide a straightforward approach to promote the use of res h c secondly tax incentives have been used for reducing investment costs and making renewable energy profitable thirdly financial incentives and feed in tariffs have been used sparingly while financial incentives might be used more extensively for promoting res h c if they are accompanied by other policy measures feed in tariffs are not likely to be implemented significantly in the future because this measure is not designed for household heat producers

a stage contingent model of design and growth for technology based new ventures abstract stage of growth developmental models have traditionally been used to enhance our understanding of the organizational creation and growth process until recently most of this literature has been primarily conceptual and descriptive this paper presents a stage of growth model theorized to hold for technology based new ventures the model consists of four stages conception and development commercialization growth and stability and views each stage of growth as a reflection of the dominant problems faced over the course of growth by the venture the model predicts that the organization of a venture will be a function ofthe dominant problems that define a stage of growth more specifically it is argued that a technology based venture s rate of growth depends in part on the consistency or fit between its stage of growth and certain structural features of its organization including decision making centralization and formalization and functional specialization in the areas of marketing and sales manufacturing and engineering technology data were collected from 105 technology based ventures in the electronics computer and peripherals industries to test the model the results were generally consistent with the theory and showed that centralization of decision making decreased as the firms moved to higher stages while formalization of decision making increased in higher stages specialization of roles in the functional areas of manufacturing and marketing also increased by stage however specialization in the engineering and technology functions remained high across all stages the contingency hypothesis was also supported indicating that technology based ventures growth is partially attributable to the fit between a venture s stage of growth and aspects of its structure these findings indicate that different patterns of decision making and functional specialization are required at each stage if growth is to be achieved as such this research validates a long standing but untested belief in the venture management field that performance of new ventures depends upon

innovation orientation environment and performance a comparison of u s and european markets much attention has been paid to the importance of innovation in ensuring the survival and growth of companies for u s companies a key issue is to what extent findings for the u s market can be extrapolated to non u s markets to provide a basis for designing innovation strategy similar innovation orientation types were identified in both markets using a sample of consumer businesses from the pims database a number of similarities and differences in associated environments and performance levels were also identified a major finding was that a high degree of product innovativeness leads to generally poor financial and market share performance in both markets but high rates of market share growth another major finding was that having pioneered in a market leads to effective performance results for the associated environments were more mixed in the sense that there was not a perfect correlation in the environments associated with the types in both markets

whom do high growth firms hire we study employment and new hires among high growth firms hgfs in the swedish knowledge intensive sectors 1999 2002 using matched employer employee data we find that hgfs are more likely to emp

strategic aspects of flexible production technologies theory and evidence abstract in this paper we examine the innovative manufacturing technologies known as flexible manufacturing systems fms we begin with a description of these systems and the industries in which they are used we then review several theoretical models which analyze the decision process to invest in fms these models illustrate the importance of such market factors as product differentiation differences in cost and market size degree of competition and market dynamics in the second part of the paper we present some new empirical evidence using a database of almost 3 000 business units this empirical evidence is shown to be consistent with the theory

networking and growth of young technology intensive ventures in china abstract more often than not new ventures lack established products known technologies longstanding customer relations experienced managerial teams sufficient capital and strong reputations almost by definition small new firms lack the resources of many larger established firms the task of an infant firm and a measure of its success is to make a transition from being resource weak to being resource strong how can resources that are critical for profitable growth be acquired for the resource weak new venture researchers have found that entrepreneurs can gain access to valuable resources and they can seek to achieve competitive advantage through networking activities forming and utilizing available relationships with external organizations can allow entrepreneurs to build credibility gain advice financing and customer access build a positive image and obtain resources at below market prices and obtain channel access information and innovations business relationships with other organizations allow an entrepreneur to achieve desired business results through asset parsimony a favorable view toward networking for new ventures leaves a number of unanswered questions however relevant research questions might include who should the entrepreneur seek as a business partner are all inter organizational relationships equal or are some types more valuable to new ventures than other relationships do firms relying on high levels of networking activities actually outperform firms that less actively seek resources through external organizational relationships the present study provides a specific understanding of the concept of networking for entrepreneurs we propose that networking can be understood in terms of range the number of external relationships to obtain resources and of intensity the frequency of contact of and amount of resource obtained from these relationships this research project evaluates the range and intensity of networking among high growth and low growth entrepreneurial ventures extensive interviewing with managers of six young technology oriented firms in the people s republic of china prc affirmed the importance of entrepreneurial networking managers in the three high growth firms reported greater range and intensity of business networking than did managers of three low growth firms matched by industry and age moreover the relationship between networking activities and growth transcended the stage of firm development where networking range and intensity are deemed important in the growth process new venture success may call for entrepreneurs to reach out deliberately to external organizations to capture needed resources to a certain extent such networking activities run counter to important entrepreneurial motivations of independence and autonomy the concept of networking and the results of this study imply that entrepreneurs need to combine the spirit of independence with the reality of resource dependence and they need to balance personal autonomy with strategic business relationships this study also contributes to the understanding of entrepreneurship in our increasingly global economy particularly in the prc business relationships between the united states and the prc have been expanding rapidly in the last decade many foreign businesses seek license agreements joint venture partners equity participation or channel relationships with young ventures in that country do the same rules of networking apply in the prc as the literature suggests apply in the united states new ventures in this study were found to engage in processes of networking activities consistent with those in the west although networking activities may have different cultural roots firm success appeared influenced by the same principles of networking

an empirical test of a stage of growth progression model this paper presents a stage of growth model for technology based new ventures tbnvs tbnvs are postulated to evolve through four discrete stages of growth conception and development commercialization growth and stability based on a longitudinal sample of 71 ventures in the computer and electronics industries the hypothesis that tbnvs progress according to this model is tested using the del procedure for prediction analysis of cross classification tables the hypotheses are supported although not all firms progressed as expected these results suggest that some variation in interstage transition patterns are due to a progression imperative

innovation diffusion public policy and local initiative the case of wood fuelled district heating systems in austria abstract this paper comprises a three level study on wood fuel utilisation for district heating in austria first we discuss the framework conditions for the diffusion in austria of rural biomass district heating bdh plants an energy conversion plant type which constituted a real innovation in the 1980s second we describe the diffusion of bdh systems in the austrian province of vorarlberg where a variety of biomass energy systems have been promoted by capital grants since 1993 as part of a dedicated bioenergy promotion programme third the paper contains a case study of a 2 mw bdh plant put into operation in 2000 in rankweil a small market town located in vorarlberg on the east side of the rhine valley analysis of the plant history reveals that an oversupply of forest residues caused by devastating storms and forest diseases together with the more general need to rejuvenate severely over aged forest stands created strong incentives to form local actor networks and initiatives to push for the adoption and diffusion of centralised biomass heating systems in rural areas in addition intensive lobbying and strong political and public support were necessary to successfully combat interventions by both the natural gas industry and influential gas supplied industrial enterprises finally a capital grant of 45 of eligible investment costs as well as careful capacity expansion and other planning significantly improved and safeguarded the economic viability of the plant these considerations combined with a dedicated forest restructuring programme render the plant one of the most successful integrated forestry and bdh projects in vorarlberg and an important model for later adopters overall the analysis sheds some light on the role of public policy local actors and economic and other framework conditions on the market diffusion dynamics of bdh in austria

tax incentives to promote green electricity an overview of eu 27 countries this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the main tax incentives used in the eu 27 member states mss to promote green electricity sixteen mss use tax incentives to promote green electricity simultaneously with other promotion measures especially quota obligations and price regulation however not all available technologies are promoted for example six mss germany romania slovak republic denmark sweden and poland have included an exemption on the payments of excise duties for electricity when the electricity is generated from renewable energy sources res this tax incentive is the most widely used limited tax incentives in personal income tax are available in belgium france czech republic and luxembourg in corporate tax tax incentives consist mainly of a deduction in the taxable profit belgium greece czech republic and spain lower tax rates in vat are applied in three mss france italy and portugal only spain and italy use effective tax incentives in property tax as a great diversity of tax incentives has been used to promote green electricity this adds another difficulty to the eu objective of providing a renewable energy policy framework but also it offers a useful set of case studies which can be used to inform eu policy development

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

determinants of households space heating type a discrete choice analysis for german households abstract considering the increasing attention on efficient use of energy it becomes vitally important to understand the energy related behavior of households this article presents empirical evidence on the determinants of the space heating technology applied by a household three sets of variables are examined as potential influences building socio economic and regional characteristics to highlight both the differences and similarities the results are obtained from a sample of house owners and from a sample including all households the influence of socio economic factors is similar across these groups income is found to exert only a minor impact on the system choice dwelling features are significant in determining the heating type particularly in the sample including all households regional effects are important clear differences prevail between east and west germany

choosing organizational modes of strategic technology partnering international and sectoral differences this paper focuses on international strategic technology partnerships and the choice that companies have in terms of the organizational mode either through complex inter organizational modes involving equity sharing or contractual non equity alliances the empirical results show that the choice of particular mode of cooperation varies with the technological characteristics of sectors of industry joint ventures are disproportionately represented in relatively mature industries contractual alliances dominate strategic technology partnering in so called high tech industries

routine microprocesses and capability learning in international new ventures drawing on the distinction between the ostensive aspects abstract patterns and performative aspects specific actions of organizational routines the paper offers a micro level explanation of capability learning in international new ventures invs that is firms that internationalize actively from inception the paper argues that variability in the performative aspects of internationalization routines is associated with improvisational learning and new capability development whereas variability in the ostensive aspects is associated with trial and error learning and existing capability improvement furthermore psychic distance moderates these relationships low psychic distance facilitates both improvisation and trial and error learning high psychic distance frustrates learning of both types moderate psychic distance makes the success of both learning forms more likely but only for more experienced invs the paper also argues that social capital may mitigate the negative effects of high psychic distance it contributes to the extant literature by providing a micro level explanation of how invs accomplish capability learning and avoid wasteful learning efforts and by theorizing the moderating effects of psychic distance on the relationships between routine microprocesses and capability learning

property tax assessment incentives for green building a review abstract the development of green building has received the attention of various levels of government around the globe including from local authorities there are two main categories of incentives provided by local authorities as a means of encouraging the development of green building which include financial and structural incentives it has been found that financial incentives in particular property tax assessment incentives have been widely adopted by several commonwealth countries around the globe including spain romania italy bulgaria the united states canada malaysia and india the practice of providing property tax assessment incentives within the green building field has been empirically documented by several researchers in order to encourage the growth of numbers of green building instances at a local level however no comprehensive academic study has been conducted to review the effect of this incentive on the development of green building therefore the purpose of this study has been to review and discuss the available models and bases adopted in order to develop this incentive there are three types of property tax assessment incentive models that have been identified as available for encouraging the development of green building which include reductions exemptions and rebates these incentives were developed based on four identified bases which specifically include the increased amounts of property tax assessments of completed green buildings the costs of green components the rate imposed on property tax assessments and the level of green certification the findings identified that most property tax assessment incentive models regarding green buildings were developed on the basis of the value of green components specifically the increased amount of property tax assessments of green buildings and the costs of green components

board of director gender and corporate tax aggressiveness an empirical analysis this study examines the impact of board of director gender diversity on corporate tax aggressiveness based on a sample of 418 u s firms covering the 2006 2009 period 1672 firm year observations our ordinary least squares regression results show a negative and statistically significant association between female representation on the board and tax aggressiveness after controlling for endogeneity our results are consistent across several measures of tax aggressiveness and additional robustness checks

facilitators of organizational innovation the role of life cycle stage abstract one of the most serious challenges facing an entrepreneurial company particularly a high technology firm is knowing how to manage innovation as the organization evolves macro level facilitators inhibitors of innovation i e organizational and environmental conditions of a firm that promote or restrain innovation such as the structure of an organization its incentive system resources provided by its environment or its ways of analyzing firm external information and their relationship to the innovativeness of the firm are considered in this study two basic arguments have been put forward previously as to why the innovativeness of an organization may change as it evolves first it has been suggested that facilitators of innovation change over time and so will firm innovativeness that is the relationship between the facilitator and innovation stays unchanged but the facilitator itself is transformed causing changes in firm innovativeness as it develops for instance it has been suggested that mature firms become less innovative because their structure becomes overly formalized to perform other functions more efficiently which then stifles innovative processes second other researchers have proposed that the relationship between a facilitator and innovation changes as firms evolve for instance a formal structure may support innovation in a younger firm because it allows the entrepreneur to focus her energy whereas it may suppress innovation later since it inhibits an innovator s interaction with other environments the results of our analysis using data from 326 u s firms in different stages of their development and involved in many kinds of high tech industries support the second theory however the results for the relationships of the individual facilitators to innovation were not always as expected we found that formally structured young firms were less innovative than informal ones and that in older organizations formalization had no negative impact on innovation this finding possibly can be explained with micro level facilitators of innovation younger firms may have more entrepreneurial personnel whose ability for innovation is more inhibited through a formal structure than the more seasoned employees in older larger firms however this finding implies that the concern for formal structures with respect to firm innovativeness does not necessarily apply as typically assumed of similar significance was our finding with respect to the relationship between financial incentives and innovation it has been suggested that younger rather than older firms use incentives such as equity to encourage an innovative environment results of this research however show that innovation is associated with stock incentives especially in older firms this may be an indication for older firms to use differentiated incentives that reflect the individual s contribution to the firm to retain innovative personnel whereas start ups might rely on the excitement of working in a new venture as an incentive for innovative behavior more in line with expectations were the results for how firms process external information environmental scanning and data analysis were positively associated with innovation and this more so in older firms presumably because they have become more remote from developments outside the organization this result confirms the notion that much innovation by a firm is initiated externally however the results also indicate that the conditions of the environment itself are of lesser importance to firm innovativeness than the firm s active pursuit of information from its environment an often discussed implication of these findings is that the boundaries of a firm must be permeable at least from the outside in and systematic information gathering from customers competition research institutions etc may be necessary to the success of a firm that depends on its product development this seems especially important for older firms as expected the centralization of power in an organization also affected innovation centralization correlated positively with innovation in new ventures and negatively in older firms this indicates the importance of the entrepreneur and strong leader in a start up it also suggests though that as the firm matures this person has to give up some of her control and may have to relinquish the job at the head of the organization to someone else finally there are some more general implications of this work to managers involved with organizational innovation first reliance on past experience may be detrimental to future performance whereas a firm evolves through different stages means that have facilitated innovation earlier may be detrimental to it now or tomorrow and vice versa second copying successful strategies for innovation from other firms may not necessarily work not because their implementation was worse but because the conditions of the other firm for instance its evolutionary stage or its micro level facilitators were different researchers who study innovation should consider including life cycle stage as a potential moderating variable factors that facilitate innovation at some point during an organization s evolution actually hinder it in another also factors that were unimportant to innovation at the inception of a firm may facilitate it in later stages this study supports the conclusion that the consideration of contingency factors such as life cycle stage may enhance the development of a theory of organizational innovation

renewable energy in the heating sector in austria with particular reference to the region of upper austria the heating sector has been neglected in energy policies for quite some time especially on the european level only recently with the implementation of the european directive 2009 28 ec the sector has gained higher attention the objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the heat market in austria and of the current status and future prospects of renewable energy in the heat sector res h up to 2030 despite the growing energy demand the share of renewable energy in the total energy demand for space heating and hot water increased from about 20 in 1970 to about 34 in 2008 this is mainly due to ambitious res h support instruments and regional policy targets for example the government of the region of upper austria has implemented a target of 100 res h share in the space heating and hot water sector until the year 2030 however the national renewable energy action plan for 2020 foresees only moderate growth rates for res h compared to recent market growth and scenarios in literature due to the ambitious targets and support schemes of regional governments it seems likely that res h deployment could growstronger than stated in the action plan

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

an analysis of spain s global and environmental efficiency from a european union perspective abstract sustainable economic growth from the environmental point of view is one of the commitments of the eu 28 different measures have been implemented to deal with this issue this work analyses spain s natural efficiency and management efficiency in their static and dynamic sense for the years 2005 2012 in comparison eu 28 the analysis has been carried out using the malmquist index and natural and managerial efficiency three variables have been considered as inputs work gross fixed capital formation and final energy consumption two variables are the outputs the gdp as a desirable output and greenhouse effect gas emissions as an undesirable output the result is that spain s managerial efficiency and natural efficiency are though their values are lower evolving in a similar manner to those of the countries which have been at the heart of the eu longer these levels of efficiency are higher than those of the block of countries which have joined the eu 28 more recently the natural malmquist index results indicate that these are the countries which have had a greater growth in productivity above spain s and the average of the more veteran countries

relation of dominant problems to stages of growth in technology based new ventures two studies investigating the growth patterns of new ventures are presented in the first study a stage of growth model theorized to apply specifically to technology based new ventures was develop

german energiewende and the heating market impact and limits of policy the german energiewende envisages achieving a climate neutral building stock in 2050 by means of two major pillars of regulation first residential buildings should consume 80 less primary energy and second the remaining energy demand should be covered primarily with renewables this paper simulates the future german heating market under different policy scenarios in order to evaluate the impact and limits of recent and conceivable policies the investigation is based upon a dual model approach linking a residential heating model to a discrete choice model the major finding is that current regulations are not suitable for the achievement of governmental targets scenario calculations show that additional carbon emission reductions triggered by the current regulatory regime are falling short of expectations in terms of economic efficiency all calculated policy alternatives outperform the regulation currently in place this allows to draw the conclusion that carbon emission reductions can be achieved without a major increase in cost the model results highlight two policy implications first a rising mandatory share of renewables in the heating market is needed for target achievement and can be cost effectively second renewable obligations for heating systems must include the existing building stock to achieve the postulated political targets

foreign direct investment in the united states the state of knowledge in research this article categorizes and summarizes the major writings published during the 1970s concerning foreign direct investment in the united states it is based on the authors analysis of more than 100 works published in the english language in addition to analyzing what has been published the article also suggests directions for future research

incomplete markets intra industry firm heterogeneity and investment abstract we argue that as a result of incomplete factor markets firm specific variables representing selected characteristics of firms may influence and differentiate firms investment behavior within industries this paper operationalizes and test the framework with a simple institutionally motivated model of investment in uranium exploration our results suggest that cash flow and firm specific expertise influence and differentiate firms exploration investment behavior in the uranium industry these findings imply that the ways in which incomplete factor input markets distinguish firms also influence and differentiate their investment behavior

founded in adversity operations based survival strategies of ventures founded during a recession abstract we examine the survival of 404 new ventures founded during the 2008 recession we find that industry explains a significant but small percentage of variance in survival 2 81 percent and therefore focus on which operations related actions could enhance ventures odds of survival we find marginally significant support for our hypotheses that a venture founded during a recession is more likely to survive if it increases its production efficiency increases both its production efficiency and variable costs or increases both its production efficiency and fixed costs in property plant and equipment our findings demonstrate that operational decisions are key determinants of survival for ventures founded during a recession

incentives to promote solar thermal energy in spain abstract the growth in the use of renewable energies in spain has been remarkable among these energies is solar thermal energy however there are barriers which impede citizens from deciding to install the technologies that use this type of energy in their homes over recent years various measures have been adopted to enhance and promote the use of solar thermal energy these measures have been developed at all administrative levels central regional and local one of the most used measures has been the adoption of legislative regulations that force the use of this type of energy in construction another alternative route is promotion by means of incentives in three aspects tax incentives non refundable grants and favourable lines of finance however the measures applied have been found to be insufficient and alternative stimuli are needed

the relationship of industry evolution to patterns of technological linkages joint ventures and direct investment between u s and japan although economic activity between the u s and japan has skyrocketed in the last decade there are few large sample cross industry studies analyzing multiple forms of investment by the japanese in the u s this study analyzes the key characteristics of each stage of industry evolution and the costs and benefits of each form of resource investment to predict the patterns of technological linkages joint ventures and direct investment of japanese companies in the u s the results find support for a model predicting a predominance of technological linkages in emerging industries joint ventures in growing industries and direct investment in maturing industries technological linkages are most attractive in emerging industries as firms struggle to acquire technology information and expertise and share cost and risk yet retain flexibility joint ventures proliferate in growing industries because they offer a means of acquiring and expanding customer bases yet reducing vulnerability in maturing industries where firms key competencies are more developed direct investment allows the company to generate demand in new markets without the disadvantage of joint governance

investment and industrial expansion a corporate variables framework abstract the article proposes that firm investment and in turn industry expansion are determined by firm specific corporate variables in addition to the typically considered variables characterizing the firm s experience and expected conditions in a given market such as rate of growth of demand price and cost of capital defined to represent the internal characteristics of firms the particular corporate variables hypothesized to affect investment behavior include cash flow firm specific assets internal firm structure and corporate strategy the choice of the postulated corporate variables is motivated by the presence of factors associated with the failure or absence of markets an uncertain and complex environment the irreversibility of much capital investment information asymmetry and organizational boundaries

renewable heating perspectives and the impact of policy instruments in the light of the eu directive for renewable energy 2009 28 ec this paper deals with the question how various policy instruments could impact the development of renewable heating technologies the paper applies the simulation model invert ee lab for the building related heat demand in selected european countries austria lithuania and united kingdom the resulting scenarios up to 2030 are compared to res heat targets from literature stakeholder consultation processes and the targets in the national renewable energy action plans submitted by eu member states in 2010 the results demonstrate that use obligations for renewable heating can be effective in achieving res heat market growth however in order to attain a balanced technology mix and more ambitious targets policy packages are required combining use obligations with economic incentives and accompanying measures technology specific conclusions are derived moreover conclusions indicate that the action plans are not always consistent with policy measures in place or under discussion

re regulating district heating in sweden abstract the electricity market reform in sweden has had great but little discussed consequences for the district heating industry formerly regulated municipal district heating companies are now obliged to operate in a commercial manner and pricing previously regulated by the local authority act is now free the swedish competition authority has on several occasions mentioned to the government that a price regulation ought to be reinstated since district heating is a natural monopoly and in many cases in a dominant market position on local heating markets the competition authority also believes that cross subsidies occur in multi service utilities i e between monopolistic district heating and competitive electricity production and sales municipal district heating is often organised together with electricity sales and production in a municipally owned limited company many municipalities have recently sold their energy utilities to private or state owned commercial actors thus creating private monopolies exempt from price regulations in 1999 the national energy administration stem was given the task to monitor the district heating market and to suggest means to come to terms with these issues stem does not favour a price regulation as the first measure stem also has an operative goal of increasing the use of district heating as a means of reducing electricity dependence in the heating of premises here an interesting conflict of interest exists between the two government authorities we argue that the differences in opinion go beyond the actual tasks given to the authorities but rather depend on perspectives economics and consumer perspective versus an engineering environmental and production perspective we would also like to encourage a broad discussion about the state of district heating and its regulatory condition and that neither economical models nor energy models are taken for granted

modelling the effectiveness of climate policies how important is loss aversion by consumers abstracts reliable decarbonisation policies can only be developed with a thorough understanding of how consumers choose between energy technologies current energy models assume optimal consumer decisions which may result in expectations of the effectiveness of climate policies that are far too optimistic prospect theory on the other hand aims to model real life choices based on empirical observations that losses have a relatively larger influence on decisions than gains relative to a reference point here we show for the first time how loss aversion can be included into a global energy model with high spatial resolution using heating technology uptake as a case study we simulate the future heating technology diffusion for 59 world regions covering the globe with and without the consideration of loss aversion we find that ignoring the implications of loss aversion overestimates the market uptake of renewables in individual countries as well as on the global level as a consequence loss aversion results in higher projected co2 emissions by households and the need for much stronger policy instruments for achieving decarbonisation targets in the case of residential heating a carbon tax of 200 tco2 is projected to reduce overall emission levels to a similar extent than a carbon tax of 100 tco2 without the consideration of loss aversion even for similar degrees of decarbonisation accounting for loss aversion implies substantial changes in the underlying technology composition technology choices become subject to a conservative shift towards low carbon technologies which are relatively less efficient but already more established in local markets

renewable energy technology diffusion an analysis of photovoltaic system support schemes in medellin colombia abstract colombia s electricity mix is dominated by hydropower which constitutes over 65 percent of the installed capacity the country has important potential for introducing solar photovoltaic sources into its electricity generation mix given its high average annual insolation however there is a lack of incentives and support schemes for alternative renewable energy technologies this paper analyzes the diffusion of a photovoltaic system in colombia with a focus on medellin colombia s second largest city a diffusion model is constructed based on the classic bass diffusion theory where the adoption rate is a function of awareness raising campaigning and social interaction the model incorporates both subsidy and feed in tariff policies policy implementation scenarios and the effects of policy mixes are analyzed results show that a 50 percent subsidy for investment together with a usd 0 30 kwh feed in tariff rate jointly provide the highest marginal increase in diffusion rate however given the cheapness of the country s current hydroelectric resources photovoltaic system diffusion might remain a challenge for both the government and private sectors for the foreseeable future

policy strategies and paths to promote sustainable energy systems the dynamic invert simulation tool the european union has established a number of targets regarding energy efficiency renewable energy sources res and co2 reductions as the green paper on energy efficiency the directive for promotion of the use of bio fuels or other renewable fuels for transport or directive of the european parliament of the council on the promotion of cogeneration based on a useful heat demand in the internal energy market a lot of the according res and rue measures are not attractive for investors from an economic point of view therefore governments all over the world have to spend public money to promote these technologies measures to bring them into market these expenditures have to be adjusted to budget concerns and should be spent most efficiently therefore the spent money has to be dedicated to technologies and efficiency measures with the best yield in co2 reduction without wasting money the core question how can public money for promoting sustainable energy systems be spent most efficiently to reduce ghg emissions has been well investigated by the european project invert in course of this project a simulation tool has been designed to answer this core question this paper describes the modelling with the invert simulation tool and shows the key features necessary for simulating the energy system a definition of promotion scheme efficiency is given which allows estimating the most cost effective technologies and or efficiency measures to reduce co2 emissions investigations performed with the invert simulation tool deliver an optimum portfolio mix of technologies and efficiency measures for each selected region within invert seven european regions were simulated and for the austrian case study the detailed portfolio mix is shown and political conclusions are derived

the ethical context of entrepreneurship proposing and testing a developmental framework the aim of this study is to increase our understanding of the ethical climate of entrepreneurial firms as they grow and develop a developmental framework is introduced to describe the formal and informal ethical structures that emerge in entrepreneurial firms over time factors influencing where firms are within the developmental framework are posited including the entrepreneur s psychological profile lifecycle stage of the business and descriptive characteristics of the venture it is also proposed that the implementation of ethical structures will impact perceptions of the clarity and adequacy of the ethical standards of the firm and the firm s preparedness to deal with ethical challenges as they arise results are reported of a cross sectional survey of small firms at different stages of development the findings indicate the existence of four distinct clusters of firms based on their formal and informal ethical structures superlatives core proponents pain and gain and deficients evidence is also provided of statistically significant relationships between the proposed antecedent and outcome variables implications are drawn from the results and priorities are established for future research

age order of entry strategic orientation and organizational performance abstract this paper proposes an empirical test of several hypotheses linking age order of entry and strategic orientations to a firm s performance three strategies are defined cost leadership strategy innovative differentiation and marketing differentiation the aim is to show that the impact on performance of both age and each of the three strategic orientations may differ according to a firm s order of entry into an industry following lieberman and montgomery s 1998 evaluation of their major contribution on first mover advantage we emphasize three points first we develop and test hypotheses related to early and late followers strategic orientations broadening the scope of traditional studies on pioneers second the model combines the dimensions of a firm s age order of entry and strategic orientations as well as industry conditions stage of the industry environmental unpredictability and technology diffusion to establish a contingent model of performance analysis finally the empirical study deals chiefly with organizational performance and not market share which is considered a typical advantage accruing to pioneers in addition the scope of the study 582 french manufacturing firms provides the means to fill a void in empirical studies because it is a broad cross sectional test on non u s data the firms are mainly private small to medium sized and single or dominant business firms therefore our assumptions must be understood as particularly applicable to this type of firm the results reveal important lessons for practitioners first we did not find a first mover advantage in terms of organizational performance in addition pioneers organizational performance is enhanced by the cost leader strategy contrary to our assumption emphasizing innovative differentiation for these firms second early followers performance benefits from innovative differentiation and marketing differentiation finally late entrants developing a cost leader strategy have a significantly higher performance all groups considered late followers are the firms most sensitive to environmental uncertainty and age effects our study clarifies the impact of a firm s age and strategic orientations on its performance depending on the firm s order of entry the implications of these results are particularly relevant for practitioners and entrepreneurs first a cost leadership strategy seems to be a guarantee for a pioneer to increase its organizational performance new ventures should therefore take into consideration the fact that newness and innovative differentiation might not be the best strategic orientations for high performance in the long run second as a second mover however developing a superior product and being able to market it efficiently appear to be the enhancing factors of firm performance third for both pioneers and early followers age does not significantly reduce their performance however the longer a firm waits before entering the greater is the negative effect of age on its performance this is due to the difficulty of resisting competitive erosion because pioneers and early followers drive the changes in the industry the identification of these effects should help managers and stakeholders to make more effective entry decisions to sustain a firm s advantage leading to better performance and higher probability of survival

understanding the uneven diffusion of building scale renewable energy systems a review of household local and country level factors in diverse european countries abstract this review focuses on renewable energy technology deployment in residential buildings which is part of current targets to develop net zero carbon buildings in europe and to promote the deployment of renewable energy we focus on the adoption of four technologies heat pumps solar photovoltaics solar thermal systems for domestic hot water and space heating and advanced biomass heating while there are several studies on households investment criteria a research gap exists because building owners across europe are quite diverse and the european markets exhibit different stages of maturity this article conducts a critical review of the literature on the diffusion of building scale renewable energy solutions in order to answer the following questions 1 to what extent can findings from studies on household adoption criteria be generalized from one country to another and 2 what insights does the literature offer on factors that might explain the differences in adoption patterns between european countries

internal organization and economic performance an empirical analysis of the profitability of principal firms business historians have long been aware that organizational innovations have had remarkable productivity ramifications a h cole has asserted that if changes in business procedures and practices were patentable the contributions of business change to the economic growth of the nation would be as widely recognized as the influence of mechanical inventions 9 pp 61 62 some economists have come to recognize the role of organizational innovation kenneth arrow noting that truly among man s innovations the use of organization to accomplish his ends is among both his greatest and earliest 2 p 2441 oliver williamson 271 has further championed the study of organizational innovation doing much to provide the theoretical underpinnings necessary to bring the topic into the corpus of economic theory furthermore richard caves has observed that both corporate strategy and organizational structure influence the economic performance of the firm and the market in which it sells 6 p 641 however structural parameters are absent from the neoclassical theory of production which masquerades as the economic theory of the firm developments in the theory of the firm are unlikely to accommodate organizational structure considerations until connections between structure and performance have been demonstrated empirically the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between a particular kind of decentralized and divisionalized internal hierarchical structure what oliver williamson has called the m form innovation 27 ch 81 and firm profitability in essence the methodology involves examining the differential performance between the m form innovator in an industry and its principal rival application of two non parametric statistical tests the sign test and the wilcoxon matched pairs signed ranks test is supportive of the hypothesis that the m form structure is associated with superior firm

vertical integration and profitability in the oil industry abstract several economists have argued that considerations of efficiency in production and transactions favor vertical integration in the oil industry others maintain the vertical integration enhances market power to simultaneously test the implications of both arguments data are assembled on the structure and performance of a sample of the large u s in companies over a twenty five year period no support is found for the hypothesis that profit rates are increased by the degree of vertical integration between crude oil production and refining but there is weak evidence that the variability of profits is reduced the paper goes on to examine evolutionary evidence concluding that the present pattern of vertical integration was largely shaped by adaptations to unique circumstances during historical periods when vertical integration was temporarily favored on efficiency grounds

energy consumption for space heating of west german households empirical evidence scenario projections and policy implications abstract both the technical characteristics of buildings e g insulation standards and the utilisation patterns of households are important determinants of the space heating demand of private households therefore this paper examines to what extent socio economic characteristics of households household size social position income etc are suitable to explain household s behaviour concerning space heating given technical building characteristics on the other hand energy efficiency factors derived from technical simulation models are scrutinised the empirical basis of this analysis is the official household survey 1988 for west germany containing about 44 000 data sets therefrom it turns out that the german insulation standards of buildings have been less effective in the past than assumed on the basis of technical simulations by means of scenario calculations projections of the heating energy demand for space heating in the future are obtained sketching the effect of different possible socio economic developments on the space heating consumption and analysing different political options concerning building insulation standards for new buildings and the existing building stock

the effect of business interdependencies on product r d intensive business performance one of the major decisions that firms face regarding r d intensive businesses is a structural one establishing the appropriate level of internal strategic interdependency within and among business units the current discussion over the effectiveness of creating small independent and entrepreneurial venture units in multi business corporations is part of this larger structural concern the aim of the present research is to study the efficacy of different structural linkages for achieving market share and roi objectives in product r d intensive businesses the study focuses on interdependencies between business units in product r d intensive businesses that produce consumer products or industrial products a sample of 641 businesses 221 consumer products and 420 industrial goods is drawn from the pims data base a cluster analysis is run to identify natural groups of homogeneous businesses for each of the seven identified groups established suppliers fast movers high tech job shops stalled giants established diversifiers dominant specialists and laggers a multi way analysis of variance is performed to study the influence of various interdependencies measured in term of vertical integration shared facilities and shared marketing on two criteria of performance market share and roi the findings indicate first that the interdependencies required to achieve high performance are contingent upon the nature of the product r d intensive business and its environmental characteristics second for a given business configuration high performance interdependencies are influenced by the type of performance objectives selected by the business such as market share or profitability finally the results imply that a multi business corporation which possesses a portfolio of product r d intensive businesses probably requires a more diverse set of interdependencies than for example simply mainstream centralized industrial r d organization on the one hand and independent entrepreneurial units on the other hand effective competition for a firm with diverse r d intensive businesses may often call for a capability to support concurrently multiple levels of internal interdependencies and to reject create or modify this set of interdependencies as the situation warrants

fiscal and tax policy support for energy efficiency retrofit for existing residential buildings in china s northern heating region energy efficiency retrofit for existing residential buildings eererb in china s northern heating region is an important component of the national energy strategy the main content and related subject in eererb performance is the basis of understanding and developing targeted policies so this paper designed the content system of eererb and then provided a cost benefit analysis on related subjects assessed the government s function in eererb and come to the conclusion that the chinese government should increase fiscal fund investment and implement more fiscal and tax incentive policies moreover in view of china s current policy which lacks long term mechanism and flexibility this paper proposed specific policy recommendations including clarifying the government s corresponding responsibilities at all levels and increasing the intensity of the central government s transfer payments it further proposed targeted financial and tax policies for supporting and encouraging heating enterprises and owners as well as policies to cultivate energy saving service markets and to support the esco

the network dynamics of international new ventures this study uses multi site case research to advance a set of propositions regarding the network dynamics of early stage international new ventures the investigative approach builds on arguments that network theory and analysis are fundamental to international entrepreneurship in the spirit of cross disciplinary research perspectives from the entrepreneurship literature are embraced to help inform our understanding of international new venture networks

promotion of biofuel consumption in the transport sector an eu 27 perspective abstract the european union s eu directive 2003 30 ec 1 set an objective of reaching a 5 75 share of renewable energy as a proportion of the total energy consumption of the transport sector by 2010 as all the member states mss of the eu 27 were obliged to comply with this directive different public policy measures were developed and implemented to promote the use of biofuels in transport biofuels being the main renewable energy source res in this sector in this article we review the public measures undertaken in the eu 27 and show how these measures primarily involve tax incentives and biofuel blending mandates on fuel sales all countries with the exception of finland introduced tax incentives of various types to promote the use of biofuels while 18 mss also implemented biofuel blending mandates through the passing of legislation relating to this matter

networks and local environmental characteristics in the survival of new firms this study seeks firstly to clarify which networks at start up situation and early in life influence the survival of new firms secondly the study examines regional differences in the success of new firms the subjects were firms which had closed down during their fourth to sixth year of operations and they were compared with firms continuing in business the results indicate firstly that it is networks internal to firm that create competitive advantage innovation and efficiency secondly management based on working in groups was emphasized in the firms that continued in business in a typical family enterprise ownership management and family are united in a single entity in other types of firms networks are seen as participating in the strategic management of the firm thirdly close downs were often caused by uncontrolled risks a firm which fails after a successful start up often tends to grow rapidly in the beginning leaning on its product idea but this rate of growth is too high from the viewpoint of the financing and the management of the firm in firms which closed the growth objectives were too ambitions compared with the resources of the entrepreneur

high profit strategies in mature capital goods industries a contingency approach high profit and low profit strategic gestalts in two different types of mature capital goods industries are examined multiple avenues to high profits are found within both types but they differ

a theory of the early growth of the firm economic enterprise consists in the matching of resources and opportunities to create value growth processes of the new enterprise are here explored in a systems model inspired by penrose a sequence of phases in the early life of the firm reflects growth processes and problems solutions giving rise to new problems firms must access mobilize and deploy resources before they can generate resources for growth subsequent phases in which growth reinforcement and growth reversal forces content are not universal but are set in motion in an important minority of firms the major job creators beyond the early phases critical problems facing the firm are more diverse the growth of the firm is related to the building of the competence needed to respond to changing industrial opportunities copyright 1998 by oxford university press

using founder status age of firm and company growth rate as the basis for distinguishing entrepreneurs from managers of smaller businesses abstract this article examined the empirical implications of definitions that distinguish entrepreneurs from managers of smaller businesses based on their founder nonfounder status and their firms ages and growth rates the best distinctions were created using 1 founders 2 younger companies and 3 the combination of founders and younger companies growth indicators did not discriminate well the two founder based distinctions shared a profile of entrepreneurs as running smaller companies with higher return on assets roa than nonentrepreneurial managers having shorter tenure in their positions having previous work experience in the same industry and having higher risk taking propensity the distinction based on age of firm also showed strong ability to discriminate among respondents the field of entrepreneurship has few longer standing controversies than the one surrounding the question of what distinguishes entrepreneurs from nonentrepreneurial managers in trying to separate entrepreneurs from managers of smaller businesses in particular questions exist concerning the key defining differences definitions of entrepreneurship have utilized founder versus nonfounder status company age and company growth rates as distinguishing elements entrepreneurs have been defined by one or more of the following elements being a company founder running a young company and running or desiring to run a high growth company this article tests these elements to see if they provide a clearly differentiated profile of entrepreneurs it uses the founder nonfounder distinction for example to see if this distinction functions well in identifying a number of company financial and personal attributes that associate with founders rather than nonfounders the approach advocated here borrows from configurational theory as it has emerged in the fields of strategic management and organizational theory meyer tsui and hinings 1993 to look for a constellation of variables that group together in depicting entrepreneurs if founder status company age and growth rate are useful definitions of entrepreneurship they should point to a configuration of factors that together comprise a profile of an entrepreneur in predicting what configuration of factors will emerge this article adopts a strategic adaptation perspective low and macmillan 1988 to argue that differences between entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs spring from divergent thought processes and personal attributes of individuals who face the question of whether and how to enter business for themselves using the founder nonfounder distinction we view individuals who decide to start a new business rather than buy or manage an existing one as more likely to have previously founded a business have experience in the same industry be higher in risk taking show more type a behavior and be more growth oriented findings from a sample of ceos in the smaller business association of new england indicated that neither of the two tests based on high growth as a definition of entrepreneurial firms proved adept at creating a distinct entrepreneurial profile distinctions based on founder status younger firm status and founder of a younger firm status on the other hand proved effective in creating such profiles dimensions shared by the two founder based definitions of entrepreneurship included company attributes of smaller size and higher roa and ceo attributes of shorter tenure on the job previous experience in the same industry and higher risk taking propensity additional attributes showed in the younger company founder group including company attributes of lower liquidity and higher sales growth and personal attributes of having previously founded a business ranking roa as a high priority and external locus of control the distinction based on younger firm status performed well in discriminating among respondents in this study in addition to sharing several variables with the founder based distinctions it alone identified younger firms ceos as having lower education and type a tendencies and higher expectations of children succeeding them in the business as one implication of these findings knowledge of the profiles may help people who deal with these groups to have a better sense of how to interact with and respond to them the young company founder profile for example presents a picture of a relatively small company experiencing high rates of sales growth squeezing all it can from its assets in the face of high comparative liabilities because the company is young its founder has relatively short tenure but may well have had previous experience in the industry and have previously founded a company personally the founder is a risk taker who is external in locus of control and places high priority on roa if this configuration holds firm in future research those who deal frequently with entrepreneurs such as bankers venture capitalists consultants accountants and lawyers will be able to use a few identifying factors such as founder status and age of firm to draw reasonable inferences about a host of other characteristics of their clients the attempt to profile the entrepreneur in recent years thought to be futile may yet prove viable

climate change impact and resilience in the electricity sector the example of austria and germany abstract the purpose of this paper is to investigate the resilience of possible future electricity and heating systems in regard to climate change and fuel price shocks the dynamical simulation model hireps of the austrian and german electricity heating and cooling sectors was used for this analysis the electricity generation cost and changes in the required secured capacity were used as indicators for the resilience of the energy system the results show that the analysed changes in the natural gas price have larger impact on the electricity generation cost than weather variability between different years or climate change especially the fossil fuel based scenario showed high sensitivity to the gas price analysis of the required secured capacity shows that in the last quarter of the 21st century the annual maximum residual loads are growing and are dominated by strong cooling demand peaks promoting passive cooling options efficient building designs and options for a controlled down regulation of cooling devices seems to be advisable to avoid installing large thermal power plant backup capacities the evaluated climate model simulations show only small changes in photovoltaic wind and hydro power generation for 2051 2080 in austria and germany

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