Entrepreneurship, Economic Growth and Public Policy

This paper is an introduction to the second Global Entrepreneurship Research Conference. The conference focused on developing a better understanding of the relationships among entrepreneurship, economic growth and public policy, and variations according to the stage of economic development. The papers in this special issue conduct analysis with GEM micro-and-macro data, and offer several important policy recommendations. First, middle-income countries should focus on increasing human capital, upgrading technology availability and promoting enterprise development. It is important to start enterprise development policies early because the main drivers are perceptual variables that are difficult to change in the short run. Second, for developed economies, reducing entry regulations, in most cases, will not result in more high-potential startups. Both labor market reform and deregulation of financial markets may be needed to support growth of high-performance ventures.      

Public Subsidies to Business: An International Comparison

The paper compares the design and outcome of public subsidies to business across a number of industrialized countries. The comparison of the amount of subsidies shows that the share of GDP devoted to total public support is markedly lower in the USA than in Europe but the share of GDP devoted to support that improves economic performance is comparable. Implementing public support follows two models. The first model (Anglo-Saxon) model is primarily “soft” in nature and decentralized. The second model is more interventionist and centralized. The former model seems to perform better especially in term of science and technology. However, the impact of public support policies remains seriously under-researched and more research is crucially needed to draw firm conclusions.     

The Causal Relationship Between Information and Communication Technology and Foreign Direct Investment

This paper investigates the simultaneous causal relationship between investments in information and communication technology (ICT) and flows of foreign direct investment (FDI), with reference to its implications on economic growth. For the empirical analysis we use data from 23 major countries with heterogeneous economic development for the period 1976–99. Our causality test results suggest that there is a causal relationship from ICT to FDI in developed countries, which means that a higher level of ICT investment leads to an increase inflow of FDI. ICT may contribute to economic growth indirectly by attracting more FDI. Contrarily, we could not find significant causality from ICT to FDI in developing countries. Instead, we have partial evidence of opposite causality relationship: the inflow of FDI causes further increases in ICT investment and production capacity.     

Public Policies on Corporate Social Responsibility: The Role of Governments in Europe

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. Laura Albareda is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Innovation, ESADE, Universidad Ramon Llull-URL. She is principal researcher and manager of the Observatory on Socially Responsible Investment in Spain. Her areas of research and academic interest are Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Ethics, Global Governance and Public Authorites, Governments and Public Policies on Corporate Social Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investment. Josep M. Lozano is currently Professor & Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Innovation, ESADE Business School (URL). He is Co-founder of ética, Economía y Dirección (Spanish branch of the EBEN) and member of the editorial board of Ethical Perspectives and Society and Business Review. He was member of the Catalan Government’s Commission on Values, and is member of the Spanish Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs’ Commission of Experts on CSR. He has been a highly commended runner-up in the European Faculty Pioneer Awards of the Beyond Grey Pinstripes and is author of Ethics and Organizations. Understanding Business Ethics as a Learning Process (Kluwer). Tamyko Ysa is an Assistant Professor of the Institute of Public Management, and the Department of Business Policy at ESADE. Her areas of interest are the management of partnerships and their impact on the creation of public value; the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies, and the relations between companies and governments. She is the Principal Researcher of the Research Group for Leadership and Innovation in Public Management (GLIGP). She is coauthor of Governments and Corporate Social Responsibility (Palgrave MacMillan).     

The Establishment and Enforcement of Codes

Information and communications technology (ICT) is now used more by non-IT professional end-users than by IT professionals. A survey of 125 London-based organisations found that the majority had instituted codes of conduct designed to govern the use of ICT by their employees. However, the primary purpose of adopting such codes was to ensure the security and efficient operation of the organisation's information systems rather than for wider ethical considerations. Hence, few of the codes of conduct addressed issues relating to the collection, storage and dissemination of data about individuals (personal data); this was especially the case with codes emanating from IT departments rather than senior management. In general, codes of conduct were found to be ineffective in influencing end-user behaviour in the organisations surveyed. Codes of conduct are a means by which organisations seek to exercise power, control and ownership, but their effectiveness is compromised by the nature of ICT itself as well as the attitudes of employees. The failure of well-publicised ethical policies to influence use of ICT by business studies students – the managers of tomorrow – suggests that these tensions are likely to remain unresolved.     

ICT as facilitator of internationalisation in small- and medium-sized firms

Based on harmonised and uniquely linked firm-level datasets for a large group of European countries, this study investigates the role of different information and communication technology (ICT) capacities in the internationalisation of small- and medium-sized firms (defined as having 10–249 employees). Both the decision to export and the export intensity are explored in this respect. The different ICT capacities are captured by online presence (having a website), online transactions (e-sales activities) and proportion of employees with broadband internet access or post-upper secondary ICT education. The results show a significant and positive relationship between the ICT capacities and the engagement in exporting activities of small- and medium-sized firms, although the kind of ICT capacity of importance seems to vary across countries. In countries where the ICT usage in firms is less developed, mainly basic capacities such as online presence are related to the decision to export. There are also indications that the export intensity is more strongly related to advanced ICT capacities than the pure decision to export.     

知识产权价值管理问题的研究

知识产权问题是当前各国科技政策与经济政策界关注的热点,而对知识产权的价值管理则是企业界面临的重要问题,为解决此问题,从知识产权的核算与管理对提高企业竞争力的影响出发,提出知识产权会计的研究和建设问题。通过构建知识产权会计的特殊核算系统、方法体系和会计分析评价系统,可以满足企业特殊的经营管理需要。     

Technology policies and the growth of regions: Evidence from four countries

Since the 1980s, all industrialized countries have established technology policies aimed at increasing economic growth through the development of scientific and technical resources. Most technology policy initiates are at the national level and are predominantly concerned with levels of funding. This is a problem because high-tech industrial development is observed to be regional in nature and national technology policies do not explicitly pursue regional goals. This paper tests two hypotheses. First, that the different explicit and implicit technology policies have had a significant, although unintended, impact on the development of a special type of space, the high-tech regions. Next, that the spatial effects of government technology policy promote high-tech regions over other regions, although this influence is primarily of an implicit or unintended nature.     

制度、公共政策与有利于穷人的经济增长—基于二元结构下的公共支出模型分析

尽管在过去的30年里中国在经济增长方面取得了巨大的成就，但近十几年来穷人的处境却开始恶化。如果没有公平的宪政秩序，就不可能创建符合穷人利益的制度与公共政策，进而就不可能使穷人从经济增长中获益。作为制度与公共政策重要组成部分的公共支出对有利于穷人的经济增长的形成有重要作用。本文的分析表明，二元结构下政府对农村的公共支出比例与穷人向现代部门的迁移能力与密切相关。当穷人向现代部门的迁移能力较强时，可以通过不断减少对农村的支出比例，增加对城市的支出比例来促进穷人的收入增长：当穷人向现代部门的迁移能力不足时，要使经济增长有利于穷人，必须增加政府对农村的公共支出比例来。     

Cross-country differences in ICT adoption: A consequence of Culture?

The diffusion of information and communication technology (ICT) has witnessed a surge in recent years. The rate of adoption across countries diverges considerably regardless of the income levels. In this paper, we attempt to explain the differences in ICT adoption rates across countries by using Hofstede's cultural framework. The effect of culture on ICT adoption is explored by applying two different measures of ICT adoption, namely the average share of ICT spending in GDP across 42 countries, and per capita computer across 49 countries. The results suggest that the national culture and the ICT adoption rate of a country are closely related. It appears that most of the Hofstede dimensions are important in influencing ICT adoption, thereby confirming our hypotheses. In particular, the power distance and the uncertainty avoidance dimensions seem to be the most important ones. These results are robust in both datasets, even after controlling for levels of education and income.     

Values Versus Regulations: How Culture Plays Its Role

This study examines the impact of culture on regulation and corruption. Our empirical results suggest that cultural values have significant effects on countries’ regulatory policies, levels of corruption, and economic development. Contrary to the conclusions drawn by others, this study shows no significant relationship between the regulatory policies of countries and their perceived levels of corruption. Thus, evidence of the “public choice view” toward entry regulation derived in related studies seems to be at least attenuated. Dr. Runtian Jing is a Professor and Vice Dean of the School of Management, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. John L. Graham is Professor of International Business, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine.     

How valuable is information and communication technology? A study of emerging economy enterprises

Anchored at the knowledge management perspective, we address how information and communication technology (ICT) improves the productivity of emerging economy enterprises. We present the logic that ICT enhances firm performance because it is an important channel or facilitator of effective knowledge sharing and knowledge integration. We further argue that the conditions characterizing an emerging economy (i.e., a country’s economic development) and emerging economy businesses (i.e., internationalization and quality assurance) would affect the extent to which ICT contributes to knowledge management, and thus to firm performance. Our hierarchical linear modeling analysis of 6236 firms from 27 emerging economies lends support to our arguments and predictions, suggesting that ICT is a critical investment that generates satisfactory returns for emerging economy enterprises, yet this investment–return relationship is further contingent upon the macro- and micro-level conditions facing these enterprises. ICT actually adds more value to productivity when a focal emerging economy is less economically developed, and when a focal firm reaches foreign markets or its quality control and assurance is superior.     

Towards a More ‘Ethically Correct’ Governance for Economic Sustainability

In this paper, we propose that economic sustainability is seen in terms of (inter-temporal and inter-national) value creation. We claim that value appropriation (or capture), can become a constraint to economic sustainability. We propose that for sustainable value creation to be fostered, corporate governance needs to be aligned to public and supra-national governance. In order to achieve this, a hierarchically layered set of ‘agencies’, needs to be diagnosed and the issue of incentive alignment addressed. Enlightened self-interest, pluralism and diversity, as well as a representative supra-national organisation for world-wide economic sustainability can serve as a new, more ‘ethically correct’ governance for economic sustainability, but not a panacea.     

The capital gap for small technology companies: public venture capital to the rescue?

In this paper, we analyze effectiveness of public intervention for fostering private venture-capital market in Spain. We use a sample obtained from VentureXpert database, consisting of 755 investments made by 83 Spanish public and private venture capitalists that closed at least one fund between 1997 and 2008. We compare the investments undertaken by private and public investors before and after public venture capital programs were started. We found that Spanish venture-capital market has rapidly developed in the last 10 years and that this development coincides with the establishment of public policies for encouraging technology entrepreneurship. We also found that other factors, such as previous experience of investors and size, have also contributed to fostering more high-risk investments. These results may encourage governments in other countries to start or keep working to promote private venture-capital investments.     

ICT,conflicts in financial intermediation and financial access: evidence of synergy and threshold effects

In this study we investigate the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in conflicts of financial intermediation for financial access. The empirical evidence is based on contemporary (or current values) and non-contemporary (or lagged by a year) quantile regressions in 53 African countries for the period 2004-2011. The main findings are: First, the net effect of ICT in formalization for financial activity in the banking system is consistently beneficial with positive thresholds. The fact that corresponding, unconditional and conditional effects are persistently positive is evidence of synergy or complementary effects. Second, the net effect of ICT in financial informalization for financial activity in the financial system is negative with a consistent negative threshold. Hence, the positive (negative) complementarity of ICT and financial formalization (informalization) is an increasing (decreasing) function of financial activity. Policy measures on how to leverage the synergy or complementarity between ICT and financial formalization in order to enhance financial access are discussed.     

A New Framework Integrating Environmental Effects into Technology Evaluation

This study aims to propose a framework considering both economic issues and environmental effects in technology evaluation in order to provide firms’ decision makers a useful reference in adopting technologies that will enable them to fulfill corporate social responsibilities and get competitive advantages at the same time. Recently, the demands for technology evaluation have increased with the flourishing development of technology licensing, technology transaction or joint venture on the one hand and with the pressing needs of environmental protection for human beings’ sustainable development on the other hand. Under such conditions, it thus goes without saying that firms’ decision makers are propelled to take into account both economic benefits and environmental effects in evaluating technologies by choosing low or nonpolluting technologies for manufacturing products. Although technology evaluation is not a new and emerging subject currently besetting scholars in the field of management, previous research on this topic has unwittingly left behind the pressing issue of environmental effects. Based on this observation, this study purports to develop a new framework for technology evaluation by taking both economic benefits and environmental perspectives into consideration. In it, we seek to demonstrate that our proposed framework will not only be a workable model but also can serve as a useful point of reference for technology appraisers and firms’ decision makers.     

On P2P File-Sharing: A Major Problem – A Chinese Perspective

P2P (Peer-to-Peer) file-sharing or file-swapping has led to many disputes about copyright laws and has become “a worldwide problem.” This paper first describes the development of P2P and then discusses some of the disputes concerning Chinese copyright laws. Given the difficulties in implementing copyright laws in China and many other countries, this paper next analyzes the reasons why and the conditions under which P2P developed, its impact on music production, and some other general economic, social, and ethical implications of this technology. The paper recognizes, on the one hand, the significance of P2P as an advanced technology for popularizing music and sharing human and spiritual values with more people, on the other hand, it points to several critical issues caused by the current illegal use of this technology for sharing copyrighted music files: e.g., the serious damage to music production and the infringement on copyright holders’ interests. It is hypothesized argue that the technological conditions, social demands, and problems with the current type of music production have deepened the present crisis, and a new type of music production is sought. Legislation should enhance such a development, support P2P technology in the interest of the public, protect copyrights, and regulate P2P stakeholders’ interests in a balanced manner according to the ethics of law.     

What is an Entrepreneurial Opportunity?

The nature and source of entrepreneurial opportunity are important issues for understanding how markets function and come into being. In addition to describing the forum held on the topic and summarizing the contributions of the articles that appear in the special issue, this article shares a number of lessons learned during the workshop and the editorial process. We explore three of the most important reasons for confusion about the opportunity construct: (1) the “objectivity” of opportunity, (2) the perceived importance of one particular individual in determining the direction of the social world and (3) what distinguishes the sub-class of “entrepreneurial” opportunity from the broader category of opportunity in general. Finally, we offer some directions for future research by illuminating important issues that emerged from the workshop but that remain largely unanswered by the papers of this special issue.      

A “New Approach” to Standards and Consumer Protection

As consumer use of information and communication technology (ICT) products grows, the importance of ICT standards in consumer markets also grows. While standards for manufactured products were once developed at the national level in formal standards bodies, standards for ICT products today are more likely to be developed by informal standards bodies that target global markets, creating new challenges for national consumer protection laws. As part of the process of creating a single market, the EU developed an innovative and successful form of “coregulation” known as the “New Approach” that coordinated the work of legislators and standards developers to reduce technical barriers to trade in the internal market. In order to protect consumer interests in markets for ICT products effectively, another “New Approach” is needed to coordinate the work of global ICT standard-developing organizations with the goals of national and regional consumer protection laws, but the institutional challenges facing such a strategy are daunting. The French DADVSI legislation represents progress in this direction; further progress may be possible by adopting “better regulation” strategies.