我国信息技术投资对企业盈利性的影响

本文通过分析影响利润的主营业务收入与费用支出,研究了我国上市公司IT投资对企业净利润的影响及其滞后效果,发现IT投资对主营业务收入的增长有显著且持续的作用,但IT投资也带来了企业费用的增加;IT对净利润的贡献逐年递增,在投资后第三年呈现显著效果;与此同时,IT投资对这几项经营指标的影响远远大于非IT投资。另外,在行业差异的分析中发现非制造业企业的IT投资绩效明显好于制造业企业,可带来持续显著的主营业务收入与净利润的增长。     

The continuing debate on firm performance: A multilevel approach to the IT sectors of Taiwan and South Korea

In the economics and strategy fields, researchers seek to understand the antecedents of firm profitability. How and why do certain private enterprise firms develop competitive advantages in environments of rapid technological change while other firms do not? This study extends recent variance decomposition research in three ways. First, this work compares IT sectors in Taiwan and South Korea by using the Standard & Poor's Compustat® Global Vantage database. Second, this investigation tests industry and firm effects using both the multilevel approach of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and the conventional variance components approach (VCA). Third, this study explores the question of why there are significant profitability differences among technological firms even with similar industrial structural characteristics and leveraged resources and capabilities in the same IT industry. This study uses data from the U.S. Patent Office to estimate technological diversification at the level of firm resources for knowledge-based relatedness for the IT firms of Taiwan and South Korea. The empirical results find that firm effects have great impact on performance of the IT sectors of Taiwan and South Korea when estimated by either HLM or VCA. However, industry effects dominate firm effects on South Korea's IT sectors when the variance is estimated by HLM. From the perspective of conducting patents innovation, both of the specialized and diversified corporate strategies are matter to the development of these IT sectors, and South Korea's IT firms are more technologically diversified than those firms in Taiwan.     

Differences between Presidents' and Sales Managers' Perceptions of the Industry Environment and Firm Strategy in Small Industrial Firms: Relationship to Performance Satisfaction

The industrial sales force is the primary source of information about the competitive environment. Differences of perceptions of that environment between the national sales manager and the firm president in small industrial firms may reflect inadequate environmental information input into strategic decision-making. The sales force is a major element in implementation of strategy and differences between perceptions of firm strategy may reflect inadequate coordination and communication between the chief strategy decision-maker and the manager who is responsible for implementing that strategy in the market place. It would be expected that these differences in perceptions would impact negatively strategy formulation and execution resulting in unsatisfactory firm performance. This study surveyed the environmental and strategy perceptions of presidents and national sales managers in small to medium-sized industrial firms as well as presidents' satisfaction with firm profitability and marketing/sales effectiveness. The average absolute difference in environment perceptions has a negative relationship with satisfaction with profit. The average absolute difference in strategy perceptions has a negative relationship with marketing/sales effectiveness. This latter relationship is especially strong in an environment high in capital spending variation and for larger firms. The authors suggest implications for managers based on these results.     

Public Credit Guarantee Schemes and SMEs’ Profitability: Evidence from Italy

The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the Italian State Credit Guarantee Scheme (Central Guarantee Fund). The paper analyzes the impact of the program on SMEs’ profitability considering the firm size and sector. The analysis is performed using propensity‐score matching estimators and the Difference in Differences regressions on a proprietary sample of about 38,000 SMEs in the period 2007–2009. Overall, the Central Guarantee Fund generated an increase in the profitability of guaranteed firms during the period of economic downturn. However, significant differences emerged across firms by size and sector. The effect is positive and robust only for micro‐ and small‐sized firms, and the most relevant improvement in the profitability is recorded for firms operating in the manufacturing sector. This implies that more customized programs are necessary to reach a higher value for money in entrepreneurial policies.     

Does acquiring venture capital pay off for the funded firms? A meta-analysis on the relationship between venture capital investment and funded firm financial performance

Researchers and practitioners frequently propose that venture capital (VC) is an important resource to increase the performance of funded firms, especially in environments of uncertainty. In this paper we scrutinize these theoretical propositions, following an evidence-based research approach. We synthesize 76 empirical samples on 36,567 firms. We find a small positive performance effect of VC investment on funded firm performance; however, the effect vanishes if researchers control for industry selection effects. Furthermore, we find that the performance effect mainly relates to firm growth while profitability is unaffected. We also uncover that performance effects are reduced when the funded firms are very young or very mature. In addition, studies focusing on IPO events, which constitute the majority of studies, determine a substantially smaller performance effect. We discuss theoretical implications and offer suggestions for future research on VC.     

Disentangling the effect of services on B2B firm value: Trade-offs of sales,profits, and earnings volatility

In the face of declining business and growing pressures from low-cost competitors, many business-to-business (B2B) manufacturers have moved from their previously successful product-centric strategies to more service-oriented business models. Yet despite their substantial investments in services, firms fail to understand the performance ramifications of these offerings. With a longitudinal data set (2001–2016) of 227 B2B manufacturers listed in the S&P 1500 index, this study disentangles the simultaneous effects of financial-based mechanisms that link the service ratio (i.e., share of a firm's revenue generated from selling services) to firm value. The findings reveal significant trade-offs across these mechanisms. Although the service ratio monotonously boosts sales growth, it has U-shaped curvilinear relationships with profitability and earnings volatility. These effects also depend on industry- and firm-level factors. Industry maturity positively moderates the effects of the service ratio on sales growth and profitability. However, business scope has an adverse effect on the service ratio–profitability relationship. Finally, industry turbulence negatively moderates the effect of services on earnings volatility.     

Multi Fibre Arrangement and Wage Inequality: Firm and State‐level Evidence from India and a Theoretical Model

The phased elimination of Multi Fibre Arrangements (MFA) for textile and apparel has been one of the most compelling trade policy reforms that removed a system of bilateral quotas. The reform brought in significant changes in the industrial structures for exporters from the south, including India. Has the labour‐intensive high‐employment textile and clothing industry in India benefited from this global move towards freer trade? For India, the industry has witnessed unprecedented market concentration of export‐oriented firms. Firm‐level empirical estimate illustrates that workers in the export‐oriented firms in India are adversely affected due to withdrawal of quota. Accumulation of net fixed assets and growth of sales impart positive impact on firm‐level wages that cannot outweigh negative impact due to fall in exports. We also find negative impact of profit on aggregate wage bill for the industry with firms spread over 11 major states in India. We show that the mean deviation of industry‐level wage is positively and significantly associated with mean deviation of the number of factories at the state level and negatively with profit. Finally, a brief analytical exercise obtains conditions under which joint withdrawal of quota and import tariff could raise the aggregate labour income in developing countries, in general.     

Does Size Matter in Firm Performance? Evidence from US Public Firms

This paper reexamines the determinants of firm performance and, in particular, the role that firm size plays in profitability. A fixed‐effects dynamic panel data model for over 7,000 US publicly‐held firms during the period 1987–2006 provides evidence that profit rates are positively correlated with firm size in a non‐linear manner, holding an array of firm‐ and industry‐specific characteristics constant. In addition, industry‐specific fixed effects play a negligible role in the presence of firm‐specific fixed effects.     

A study of the impact of owner's mode of entry on venture performance and management patterns

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

Variation in Corporate Governance and Firm Valuation – an International Study

In this paper, we investigate the types of firms that are likely to deviate from common practice in corporate governance of their home countries and examine how the deviation is correlated with firm value. Our results show that firms with higher institutional holdings, lower insider holdings, and higher sales growth are more likely to deviate from common practice in civil law countries, whereas, in common law countries, especially in the USA, firms with lower institutional holdings, higher insider holdings, and lower sales growth are likely to deviate from common practice. We document a strong positive correlation between governance deviation and firm value in civil law countries. This relationship is robust to different testing and sample selection methods. The results, however, are mixed for US firms and not significant in other common law countries. Using the deviation from common practice as a proxy of firm‐level impact on corporate governance, our results provide evidence that firm‐level effect matters in governance quality and the effect varies across countries.     

Sources of variation in firm profitability and growth

This article reports an analysis of the sources of variation in profitability and growth for manufacturing firms located in eleven European countries. A variance decomposition analysis determines the importance of the country, industry, corporate group and firm effects on profitability and growth. The analysis reveals evidence of differences between industries in the comparative advantage offered by different countries, reflecting a tendency for specialization and geographic concentration. However, as in several previous studies, the firm-level effects are the most important class of effect in explaining the variation in performance.     

The moderating role of local embeddedness on the performance of foreign and domestic firms in emerging markets

This paper examines the impact of the firm’s degree of local embeddedness on its performance in emerging markets using the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey Manufacturing Sector Module data on 15,715 firms covering 78 emerging markets. We use the degree of localization of sourcing and sales to measure the degree of embeddedness in the host country market. We argue that since embeddedness brings the firm into closer interaction with local firms and institutions, the costs of embeddedness should be lower for local firms than for MNE subsidiaries, since local firms can be assumed to be better able to decipher local institutions. We find that both dimensions are subject to a reversed U-shaped function. That is, by extending the degree of local sales and local sourcing up to a certain percentage, a firm can realize positive performance growth by becoming more embedded into the emerging market, but beyond this point, the performance impact is negative. We also find that foreign firms involved in local sales seem to lose part of their ability to exploit their ownership advantages as compared to foreign firms that export their production.     

Manufacturing entrepreneurs: An empirical study of the correlates of employment growth in the Tulsa MSA and rural East Texas

Manufacturing firms and firms totally dependent on manufacturing provide more than 50% of the jobs in the United States and other industrialized nations. In spite of the belief that the United States has become an “information economy,” it has recently been recognized by researchers, politicians and industry experts that the loss of America's leadership position in manufacturing threatens the American industrial position. In addition, small firms provided most of the job growth in the decade of the 80s and the most innovation and new products.The impact of these factors indicates the importance of determining what it takes to be successful as a manufacturing entrepreneur. Beyond the importance to the national economy of understanding the success-related factors in manufacturing entrepreneurship, several stakeholder categories have a vested interest in this information as well. Job creation, job growth and economic development become major agenda items in the 1992 presidential campaign. Also, investors would like to have a model of small firm growth on which to base their investments in start-up firms. Finally, political units are looking for mechanisms to create much-needed new jobs to provide tax revenue.The purpose of this study was to: (1) determine the relationship between eight literature-based predictor variables and employment growth in entrepreneurial manufacturing firms and (2) attempt to develop a meaningful linear model, incorporating as many significant variables as possible from the original eight that would explain variance in firm performance.The focus of this study was 327 manufacturing entrepreneurs located in the Tulsa Metropolitan Statistical Area and 13 contiguous counties in East Texas. Manufacturing entrepreneurs were defined as the founders of their firms. The firms included in the study were all less than ten years old, independent (not a division of some other firm) and had primary SIC codes between 2000 and 3999. Usable responses to a mail survey were 103, a 31.5% response rate.Results of this study suggest that age (of the entrepreneur) at founding, entrepreneurial management experience, industry experience and environmental scanning practices are significantly correlated with firm performance as measured by employment growth.     

Real effects of private equity investments: Evidence from European buyouts

This study investigates the effects of buyout deals on the ex-post performance of target companies. The analysis is based on a sample of 241 private-to-private buyouts involving European companies between 1997 and 2004 and a control sample of non-buyouts selected through a propensity score matching methodology. The paper explores three different dimensions of firm performance: size, profitability and productivity. The results indicate a positive impact of buyouts on the growth of total assets and of employment in target firms in the short- and mid-term. An equivalent clear pattern cannot be identified for productivity, while we estimate a lower operating profitability for buyout companies with respect to the control group three years after a deal is made. When we restrict the analysis to the sub-sample of buyout companies, we find that generalist funds negatively and significantly impact the mean ex-post operating profitability of PE-backed firms, while turnaround specialists are positively associated with operating profitability. The evidence also highlights that target companies whose lead investor is located in the same country show relatively higher ex-post profitability performance.     

The Role of Human and Financial Capital in the Profitability and Growth of Women-Owned Small Firms

This paper examines the relationship between human and financial capital and firm performance for women- and men-owned small firms in the service and retail sectors. Results indicate that human capital variables, including education and experience, had a positive impact on the profitability of women-owned firms, whereas measures of financial capital had a greater impact of the profitability of men-owned firms. The ability to secure financial capital also had a positive impact on the growth rate of men-owned firms, but did not appear to affect the growth rate of women-owned firms. These findings suggest that the growth aspirations for women-owned firms may be driven by factors other than human capital or the ability to secure external capital.     

Organizational Structure and Performance in Dutch small Firms

The relationship between organizational structure and performance in small firms has received relatively limited attention over the last few decades. In understanding small firm performance this seems to be a serious omission. In this paper, we first present the rationale for including organizational structure in the analysis of small firm performance. Then, from the literature on organizational theory, we retrieve several dimensions that may be postulated to describe organizational structures of small firms. Based on the study of a stratified sample of 1411 Dutch small firms we show that nine structure stereotypes can be delineated. We further investigate the relevance of the empirical taxonomy by looking at the relationship with firm performance in terms of sales growth, profitability and innovativeness. Eventually, we conclude that organizational structure indeed matters and that it deserves to be taken into account in models and future analysis of small firm performance.     

Market power and systematic risk

This paper examines the relationship between market power variables and the systematic risk, beta, of a firm. The study controls for the effects of dividend policy, liquidity, and earnings growth. Market power is measured by firm size (both sales and assets), proportion of industry sales, and the industry's four-firm concentration ratio. The study finds only a weak relationship between individual firm market power and firm risk, but there is evidence of a strong negative relationship between industry concentration and the market risk of the firms in an industry. This indicates that firms in concentrated industries experience lower capital costs than firms in less-concentrated industries. The existence of limit pricing is suggested as an explanation for this finding.     

High-growth firms and innovation: an empirical analysis for Spanish firms

This paper analyses the effect of R&D investment on firm growth. We use an extensive sample of Spanish manufacturing and service firms. The database comprises diverse waves of Spanish Community Innovation Survey and covers the period 2004–2008. First, a probit model corrected for sample selection analyses the role of innovation on the probability of being a high-growth firm (HGF). Second, a quantile regression technique is applied to explore the determinants of firm growth. Our database shows that a small number of firms experience fast growth rates in terms of sales or employees. Our results reveal that R&D investments positively affect the probability of becoming a HGF. However, differences appear between manufacturing and service firms. Finally, when we study the impact of R&D investment on firm growth, quantile estimations show that internal R&D presents a significant positive impact for the upper quantiles, while external R&D shows a significant positive impact up to the median.     

Exploring the link between innovation and growth in Chilean firms

We investigate the relation between the introduction of innovation and subsequent firm growth employing a dataset representative of the Chilean productive structure. By means of quantile treatment effects (QTE), we estimate the effect of the introduction of innovation by comparing firms with a similar propensity to innovate for different quantiles of the firm growth distribution. Our results indicate that process innovation positively affects sales growth for those firms located at the 75th and 90th percentiles. Contrarily, product innovation appears not to be a driver of firm performance. We also find that process innovation benefits mature firms at higher quantiles while it positively affects young firms located at low-medium quantiles.     

Location and Survival of New Entry

Drawing from two different strands of literature, industrial ecology and spatial analysis, the paper attempts to examine the role that location plays in determining firm survival. A time-varying covariates hazard model is used on Greek firms, which enter manufacturing in the early 1980s and are followed up to 1992. Location in Greater Athens vs. the rest of the country affects survival positively, especially when smaller firms are concerned. Other firm variables such as current size, profitability, leverage and capital together with growth and industry contestability are also found to affect survival, which becomes more difficult for firms established closer to recessions.