Firm Experience and Market Entry by Venture Capital Firms (1962–2004)

In this paper, we examine a firm's decision to enter new markets as related to the depth and breadth of its experience and the relative distance of those markets. We situate our discussion and analysis in the context of the venture capital (VC) industry, and examine whether and when US VC firms enter five high‐technology investment markets through first‐ or later‐round investments. This setting allows us to observe both the firms that chose to enter a new market and those that did not, and analyse the antecedents of these decisions. We find that VC firms overall are less likely to enter distant markets; those with broader experience are more likely to make first‐round entries. In addition, VC firms with deeper investment experience are more likely to make first‐round entries in proximate markets and less likely to enter distant markets and make later‐round entries. These results offer interesting implications for the literature on organizational learning and entrepreneurship.     

Cementing skills: training and labour use in UK construction

This article explores questions of labour reproduction and skill development under different contract arrangements within the UK construction and civil engineering industry. The central concerns of the article relate to the impact skills shortages within the sector have had on recruitment practices, training provision and the use of contract alternatives in terms of both direct and non‐standard labour. The argument primarily draws on data from a national postal survey conducted in 2002, covering firms of all sizes within this key economic sector. The article reveals some interesting findings regarding recruitment and training practices which, despite encouraging headline figures on the existence of training, reveal an over‐dependency on contingent labour and low levels of apprenticeships – particularly among small firms, which are predominant in the industry. This suggests that the recognised problems of labour shortages within the sector are ongoing, and that the aim of attracting new workers into the industry remains unrealised.     

Determinants of long-distance investing by business angels in the UK

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has been applied to territories, although academia has not frequently undertaken exploration of RBV applied to clusters in an empirical base. The goal of this paper aims at empirically translating RBV to the territory with a double objective. First, the work seeks to understand which are the cluster's resources and capabilities. Second, the paper evaluates whether a cluster's unique set of resources and capabilities could influence a cluster's performance. Research is applied to leading European ceramic tile clusters located in Spain (Castellon) and Italy (Emilia-Romagna). Comparing clusters in the same industry allows benchmarking and the metrics make more sense. Secondary data and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with managers from the R&D Institutes, institutional agents and Castellon (59) and Emilian (19) firms assess a cluster's resources and capabilities. The employed variables address skilled labour availability, social capital, linkages, business sophistication and network effects. In addition, and through the utilization of financial and productivity data the work analyses whether there are performance differences. Results indicate that clusters have a unique set of resources and capabilities and a certain performance level. On the whole, a cluster's unique set of resources and capabilities matter. The paper offers a methodological approach to tackle empirically the RBV application to clusters.     

The Japanisation of British industry? Instances from a high growth area

Here the authors make two arguments, Japanese industry is characterised by distinctive practices, but these predominate in only certain ‘leading edge’ sectors and were introduced mainly to ensure labour supply. Second, Britain's managers are increasingly outside the internal labour markets of large corporations. In this respect British firms are not becoming ‘Japanese’.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE,SKILL FORMATION,HUMAN CAPITAL MEASUREMENT: EVIDENCE FROM ITALIAN MANUFACTURING FIRMS

Abstract This paper emphasizes the role of labour demand as a determinant of human capital formation. After a section in which the alternative conceptions on the functioning of labour markets are presented and different ways of measuring human capital are compared, an applied analysis is carried out in which we provide a labour‐demand‐oriented measure of human capital, as defined by the amount of specific skills firms generate through work‐based training (WBT) activities. By merging three rich firm‐level datasets, we estimate the impact of a set of variables supposed to affect both the propensity to invest in WBT and the intensity of training within the Italian manufacturing industry over the period 2001–2005. Special attention is devoted to the variables characterizing within‐firm organization of knowledge, organizational change and the formation of competence pipelines: among them, innovation, internationalization commitment, out‐sourcing and new hirings. The estimates show that the effect of innovation on WBT is higher when the introduction of new technologies is supported by organizational innovations. When looking at the nature of WBT, we investigate the different determinants of the firms' propensity to provide both in‐house and outside training. We measure training intensity in terms, respectively, of the number of provided training activities, private and total training costs and share of trainees.     

The Petroleum Driver Passport scheme: a case study in reregulation

The Petroleum Driver Passport is an example of the reregulation of the labour market, the development of employment rules that apply across multiple employers in a given industry, occupation or region. The scheme requires drivers of road tankers to possess a Passport, indicating their safety competence, if they are to collect and transport fuel in the UK's downstream oil‐distribution industry. This article presents a case study of the Passport scheme, which identifies the factors that contributed to the scheme's development, assesses its impact and draws lessons for other possible initiatives to reregulate the labour market.     

Organisational flexibility and HRM in the hotel industry: evidence from Australia

The hotel industry is renowned for its poor pay and employment conditions and a low take‐up of HR practices. It is generally believed that the industry has relied on a lowcost, numerically flexible and disposable workforce. Recently, however, there has been debate concerning the extent to which managers in the hotel industry are embracing high commitment HRM and functionally flexible work practices. This study seeks to shed light on this question by analysing large‐scale survey and interview data on the hotel industry in Australia. While hotel workplaces in general continue to be associated with high levels of numerical and temporal flexibility and greater informality of HR policies, it was apparent that larger luxury hotels were adopting more systematic employee management techniques and strengthening their internal labour markets through functional flexibility initiatives. Such firms were also pursuing numerical and temporal flexibility strategies, although in rather different ways.     

Understanding Labour Turnover in a Labour Intensive Industry: Evidence from the British Clothing Industry*

ABSTRACT The clothing industry is both a quintessential global industry and one that is inescapably labour intensive. Despite more and more production shifting to low wage economies in the past decades, there remains a significant amount of clothing manufacturing in high wage economies. This study examines the drivers of change that are forcing restructuring in one such country and the outcomes of such changes for the organization of production. Because the changes have involved treating workers as a resource to be developed rather than a cost, preventing labour turnover has become a crucial component of this strategic repositioning. In presenting the results of a national survey of UK clothing manufacturers we find that high labour turnover rates persist. We discuss the historical background to this phenomenon and current trends, and then explore the principal variables that might explain these trends. We conclude with a discussion of the outcomes facing firms in this industry and comment on why managers resist comprehensive changes in organizational routines and the effort bargain.     

Work models in the Central Eastern European car industry: towards the high road?

The integration of the Central Eastern European (CEE) countries into the European Union (EU) has provoked debates about the danger of a ‘race to the bottom’ in Europe caused by the low wages and weak labour regulation and labour standards in CEE. This article examines the evolution of work models in the CEE automotive industry. It argues that the work models in CEE did not take the low‐road trajectory. Rather, a limited high‐road model emerged in the 1990s, which combined skilled labour and secure employment for the core workforce with a broad margin of precarious employment, low wages and limited employee voice. In the context of labour shortages after the accession to the EU of the CEEs, companies faced recruitment problems and labour conflicts, which threatened to destabilise this model. The first reactions of firms pointed towards the strengthening of the high‐road orientation, but the development remains unstable, not least of all because of the economic crisis beginning in 2009.     

Forefronts of the Sharing Economy: Uber in Cape Town

The sharing economy, often phrased as ‘platform capitalism’, enables firms such as Uber and Airbnb to monetize, through specific technologies of mediation, the networks, the assets and the precarious labour of those who are described as ‘the entrepreneurs of sharing’. This article explores the urban geographies of ride‐sharing in the marketization of Uber in Cape Town, South Africa. I use empirical evidence collected during the first phase of its operations in the city, between 2013 and 2015, to show how Uber relied upon the developmental entrepreneurialism of Cape Town to embed its ride‐sharing market locally, and how the drivers enacted multiple technical, economic and ethical regimes within and without the constraints of the software platform. The research presented in this article thus contributes to understanding how the discourses of millennial development, with its promises of entrepreneurial empowerment, are adopted by global sharing‐economy firms to enact their markets in the global South. It also reveals how a different genealogy of Uber's urban transactions offers an alternative perspective on the normative rationalities of the sharing economy and on the diverse economies that exist in relation to platform capitalism in the global South.     

Pay determination in small firms in the UK: the case of the response to the National Minimum Wage

Pay determination in small firms is widely expected to follow the dictates of the market. Research on 81 firms in three competitive sectors finds, instead, loosely defined and variable pay structures. This variability is explained in terms of the interplay between labour and product markets, firms’ own choices, and ‘shocks’ such as the National Minimum Wage. This analysis thus contributes to developing institutional theories of labour markets and pay systems.     

High‐performance work systems and workplace performance in small,medium‐sized and large firms

This article draws on the Organisational Growth and Development (OGD) life cycle model to explore the relationship between high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and performance in firms of different size, thereby extending understanding of congruence or ‘best fit’ theory within strategic HRM debates. With reference to management control theory, economies of scale and the availability of specialist managerial skills, the article hypothesises that while an HPWS–performance relationship might exist in small, medium‐sized and large firms, the relationship will be stronger in large firms than in both small and medium‐sized firms, and stronger in medium‐sized firms than in small firms. Analysis of data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey demonstrates, however, that there is no association between HPWS and workplace performance in medium‐sized firms, in contrast to the positive relationship between HPWS and performance found in large firms and between HPWS and labour productivity in small firms.     

Broad-based stock options: before and after the market downturn

We examine labour productivity in small, medium and large firms that broadly distribute stock options under starkly different market conditions – during the bull (1995–7) and bear (2000–2) stock markets. We find greater labour output in both upward and downward markets in all firm size categories, with the exception of small firms in a declining market, where the productivity is also greater, but the statistical significance of the result is weak.     

Dynamics in a Mature Industry: Entry,Exit, and Growth of Big‐Box Grocery Retailers

This paper measures market dynamics within the U.S. grocery industry (defined as supermarket, supercenter, and club retailers). We find that despite being a mature industry, the grocery industry is remarkably dynamic. Each year retailers open or close roughly 7% of U.S. stores. We also find significant changes in the size of firms’ operations within markets over time. These changes in relative size are largely the result of expansion or contraction by incumbents rather than the result of firm entry or exit. In fact, entry and exit are quite rare, except by small firms. Moreover, only in small markets do new entrants gain substantial market share.     

A General Dynamic Capability: Does it Propagate Business and Social Competencies in the Retail Food Industry?*

abstract Given that firms have both business and social goals, an important unanswered question is whether a general dynamic capability breeds competencies in both these areas. In studies of the US retail food industry, we find that while a general dynamic capability affects firms’ competence in supply chain management (a business competency), it does not affect their competence in environmental management (a social competency). Firm mission and the extent to which firms obtain technical assistance are found to affect the acquisition of this latter competency. These findings offer insights into the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and provide lessons for corporate social responsibility. They reveal more precisely what a general dynamic capability yields and how far its reach extends, suggesting that the factors that drive competitive advantage are not the same as those that drive social responsibility.     

THE ADOPTION OF JAPANESE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES IN BRAZILIAN INDUSTRY*

Changing competitive conditions in Brazilian industry are leading companies to seek Japanese management techniques as a means of rapidly raising productivity and quality. Macroeconomic instability, low levels of educational achievement and poor labour relations would seem to present barriers to the use of these techniques. Case studies of firms in the motor components industry show that firms in Brazil can make radical changes to their production systems, overcome educational deficiencies and also secure reverse past employment relations practices in order to obtain some degree of acceptance of change by labour. However, there are reasons for supposing that these successes may be difficult to sustain in a difficult and turbulent macroeconomic environment.     

Knowledge Networks and Careers: Academic Scientists in Industry–University Links*

abstract Careers are central to our understanding of the knowledge creation dynamics of network organizations. Based on the example of R&D project collaboration between firms and universities, this paper examines the emerging forms of career models that support knowledge flows between organizations. It explores how some large firms in the high‐technology sectors have sought to break away from the limitations of internal R&D and firm‐based careers for scientists by engaging in external collaborative projects to gain access to the open knowledge networks of university researchers. It examines how the firms seek to forge close institutional ties with their university partners and develop network career structures in order to engage academic scientists in joint knowledge production. It argues that firms have sought to extend their human resource and knowledge boundaries into the established internal labour markets of the universities with which they collaborate, leading to the formation of a pool of joint human resources with work experiences and career patterns straddling the two sectors. The paper develops the concept of an ‘overlapping internal labour market’ to provide a conceptual bridge between internal labour markets and network organizations.     

Firm foundations? Contingent labour and employers' provision of training in the UK construction sector

Based on an original survey of the UK construction industry this article examines the training disadvantages faced by contingent labour. This article addresses two key questions: first, is the provision of training different for directly employed labour and different forms of contingent labour? Second, what structural and organisational factors shape the provision of training to different contingent labour forms? The article finds that fewer firms provide training for agency, self‐employed and subcontract labour, compared to directly employed workers. Training for subcontract labour seems to reflect a longer‐term perspective towards the use of this labour form, while decisions to train agency and self‐employed labour appears to be driven by more short‐term considerations.     

Surviving on the Margins of the Economy: Working Relationships in Small,Low‐Wage Firms*

abstract How do small low‐wage firms continue to survive on the margins of a modern economy? Continuous restructuring provides a set of spaces but what sorts of firm occupy them and how far do these firms exercise active choice? Four research projects, embracing data on 123 firms, have offered empirical analysis. The present paper draws together these projects and derives an analytical framework linking the product and labour market contexts of small firms with their family context. Survival reflects the continued supply of labour through kinship networks and the ability of firms to respond actively to product market opportunities. The value of the framework for small‐firm research generally is illustrated through discussion of further lines of inquiry.     

Regulation of Labour Markets in the European Union

EU regulation of labour markets under the Social Charter and Protocol to improve 'employment rights' may appear loudable but can prove costly for firms. Mandates will probably make the unskilled more difficult to employ.