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.     

The New Unionism and the New Bargaining Agenda: UNISON–Employer Partnerships on Workplace Learning in Britain

A model of new unionism has been developed which is characterized by features such as the servicing of members as customers and a shift to co‐operative industrial relations. The UNISON–employer partnerships in workplace learning in the UK initially appear to fit such a model. This paper outlines the model of new unionism and cautions against interpreting these partnerships as evidence of its development. The paper concludes that this initiative is organized within a collective framework and may provide a basis for the development of workplace trade union activism rather than being indicative of its decline.     

An investigation into the values dimensions of branding: implications for the charity sector

• Branding is being adopted by charities and written about in academic and practitioner charity literature with increasing frequency. There is also growing concern, however, about the over-commercialistion of the sector and the misappropriation of techniques developed specifically for the commercial environment. Literature supporting the claim that charities are values-based organisations is reviewed and the proposition is made that it is in fact the non-negotiability of charity values that differentiate them from commercial organisations. Given the significance of values in the charity sector, the paper argues that a clearer understanding of how values are conceptualised in branding is necessary in order to establish whether branding is an appropriate and effective tool in the charity context. To achieve this, the paper reviews relevant branding literature focusing in particular upon the delineation of the values dimensions identified in for-profit branding models. To aid further understanding of these values dimensions in the non-profit context and their applicability (or otherwise) to it, the metaphors of brand as ‘mirror’, ‘lamp’ and ‘lens’ are introduced.
• It is argued that in the corporate sector the brand concept has been utilised to ‘mirror’ those values that underpin the needs and desires of consumers. In contrast to the passive mirror, when operationalised as ‘lamp’, it is claimed that the brand aims to influence both the values of the organisation and the values of its target audience. It is postulated that neither of these approaches is appropriate for values-led organisations and that it is only as a metaphorical ‘lens’, projecting the values of the organisation itself that branding offers an applicable and effective model in the charity context.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Domestic Effects of Offshoring High‐skilled Jobs: Complementarities in Knowledge Production

We provide evidence on how changes in the use of high‐skilled workers (inventors) in a foreign location affect a firm's domestic use of the same type of worker. We exploit rich data that provide variation in the location of inventors within multinational firms across industries and countries to control for confounding firm–time and industry factors. We find that a 10% increase in the use of foreign inventors leads to a 1.9% increase in the use of domestic inventors. Our results suggest that foreign and domestic inventors are complementary in the production of knowledge.     

Corporate Performance: Does Ownership Matter? A Comparison of Foreign- and Domestic-Owned Firms in Greece and Portugal

The paper investigates whether multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in Portugal and Greece perform differently than domestic firms. Departures from normality of firms’ profitability motivated the use of quantile regression. The results suggest that ownership ties do not make a significant difference with respect to performance of firms in Portugal. Results are similar for firms in Greece. Only when firms in the upper quantiles of gross profits are compared, MNCs are found to significantly perform better than domestic firms. MNCs have to compensate for their liability of foreigness that in spite of their technological advantages they cannot persistently outperform domestic rivals.JEL Classifications: F23, L10, L60, C21     

The Cultural Paradigm of the Smaller Firm

This paper presents the findings from an ethnographic study of organizational culture and shared values in four smaller firms, the outcome of which was the identification of the cultural values shared between owner–managers (OMs) and employees in each firm. The research employed Schein's conceptualization of culture as a three-layer phenomenon, consisting of surface artifacts, shared values and beliefs, and basic assumptions. The analytical technique of grounded theory was employed to process the large volume of data gathered during the extended research period. The data reveal a complex array of values in each firm, with only one firm exhibiting a homogenous culture where values are shared by all those working in the organization. In the remaining three firms, five values appear to be shared by all employees; however, this is overlaid by a pattern of subcultures differentiated by distinctive shared values. Interfirm analysis among the four firms found that the values of survival, independence, control, pragmatism, and financial prudence were shared by two or more firms. The research collectively defines these shared values as the cultural paradigm of the smaller firm.     

Long-Term Care Insurance Purchase Patterns

Given the aging population and high cost of long-term care, many Americans are concerned about financing long-term care services. Despite this concern, private long-term care insurance policy sales have experienced slow growth. On average only about 7 percent of the population aged 65 and older has long-term care insurance, but this percentage varies greatly across the states. In this study we test hypothesized relationships between purchase of long-term care insurance and various explanatory factors. We provide evidence that state Medicaid nursing home expenditure levels and the relative sizes of the elderly population and the nursing home population are significant explanatory factors of purchase rates. We find no evidence that public–private partnership regulation, the quality of available facilities, or agent marketing controls affect purchase. Findings of the study are useful to insurers, legislators, regulators, and others involved in the public policy debate about financing long-term care.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF NAURU1

The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the vise of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take, but to what the farmer can afford to give.     

The possibility of positive rent gradients reconsidered

Despite empirical evidence to the contrary most residential location models are consistent only with a negative rent gradient. Richardson has suggested including average neighborhood plot size as an argument of the utility function; a positive rent gradient is not then a priori inconsistent with equilibrium. However, Richardson does not define the concept of equilibrium, and the purpose of this paper is to suggest a reasonable definition and to show that the rent gradient is negative if the utility function is strictly quasi-concave and if individual and average neighborhood plot size are substitutes.