Uncovering the role of cross-border strategic alliances and expertise decision centralization in enhancing product-service innovation in MMNEs

Research is needed on effective servitization by multinational enterprises. This study examines whether Manufacturing Multinational Enterprises (MMNEs) can obtain better servitization outcomes by partnering with Knowledge Intensive Business Service (KIBS) firms and or by internationalizing their service function. In addition, the paper analyses the centralization of management decisions of human resources as an organizational mechanism to overcome coordination failure between product and service units. Our primary research data contain survey responses from 285 MMNEs collected in cooperation with an industry partner. Results show that cross-border strategic alliances and expertise decision centralization are critical to enhance product-service innovation.     

Labour-market institutions, (un)employment,wages, and growth: theory and data

We analyse the implications of labour-market institutions on wage inequality in favour of skilled labour, on relative unemployment of unskilled labour, and on the economic growth rate in two clusters resulting from 27 OECD countries: Cluster 1, closely related with the Anglo-Saxon model, and Cluster 2, dominated by the Continental-European model. By linking the unskilled wage to the skilled one in Cluster 2, due to the indexation of social benefits to per-capita income, we accommodate the observed paths of the three variables in both clusters between 1991 and 2008: Cluster 1 presents a higher wage inequality in favour of skilled labour, a lower unemployment of the unskilled labour, and a better economic growth rate.     

Inequality Stagnation in Latin America in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis

Between 2003 and 2010, Latin America experienced a solid record of economic growth, coupled with a notable reduction in income inequality. The regional Gini coefficient fell from 0.556 to 0.521 and declined in all 15 out of 17 countries in which frequent data are available. However, previous studies have warned about problems in the sustainability of the decline in income inequality and this study presents evidence of stagnation on this front between 2010 and 2013. The results are robust to various measures of income inequality, but differ across the region. While largely attributable to the recovery from the global financial crisis in Mexico and some countries in Central America, the results are also supported by the demonstrated slowdown in inequality reduction in other countries, including Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia.     

Knowledge and internationalization of returnee entrepreneurial firms

This study aims to answer whether and how returnee entrepreneurs’ international experience and returnee entrepreneurial firms’ international market knowledge influence these firms’ internationalization. Anchored in a framework combining an entrepreneurial and knowledge-based view, we develop a model and four hypotheses on the relations between returnee entrepreneurs’ international experience, international market knowledge, international market commitment, and level of internationalization of the returnee entrepreneurial firm. Empirical evidence of the proposed model is derived from a recent sample of Chinese returnee SMEs in knowledge-intensive and high-technology industries. The main finding is that returnee entrepreneurs’ international experience nurtures international market knowledge of returnee entrepreneurial firms, which in turn has a positive effect on these firms’ international market commitment and level of internationalization. In terms of theory, the study extends our understanding of returnee entrepreneurial firms by uncovering the role of returnee entrepreneurs’ international experience and returnee firms’ international market knowledge during their initial and early international expansion.     

Input,Output, and Environmental Management Productivity: Effects on Firm Performance

Firms invest considerable resources to control any of their operations that may have environmental impacts in an attempt to reduce such impacts but also generate economic value. Various studies of the basic creation or destruction of monetary value through environmental performance offer contradictory evidence. Therefore, the present study proposes a new definition of environmental management as the transformation of inputs (resources assigned) into outputs (valuable results). Both inputs and outputs should be taken into account to explain financial outcomes; further consideration should also include a third aspect, namely, ‘environmental management productivity’, which describes the relationship between the outputs and inputs of environmental management. Empirical analyses of Spanish firms with a certified environmental management system subject to the European Union's CO₂ emissions trading system provide evidence that all three aspects must be considered in combination to achieve a more comprehensive view of the impact of environmental management on financial performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Location and the theory of production: A review,summary and critique of recent contributions

This paper has two main objectives. First, a generalized version of the Moses-type production- location model is developed where both the input variables and the location variables are allowed to adjust simultaneously. Secondly, the results of the recent articles relating to the Moses framework are discussed in the context of our generalized structure. We conclude that - unless one is willing to assume either the transport rate of output is zero or the location is constrained to be on the Moses arc - if transport rates do not depend on quantities shipped then location is independent of output when the production function is homogeneous of degree one. If transport rates depend on quantities shipped (e.g. quantity discounts), then a production function which is linearly homogeneous is not sufficient to insure that location is independent of output unless the transport rate functions have constant elasticities.     

“Surfeiting,the appetite may sicken”: entrepreneurship and happiness

Do the presence and nature of entrepreneurship impact on national happiness, and are nations with happy citizens better for entrepreneurs to start new businesses? To provide tentative answers we survey the literature on entrepreneurship and subjective well-being and use various data sources to uncover the first evidence of the relationship between entrepreneurship and happiness at the country level. We find that opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship may contribute to a nation’s happiness but only to a certain point, at which the effects of happiness begin to decline. Moreover, our results suggest that a nation’s happiness affects early-stage opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity.     

New services margin/high success discriminators

The present range of services, particularly financial, is subject to high privatisation and competition. Anticipating the future return of new projects is a critical challenge that confronts marketing managers at present. However, the transfer of success models from new products to services has not allowed a global vision of the internal and external environment that best set up the success of new services. Using a sample of 120 new Portuguese financial services (67 successful/57 failures), this study examines the relationships foreseen by a global model of success determinants of new services, i.e., formulates and tests hypotheses relative to the differentiated impact of the strategic and environmental factors on the multiple return indicators. The results of a binary logistic regression analysis suggest that a group of factors that best discriminate between new services of average and high return, through its different indicators that distinguishes the factors, is slightly different and less than one that distinguishes between successful and failed innovations.     

Testing for pre‐committed quantities of Australian meat demand

Pre‐committed consumption represents the portion of demand that is determined by non‐price and non‐income factors. This study uses quarterly data to estimate a Generalised Almost Ideal Demand System (GAIDS) to test for the existence of pre‐committed meat consumption in Australia. Two specifications are estimated to evaluate the impact of seasonal and time trend factors on pre‐committed demand. Evidence is found for the existence of pre‐committed chicken consumption when jointly estimated with seasonal and time trend factors. Results support improved demand modelling of Australian meat consumption using the GAIDS and provide insights into how Australian meat demand is affected by price, expenditures, pre‐committed consumption, seasonality, and trends.     

Individual investors’ information use,subjective expectations,and portfolio risk and return

What information do individual investors use when making their financial decisions and how is it related to their stock market expectations, their confidence in these expectations, and the risk and return of their stock portfolios? I study these questions by combining survey data on the information usage among individual investors in Sweden with detailed registry data on their stock portfolios. I find that investors use filtered financial information (e.g. information packaged by a professional intermediary) more frequently than they use unfiltered financial information (e.g. information from annual reports and financial statements). Investors who frequently use filtered financial information are, however, more confident in their stock market expectations and take larger risks in their stock portfolios. Investors that instead use unfiltered financial information take lower portfolio risks and obtain higher portfolio returns. The findings in this paper thus suggest that investors can improve their financial decisions by using more unfiltered financial information rather than filtered financial information when they make their financial decisions.