Knowledge management practices and absorptive capacity in small and medium‐sized enterprises: is there really a linkage?

Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are more vulnerable to globalization and rapid technological change due to their scarcity of resources. SMEs' absorptive capacity allows them to access knowledge and plays a key role in their ability to explore and exploit opportunities in their environment. Therefore, this study aims to identify and categorize knowledge management practices which SMEs can adopt to develop absorptive capacity. From a population of 4,534 Portuguese SMEs, 260 usable completed questionnaires were returned. We concluded that Portuguese SMEs are engaged in knowledge management practices, through collaboration with business partners, favoring learning processes based on experience, knowledge transfer to employees and knowledge absorption by employees, reflecting the importance given by SMEs to the tacit nature of knowledge which helps them in efficiency improvements, strategic adaptation, and the launch of new products and services. Our study contributes to advancing theory in the fields of knowledge management and absorptive capacity. We combine and extend previous research which allows us to reconcile the sometimes contradictory findings concerning knowledge management practices which SMEs can adopt to reinforce absorptive capacity. Some theoretical and practical implications are also presented.     

Latin American multinationals: A historical and theoretical approach*

Among the so‐called multinationals from the South, Latin American multinationals are outstanding for being pioneers. Their history goes even back to the end of the 19th century. In this article, we sketch a brief history of Latin American multinationals, but we concentrate on their development and growing importance since the 1980s within the context of economic reforms and globalization. We then apply a theoretical and typological perspective in order to characterize these multinational companies and to identify the elements that will condition their future behavior and development     

RESEARCH NETWORKS AS INFRASTRUCTURE FOR KNOWLEDGE DIFFUSION IN EUROPEAN REGIONS

This paper concentrates on the role of research network infrastructure in fostering the dissemination of innovation-related knowledge. It examines the structure of collaborative networks and of knowledge transfer between research, innovation and deployment activities in the field of information and communication technology for the European Union as a whole and for several European regions. Research networks complement diffusion networks by providing additional links and by increasing the number of the organisations involved in sharing and exchanging knowledge. Two types of actors are key players in these networks: hubs and gatekeepers. Hubs maintain the bulk of ties in the networks also helping the smaller and more isolated members remain connected. Gatekeepers bridge research and diffusion networks. Such organisations naturally offer greater policy leverage in establishing a European knowledge infrastructure. Moreover, strengthened inter-network connectivity among research and diffusion activities (deployment) would raise the effectiveness of European research in terms of accelerating innovation.     

Managerial ability and bank‐loan pricing

This paper examines the impact of borrowers’ managerial ability on lenders’ bank‐loan pricing and the channels through which managerial ability affects bank‐loan pricing. Using a large sample of US bank loans, we provide evidence that higher managerial ability is associated with lower bank‐loan prices. This effect is stronger in firms with high information risk, suggesting that an important channel for managerial ability to affect bank‐loan pricing is through improved financial disclosure to mitigate information asymmetry. The relationship is also stronger for firms with weak business fundamentals, implying that another channel is through improved business performance. Of these two mechanisms, path analysis suggests that the business‐fundamentals mechanism is the more important channel through which managerial ability affects bank‐loan pricing.     

What do bank acquirers want? Evidence from worldwide bank M&A targets

What drives bankers to create larger and larger, often multinational banking groups? In this paper we investigate whether the targets in cross-border bank M&As are materially different from those banks targeted in domestic M&A deals. The main message of this paper is that, with few exceptions, domestic and foreign investors target similar banks. In particular, and contrary to what one might expect, bank size does not have a different effect on the probability of being a domestic or a cross-border target, instead it has a positive and highly significant effect in both cases. We find that the main differences between national and international M&As are the characteristics of the countries where the banks operate.     

Deficits, Money Growth and Inflation in Italy: 1875–1994

In this paper, we examine econometrically the "fiscal dominance" model of the Monetary History of Italy proposed by Spinelli and Fratianni (1996). We test the proposition that monetary policy is endogenous to fiscal policy, and that such an endogeneity creates a specificity in the process generating Italian inflation. We perform our econometric tests by estimating a small structural linear econometric model, addressing carefully the issues of data-congruency of the specification, non-stationarity, cointegration, and credibility of the over-identifying restrictions. Our econometric investigation is based on a sample of annual observations from 1875–1994 and exploits the structural break which occurred in 1975, when Baffi became Governor of the Bank of Italy and the lack of independence of the central bank was first perceived as a problem. Baffi started the slow evolution process leading to the independence of the central bank, which was institutionally ratified by his successor Ciampi, when, in 1981, the Bank of Italy interrupted his commitment to buy all the government bonds left unsold in the public tenders (the "divorce"). Our empirical analysis over the sample 1875–1975 confirms the existence of a link between government deficit and money growth, and of a long-run relationship between the quantity of money and the price level; the evidence also stresses the relevance of supply side factors in the determination of inflation. When the model estimated for the sample 1875–1975 is applied to the period 1975–1994, a clear structural break in the relation between government deficits and money growth emerges. (J.E.L.: E5, E6).     

Technological Regimes and Schumpeterian Patterns of Innovation

This paper proposes that the specific pattern of innovative activities in an industry can be explained as the outcome of different technological (learning) regimes . A technological regime is defined by the particular combination of technological opportunities, appropriability of innovations, cumulativeness of technical advances and properties of the knowledge base. Building upon the distinction between Schumpeter Mark I and Schumpeter Mark II industries, this paper provides empirical estimates of the relationships between indicators of the Schumpeterian patterns of innovation (concentration of innovative activities, stability in the hierarchy of innovators and importance of new innovators) and indicators of the variables defining technological regimes.     

Economic value,competition and financial distress in the European banking system

In this paper we examine the impact of a large number of factors at the bank level (liquidity and credit risks, asset size, income diversification and market power), at the industry level (banking concentration) and macro-level (real GDP growth) on bank financial distress using an unbalanced panel of 308 European commercial banks between 1996 and 2009. The observations falling below a given threshold of the empirical distribution of the Shareholder Value Ratio proxy bank financial distress. We employ a panel probit regression and, given the presence of overlapping data giving rise to residual autocorrelation, we use the Bertschek and Lechner (1998) robust estimator of the covariance matrix of parameters. We show that credit risk, liquidity risk and bank market power are the most influential determinants of distressed Shareholder Value Ratio. Finally we evaluate the model out-sample forecasting performance over the 2008–2009 crisis period.