Technology transfer with commitment

Summary. This paper considers technology transfer in a duopoly where the firms have two types of commitment strategies: incentive delegation and capacity installation. It turns out that the possibility of technology transfer significantly differs under these two types of commitment as well as depending on whether one or both firms commit. Under strategic incentive delegation, the possibility of technology transfer is minimal when both firms use the incentive delegation strategy and the costs of incentive delegation are negligible. If both firms choose the incentive delegation strategy and the costs of incentive delegation are significant then the possibility of technology transfer rises compared to a situation with no pre-commitment. In case of commitment to a capacity level before production, the possibility of technology transfer does not change when both firms simultaneously commit to their capacity levels. Different sets of results arise when only one firm can pre-commit. Received: February 10, 1997; revised version: December 16, 1999     

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND CAPITAL STRUCTURE DYNAMICS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that both a higher level of financial leverage and a faster speed of adjustment of leverage toward the shareholders' desired level are associated with better corporate governance quality as defined by a more independent board featuring CEO–chairman separation and greater presence of outside directors, coupled with larger institutional shareholding. In contrast, managerial incentive compensation on average discourages use of debt or adjustments toward the shareholders' desired level, consistent with its entrenchment effect. The effect of corporate governance on leverage adjustments is most pronounced when initial leverage is between the manager's desired level and the shareholders' desired level where the interests of managers and shareholders conflict.     

Understanding commercialization of technological innovation: taking stock and moving forward

The commercialization of technological innovation, which is key to entrepreneurial success, represents a combination of several entrepreneurial activities. Building on research in management, strategy, entrepreneurship, and economics, this research summarizes 194 articles from 62 journals, categorizing them into six broad entrepreneurial activity themes: sources of innovations, types of innovation, market entry competence and feasibility, protection, development, and deployment. This review and synthesis suggest a framework of commercialization and an agenda for future research along with recommendations and guidance for future research. The proposed agenda provides topics and research questions for research, as well as related recommendations regarding the study and practice of the commercialization of innovation.     

Empirics of health-aid,education and infant mortality: a semiparametric study

The present article uses semiparametric regression to capture the impact of foreign-aid given for health purposes on the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) of poor developing countries, after controlling for other covariates. We also investigate whether education (general awareness) helps lower IMR directly or helps improve effectiveness of health-aid in reducing IMR. In addition, the study investigates whether various disaggregated components of health-aid (for example, aid that goes for infectious disease control or nutrition) help lower IMR. We find that although adult education (awareness) always lowers IMR, the overall effect of health-aid remains insignificant. Our conclusion is robust to various disaggregated components of health-aid as well. We also check if health-aid has improved prenatal care for expecting mothers but our conclusion regarding the overall ineffectiveness of aid remains unchanged. Interestingly, we find that total health-aid as well as nutrition aid may lower IMR only after education exceeds a threshold level – a new angle that has not been explicitly explored before. We also find interesting role of education in making the aid more effective for prenatal care. Our semiparametric nonlinear estimation strategy helps us unravel certain interesting thresholds and facts which cannot be captured in a linear parametric estimation framework.     

External and internal influences on R&D alliance formation: Evidence from German SMEs

Relying on relational capital theory and transaction cost economics (TCE), this study identifies factors that impede or promote alliance formation in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Environmental uncertainty and knowledge intensity impede firms' R&D alliance formation; the focal firm's overall trust in partners enhances alliance formation. Trust interacts positively with environmental uncertainty and knowledge intensity to affect alliance formation in SMEs. The findings reflect data from a longitudinal sample of 854 German SMEs, captured over eight years from 1999 to 2007.     

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CAUSALITY AMONG FIRMS' DIVIDEND,INVESTMENT, AND FINANCING DECISIONS

In this paper we posit that information asymmetries and the resultant signaling implications make a firm's investment decision dependent on its dividend and financing decisions. By applying the vector autoregressive modeling technique to 100 firms randomly selected from ten four-digit SIC industries, we find evidence of interdependencies among the three decisions. The success of the model in predicting each of the three decision variables also suggests that these decisions should be analyzed in a simultaneous equation framework.