The business model in entrepreneurial marketing: A communication perspective on business angels' opportunity interpretation

Entrepreneurial marketing has emerged as a recent perspective within the marketing field, taking the challenges and characteristics of small firms and founding teams into account. Specifically, in the early stages of entrepreneurial marketing, besides potential customers a variety of other stakeholders tend to be in the center of attention. Among these stakeholders, business angels as early-stage investors represent a vital target group. In this paper, we aim to shed light on entrepreneurial marketing in the early phases of new venture creation, in which entrepreneurial firms have an inherent need to market the value of a business opportunity toward potential investors. In particular, we contribute to the literature by introducing the business model as a narrative device for the marketing of early-stage new ventures toward potential business angels. In this regard, the business model is suggested as playing a critical role through making the inherent economic value of a technology explicit. Building on narrative theory, we investigate the role that the business model plays in the decision-making process of 17 business angels. Based on our findings, we propose a model that links the business model to a business angel's interpretation of an investment opportunity and discuss implications for theory and practice.     

The Total Factor Productivity Gap between Internationalised and Domestic Firms: Net Premium or Heterogeneity Effect?

The empirical literature on international trade predicts that internationally involved firms experience a productivity premium when compared to domestic firms. This finding is supported by comparing the unconditional productivity averages or distributions, or regressing the productivity on the international status dummy, controlled for the relevant covariates. In the present paper, we disentangle the distribution of the gross productivity premium from the component that is created by the different structural compositions of the two groups of firms; we can thereby measure the distribution of the net premium that is attributable to internationalisation. To this purpose, we use the quantile decomposition methodology ( Melly, 2005 ). The main results highlight that (i) the net premium is substantially lower than the gross premium and (ii) while the difference in the gross premium is uniform along the entire distribution, the net premium is significant only for the less productive firms. These results are confirmed even if different internationalisation modes are considered (i.e. exports, agreements and commercial penetration) using the domestic firms as baseline. One exception is the net premium for firms enrolled in foreign direct investment and/or offshoring; this premium does not decrease for firms at the top of the productivity distribution.     

The Costs of Increasing Transparency

In their seminal paper, Morris and Shin (Amer Econ Rev 92(5): 1521–1534, 2002a) argued that increasing the precision of public information is not always beneficial to social welfare. Svensson (Amer Econ Rev 96: 448–451, 2006) however has disputed this by saying that although feasible, the conditions for which this was true, were not all that likely. In that respect, therefore, increasing ‘transparency’ remains most of the times beneficial to social welfare. In this paper, we extend the Morris and Shin attempt by setting it up as an explicit interactive game between the Central Bank, the objectives of which we model explicitly, and the private sector. We show that in the absence of costs, both players benefit from transparency in the manner described previously in the literature, and point the differences in their gains. Following that, we then introduce the fact that increasing transparency comes at some costs and show how both players face incentives to free ride on each other as a result. The presence of costs thus alters the way in which greater transparency is attained.

The evaluation of a surveillance system for violent and non-intentional injury mortality in Colombian cities

Since 2002, the Institute for Peace Promotion and Injury/Violence Prevention (CISALVA) at the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia and the Colombia Program at Georgetown University have developed and implemented 21 epidemiologically based municipal crime observatories in intermediate-sized municipalities in Colombia. These crime observatories serve as monitoring centres that provide low cost, geo-referenced methods of data collection and analysis, which allow cities to develop more responsive policies and prevention programmes and enhance governance. This article focuses on the methodology employed and lessons learned that may be applicable to similar settings. Worth noting within the results was a significant decrease in homicides after the first year of the programme. Whether or not such results could be attributed to the method or to the nature of the interventions and policy initiatives stemming from it remains open to conjecture.     

Investigating the gap between citizens' sustainability attitudes and food purchasing behaviour: empirical evidence from Brazilian pork consumers

Consumers worldwide are increasingly concerned with sustainable production and consumption. Recently, a comprehensive study ranked 17 countries in regard to their environmentally friendly behaviour among consumers. Brazil was one of the top countries in the list. Yet, several studies highlight significant differences between consumers' intentions to consume ethically, and their actual purchase behaviour: the so‐called ‘Attitude‐Behaviour Gap’. In developing countries, few studies have been conducted on this issue. The objective of this study is therefore to investigate the gap between citizens' sustainability‐related attitudes and food purchasing behaviour using empirical data from Brazil. To this end, Brazilian citizens' attitudes towards pig production systems were mapped through conjoint analysis and their coexistence with relevant pork product‐related purchasing behaviour of consumers was investigated through cluster analysis. The conjoint experiment was carried out with empirical data collected from 475 respondents surveyed in the South and Center‐West regions of Brazil. The results of the conjoint analysis were used for a subsequent cluster analysis in order to identify clusters of Brazilian citizens with diversified attitudes towards pig production systems, using socio‐demographics, attitudes towards sustainability‐related themes that are expected to influence the way they evaluate pig production systems, and consumption frequency of various pork products as clusters' background information. Three clusters were identified as ‘indifferent’, ‘environmental conscious’ and ‘sustainability‐oriented’ citizens. Although attitudes towards environment and nature had indeed an influence on citizens' specific attitudes towards pig farming at the cluster level, the relationship between ‘citizenship’ and consumption behaviour was found to be weak. This finding is similar to previous research conducted with European consumers: what people (in their role of citizens) think about pig production systems does not appear to significantly influence their pork consumption choices. Improvements in the integrated management of this chain would better meet consumers' sustainability‐related expectations towards pig production systems.     

Formal and informal external linkages and firms�� innovative strategies. A cross-country comparison

Firms increasingly rely upon external actors for their innovation process. Interaction with these actors may occur formally (i.e. through a collaboration agreement) or informally (i.e. external actors acts as sources of information). We analyze the reasons why firms consider it to be important to develop formal and informal external linkages in the innovation process by looking at the role played by firms’ innovative strategies and by taking into account the possibility that a complementarity or substitutive relationship might exist between formal and informal linkages. Data are from the Third Community Innovation Survey (CIS 3), where we have access to firm level micro-data from Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and the UK.     

Abatement and Allocation in the Pilot Phase of the EU ETS

We use historical industrial emissions data to assess the level of abatement and over-allocation that took place across European countries during the pilot phase (2005–2007) of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme. Using a dynamic panel data model, we estimate the counter factual (business-as-usual) emissions scenario for EU member states. Comparing this baseline to allocated and verified emissions, we find that both over-allocation and abatement occurred, along with under-allocation and emissions inflation. Over the three trading years of the pilot phase we find over-allocation of approximately 280 million EUAs and total abatement of 247 Mt CO₂. However, we calculate that emissions inflation of approximately 73 Mt CO₂ also occurred, possibly due to uncertainty about future policy design features.     

Do interest groups affect US immigration policy?

While anecdotal evidence suggests that interest groups play a key role in shaping immigration policy, there is no systematic empirical analysis of this issue. In this paper, we construct an industry-level dataset for the United States, by combining information on the number of temporary work visas with data on lobbying activity associated with immigration. We find robust evidence that both pro- and anti-immigration interest groups play a statistically significant and economically relevant role in shaping migration policy across sectors. Barriers to migration are lower in sectors in which business interest groups incur larger lobbying expenditures and higher in sectors where labor unions are more important.