Patent breadth as effective barrier to market entry

Firms protecting their invention by a patent have the legal right to exclude competitors from using the patented matter. However, despite patent protection, competitors could enter the market by ‘inventing around’. Provided that inventing around becomes more difficult the broader a patent is, the strength of protection against market entry increases in patent breadth. Building on a theoretical benchmark formalizing the relationship between varying patent breadth and the threat of market entry, our empirical analysis supports the prediction that inventors perceive broad patents as effective market entry barriers.     

Voluntary disclosure of financial information by French firms: Does the introduction of IFRS matter?

This paper addresses the relationship between mandatory and voluntary information. The introduction of IFRS in 2005 modified mandatory information requirements and influenced the content and level of the discretionary information disclosed by firms. This background allows us to test whether the complementary or substitution hypothesis dominates. A French firm data panel is used to empirically analyze the consequence of IFRS introduction. Referring to the 2003–2008 period gives a long-term perspective and allows us to identify discretionary communication policies by building a proprietary voluntary disclosure score. We find that voluntary disclosure policies experienced an upward swing with the introduction of IFRS, giving support to the complementary hypothesis. We also demonstrate a dynamic relationship between disclosure and the dispersion of analysts' earnings forecasts. The practical implication of the paper is to show that firms' discretionary communication policies follow both a long-term and a short-term component to meet analysts' demands for information. Our contribution is to refer to a long-term sample in one country where the environment and regulation context is homogenous. Our disclosure score index seems to be a good measure to outline that idiosyncratic communication policies are complex and strategic.     

Do venture capitalists give founders their walking papers?

We investigate the impact of venture capitalists on the turnover of executives within a sample of nearly 46,500 German high-tech start-up companies founded between 1995 and 2004. We confirm that the presence of VCs increases the chances that the company will change the structure of its initial executive team. For the purposes of our analysis, we distinguish between different types of changes (somebody is replaced, the team is enlarged, the team shrinks). Additionally, we take a closer look at the subsample of venture-backed companies. We find that a small distance between the VCs and the companies they finance, as well as a larger total stake in the company owned by the VCs, goes hand-in-hand with an increased probability of changes in the initial executive teams.     

Decomposing differences in health and inequality using quasi-objective health indices

People in Canada and the United States often make claims regarding whose country has a better health system. Several researchers have attempted to address this question by analysing subjective health measures in the two countries, thus assuming a common definition of ‘good’ health. Using data from the Joint Canada/US Survey of Health, which provides rich and comparable health information for the two countries, I generate two quasi-objective health indices and show that Canadians and Americans define ‘good’ health differently. After controlling for cross-country reporting heterogeneity, health differences between Americans and Canadians are eliminated for intermediate health statuses, while health differences at the tails of the health distribution lead to slightly better average population health in Canada. With respect to health inequality, my results show that income and education gradients increase steeply with poor health in both countries. Hence, considering differences along the health distribution is crucial when assessing population health or health inequality.     

Strategic foresight for collaborative exploration of new business fields

To ensure long-term competitiveness, companies need to develop the ability to explore, plan, and develop new business fields. A suitable approach faces multiple challenges because it needs to (1) integrate multiple perspectives, (2) ensure a high level of participation of the major stakeholders and decision-makers, (3) function despite a high level of uncertainty, and (4) take into account interdependencies between the influencing factors. In this paper, we present an integrated approach that combines multiple strategic-foresight methods in a synergetic way. It was applied in an inter-organizational business field exploration project in the telecommunications industry.