Innovation in R&D service firms: evidence from the UK

Research and Development (R&D) service firms make significant contributions to innovation in other businesses. The extant literature considers these firms a homogenous sub-group of Knowledge Intensive Business Service firms (KIBS). The objective of this study is to investigate how R&D service firms innovate and the variety of innovation practices within these firms. Employing data from semi-structured interviews with senior managers from 32 UK-based R&D service firms, we suggest that there are two different modes of innovation: in the first mode, R&D service firms innovate similarly to KIBS whose innovation is ad-hoc in nature and driven by customers’ requests; another group of R&D service firms innovate like New Technology-based Firms (NTBFs) relying more on structured in-house R&D activities.     

Management Efficiency in Football: An Empirical Analysis of Two Extreme Cases

Analysis of managerial efficiency in sport economics typically focuses on evaluating coach decisions instead of assessing the organization as a whole. This paper studies the relative importance of variables related to power and managerial decisions by estimating stochastic production frontiers models for the Chilean and Italian football leagues. We find that historical and geographical variables intended to capture market size play their expected roles in both Italy and Chile. However, the degree of technical inefficiency is lower magnitude in Chile. This difference could be due to a smaller market size and/or to financial constraints faced by small clubs in this country. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Capital structure,equity ownership and firm performance

This paper investigates the relationship between capital structure, ownership structure and firm performance using a sample of French manufacturing firms. We employ non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods to empirically construct the industry’s ‘best practice’ frontier and measure firm efficiency as the distance from that frontier. Using these performance measures we examine if more efficient firms choose more or less debt in their capital structure. We summarize the contrasting effects of efficiency on capital structure in terms of two competing hypotheses: the efficiency-risk and franchise-value hypotheses. Using quantile regressions we test the effect of efficiency on leverage and thus the empirical validity of the two competing hypotheses across different capital structure choices. We also test the direct relationship from leverage to efficiency stipulated by the Jensen and Meckling (1976) agency cost model. Throughout this analysis we consider the role of ownership structure and type on capital structure and firm performance.     

The Role of Professional Codes in Regarding Ethical Conduct

This paper investigates the regulation of ethical behavior of professionals. Ethical perceptions of South African professionals operating in the business community (specifically accountants, lawyers and engineers) concerning their need for and awareness of professional codes, and the frequency and acceptability of peer contravention of such codes were sought. The existence of conflict between corporate codes and professional codes was also investigated. Results, based on 217 replies, indicated that the professionals believe that codes are necessary and are relatively aware of the contents of such codes. Despite these ethical tendencies, respondents (particularly lawyers) believe that their peers contravene their professional codes relatively often. No significant differences in ethical tendencies between professionals consulting to and those working in business were found. Many respondents were regulated by more than one code of ethics, but few experienced conflict between such codes. In the events of conflict occurring professionals chose to adhere to their professional code above others.     

Estimating demand with distance functions: Parameterization in the primal and dual

Our purpose is to investigate the ability of different parametric forms to ‘correctly’ estimate consumer demands based on distance functions using Monte Carlo methods. Our approach combines economic theory, econometrics and quadratic approximation. We begin by deriving parameterizations for transformed quadratic functions which are linear in parameters and characterized by either homogeneity or which satisfy the translation property. Homogeneity is typical of Shephard distance functions and expenditure functions, whereas translation is characteristic of benefit/shortage or directional distance functions. The functional forms which satisfy these conditions and include both first- and second-order terms are the translog and quadratic forms, respectively. We then derive a primal characterization which is homogeneous and parameterized as translog and a dual model which satisfies the translation property and is specified as quadratic. We assess functional form performance by focusing on empirical violations of the regularity conditions. Our analysis corroborates results from earlier Monte Carlo studies on the production side suggesting that the quadratic form more closely approximates the ‘true’ technology or in our context consumer preferences than the translog.     

Slotting Fees for Organic Retail Products: Evidence From a Survey of U.S. Food Retailers

Based on a survey of U.S. food retailers, our study finds that almost one third of U.S. food retailers charge slotting fees for certified organic food products, a retailing area where slotting fees had not previously been well documented. Econometric results from both ordered response and binary response models suggest that a number of firm-level attributes do influence the presence and/or relative size of organic slotting fees in a manner that is mostly consistent with an economic efficiency rationale and partly consistent with a market power/strategic behavior rationale for slotting fees.