Entrepreneurial ecosystem research: present debates and future directions

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - The purpose of this article is to review the emerging research on entrepreneurial ecosystem and to guide future research into this promising...     

Technology diffusion theory revisited: a regulation,environment, strategy,technology model for technology activation analysis of mobile ICT

Theory on the diffusion of mobile information and communication technology (ICT) is mainly focused on technology diffusion, while prerequisites to such diffusion are largely disregarded or taken for granted. Moreover, few constructs for the assessment of technology diffusion take into account the inherent link between technology and strategy analysis. This study proposes that analysing what comes prior to diffusion and use of technology – here defined as ‘technology activation’ – is equally important, so as to identify external, not user-related determinants that enable or hinder a value proposition based on the new technology. To fill the existing gap and extend technology diffusion theory upstream, the limitations of the technology–organisation–environment model and of other technology diffusion models are reviewed, together with external strategy analysis models, and an original model is proposed to address four macro-determinants that affect technology activation: Regulation, environment, strategy, technology (REST). The REST model is then applied to the Italian mobile location-based services market, to qualitatively validate its comprehensiveness. Conclusions are drawn on the opportunities to extend the mobile technology diffusion analysis process upstream, and to integrate technology analysis with existing research on strategy analysis, thus providing new momentum to mainstream research on innovation diffusion.     

Climate Change and Adaptation: The Case of Nigerian Agriculture

The present research offers an economic assessment of climate change impacts on the four major crop families characterizing Nigerian agriculture. The evaluation is performed by shocking land productivity in a computable general equilibrium model tailored to replicate Nigerian economic development up to 2050. The detail of land uses in the model has been increased by differentiating land types per agro-ecological zones. Uncertainty about future climate is captured, using, as inputs, yield changes computed by a crop model under ten general circulation models runs. Climate change turns out to be negative for Nigeria in the medium term, with production losses and increase in crop prices, higher food dependency on foreign imports, and GDP losses in all the simulations after 2025. In a second part of the paper, a cost effectiveness analysis of adaptation in Nigerian agriculture is conducted. The adaptation practices considered are a mix of cheaper “soft measures” and more costly “hard” irrigation expansion. The main result is that the cost effectiveness of the whole package depends crucially on the possibility of implementing adaptation by exploiting low-cost opportunities which show a benefit-cost ratio larger than one in all the climate regimes.     

eBusiness applications in SMEs of Italian industrial districts: the textile and wood/furniture cases

The paper presents the results of a study dealing with the adoption of eBusiness applications in two Italian industrial districts: the textile district in Como and the wood/furniture district in the area of Brianza. These two districts are part of important “made in Italy” industries, with a high volume of worldwide exports. The goal of the paper is to show how Internet technology is changing the behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in these two local (but with worldwide relevance) districts and to understand how the potential benefits and constraints for SMEs pointed out in several literature contributions are really acting in these districts.

Non-causality in bivariate binary time series

In this paper we develop a dynamic discrete-time bivariate probit model, in which the conditions for Granger non-causality can be represented and tested. The conditions for simultaneous independence are also worked out. The model is extended in order to allow for covariates, representing individual as well as time heterogeneity. The proposed model can be estimated by Maximum Likelihood. Granger non-causality and simultaneous independence can be tested by Likelihood Ratio or Wald tests. A specialized version of the model, aimed at testing Granger non-causality with bivariate discrete-time survival data is also discussed. The proposed tests are illustrated in two empirical applications.     

Incremental Cost in the Convention on Biological Diversity

The Convention on Biological Diversity stipulates the principle of incremental cost for the international financing of biodiversity conservation. The international debate about the exact meaning of the concept and about its practical application focuses on the issues of baseline determination and treatment of incremental domestic benefits. This paper uses some standard tools of partial equilibrium demand analysis to illustrate theoretical solutions to the indeterminacy of the Convention. The allocation of resources resulting from an incremental cost scheme is compared with a 'domestic optimum', and with a hypothetical 'global optimum'. Regarding the behaviour of the country hosting biodiversity, a distinction is proposed between 'quantity-' and 'transfer-' taking behaviour. The issue of price distortions in the baseline is also addressed. It is shown that both the host country (H) and the Rest of the World (ROW) will have incentives for agreeing on a transfer of resources that entails only partial deduction of domestic incremental benefits. This transfer, despite failing to reach the utilitarian global optimum, still represents a Pareto improvement over the pre-convention status quo. By imposing a particular multiplicative functional form on the utility of both host and ROW, additional results can be obtained. In particular, the optimal transfer implies a clawback factor decreasing with relative income differentials, and incremental cost financing dominates the domestic optimum even when price distortions are present in the host country. If removal of price distortions is a precondition for incremental cost funding, the analysis illustrates the magnitude of incentives necessary for the host to give up the distorted baseline.