Network capability,innovativeness, and performance: a multidimensional extension for entrepreneurship

Abstract

Small- and start-up firms in the high-tech industry usually engage in networking to overcome resource, knowledge, and competence constraints in creative, innovation-based competition. Quite often, however, network relationships fail due to lack of network capability (NC), defined as the ability to manage and gain benefits from external relationships. In the present study, we propose and examine an updated five-dimension NC construct and test its effect on innovativeness and performance. Two independent high-tech samples of small firms and start-ups support measurement properties of the proposed NC construct and suggest that the often-overlooked dimension in NC research of network relationship building is important to include in a complete NC construct. Doing so can help explain organizational innovativeness and effects on the customer, sales, and innovation performance more effectively. As a result, we find support for the proposed NC scale and the importance of network capabilities for small companies and start-ups to remain competitive.     

Global mindset and the internationalization of small firms: The importance of the characteristics of entrepreneurs

Despite being a relatively new concept, the importance of the global mindset is already well-documented. So far research has primarily focused on multinational companies and therefore the operationalization of the concept is still a work in progress. Recognizing the importance of entrepreneurs in small companies, yet mindful of the gaps that exist, this paper addresses the factors that constitute the global mindset and their influence on the internationalization of small Portuguese companies. Using information-processing theory through a quantitative, survey-based study and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the results show the importance of the characteristics of both entrepreneurs and firms in explaining the global mindset, and confirm the impact they have on internationalization behavior. The entrepreneur??s level of education, their satisfaction with company performance in the domestic market and the potential for growth in the domestic market all affect the global mindset model. The conclusions are useful for entrepreneurs and national authorities aiming to successfully implement internationalization practices, given the role of the global mindset in exploring global business opportunities and in the global success of companies. Replication of the research in different contexts is essential for the wider generalization of the results.     

Network Resources for Internationalization: The Case of Taiwan's Electronics Firms*

ABSTRACT This paper illustrates foreign direct investment (FDI) as the management of important network relations, using Taiwan's electronics firms as an example. Through FDI, seemingly small and weak firms propel the process of internationalization by making maximum use of external resources to which they have access. FDI often starts at a location close to the home base where support from the domestic networks can be drawn, subsequently moving on to more distant locations after investors have accumulated new network resources. The location chosen is usually an area rich in network resources or in close proximity to such rich networks. FDI enables the investors to construct a regional, or even global, sub‐network under their control to supply a set of wide‐ranging, differentiated and low‐cost products in a flexible fashion, and sometimes within close proximity to the markets. With this capacity for versatility, investors become valuable partners for multinational firms that offer global services.     

Innovation,agile project management and firm performance in a public sector-dominated economy: Empirical evidence from high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises in China

While agile project management has become increasingly important for high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), firm performance varies greatly due to companies’ different degrees of innovation capability and internal and external environmental dynamics. Drawing on the resource-based view – as well as innovation capability and agile project management theories – a comparative analysis was conducted of two high-tech SMEs. The results were used to develop a theoretical model based on six hypotheses. Empirical research was carried out that included measurement of key variables, data collection and analysis, validity and reliability tests, regression analysis, and structural equation modeling, which confirmed five of the six initial hypotheses. The proposed model incorporates different innovation capability roles, considers project agility enhancement of firm performance, and takes into account interactions between companies’ innovation atmosphere and environmental dynamics in a public sector-dominated economy (i.e., China). The results contribute to project agility management’s theoretical development and refinement by presenting new findings on innovation and environmental dynamics. The results also provide guidelines for project agility practices in high-tech SMEs in China, with the potential to improve these firms’ performance. Implications and limitations are also discussed.     

Exploring servant leadership across cultures: comparative study in Australia and Indonesia

Several problematic aspects of women's paid employment - e.g. low pay and lack of promotional opportunities - are exacerbated by the segregation of women and men into different occupations. In this article, the potential of in-store equal opportunities policies to break down such gender segregation will be explored, through consideration of the existence and implementation of these policies in twenty-two multinational retail companies in Dublin and Paris. It will be argued that, with one notable exception, the instore equal opportunities policies are effectively neutralized, and furthermore are neutralized in nationally specific ways which can be related to differences between France and Ireland in the organization of labour-market regulation and in women's labour-force participation (LFP). The case-study findings also suggest that the 'country' variable has a stronger effect on the existence and implementation of these policies than the extent of a shop's links to an overseas headquarters. The findings of this study have implications for both the equity of women's incorporation into the paid labour force and understanding of aspects of HRM in branches of multinational companies.     

TEAMS BETWEEN HIERARCHY AND COMMITMENT: CHANGE STRATEGIES AND THE ‘INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT’*

The main objective of the article is to put forward a broader resource-based view, outlining the influence exercised by the ‘internal environment’on the conception and implementation of teamworking strategies in two multinational automobile companies. While the influence of various external contingent factors — industry, product, technological environment — is often considered in the literature, the role of a firm's internal resources is mostly neglected. the publicity of greenfield-site teamwork arrangements and the concurrent lack of ‘grounded’research has nurtured the idea that within the same industry environment, a best model of teamwork can be identified. One implication of the resource-based view presented here is that a best model of teamwork may have little relevance for many established companies, where the choice to embrace such a model does not exist. the article analyses companies’approaches to accommodating business policy objectives within their existing structural and historical constraints, including traditional modes of control, management style, and company culture. the article thus identifies firm-specific rather than nation-specific variations within the same industry environment.     

The Effect of Cross-Border Group Taxation on Ownership Chains

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the influence of taxation on ownership chains and specifically on the location decision for intermediate holding companies. By examining the effect of the introduction of a cross-border group taxation regime in Austria in 2005 on ownership chains of European multinational firms, I find evidence that foreign parent companies already invested in Austria restructured their ownership chains in order to meet the requirements of the group taxation regime. This effect is larger for foreign parent companies with loss-generating subsidiaries. Collectively, the empirical findings suggest that, when evaluating the effect of cross-border group taxation regimes, companies follow a detailed tax planning strategy that takes tax-base effects into account.     

An unsuccessful initiative to create a buying centre

An organization’s effectiveness depends on its ability to adapt its structures to new situations. This holds crucially true for small companies, constrained by their resources and capacities. The interest of five small local companies for setting up a united buying centre with which respond to the ever-changing market is described. Greater and better knowledge of the potential suppliers’ pool, improved purchasing prices, greater negotiating power, access to more appropriate technology and improved overall operations, all figured amongst the advantages of this initiative. However, despite the apparent importance of these advantages, the study pinpoints a number of obstacles and a range of behavioural traits amongst the members involved that would make the project unfeasible as a tool for achieving them.     

A Comparison of Reporting Lags of Multinational and Domestic Firms

This study examines whether multinational firms report earnings sooner than domestic firms. When compared with domestic firms, the reporting environment and business operations of multinational firms are significantly more complex. There is a greater amount of information asymmetry between managers and shareholders of multinational firms. Therefore, multinational firms potentially face higher monitoring and external financing costs. To reduce these costs, we conjecture that managers of multinational firms take steps to reduce the information asymmetry between shareholders and management by increasing the timeliness (a proxy for relevance) of their earnings reports. Specifically, we expect multinational firms to announce earnings earlier than domestic firms. We separate earnings reporting delay into auditor‐related delay and management's discretionary delay. While test results weakly support the hypothesis that auditors take longer to audit multinational firms, there is strong evidence that managers of multinational firms release their earnings reports sooner than domestic firms.     

Firms’ innovation performance and the role of the metropolitan location. Evidence from the European periphery

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses the role of metropolitan location in explaining firms’ innovation performance while accounting for other internal and external determinants of innovation. Using micro-level dataset and controlling for firm-specific, sector-specific and region-specific features, we identify a nuanced effect of location within metropolitan areas on the innovative performance of companies The results prove to vary for the different measures of innovation output of firms and in particular there is no metropolitan advantage detected for binary self-declared measures of innovations. The advantage is detected for the count-based quantity of innovation measures which is shown to critically depend on the higher performance of metropolitan-based firms in patenting and licencing. The interlinkages between location and firm-size matter and the results are asymmetric with particular benefits arising for micro-firms in their patenting and licencing.     

Knowlege networks for innovation in small Scottish software firms

This paper examines the emergence of small indigenous software companies in Scotland, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the region's socio-economic infrastructure as a foundation for innovative new business ventures. Following a brief review of some of the accepted wisdom on high-tech start-ups and regional economic development the paper provides some background information on the Scottish region, comparing new firms in the software industry with the foreign multinationals that dominate the local IT industry. A framework - the ‘sociotechnical constituencies’ approach - is then proposed that allows the author to examine networks of specialist knowledge that underlie new business development. Agglomeration effects and the influence of ‘clusters’ of complementary types of knowledge, expertise and innovative competencies at the regional level are at the heart of the analysis. The framework is applied to a sample of local firms, looking at how ‘learning’ via sociotechnical networks underlies their evolution. Policy-makers' attempts to boost the region's new business birth rate and promote the hoped-for ‘silicon glen’ effect are viewed in the light of the study's findings.     

物流中心仓库货位优化系统的研究

介绍了什么是货位优化,阐述货位优化技术是如何提高物流中心的操作效率及应用货位优化系统所带来的实际意义,比较了当今国外物流公司已推出的各种货位优化系统之间的区别,提出了开发该系统的基本思路。     

金融危机后中外医疗器械企业的战略选择

医疗器械行业是一个多学科交叉、知识密集、资金密集型的高技术产业。中国医疗器械企业规模小,产业布局呈现地域性,产品层次低,缺乏高端产品,消费者对"中国造"的医疗器械产品持谨慎态度。中国医疗器械市场广阔、需求空间大,医疗体制改革直接形成对国内医疗器械的需求,医疗器械的高端产品需求仍保持高速增长。金融危机后,外资医疗器械企业严控高端技术,继续垄断高端市场,或通过合资联盟形式在华进行本土化布局,或与政府合作开展"公益"活动,提升外企影响力。中国医疗器械企业的战略选择将是通过与外企联盟,缩短获取核心技术的进程,加大自主创新力度,乘机抢占高端市场;依靠成本优势,增加出口地域范围,保持低端产品的优势地位。     

FDI and credit constraints: Firm-level evidence from China

In this paper, we assess the success of the ongoing financial system reforms in China by investigating the extent to which firms are financially constrained. We focus on the role played by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in funding the Chinese corporate sector, and analyze whether incoming foreign investment in China plays an important role in alleviating domestic firms’ credit constraints. Using firm-level data on 1300 domestic companies over the period 2000–2002, we confirm that the development of cross-border relationships with foreign firms helps private domestic firms to bypass both the financial and legal obstacles that they face at home.     

Outsourcing a satisfied and committed workforce: a trucking industry case study

The steady growth of R&;D costs and the increasingly widespread dissemination of information and communication technology over the past decade have resulted in the affirmation of the paradigm of open innovation, which consists in the continual expansion of access to sources of technological innovation outside the firm itself. Industrial companies are, in fact, turning more frequently to collaboration with university departments and other public and private research centers, and there is a notable increase in agreements regarding technological cooperation and the exchange of know-how between companies. In addition, recourse to highly specialized small research companies is on the rise. This is common, for example in the pharmaceutical sector and, more generally, in the area of biotechnological research. Furthermore, we are witnessing the development of the new role of innovation broker. These factors alter the traditional profile of company R&;D structures, within which the role of researchers and technologists often changes. In particular, matrix and network organizational models are on the increase, and the professional figures of ‘integrators of knowledge and expertise’ (T-men) are assuming major importance at the expense of traditional scientists. As a consequence, the model for training and managing scientific personnel tends to change. This model, as it moves away from the prevailing pattern adopted by firms in Anglophone countries, is continually drawing closer, even from a cultural standpoint, to the R&;D management approach found in the Japanese and German companies. The aim of this article is to investigate how the adoption of open innovation has changed the organizational structures of R&;D and altered the methods used in managing its personnel. The results of the study are based on the analysis of four case studies of Italian multinational firms operating in the pharmaceutical, food, specialty chemical, and aerospace industries.     

Human resource management in foreign-owned workplaces: evidence from Australia

Multinational companies have assumed a position of considerable prominence in the Australian economy. Drawing on the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this paper examines the character of human resource management in multinational companies operating in Australia. The findings suggest that investments in the human resource function and the utilization of human resource practices were generally more widespread in foreign-owned than Australian establishments. This was especially the case for workplaces belonging to American and British-owned firms. It is concluded that the more strongly regulated industrial relations environment as well as the legacy of protected domestic markets have not made multinational companies reluctant innovators in human resource management in the Australian context.     

跨国公司子公司治理研究

在经济全球化的今天,跨国公司在境外设立子公司已成为世界各国关注的中心,但同时由于跨国公司自身的特点及子公司的性质使得母子公司间存在着一系列的问题,而这些问题又都主要是源于对跨国公司子公司治理的忽视。对此,从跨国公司子公司的角度出发,探析子公司治理及其治理机制的建构。     

For green or not for green? The effect of cooperation goals and type on environmental performance

Although many scholars have demonstrated that companies engaged in collaborations achieve better environmental performance than other companies, existing studies have not analyzed in depth whether this effect changes considering the characteristics of cooperation. Our paper aims to explore whether collaboration with other companies always has a positive effect on environmental performance or whether it depends on cooperation goals, collaboration type, or company size. Empirical analysis based on a sample of 773 European companies demonstrated that an external source of knowledge is an important way to foster firms' environmental proactivity, especially when environmental goals are shared at the basis of collaboration. Second, we verified that companies involved in JVs with environmental goals achieve greater environmental performance than companies that use M&As to acquire external knowledge. Finally, we demonstrated that it is more important for small companies to be involved in environmental collaboration than larger ones.     

Knowledge-sharing rewards in enterprise social networks: effects of learner types and impact of digitisation

ABSTRACT

The era of total digitisation demands companies to seek innovative approaches in managing digital assets. This paper presents and studies an analytical model of an enterprise social network (ESN) employed by organisations in facilitating knowledge sharing and learning. Exploring the design of reward systems that motivate workers to share knowledge, we focus on how the dominant type of learners (avid or impressionable), the network structure of the ESN, and digitisation affect the reward systems. This research provides valuable insights for practitioners to implement appropriate reward systems to promote knowledge sharing and learning in ESNs.     

Can supplier innovations substitute for internal R&D? A multiple case study from an absorptive capacity perspective

Prior literature suggests that significant internal R&D resources are needed to leverage suppliers for innovation and that external knowledge sources can be used to complement the internal knowledge base. Based on the analysis of four inbound open innovation projects at Fortum, a multinational energy utility company, we argue that companies with low R&D intensity may adopt an alternative approach which aims at substituting – not merely complementing – internal R&D with external innovations. We adopt the absorptive capacity perspective while investigating the cases and focus on four distinct capabilities: acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation. We find that the substitution approach consists of short-term research on new technological areas in order to gain the ability to identify and evaluate alternative technologies, as well as joint business models and operations based on complementary capabilities between the parties. The cases also suggest that the innovation process requires significant collaboration and the buying company's supplier management capabilities may improve the success of inbound open innovation projects of this type.