Joint ventures in patent contests with spillovers and the role of strategic budgeting

We consider an R&D contest between n firms in the presence of external spillovers. Our analysis focuses on the effects of these spillovers on joint venture activities between firms. In particular, we are interested in how different budget responsibilities within the research joint venture (RJV) affect profits of firms taking part in the joint venture and profits of their non-cooperating rival firms. Three arrangements for RJVs are analyzed: First, cooperation, in which the firms participating in the joint venture completely share the research they create in the innovation process and each firm has a sovereign budget responsibility. Second, a collusive arrangement in which the participating firms not only share their research but have joint budget responsibilities in the sense that they make all strategic choices cooperatively and maximize joint profits. Third, a hierarchical form, in which the cooperating firms establish joint headquarters which have strategic budget responsibility in the sense that it can strategically subsidize R&D efforts of its member firms so as to maximize overall RJV profits. We show that the first two arrangements can be mimiced in the hierarchical structure and that a hierarchical structure is optimal if it completely subsidizes its members’ R&D activities. In this case all rival firms are driven out of the contest.     

Financial intermediaries,ownership structure and the provision of venture capital to SMEs: evidence from Japan

This paper examines how the provision of venture capital to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) is influenced by the ownership structure of the venture capital provider. We introduce a new and unique dataset from the Japanese venture capital market, comprising data on investment and venture capital activities of 127 Japanese venture capital funds. The data allow us to provide a direct comparison of the behaviour of individual owner-manager venture capitalists versus financial intermediation (e.g., bank’s venture capital divisions). The data indicate owner-manager venture capitalists (financial disintermediation) give rise to much smaller portfolios of SMEs and more advice to entrepreneurs. Across the scope of different financial intermediation structures, including banks, life insurance companies, securities firms, corporations and government bodies, there are further differences in the provision of governance and value-added advice provided to SMEs. Also, the data indicate US-affiliated funds in Japan are more likely to have smaller portfolios and tend to provide more advice to SMEs.

The role of venture capital in financing small business

Venture capital is a primary and unique source of funding for small firms because these firms (with sales and/or assets under $5 million) have very limited access to traditional capital markets. Venture capital is a substitute, but not a perfect substitute, for trade credit, bank credit, and other forms of financing for small firms. Small businesses are not likely to be successful in attracting venture capital unless the firms have the potential to provide extraordinary returns to the venture capitalist.This study provides an analysis of a survey of venture capital firms that participate in small business financing. The survey participants are venture capital firms that were 1986 members of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), the largest venture capital association in the United States.The average size of the venture capital firms responding to the survey is $92 million dollars in assets, with a range from $600 thousand to $500 million. Twenty-three percent of the respondents have total assets below $20 million, and 27% have assets above $100 million.The venture capitalists' investment (assets held) in small firms delineate the supply of venture capital to small firms. Sixty-three of the 92 venture capitalists' have more than 70% of their assets invested in small firms.The venture capitalists were asked how their investment plans might change with changes in the tax law that were projected in the spring of 1986. Fifty-four percent expected to increase their investments in small firms, and 38% did not expect to change these activities.Venture capitalists are very selective in allocating their resources. The average number of annual requests that a venture capitalist receives is 652, and the median number is 500: only 11.5 of the respondents receive more than 1,000 proposals per year.     

基于资源基础观的中外合资企业绩效研究

根据资源基础观,中外合资企业建立的基本动因是为了克服各自资源限制而获得互补性资源。中外企业之间资源的互补性决定了合资企业资源的独特性,也决定了合资企业潜在的竞争优势和潜在绩效。在将合资企业潜在竞争优势和潜在绩效转化为现实竞争优势和现实绩效的过程中,母公司对资源的控制具有重要作用,资源控制的合理安排不仅有利于母公司独特资源向合资企业的有效转移,而且有利于资源在合资企业中价值创造功能的有效实现。     

The Determinants of the Location of Foreign Direct Investment by Japanese Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Japanese manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have actively undertaken Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Asia since the mid-1980s. FDI contributes to economic growth of the FDI recipient countries, as it brings in not only financial resources for investment but also technologies and managerial know-how, which are important factors for promoting economic growth. Recognizing these benefits of receiving FDI, policy makers in developing countries have formulated various strategies to attract FDI. This paper examines the factors in the host countries that would attract FDI by Japanese SMEs. Our results show the importance of both supply-side and demand-side factors in the recipient countries for attracting FDI by Japanese SMEs. Supply-side factors include abundance of low-wage labor, availability of well-developed infrastructure, and good governance of the host government, while an important demand-side factor is the presence of sizable local market. In addition, Japanese SMEs regard industrial agglomeration, which has a element of both supply and demand factors, as an important factors making FDI decision. Supply-side factors are found to be important for attracting Japanese FDI in developing countries, while demand-factors play a role in attracting Japanese FDI in developed countries. A comparison of the results for SMEs to those for large firms reveals that SMEs are more sensitive to the conditions in the host countries in making their FDI decision. In particular, SMEs regard the availability of low-wage labor, well-developed infrastructure, and industrial agglomeration as important elements much more than large firms. High sensitivity of SMEs to local economic conditions in their decision on FDI location may be explained by their limited availability of financial and human resources and high dependence on overseas production in their business. In light of these findings, we conclude that countries interested in hosting FDI have to provide a very attractive business environment.     

Marketing in Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs): The State of the Art in a Chinese Socialist Economy

This paper adopts the context-embedded approach to examine the marketing practices of 307 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the People’’s Republic of China by comparing the survey findings with that of Hong Kong and Guangdong SMEs. Chinese SMEs focus on regional markets to avoid direct competition with Hong Kong SMEs in the international markets and also their Guangdong counterparts in the turbulent nationwide market. To market their own brands, Chinese SMEs have to analyze the market and use superior marketing strategies in the competitive markets. Chinese SMEs do not attain the superior competitive positions as that of their Guangdong counterparts, but they use customer satisfaction surveys and claims investigation to help develop excellence in product performance. Also, Chinese SMEs have to provide value-added products and services and also a well-rounded marketing competitive strategy to gain market shares. The traditional state-owned enterprise structure in China facilitates the development of hierarchical organizational structure and joint decision making process. Thus, care should be taken in assuming that marketing tools and techniques are equally applicable across all places, even in similar cultural contexts. Socio-cultural influences and mediating environmental factors should be considered when attempting to understand the marketing practices of Chinese small firms, specifically when China is in transition to a socialist market economy.     

SME foreign market entry mode choice and foreign venture performance: The moderating effect of international experience and product adaptation

Firms’ foreign market entry mode choice attracts considerable research attention. However, the performance implications of this choice remain inconclusive, particularly in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The present paper draws on the resource-based view (RBV) and develops a theoretical model specifically tailored to the context of SMEs in order to study the relationship between entry mode choice and foreign venture performance. Testing hypotheses on 133 German SMEs, we show that international experience as a resource and product adaptation as a capability improve the performance of non-equity entry modes by mitigating liabilities of smallness inherent to SMEs. We furthermore find empirical support for the joint moderating effect of international experience and product adaptation on the focal relation. Our findings contribute to the SME foreign market entry mode literature and have implications for practitioners and future research.     

Open innovation practices in SMEs and large enterprises

Few studies on open innovation (OI) address OI practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and how their use of OI and the resulting benefits differ from those of large enterprises. The lack of resources in SMEs to engage in looking outward is said to be a barrier to OI, but at the same time this shortage is cited as a motive for looking beyond organisational boundaries for technological knowledge. We investigate how OI dimensions impact the innovative performance of SMEs in comparison to large companies. The key finding is that the effects of OI practices in SMEs often differ from those in large firms. SMEs are more effective in using different OI practices simultaneously when they introduce new products on the market, whereas this is less the case for large firms. Turnover from new products in SMEs is driven by intellectual property protection mechanisms, while large firms in this case benefit more from their search strategies.     

Strategic Interactions,Bargaining Power and Stability of Joint Venture in an Emerging Nation

We model strategic interaction between a domestic firm and a foreign firm involved in a joint venture, incorporating negotiations over equity shares and its implications for stability in the context of an emerging country. The foreign firm has superior technology, whereas the domestic firm has better local market knowledge. Modelling simultaneous innovation effort and bargaining power over equity share, we provide a rationale for the stability of the joint venture. We find that a certain level of technological knowledge can empower the bargaining power under certain parameter configurations and assumptions, such that the firms will negotiate to agree over their equity shares and maintain the joint venture. In this context, the stability of the joint venture is always an expected outcome. We have also shown that the domestic firm’s bargaining power and knowledge acquisition directly affect the domestic firm’s R&D effort and threaten the stability of the JV. We try to justify a probable situation where the firms may negotiate hard over equity shares but still maintain the joint venture.

     

The structure of the investment networks of venture capital firms

Venture capital firms are linked together in a network by their joint investments in portfolio companies. Through connections in that network, they exchange resources with one another. The most important of those resources are the opportunity to invest in a portfolio company (good investment prospects are always scarce), the spreading of financial risk, and the sharing of knowledge. All venture capitalists operate in very uncertain environments, none more so than the one confronting high innovative venture capitalists, HIVCs,¹ that specialize in investing in high innovative technology companies. The most uncertain of all their investments is a high-technology start-up with nothing more than a product in the head of the founder. There is uncertainty about the talent of the entrepreneur, the market need for the product, the development of a saleable product, the raising of second-round financing for working capital and expansion; the manufacturing of the product, competitors' responses, and government policies such as capital gains tax and ERISA rules, to name some of the major components. It is a formidable list. Indeed, it is hard to name a segment of any other industry that bears more uncertainty than HIVCs.A venture capital firm copes with uncertainty by gathering information. This research shows that the amount of coinvesting by a firm depends on the degree of uncertainty it faces. The greater the uncertainty, the greater the degree of coinvesting.By examining how venture capital firms were connected by their joint investments, it was found that the top 21 HIVCs comprise a tightly coupled network. And of that group, none is more tightly bound than the nine HIVCs located in California. In contrast, the group of top 21 firms that invest mainly in low innovative technology companies, LIVCs, is more loosely bound. HIVCs are more tightly bound together because they shoulder more uncertainty and therefore have a greater need to share information with one another.The practical implications of this study are as follows: Venture Capitalists. It is vital to be well-connected to other venture capital firms. They are important sources of information and investment opportunities. For HIVCs, the California group is central in the network, so links to them are valuable. Communications in a tightly coupled system are swift, so it is likely that information is disseminated very quickly among members of the group. It probably facilitates the setting of a market rate for venture capital. A disadvantage of a tightly bound system is that information flowing among the members has a redundancy and sameness about it, so to ensure a supply of fresh information, members should have as many links as possible to other organizations and individuals besides venture capitalists. Entrepreneurs. When entrepreneurs submit a proposal for funding to venture capital firms, they can assume that news will spread fast to other firms. Thus, they should not use a bird-shot approach; rather, they should select their targets with rifle precision. The proposal should be submitted to a few firms that are known to specialize in the type of product or service that the entrepreneur is planning to make. Entrepreneurs should be concerned about more than the price of the deal. When the top 61 firms invest in a portfolio company, they bring information, contacts, and “deep pockets” to the companies in which they invest. Those factors are significant in nurturing a growing company. Policy Makers. The networks of HIVCs and UVCs are quite different. The HIVCs cluster around oases of high-technology entrepreneurship in the northeast and California, whereas the LIVCs are more evenly spread throughout the U.S.A. HIVCs are located almost exclusively in the so-called “bi-coastal regions of prosperity.”This study found cliques among the venture capital firms. But it found no evidence that the top 61 firms exclude other venture capital firms from their coinvestments of first-rounds of capital. More research is needed before conclusions can be drawn about the power and influence of the top firms. Researchers. In a recent article, Granovetter (1985) suggests that if we are to explain economic behavior, we must understand the networks in which transactions are embedded. This research shows that the networks formed by the syndicated coinvestments of venture capital firms may help us to explain their behavior. A general model for coinvestment networks that is developed in this article is applicable to analysis of syndicated coinvestments not only of venture capital firms, but of investors and lenders in general.     

The determinants of foreign partner's equity ownership in Southeast Asian joint ventures

Using a sample of 375 equity joint venture agreements between 2 partners in 6 Southeast Asian countries, we document the active role of Asian companies in driving the flow of joint venture activity in this region and provide a comparative analysis of joint ventures in transitional and non-transitional Southeast Asian countries. Specifically, we analyze the relationship between the foreign partner's equity ownership and partner uncertainty, the types of joint venture activities, and the frequency of transactions between the joint venture partners. In addition, we show that the relationship between the foreign partner's equity ownership and partner uncertainty, as proxied by cultural dissimilarity, depends on the types of joint venture activities. In the case of Vietnam, a transitional economy, the evidence suggests that, in the presence of a weak legal and regulatory system, foreign firms are entering the country on a smaller scale and are more prone to informal, relational contracting as a substitute for legal enforcement.     

Rapid internationalization of traditional SMEs: Between gradualist models and born globals

Within the last 20 years, a number of traditional small-medium enterprises (SMEs) have accelerated their international commitment by investing in distant countries despite limited market knowledge, limited use of networks, and limited international experience of the entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to draw research attention to this phenomenon and to compliment the existing literature on internationalization process of SMEs.We argue that traditional SMEs are able to speed up their internationalization process by, thus, rapidly catching up with the increasing global competition. The peculiar path followed by SMEs is described by analyzing five case firms and explained by contrasting to the leading literature. The empirical evidence suggests that specific strategic focus (as opposed to knowledge-intensity, international network, and international experience) is the determinant success aspect of the change in the internationalization process.     

Unraveling the IJV Rationale in Emerging Markets: The Case of Multinational Enterprises in the Russian Construction Industry

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the role of international joint venture strategy of five multinational enterprises in the Russian construction market. Joint ventures play a crucial and specific role for these firms’ strategy in Russia: They serve both as an entry mode and a postentry strategy; facilitate business and guide foreign investors; increase efficiency for further strategy; and help international construction firms overcome the environmental deficiencies. Findings of the article bolster the theory by stressing the facilitating effect of joint venture upon challenges and problems that Western firms meet in emerging market in contrast with more developed economies.     

Innovation capacity,international experience and export performance of SMEs in Brazil

Innovation capacity and international experience are factors often related to the internationalisation process of firms, with export activities as the first stage of the process. However, firms from emerging countries seem to show advantages and follow patterns of international expansion that may differ from firms based in developed countries, where the internationalisation models were created. Specifically, exporting firms from emerging countries tend to have limited resources, especially small firms (e.g., for investing in R&D). Despite these facts, the literature on export performance seems biased towards recommending firms to enhance, above all, their innovation capacity in order to achieve better export performance, while little attention is paid to international experience as a factor that is as important as innovation. In this context, the objective of this study is to investigate the impact of innovation capacity and international experience on the export performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) located in an emerging country and to identify which factor is more significant. The Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities approach were used as theoretical frameworks. A research model was developed and tested on a significant sample of Brazilian industrial SMEs. The data were analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results indicate that international experience has a greater impact on export performance than innovation capacity, showing that there is possibility of overemphasising the role of innovation in the export performance of SMEs, at least, in the Brazilian context.     

Partnering strategies and performance of SMEs' international joint ventures

The international joint venture (IJV) is an important mode in the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Internationalization in turn is an entrepreneurial behavior in the pursuit of growth. Partnering strategies in the formation of IJVs can have significant effects on the outcome of SMEs' international expansion. In this study, we examine the performance implications of two types of resources contributed by SMEs' IJV partners, host country knowledge and size-based resources. We develop and test three sets of hypotheses about the longevity and financial performance of a sample of 1117 international joint ventures established in 43 countries by 614 Japanese SMEs that have fewer than 500 employees. Our findings indicate that SMEs' IJVs with local partner(s) may be associated with decreases in longevity, especially when SMEs acquire host country knowledge. The host country experience of Japanese partner(s) does not have any direct effects on IJV profitability but reduces the longevity of IJVs. Finally, the size of Japanese partner(s) increases the longevity of IJVs but may have negative effects on IJV profitability when large Japanese partners have low equity ownership in IJVs. Our findings highlight the differential effects that IJV partners' experience-based and size-based resources have on IJV performance. Our findings also demonstrate that the same strategy could have different effects on different dimensions of performance.     

International versus domestic entrepreneurship: New venture strategic behavior and industry structure

International entrepreneurship is defined in this study as the development of international new ventures or start-ups that, from their inception, engage in international business, thus viewing their operating domain as international from the initial stages of the firm's operation.One hundred and eighty-eight new venture firms in the computer and communications equipment manufacturing industries are classified according to the percentage of their sales in the international market. Ventures with no sales derived from international activities are considered “domestic” new ventures, and ventures with sales from international activities comprising greater than 5% of total sales are considered “international” new ventures.The strategy and industry structure profiles of international new ventures are significantly different from domestic new ventures. The internationals pursue much broader market-based strategies, seeking a strategy of broad market coverage through developing and controlling numerous distribution channels, serving numerous customers in diverse market segments, and developing high market or product visibility. The internationals also emphasize a more aggressive entry strategy, building on outside financial and production resources to enter numerous geographical markets on a large scale. Securing patent technology is also an important component of their strategy. This suggests that the internationals compete by entering the industry on a large scale, seeking to penetrate multiple markets, with the recognition that external resources are necessary to support such an entry.Whereas both the domestics and the internationals characterize domestic competition as being relatively intense, the international new ventures compete in industries with higher levels of international competition. It is not clear from this research whether the new venture selects an industry with a high degree of international competition and therefore responds with an international orientation or, because the new venture has an international orientation, it perceives or recognizes a higher degree of international competition. Another industry structure difference is the internationals' perceived higher degree of restrictiveness due to government regulation. It is unclear whether this restrictiveness motivates new ventures to seek less-regulated international environments or if it indicates that when competing internationally, the new venture is confronted with increased regulatory requirements.Domestic new ventures are distinguished by their emphasis on a production expansion strategy and customer specialization strategy. The production specialization strategy consists of focusing on limited geographical markets, maintaining excess capacity, and pursuing forward integration. The customer specialization strategy incorporates the production of a specialty product that is purchased infrequently. Thus, for both of the domestic strategies, a consistent “closeness” between the producer and consumer is implied. This may be an important basis underlining the new venture's decision to compete in an exclusive domestic context.This study offers initial support for the notion of international entrepreneurship by its findings that there are significant differences between new venture firms competing domestically and new ventures choosing to also enter international markets.     

Agency costs,institutions, learning,and taxation in venture capital contracting

This paper introduces a data set on forms of finance used in 12,363 Canadian and US venture capital (VC) and private equity financings of Canadian entrepreneurial firms from 1991 to 2003. The data comprise different types of venture capital institutions, including corporate, limited partnership, government, and labour-sponsored funds as well as US funds that invest in Canadian entrepreneurial firms. Unlike prior work with US venture capitalists financing US entrepreneurial firms, the data herein indicate that convertible preferred equity has never been the most frequently used form of finance for either US or Canadian venture capitalists financing Canadian entrepreneurial firms, regardless of the definition of the term ‘venture capital’. A syndication example and a simple theoretical framework are provided to show the nonrobustness of prior theoretical work on optimal financial contracts in venture capital finance. Multivariate empirical analyses herein indicate that (1) security design is a response to expected agency problems, (2) capital gains taxation affects contracts, (3) there are trends in the use of different contracts which can be interpreted as learning, and (4) market conditions affect contracts.     

Networking and growth of young technology-intensive ventures in China

More often than not, new ventures lack established products, known technologies, longstanding customer relations, experienced managerial teams, sufficient capital, and strong reputations. Almost by definition, small, new firms lack the resources of many larger, established firms. The task of an infant firm, and a measure of its success, is to make a transition from being resource weak to being resource strong.How can resources that are critical for profitable growth be acquired for the resource weak new venture? Researchers have found that entrepreneurs can gain access to valuable resources and they can seek to achieve competitive advantage through “networking activities.” Forming and utilizing available relationships with external organizations can allow entrepreneurs to build credibility, gain advice, financing, and customer access, build a positive image and obtain resources at below-market prices, and obtain channel access, information, and innovations. Business relationships with other organizations allow an entrepreneur to achieve desired business results through “asset parsimony.”A favorable view toward networking for new ventures leaves a number of unanswered questions, however. Relevant research questions might include, who should the entrepreneur seek as a business partner? Are all inter-organizational relationships equal, or are some types more valuable to new ventures than other relationships? Do firms relying on high levels of networking activities actually outperform firms that less actively seek resources through external organizational relationships?The present study provides a specific understanding of the concept of networking for entrepreneurs. We propose that networking can be understood in terms of “range,” the number of external relationships to obtain resources, and of “intensity,” the frequency of contact of and amount of resource obtained from these relationships. This research project evaluates the range and intensity of networking among high-growth and low-growth entrepreneurial ventures.Extensive interviewing with managers of six young technology-oriented firms in the People's Republic of China (PRC) affirmed the importance of entrepreneurial networking. Managers in the three high-growth firms reported greater range and intensity of business networking than did managers of three low-growth firms, matched by industry and age. Moreover, the relationship between networking activities and growth transcended the stage of firm development.Where networking range and intensity are deemed important in the growth process, new venture success may call for entrepreneurs to reach out deliberately to external organizations to capture needed resources. To a certain extent, such networking activities run counter to important entrepreneurial motivations of independence and autonomy. The concept of networking, and the results of this study, imply that entrepreneurs need to combine the spirit of independence with the reality of resource dependence, and they need to balance personal autonomy with strategic business relationships.This study also contributes to the understanding of entrepreneurship in our increasingly global economy, particularly in the PRC. Business relationships between the United States and the PRC have been expanding rapidly in the last decade. Many foreign businesses seek license agreements, joint venture partners, equity participation, or channel relationships with young ventures in that country. Do the same rules of networking apply in the PRC as the literature suggests apply in the United States? New ventures in this study were found to engage in processes of networking activities consistent with those in the West. Although networking activities may have different cultural roots, firm success appeared influenced by the same principles of networking.     

Incremental impact of venture capital financing

This paper investigates the differences in the return generating process of venture capital (VC)-backed firms and their peers that operate without VC financing. Using a unique hand-picked database of 990 VC-backed Belgian firms and a complete population of Belgian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we focus on the extent to which the presence of a VC investor affects the sensitivity of a firm’s returns to the changes in the capital structure, in the operating cycle, and in the industry dynamics. The differences may stem from the (self-) selection of better companies into VC portfolios, from the venture capitalists’ (VCs) value-adding activities, and/or from both. We examine these factors in the context of a complex simulation procedure which allows separating selection from value-adding when traditional approaches are difficult to implement. Our results indicate that VC-backed firms are able to extract more rent from the changing industry conditions and from the optimizations in their capital structure. The presence of VCs in the firm’s equity seems to have only a marginal effect on the operating cycle efficiency. Overall, the results are suggestive of the value-adding being the main driver of the VC-backed firm’s performance.     

SMEs,foreign direct investment and financial constraints: The case of Belgium

This paper explores the problems experienced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with international ambitions in gaining access to debt and equity finance for foreign direct investment (FDI) projects. We develop several arguments for why such small businesses are expected to face severe financing constraints for foreign investments and provide an explorative empirical study with both the demand and supply side of FDI finance. We have interviewed thirty-two Belgian SMEs that carry out FDI, five banks and five venture capitalists. Based on the SME discussions, we have composed a questionnaire that was sent to the interviewed SMEs. The information problems and lack of collateral that often characterize international investment, the home bias of financiers and the capital gearing method used by banks to evaluate small firms’ foreign projects give rise to financial constraints for SMEs’ FDI projects. The reported finance gap hinders small firms’ (international) development and leads to suboptimal home and FDI host country development.