Firm performance and the political economy of corporate governance: survey evidence for Bulgaria,Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia

Using survey data for 220 traditional manufacturing firms over 7 years of transition and 4 Central Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, we find firms that produced for the EU market under planning consistently outperform those that produced for the CMEA market. Within the previously CMEA market, the best firms were selected to outside privatisation and outperformed insider/state owned firms. Outside privatisation was resisted in EU oriented firms and ownership was found to have no effect on performance. Path dependent demand shocks and political constraints on the sequencing of state firms to private ownership determine the relationship between firm performance and ownership structure during transition.     

Entrepreneurship and Firm Boundaries: The Theory of A Firm

abstract In this paper, we consider how a better understanding of entrepreneurial activities can help explain how firm and industry boundaries change over time and how a more comprehensive understanding of boundary setting can explain where entrepreneurial activities are directed. We start from the premise that while entrepreneurs believe themselves to have superior ideas in one or multiple parts of the value chain, they are characteristically short of cash, and of the ability to convince others to provide it. This premise motivates a simple model in which the entrepreneur has a value‐adding set of ideas for ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ parts of a value chain, as well as for the ways to make these two parts of the value chain work better when joined under unitary control. Assuming that the entrepreneur's objective is to maximize her wealth, we observe that even in the presence of transactional risks or other factors that might make integration preferable to specialization, initial scope depends also on relatively unexplored factors such as (a) how severe the entrepreneur's cash constraint is, and (b) how much value the entrepreneur's ideas add at each part of the value chain. Entrepreneurs will focus on the areas that provide the maximum profit yield per available cash – a criterion which implies that scope choices depend on cash availability and the depth of the demand for the new idea along the value chain. We also note that entrepreneurs make money not only from the operating profits of their firms, but also from the appreciation of the assets the firm has accumulated. This consideration can change the optimal choice of the firms’ boundaries, as entrepreneurs must be sensitive to choosing the segment that will enable them to benefit not only in terms of profit, but also in terms of asset appreciation. We propose that, in the entrepreneurial context especially, it is helpful to focus on the multiple considerations affecting the choice of boundaries for ‘a’ firm – the context faced by an individual entrepreneur – rather than on generic considerations affecting ‘the’ (representative) firm. Scope choices reflect the entrepreneur's own theory of ‘how to make money’.     

Robust games: theory and application to a Cournot duopoly model

In this paper, the robust game model proposed by Aghassi and Bertsimas (Math Program Ser B 107:231–273, 2006) for matrix games is extended to games with a broader class of payoff functions. This is a distribution-free model of incomplete information for finite games where players adopt a robust-optimization approach to contend with payoff uncertainty. They are called robust players and seek the maximum guaranteed payoff given the strategy of the others. Consistently with this decision criterion, a set of strategies is an equilibrium, robust-optimization equilibrium, if each player’s strategy is a best response to the other player’s strategies, under the worst-case scenarios. The aim of the paper is twofold. In the first part, we provide robust-optimization equilibrium’s existence result for a quite general class of games and we prove that it exists a suitable value \(\epsilon \) such that robust-optimization equilibria are a subset of \(\epsilon \)-Nash equilibria of the nominal version, i.e., without uncertainty, of the robust game. This provides a theoretical motivation for the robust approach, as it provides new insight and a rational agent motivation for \(\epsilon \)-Nash equilibrium. In the last part, we propose an application of the theory to a classical Cournot duopoly model which shows significant differences between the robust game and its nominal version.     

Quality-improving R&D and merger policy in a differentiated duopoly: Cournot and Bertrand equilibria

We combine a model of product research and development (R&D) and technological spillover with the concept of technological distance and examine horizontal mergers in a duopolistic market with R&D. The results are fourfold. First, a merger can better encourage R&D investment than the competition case. Second, with a small degree of product differentiation (PD), the merger criterion under the Cournot duopoly is stricter than that of the Bertrand case. By contrast, with a moderate or large degree of PD, the opposite is true. Third, with a small technological distance, a merger should be allowable. Finally, with a small degree of PD and moderate technological distance, a merger should be allowable.     

Environmental R&D and privatization in a mixed duopoly market

The study examines strategic environmental research and development (ER&D) under environmental tax in a mixed duopoly and further analyzes the impact of privatization on it. We show that the environmental tax may not necessarily promote the private (or public) firm's ER&D, and the relative ER&D performance between firms depends on the public firm's environmental attitudes and the tax rate. When the public firm cares much for environment, it can be used as an instrument to correct the private firm's underinvestment (or overinvestment) in ER&D. Moreover, privatization can (cannot) raise both firms' ER&D simultaneously if the tax rate is high (low).     

Hybrid governance and governance performance in industrial purchasing relationships

Hybrid governance arrangements (e.g. joint action, long-term contracting and vertical coordination) feature regularly as an effective response to inter-firm dependence in the literature of business-to-business relationships. However, current empirical work has paid little attention to whether such governance arrangements really do improve governance efficacy and reduce transaction costs. The present study focuses on the governance efficacy of vertical coordination in industrial business-to-business relationships. Building on transaction costs arguments, the author examines whether vertical coordination is an effective means for adapting to inter-firm dependence, realized as the substantial employment of specific assets.Empirical findings from a survey of 170 industrial supplier–buyer relationships demonstrate that when asset specificity reaches a certain level, greater vertical coordination reduces ex post transaction costs significantly. On the other hand, this efficacy pattern is modest or non-existent in relationships with low asset specificity.The research findings support the basic TCA assumption that the performance of hybrid governance arrangements is highly dependent on a situation of substantial inter-firm dependence with subsequent small-number conditions.     

Endogenous timing in a mixed duopoly: price competition with managerial delegation

We introduce a managerial delegation contract into the mixed duopoly model and examine its influence on price setting in a mixed duopoly in the context of the endogenous‐timing problem. We obtain the result that owners of a public and a private firm prefer to delay the setting of the prices of their products as much as possible. Thus, in equilibrium, the firms choose their prices simultaneously in the latter stage of the game. This is in contrast to the findings of the entrepreneurial case, according to which firms choose prices simultaneously in the former stage. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of information in profit-maximizing and labor-managed duopoly models

This paper analyzes the welfare implications of acquiring information for profit-maximizing and labor-managed duopolies. We invent a unified method of exploring the role of information in a two-person game under uncertainty on the basis of comparative static analysis, and then apply the method to both the PMF and the LMF. It is shown that whereas the LMF's behavior is analogous to that of the PMF twin in some circumstances, the former may be entirely different from the latter in others. Because a special status is accorded to labor as a variable factor of production, the informational analysis of the LM economy requires special care for both computations and interpretations.     

Russia: Firm entry and survival barriers

Why are there so few new firms in Russia? This paper provides further insights into the specific Russian business landscape and how it impacts the low level of new firm entry. As this paper indicates, internationally comparative data do not provide many clues, since in terms of purely formal constraints Russia fares comparatively well. However, a deeper analysis uncovers the informal impediments associated with the lack of rule of law, inconsistent enforcement of regulations, regional autonomy and pervasive corruption. These informal constraints form impediments not only for new firm creation but also for firm survival and firm exit.     

HR's role in corporate governance: Present and prospective

Corporate wrongdoing is damaging investor confidence and tarnishing the credibility of the U.S. business community, guilty and innocent alike. Some misdeeds are clearly criminal, others simply unethical or damaging to reputations. They range from “massaging” numbers (“managed earnings”), which tests the limits of financial prudence, to outright fraud. Caught in the limelight are U.S. corporate giants representing some of the world's best‐known brands and most famous CEOs, many only yesterday lionized in the business press. We have explored this issue from the perspective of the HR function through a survey of the senior HR professionals who attended the Human Resources Forum. The survey was augmented with focus groups. Our purpose was to understand current practices, attitudes, and behaviors with respect to legal standards and professional and ethical codes. We also explored the roles of the CEO, HR leadership, and the HR function in minimizing ethical breaches that have diminished investor and public trust. We hope to shed light on the responsibilities, actions, and risks of the HR function and its leadership now and in the future. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Irreversible investment and R&D spillovers in a dynamic duopoly

Investments in new production processes usually involve a significant amount of R&D, generating spillovers that lowers the second comer's investment cost. We show that these spillovers substantially affect the equilibrium of the dynamic game. Even for low spillover values, the leader delays her investment until the stochastic fundamental has gone past the level such that the follower's optimal strategy is to invest as soon as he attains the spillover. This bears several interesting implications. First, because the follower invests as he benefits from the spillover, in equilibrium the average time delay between the two investments is short, as it should be expected. Second, in case of a major innovation, an optimal public policy requires an intervention in favor of the investment activity; an increase in uncertainty - delaying the equilibrium - calls for higher subsidization rates. Third, numerical simulations show that the spillover reduces the difference between the leader's and the follower's maximum value functions. Accordingly, our model can help generate realistic market betas.     

Strategic pricing of differentiated consumer durables in a dynamic duopoly: A numerical analysis

Under different modes of competitive pricing behavior, profit-maximizing price trajectories are derived for durable products in a dynamic duopoly. Open-loop co-operative and non-cooperative pricing behavior is analyzed within a comprehensive model where sales of differentiated products are described by interlocked diffusion processes with realistic demand characteristics. Because of analytic complexity, the optimal trajectories implied by the control and differential-game problems are derived numerically across an extensive set of plausible market scenarios. Manipulation of initial market conditions enables derivation of optimal competitive pricing as a function of timing of entry.     

Firm value and investment in R&D

This paper employs Canadian stock market and corporate financial data to test the hypothesis that the market places a positive value on reported research and development spending of firms as an indicator of expected profitability and growth. The empirical results show a positive, statistically significant relationship between R&D spending and market value. The magnitudes of estimated coefficients are consistent with those reported in several published US studies. These results suggest that investment in R&D is a rational allocation of resources, contrary to the undervaluation hypothesis.     

Firm heterogeneity and wages in unionised labour markets: Theory and evidence

In many countries wages are set in two stages, where industry-level collective bargaining is followed by firm-specific arrangements determining actual paid wages as a mark-up on the industry wage floor. What explains the wage set in each of these stages? In this paper we show that both the industry wage floor and the average wage cushion are systematically associated with the degree of firm heterogeneity in the industry: The former (latter) is negatively (positively) associated with the productivity spread. Furthermore, since the response of the wage floor dominates that of the wage cushion, workers in more heterogeneous industries tend to get lower actual paid wages. These conclusions are reached in a model of Cournot oligopoly with firm productivity heterogeneity and a two-tiered wage setting system. They are then confirmed by administrative data covering virtually all workers, firms and collective bargaining agreements of the Portuguese private sector for the period 1991–2000.     

Firm performance and board composition: Some new evidence

We investigate the effect of board composition on overall corporate performance while controlling for managerial ownership and other key variables. We recognize that both managerial ownership and board composition may be endogenous to performance, but our work differs from previous in two important respects. First, we measure performance using the market value to book value ratio of common stock equity rather than the more commonly used Tobin's q. Second, recognizing that overall estimates from the IV approach depend greatly on the choice of instruments, we perform sensitivity analysis by using a variety of instruments to proxy for board composition and managerial ownership. Both our OLS and IV estimates indicate a significant curvilinear relation between board composition and performance. However, we find that moderate differences in first-stage regressions, resulting in small changes to first-stage R²s, lead to widely differing overall results. Our results suggest that findings of studies using IV and similar techniques (e.g. two- and three-stage least squares) must be interpreted cautiously.     

Endogenous managerial incentive contracts in a differentiated duopoly,with and without commitment

In a differentiated Cournot duopoly, we examine the contracts that firms' owners use to compensate their managers and the resulting output levels, profits and social welfare. If products are either sufficiently differentiated or sufficiently close substitutes, owners use Relative Performance contracts. For intermediate levels of product substitutability, they use Market Share contracts. When owners do not commit over the types of contracts, each type is an owner's best response to his rival's choice. Product substitutability has differential effects on output levels and profits, depending on the configuration of contracts in the industry. Finally, managerial incentive contracts are welfare enhancing if they increase consumers' surplus. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Equilibrium pricing and advertising strategies for nondurable experience products in a dynamic duopoly

The quality of many consumer nondurable goods or services is sufficiently complex or obscure that consumers cannot completely verify the true quality in a single usage. For such ‘experience’ products or services, the accumulated consumer consumption experience of a brand is an important determinant of its sales or market share. The market share of a brand is in turn directly influenced by its own and the competitive price and advertising strategies, given the different levels of quality (among other factors). In this paper, we investigate the impact of the aggregate consumption experience on the firm's dynamic pricing and advertising strategies by developing a formal game-theoretic model of a dynamic duopoly. The model of competition does not yield explicit closed-form expressions for the dynamic price and advertising paths of the two firms. Hence, we simulate the equilibrium paths using a discrete-time algorithm. Our simulation results provide interesting insights into the dynamic equilibrium price and advertising paths, under a variety of realistic competitive scenarios.     

Metropolitan government and governance in western countries: a critical review

The failure of top-down imposed institutional reform for metropolitan areas in the western world has called for new conceptions of institution-building. A bottom up, governance type approach is now considered in various countries which focuses on flexible, voluntary and partnership elements of collective action through which institution is no longer considered as a ready-made object but as a process. A large part of the literature insists upon the effectiveness of this approach through the search for consensus and highlights its internal elements as conditions of success. However, this conception forgets the political and ideological dimensions of institution-building and, consequently, the likely conflicts and obstacles unresolved by governance. This article discusses the relationships between metropolitan government and governance taking a few western urban areas as examples and questions the apparent success of the ongoing metropolitan experiences.     

信息技术对企业纵向边界的影响:文献述评与理论扩展

本文应用和拓展了Williamson(1991)的理论分析范式,建立一个IT对企业纵向边界影响的理论分析框架。通过这个理论分析框架,我们可以清楚地看到企业外部IT环境和企业内部IT投资对企业外部协调成本和内部协调成本的影响,进而它们对企业纵向边界的影响。本文认为,企业外部IT环境主要影响的是企业的外部协调成本,企业的内部IT投资主要影响的是企业内部协调成本;企业外部IT环境和企业内部IT投资对企业纵向边界的影响方向相反。