Dynamic capabilities and firm performance in a financial crisis

In this study, an organization means an active actor that can, at least to some extent, adapt to the environment, mainly within the limits of its resources and capabilities. The article enhances understanding of and explains organizational adaptive behavior in weathering the storm in the business environment resulting from the global financial crisis of 2008. The literature on dynamic capabilities, organizational change, and innovation in the context of organizational performance and survival captures this kind of adaptive behavior. The empirical study builds on a quantitative survey and a qualitative case study covering the food processing, maritime, and media industries. Structural equation modeling, group analysis, and qualitative case comparisons shed light on the connection between the constructs in question. Implications for theory and practice culminate in suggestions for future research.     

Franchisor strategy and firm performance: Making the most of strategic resource investments

A key decision for entrepreneurs in many retail and service firms is whether, and how much, to use franchising. If the decision is made to franchise, the actor may assume one of two “identities” or tactics: (1) the “chain builder,” who uses a blend of company and franchised outlets, and (2) the “turnkey,” who sells business opportunities but does not own any outlets. To benefit from their chosen strategy, franchisors must put resources in place to support it. We argue that franchisors use the chain building strategy to strike a balance between standardization and innovation by building resources that foster trust and encourage knowledge sharing with franchisees. In contrast, for turnkeys, a valuable set of operational routines is the critical strategic resource. To better appreciate how franchisors choose between the chain builder and turnkey strategies, we gathered survey information from 263 franchisors. Via this data, and as described herein, we learned that franchisors perform better when they invest in resources that best support their selected strategy.     

Consumer financial education and financial capability

The purpose of this study was to explore potential effects of financial education on the financial capability of American consumers. Data from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study were used to test the hypothesis that financial education is positively associated with financial capability. Four financial literacy and behaviour variables were used to form a financial capability index. Multivariate linear regression results showed that, after controlling for demographic and financial variables, respondents who ever received financial education had higher scores in all financial capability indicators (objective financial literacy, subjective financial literacy, desirable financial behaviour, perceived financial capability and the financial capability index). In addition, high school, college and workplace financial education variables showed positive associations with these financial capability indicators. Additional state comparison analyses provided evidence suggesting high school financial education may have direct impacts and spillover effects on consumer financial capability.     

Working capital management,corporate performance,and financial constraints

This paper examines the linkage between working capital management and corporate performance for a sample of non-financial UK companies. In contrast to previous studies, the findings provide strong support for an inverted U-shaped relation between investment in working capital and firm performance, which implies the existence of an optimal level of investment in working capital that balances costs and benefits and maximizes a firm's value. The results suggest that managers should avoid negative effects on firm performance because of lost sales and lost discounts for early payments or additional financing expenses. The paper also analyzes whether the optimal working capital level is sensitive to alternative measures of financial constraints. The findings show that this optimum is lower for firms more likely to be financially constrained.     

Bank credit,public financial incentives,tax financial incentives and export performance during the global financial crisis

This paper investigates the extent to which access to credit, public financial incentives and tax financial incentives affect export performance using the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-Unicredit data set, covering firms within Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and the UK during the 2008 global financial crisis. The results show that firms receiving credit or benefiting from public financial incentives display higher export intensity and export a greater number of product lines compared to those that did not, especially in countries with better access to credit and/or financial incentives during the crisis. Further, firms benefiting from tax financial incentives show a better export performance compared to those that did not, regardless of the degree of access to credit and/or financial incentives in the country in which they operate. In addition, the effect of access to credit and public finance incentives on export performance is found to be size-dependent, while the effect of tax financial incentives is not. We suggest that governments should promote publicly funded financial incentives along with conventional schemes, such as R&D subsidies, to promote exports, particularly during a period of financial crisis.     

Absorptive capacity, innovation, and financial performance

This study here examines the role of absorptive capacity as both a mechanism to identify and translate external knowledge inflows into tangible benefits, as well as a means of achieving superior innovation and time-lagged financial performance. Using path analysis in a sample of 461 Greek enterprises participating in the third Community Innovation Survey, this study demonstrates that external knowledge inflows are directly related to absorptive capacity and indirectly related to innovation. Absorptive capacity contributes, directly and indirectly, to innovation and financial performance but in different time spans. This study, therefore, contributes to the understanding of absorptive capacity's antecedents and outcomes by providing empirical evidence of longitudinal form that offers important research and practical implications.     

An Examination of Dividend Policy in the U.S. Restaurant Industry

Abstract

We examine the potential role that agency costs have on dividend payout policy in the restaurant industry. Specifically, we hypothesize that dividends serve to constrain the actions of management. Interest payments also have the same effect, and in a sense, may act as an effective substitute for dividend payments. Furthermore, the larger number of firm owners, the greater the need for dividends to control agency costs. Our findings show significant differences in debt ratios and the number of shareholders between restaurant firms that pay dividends and those that do not.     

The impact of service innovation on firm-level financial performance

This article empirically investigates if firms focusing on service innovation perform better financially than firms not focusing on service innovation. Analysis of the financial performance of 3575 Norwegian firms in the manufacturing industries supports the proposition that firms focusing on service innovation have significantly higher growth of operating results than firms not focusing on service innovation. However, this proposition is not supported in a corresponding analysis of 1132 Norwegian firms in the service industries. We elaborate on these results by investigating a variety of performance measures and by comparing the effects of service innovation between manufacturing and service industries. The article contributes to the service innovation measurement literature and to a better general understanding of the determinants of service innovation performance effects.     

Technical performance and firm size: Analysis of patents and publications of U.S. firms

This study focuses on the scientific output of firms of different sizes in different industries in the U.S. Both patents, and papers and publications are used as measures of technical output. Data from two samples of firms, one consisting of 225 large firms (annual sales at least $250 million and minimum annual R&D budget of $1 million) and the other consisting of 248 small and medium sized firms (annual sales between $10 to $200 million and annual R&D budget at least $10 thousand) have been presented here. The study shows that determinants of R&D expenditure are different in firms of different sizes. For the large firms, R&D expenditure depends on net income as well as its size, measured in terms of annual sales. For small size firms, R&D expenditure is closely related with sales, rather than the net income. For large firms, R&D expenditure is related to both sales and income, the latter being more important than the former. The two output measures, patents and papers are correlated, but the correlation is not a very strong one for small firms. Patent and papers are correlated significantly with both R&D expenditure as well as annual sales. The firm's growth is not linked with patents. On the contrary, there is a negative relationship between patent and R&D growth and patent and income growth in the case of small firms. Papers are not linked with growth variables for small firms. Finally, this study confirms the hypothesis that small firms are more productive in innovation than the large firms. Small firms are more efficient than their larger competitors in terms of patents and papers per million dollars of R&D expenditure.     

美国金融危机及应对策略

美国金融危机主要在于金融风险内生力量和外部环境两个因素,其所引发的世界经济衰退导致中国经济增长减速。从经济学的角度来分析,中国应该在扩大投资、促进国内消费、扩大政府支出、继续促进出口等方面,积极应对金融危机和经济衰退,同时要继续注重环境与生态的保护。     

Tracking the relationship between environmental management and financial performance in the service industry

Attention to the relationship between environmental management and financial performance has been growing. Research in this area has, however, tended to focus primarily on manufacturing industries. Our goal in this study is to analyze the relationship between environmental management and financial performance in the context of the service industry. Using a cross-sectional sample of 1,228 service organizations spanning a wide range of business activities, we test a series of five hypothesized relationships using both univariate and multivariate analyses. The results are robust across the dataset and show conclusively that environmental management does indeed positively affect financial performance in the service sector.     

Understanding the link between customer feedback metrics and firm performance

Practitioners utilise customer feedback metrics (CFM's) to monitor business performance. However, the influence of CFM's on firm performance has been ignored. Thus, this paper aims to examine the effects of CFM's on firm performance. Our study collected data about CFM's, marketing efforts, and financial performance over the period 2005–2020 from American Customer Satisfaction Index. The present study used a multiple regression panel analysis to investigate the influence of different CFMs (i.e., SAT, Top-2-Box, NPS proportion, NPS value, and CES) on firm performance (i.e., gross margin, sales growth, and Tobin's Q), moderating by operating environment factors (i.e., munificence, power, and dynamism). Our results revealed that Top-2-box is the best predictor CFM's to compare firms in online booking, hotels, and online shopping industries, while consumer satisfaction is the best predictor for electronic and fixed telecom industries. CES is the best CFM's to compare companies in restaurants industries. Moreover, NPS is the best metric to compare different companies in holiday parks industries. The results provide considerable managerial implications for effective use of resources regarding investing in most suitable CFM's to enhance firm performance.     

Knowledge-flows and firm performance

This study advances the understanding of how knowledge-flows impact on firm performance. Incorporating recent research on the knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper tests and extends the knowledge flow model by using more fine-grained measures and by proposing a nonlinear effect. This study tests the predicted effects in a longitudinal research design with data on a global sample of public biopharmaceutical firms. The results largely support the expectation that knowledge-flows largely have a nonlinear impact on firm performance. However, one traditional measure of knowledge-flows, geographical location, turns out to have no significant influence in the extended model. The paper explains the implications of these findings for practice and research.     

The Role of Economic-Demographic Factors in U.S. International Restaurant Franchising:

This paper studies the effect of both economic and demographic factors on the international restaurant franchising (IRF). The study utilizes regression analysis of pooled cross-section (6 countries) and time series (10 years)data. It is found that among the economic factors, the market size has a strong positive effect on IRF. On the other hand, the ratio of female workers to the total labor force is positively related to international restaurant franchising. The paper also investigates the relationship between demo-economic factors and IRF for two subsets of interest, developed and developing countries.     

Economic growth,financial market,and twin crises

In this study, we look not only to provide empirical evidence to investigate the direct impact of financial crises on economic growth, but also to examine the roles of insurance development, financial liberalization, financial institution, and crisis intervention policies on the relationship between the two. We employ a panel data framework from 50 countries by applying the dynamic panel generalized method of moments model. Our main empirical results show that financial crises do have a significantly negative impact on economic growth. In addition, governments or authorities are encouraged to further enhance their insurance sector in order to help spur economic growth when financial crises arise. The government intervention policy choice is also an important factor influencing economic growth during crises.     

Franchising growth and franchisor entry and exit in the U.S. market: Myth and reality

Franchising has been and continues to be a very popular way to do business for a number of retailers and service businesses. However, the type of franchising that has been growing the most, namely business-format franchising, has not grown at the kind of phenomenal rates that the trade press often suggests. Since the Department of Commerce (DOC) canceled its publication Franchising in the Economy, we no longer have access to census-type data on franchising in the U.S. However, looking at the period during which the DOC did publish these data, one finds that the number of business-format franchisors is highly correlated with the number of units in these chains. Thus, we use data from recent issues of various franchisor directories to assess the number of franchisors in the U.S., and infer from this how business-format franchising has grown in the U.S. We find that business-format franchising has been growing over the last decade at a rate that is, at best, commensurate with the growth of the economy as a whole.We believe that the confusion about the extent of growth in franchising arises, in part, from the fact that many new firms enter into franchising each year, leading to the notion that this way of doing business is growing tremendously. However, we show that many firms also exit from franchising each year, for a net growth rate much below the entry rate.This paper shows that franchising is not a panacea for entrepreneurs, whether franchisor or franchisee. From the franchisor's viewpoint, the high rate of exits suggests that many firms fail despite franchising, and many others choose to stop franchising after trying it for a few years. Clearly, these firms have found that franchising is not right for them. Furthermore, the results show that the characteristics of the chain at the time it becomes involved in franchising, as described in the main franchisor directories—such as the royalty rate, the advertising fee, the franchise fee, the amount of capital required, and the sector of operation—have little capacity to explain “survival.” The main variable that affects “survival” among those that are typically reported in franchisor listings is the number of years that the franchisor has been in business before starting to franchise. Hence our results suggest this is one dimension in which franchisors can make decisions that affect the probability that they will be successful in franchising. Although we are unable to explain most of the variance in outcome, the results mostly imply that other, less easily observed or quantified characteristics of the chain and the franchisor, such as maybe the “innovativeness” of the product, the amount of support provided to franchisees, the financial backing of the franchisor, etc., likely influence “success” the most, and thus, are worth investigating further.From the perspective of franchisees, the amount of exit found here suggests that in the majority of systems, franchisees cannot expect that their franchisor will be around for the whole duration of their contract—which averages about 15 years according to the Department of Commerce. This does not mean that the majority of franchised businesses will find themselves in an “exiting” system—a small minority of very well-established franchisors accounts for the majority of franchised businesses, and these are likely to remain successful for years to come. But entrepreneurs buying franchises from less established systems are likely to face franchisor exit, either failure or departure. This paper confirms that franchisees should thoroughly investigate the franchise system they want to invest in, going beyond the information about royalty rates, advertising rates, rankings, etc., found in franchisor directories, and toward more product, market, and other less easily accessible information about the chain.     

Regularity and diversity in firm size distributions in U.S. industries

The size distribution of firms in manufacturing industries has long been a matter of interest in industrial organization. Distribution in different industries show considerable regularity that static economic theory fails to explain. Stochastic growth models appear to provide some insights, but empirical tests of the log-normal or Pareto distributions have been inconclusive. This paper draws on market share data for over three hundred U.S. manufacturing industries and analyses the distribution of largest firm sizes. A statistical test of the Pareto hypothesis, rather different from previous tests in the literature, decisively rejects that hypothesis as a general explanation for the upper tail of the distribution. Instead, great diversity among distributions is found, and the regularities that do emerge imply a greater clustering of large firms than predicted by theory.     

Food allergy information sharing and communication strategies in full-service restaurants in the U.S.

The purpose of this study was to explore how restaurant staff shares food allergy information with and communicate risks to customers with food allergies. Results of the online survey indicated that very few restaurants had separate allergen-free menus, yet the majority of servers had never or rarely asked if customers had any food allergy. Informing customers when the food preparer is unable to provide allergen-free meals, including a statement on the menu advising customers to inform servers their food allergies, and having a written protocol with procedures for serving allergen-free foods were perceived as the three most effective communication strategies.     

2007—2009年美国稳定金融体系的公共干预分析及启示

随着美国次贷危机爆发并引爆了此后的全面金融危机,美联储和美国政府被迫以数10年来未有的规模对金融系统进行公共干预。本文在对美联储注入流动性措施和美国政府采取的紧急援助一揽子行动进行简要概述及分析的基础上,得出了金融危机发生时,央行和政府为稳定金融体系必然实施公共干预,但关键在于公共干预的时机和力度的结论。本文提出,金融危机发生时金融稳定要依靠央行和政府来实现;但金融市场的复苏还是要回归本源,让市场发挥作用,那时央行和政府介入金融市场的最好方式是有效的金融监管。     

Financial literacy and savings decisions by adult financial consumers in Zimbabwe

We use survey data from a sample of 4000 adult financial consumers in Zimbabwe to analyse the determinants of financial literacy and its effect on individual's savings decisions. Results show that women have lower financial literacy than men. Furthermore, individuals' residing in rural areas exhibit lower financial literacy compared with urban financial consumers. Financial literacy and financial services interventions targeting women and rural individuals should be strengthened. Econometric results show that financial literacy positively influences savings behaviour for both rural and urban individuals. Furthermore, financial literacy positively influences informal and formal savings. Policy interventions that foster financial literacy are needed to improve individuals saving behaviours.