Corporate Spin-offs and the Significance of Founders’ Informal Relations

Research on corporate spin-offs has suggested that spin-off firms have advantages over other new entrants in an industry because of their origin. These advantages have been argued to lie with the founders’ prior industry experience, and with the opportunity to form sourcing agreements with the parent firms. This paper inquires into an additional aspect of prior experience, founders’ informal relations. The use and benefits of such informal relations to source resources necessary for growth were analysed in three spin-offs in the Swedish telecommunications industry. The findings show that the spin-offs derived a variety of benefits from the use of founders’ informal relations, in particular in staffing the spin-offs, but also to acquire resources when other means of sourcing were unavailable. The results indicate that future research on corporate spin-offs as well as corporate spin-outs may need to account better for this variable in order to explain spin-off growth, and hence success.     

国外组织裂变研究的知识结构与发展趋势:基于知识图谱的分析

组织裂变日益成为学术界与实践界共同关注的焦点。基于Web of Science核心集合数据库,使用文献计量工具CiteSpace探寻了组织裂变研究文献特征、核心议题和研究热点。采用文献共被引分析、关键词共现分析等计量分析方法,发现国外组织裂变研究主题包括学术型裂变和公司型裂变两大板块,囊括学术型裂变的技术转化过程、产业环境对学术型裂变过程的影响、大学对学术型裂变新创企业绩效的影响、公司型裂变中的知识转移过程、公司型裂变的剥离策略以及母体企业对公司型裂变新创企业的“双刃剑”效应等六大热点。最后在知识图谱分析基础上,提出关注创业型裂变现象、进一步挖掘组织裂变内在机理等研究建议。     

Strategic spin-offs of input divisions

When a downstream producer enters backward into the input market, a “helping the rivals effect” exists: Such entry hurts the firm's downstream business as it increases upstream competition and thus benefits its rival downstream firms. This negative externality prevents the newly-created upstream unit from expanding. A spin-off enables the firm to credibly expand in the input market, thereby forcing its upstream competitors to behave less aggressively. Spin-offs occur in equilibrium if and only if the number of downstream firms exceeds a threshold level. When there is more than one integrated firm, a spin-off by a firm can trigger spin-offs by others that would not occur otherwise.     

科研组织应该控制其衍生企业吗——基于中国上市科研组织衍生企业的研究

创办衍生企业是科研组织实现科技成果转化的重要途径之一。在衍生企业创办之初，科研组织作为“家长”，在衍生企业成长过程中扮演着不可或缺的角色，但随着衍生企业逐渐发展壮大，科研组织作为学术机构参与企业经营管理的弊端也逐步显现。同时，伴随着衍生企业不断成长，对外来资本的需求增加，母体科研组织面临股权被稀释，甚至失去控制权的问题。那么，当衍生企业发展到一定规模，母体科研组织作为衍生企业实际控制人是利大于弊还是弊大于利？以中国境内上市科研组织衍生企业为样本，分析科研组织衍生企业母体控制权对企业绩效的影响，结果发现，科研组织作为衍生企业实际控制人时，企业绩效更优。     

When is your experience valuable? Occupation-industry transitions and self-employment success

The literature on employee spinoffs has, for a long time, stressed the importance of industry-specific skills and experiences in explaining the success of new firms. We argue that employees also develop skills that are associated with their occupation within an industry, and that success as an entrepreneur, therefore, is also contingent on the relation between the entrepreneurs’ previous occupation and the industry in which they operate as self-employed. Using matched employer-employee data, we develop a measure, occupational spin-offs, that accounts for this relation. An occupational spin-off is defined as a start-up in the most common industry, given the previous occupation of the founder. We then show that entrepreneurs starting occupational spinoffs enjoy above average income from self-employment and have longer spells as business owners.     

B2C—bubble to cluster: the dot-com boom, spin-off entrepreneurship, and regional agglomeration

This article studies entrepreneurial activities emerging out of one of Germany’s most prominent dot-com firms, Intershop, a maker of e-commerce software. We show that Intershop spawned about 40 new ventures. Most spin-offs entered locally, giving rise to a small but growing software cluster and counteracting the job losses that accompanied the parent firm’s drastic downsizing after 2000. We trace the knowledge transfer from Intershop to the spin-offs and relate it to recent theorizing on the spin-off process as well as spin-off-based cluster formation. The Intershop case suggests that temporarily successful dot-coms could exert lasting effects on regional development.     

The effect of science and technology parks on a firm’s performance: a dynamic approach over time

We argue that the benefits provided by locations inside science and technology parks evolve over time. Firms inside parks can improve performance due to certain advantages related to knowledge spillovers and shared resources that can be particularly useful in earlier stages of the industry life cycle. In these industries, local knowledge sharing is particularly useful because no standards are clearly established, as we have confirmed in a sample of 12,800 firms from the PITEC database, located either on- or off-park. We also find that young firms can benefit more from the park than more established businesses in terms of both business growth and innovative capacity. Although older firms have greater experience and investments that would increase their capacity to absorb external knowledge, their associated rigidities prevent them from incorporating changes into their structures.     

Founders’ human capital and external knowledge sourcing: Exploring the absorptive capacity of start-up firms

ABSTRACT

This study highlights the importance of founders’ human capital on firms’ absorptive capacity for explaining the external knowledge sourcing (licensing-in and joint R&D) of start-up firms, using panel data from original questionnaire surveys conducted in Japan. The results of a probit model with an endogenous regressor show that firms managed by founders with a high level of specific human capital, measured as prior innovation experience and industry-specific work experience, tend to engage in external knowledge sourcing because of their superior absorptive capacity. The findings indicate that this type of human capital also promotes research and development (R&D) investment. Contrariwise, this study finds that firms managed by founders with a high level of general human capital, measured as educational attainment, tend to invest more in R&D, which enhances their absorptive capacity and thereby promotes external knowledge sourcing. Finally, the implications of these findings are discussed from the perspective of public policy.     

Corporate entrepreneurship and sustainability transitions: resource redeployment of oil and gas industry firms in floating wind power

ABSTRACT

It has been recently argued that the vast resources of established firms can potentially accelerate sustainability transitions. This paper contributes to the study of such possibilities by investigating the resource redeployment of three Norwegian oil and gas industry firms in corporate ventures in floating wind power technologies. Using interview and document data, the findings show that the opportunity to use existing firm resources was a key motivation for established firms to engage in entrepreneurship in such technologies. The firms could redeploy their specialised and general-purpose resources in these entrepreneurial ventures, and develop new technologies on the basis of their existing resources. However, also challenges and controversies were observed. This paper thus suggests that the process of resource redeployment can help to explain why, and describe how, established firms may engage in cleantech innovation through corporate entrepreneurship.     

Social capital as a substitute for formality: Evidence from Bolivia

The paper studies the role of social capital in the urban informal sector in Bolivia. It shows that a formal firm has about 6.4 times the sales of an informal firm with no social capital, but informal firms use their social capital to compensate for the lack of formal productivity benefits. By being formal, firms obtain permanent visibility because they can operate a shop or a visible production location and they can produce in locations with better public infrastructure. Informal firms, in contrast, sell in one place – typically in street markets in front of formal shops – and produce in another — typically in the outskirts. Social capital increases accessibility of informal firms and provides them with security benefits at their production location.     

高校衍生企业的企业家能力、资源基础与企业绩效

在影响企业绩效的各种因素中,企业家能力是最为核心的内容。现有研究普遍认为,高校衍生企业作为一种特殊形式的衍生企业,其从高校获取的一系列战略资源有利于提升企业绩效,但对于企业家能力在这一过程中的正向促进作用鲜有触及。从衍生企业与资源继承、企业家能力与绩效等相关理论视角入手,以我国3家典型高校上市公司为对比案例,分析验证企业家能力在高校衍生企业资源—绩效关系中的核心地位。     

The Private Benefits of Corporate Control:Evidence from China

By analyzing block share transfers in China during 1999-2006,this study provides estimates of the private benefits of corporate control in China.We find that those controlling blocks are usually priced at a significant positive premium compared to those comparable non-controlling blocks.The benefits of corporate control vary with shareholders structure,firm characteristics and institutional variables.In particular,targets with a high intangible asset ratio have less benefits of control,cross-listing in B or H shares curbs the extract of private benefits and companies acquired by private firms are associated with higher private benefits.Moreover,it is found that benefits of control are negatively associated with market economy and factor market development index.We argue that firms with higher private benefits experience more tunneling activities by their controlling shareholders.     

Knowledge flows through social networks in a cluster: Comparing university and industry links

Knowledge spillovers from a university to the local industry play an important role in high-technology clusters, but we know little about these spillovers. This paper examines empirically the extent of informal contacts between employees in firms and local university researchers in a wireless communications cluster. Furthermore, it analyses the features of an engineer who acquires knowledge from these informal contacts. The university–industry contacts are compared to results for informal contacts between employees in firms. The research shows that the interfirm informal contacts are more numerous than university informal contacts. Likewise, knowledge is more frequently acquired from engineers in other firms than through university–industry contacts. However, not all engineers in the cluster have informal contacts or acquire knowledge through these. Engineers who have participated in formal projects with university researchers and engineers who are educated at the local university have a higher likelihood of acquiring knowledge from informal contacts with university researchers.     

ICT and global sourcing – evidence for German manufacturing and service firms

This paper analyses the relevance of information and communication technologies (ICT) for firms’ probability of global sourcing of inputs. Using firm-level data from Germany in 2009, which include mainly small and medium-sized firms, the empirical analysis differentiates between manufacturing and service firms. The results show some differences between the manufacturing and service sector. Controlling for various sources of firm heterogeneity, the global sourcing probability is increasing in the firms’ share of employees with Internet access in the manufacturing sector. E-commerce-intensive firms are more likely to source inputs from abroad but generally, this relationship between e-commerce and global sourcing is only robust in services and much stronger there than in manufacturing. In both sectors, it is strongest in industries with higher upstream industry diversity. Moreover, labour productivity is positively linked to global sourcing. The findings support arguments for the importance of the Internet for global trade.     

家族创始人职业经历与企业风险承担*

基于创始人自身特征的异质性,本文研究家族创始人职业经历与企业风险承担的关系。研究发现,相对于家族创始人具有公共部门职业经历的企业,创始人具有企业部门职业经历的企业风险承担水平更高。进一步地,在产品市场竞争激烈的行业,家族创始人的企业部门职业经历与企业风险承担水平的正相关关系更强。研究表明,具有企业部门职业经历的家族创始人更偏好风险,其所掌控企业的风险承担水平也更高。本文发展了基于代理理论和控制权理论的家族企业风险承担研究,论证了家族创始人职业经历特征对企业风险承担的重要作用。同时,本文研究结论有助于投资者识别企业风险。     

Defense conversion into a global system of proprietary technologies: The case of Taiwan''s aircraft industry

To further industrial development, Taiwan's government has officially targeted the aircraft industry, specifically the Aero Industry Development Center (AIDC)—producer of Taiwan's combat aircraft with a two-and-a-half-decade history. However, despite AIDC's experience in aerodynamics, structure, and engines, redirecting its engineering and production capabilities for commercial jets poses many difficulties. Because military and civilian needs of aircraft design are very different, the commercial benefits of military work on airframes are minimal. In contract manufacturing, one critical factor is efficiency, but AIDC is still relatively weak in scale economies, scope economies, and experience curve. Another critical factor is technology, but most functional and design specifications and standards are imposed by the upper-tier buyers and the integrators. Moreover, neither spin-off nor dual-use strategy can apply effectively, leaving AIDC an enclave isolated from local industry. Overall, the prospect of AIDC's defense conversion is dismal. The military does not have the capability to endorse the transformation; the civilian government is not familiar with the commercial practices; the local firms are not interested in entering this industry; the commercial businesses are largely controlled by the world leading integrators; and, most important, AIDC's core competence is fairly weak. The case typifies a government's futile efforts in a global industry of complex proprietary technological systems.     

Property rights protection and corporate R&D: Evidence from China

Following the recent literature on institutions and economic growth, we examine the effects of property rights protection on corporate R&D. Using a unique 2003 World Bank survey of over 2400 firms in 18 Chinese cities, we obtain the following findings: (1) property rights protection is positively and significantly related to corporate R&D activity (for both process and product R&D); (2) government services and helping hand are conducive to corporate R&D, while informal payments to government officials are not; and (3) government ownership of firms and direct appointment of CEOs are negatively associated with corporate R&D activities. We also find that corporate R&D is positively related to firm size, and access to finance, but negatively related to product market competition and firm age.     

产业政策中的资金配置:市场力量与政府扶持

产业政策具有重要的国家战略意义,如何有效引导经济资源流向政策支持产业,是产业政策发挥成效的关键.现有相关研究未深入考察经济资源在扶持行业之间及行业内部配置的规律,而且没有综合探讨不同资金配置的关联.文章考察了市场力量与政府扶持两种机制如何引导产业政策下的资金配置.研究发现,产业政策支持的企业获得了更多的债务融资和政府补助.其中,债务融资更多地流向了成长行业中规模较大的企业,政府补助使成长行业中的小规模企业和成熟行业中的大规模企业受益更多.研究结果表明,市场看重企业的增长机会,政府补助则会顾及当前成长性较弱而相对不受市场青睐的企业,对产业政策下的市场化资金配置起到了补充作用.文章的研究为如何协调市场机制和政府扶持两种力量提供了一定的借鉴.     

Determinants and impacts of subcontracting: evidence from India’s unorganized manufacturing sector

There are two divergent perspectives on the impact of subcontracting on firms in the informal sector. According to the benign view, formal sector firms prefer linkages with relatively modern firms in the informal sector, and subcontracting enables capital accumulation and technological improvement in the latter. According to the exploitation view, formal sector firms extract surplus from stagnant, asset-poor informal sector firms that use cheap family labour in home-based production. However, direct, firm-level evidence on the determinants and impact of subcontracting is thus far lacking in the literature. We apply a modified Heckman selection model to Indian National Sample Survey data on informal manufacturing enterprises (2005–2006). We find that home-based, relatively asset-poor, and female-owned firms are more likely to be in a subcontracting relationship. Further, we perform selectivity-corrected Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition and calculate treatment effects to show that subcontracting benefits smaller firms, firms in industrially backward states and rural firms; it is harmful for larger firms, firms in industrially advanced states, and urban firms. Our results suggest that the effects of subcontracting are more complex than those predicted by the divergent perspectives. Policy-makers need to engage with this complexity.     

中国企业储蓄率 ——来自企业的微观证据

实施扩大内需战略，实现经济结构调整，促进经济增长，是当前中国经济政策的重要内容，而对中国储蓄率的分析则是扩大内需战略研究的逻辑起点。作为国民储蓄率的重要构成，企业储蓄率的研究尤为重要。本文在对企业储蓄率界定进行调整的基础上，利用统计局工业企业数据库1996—2007年共1886万个企业微观数据对中国企业储蓄率进行分析。研究得出的结论是：（1）中国企业储蓄率依然处于较高的水平，1996—2007年这12年的企业平均储蓄率高达287%（储蓄占工业增加值比重），近几年依然在逐年上升；（2）中国企业储蓄率在绝对水平上始终高于发达国家，但当前企业储蓄率持续增高已经成为一个全球性趋势而非中国的特有现象；（3）民营企业储蓄率整体水平约为253%，低于国有企业和外资企业，但是民营企业储蓄率保持了较高的增长水平，而外资企业和国有企业储蓄率水平则有不同程度的下降；（4）中国企业储蓄率具有明显的行业特征，传统的劳动密集型行业的企业储蓄率相对较低，资金密集型行业的企业储蓄率相对较高。