Innovation performance and the role of clustering at the local enterprise level: a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis approach

ABSTRACT

This study, utilizes an innovative methodological approach, fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), investigating the drivers of heterogeneous geographies characterizing English Local Economic Partnerships (LEPs). The fsQCA technique offers a novel configurational alternative to regression-based approaches investigating the effects of clustering in conjunction with firm-level innovation, university third-sector activity (TSA) and entrepreneurship, on LEPs innovation performance. The findings, offer contributions to the theories of industrial clusters and innovation, regional innovation systems, knowledge spillovers and entrepreneurial university innovation within LEPs. First, supporting fsQCAs, no individual variable generates either a positive/negative innovation outcome. Second, while all positive innovation recipes include presence of the cluster variable, for negative innovation recipes, only one does not identify absence of clustering as relevant. Given that the cluster variable does not appear in any recipes without at least one of the other variables suggests activity concentration does not exist in isolation to generate innovation outcomes without other localized conditions existing, e.g. firm-level innovation. Third, there is evidence for the non-cluster-based aspects of knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship with respect to university activity and the entrepreneurial university concept. Instead, roles of entrepreneurship and university TSA, while important, appear to be more peripheral and geographically context specific.     

城乡居民收入差距与金融业关系实证分析——以陕西省为例

我国经济发展与城市化路径中须解决城乡居民收入差距的问题,金融产业在其运作中能够通过调整资源在区域间的分配来影响城市与其周边的经济发展,进而影响收入分配格局。陕西省在国家经济由计划经济体制向市场经济体制转型过程中的典型性使其尤具研究和借鉴价值。通过分析,发现陕西省金融发展与城乡收入差距之间存在稳定的协整关系:金融发展规模与金融发展不平衡性的增加会扩大城乡收入差距,而提高金融发展效率则可以降低城乡收入差距。     

城市农民工社会保障问题的实证分析——以对北京市部分城区农民工的调查为例

通过对北京市部分城区中394位农民工的社会保障状况的调查发现,当前农民工参加社会保障的比率较低.对这一现象产生的原因进行了分析并提出了建议,认为解决农民工的社会保障问题,必须完善农民工社会保障制度和法律运行机制,加快农民工社会保障体系的信息化建设,并建立适应农民工特点的过渡性养老保险办法.     

From plan to market: financial statements and economic transition in the East German enterprise

This article examines the changing role of financial accounting in the former East Germany as that country underwent the transition from a centrally planned to a market-driven economy. The German government's insistence on a sales model of privatization in preference to some form of mass privatization, combined with legal requirements to make up equity shortfalls in eastern German enterprises, resulted in a highly centralized and interventionist approach to accounting change. The article reviews and analyses the historical, technical, economic and political aspects of this change process.     

Sustainable environmental practices and financial performance: Evidence from listed small and medium‐sized enterprise in the United Kingdom

In this article, we investigate the financial implication of sustainable environmental practices on UK small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs)–traded firms. Existing literature indicates that there is a direct relationship between sustainable environmental practices and financial performance. However, studies looking at this relationship have focused mainly on large firms with little attention paid to SMEs. Further, those looking at environmental and financial performance relationships have often used a single measure of performance in their studies. This study bridges these research gaps by focusing on listed SMEs in the United Kingdom using multiple measures of sustainable environmental policy indices on a panel of 201 SMEs on the Alternative Investment Market from 2011 to 2016. Evidence from our panel data analysis suggests significant and a nonlinear (concave) relationship between sustainable environmental practices and firms' financial performance. Specifically, energy efficiency practices, greenhouse gases, material, and resource efficiency revealed an inverted U‐shaped relationship with financial performance. The results will offer guidance to management in terms of allocating resources to sustainable environmental practices investment.     

Applying intervention analysis to financial performance data: The case of US airlines and September 11th

Using intervention analysis I assess the effect of the September 11 terrorist attack on the performance of the US airline industry. The estimated initial effect supports the US federal government decision to provide a $5 billion cash compensation to the airlines. However, the long-run effect is found to be much smaller than the losses reported by the industry in 2001 and 2002. Also, the analysis suggests that not all of the airlines were equally affected by the terrorist act and that investors were fairly rational pricing major airline stocks, but were less accurate with the stocks of smaller regional carriers.

Corporate sustainability and financial performance: Collective reputation as moderator of the relationship between environmental performance and firm market value

Markets value superior corporate sustainability performance in part because investors use a firm's environmental performance as a signal of desirable but difficult-to-observe attributes, such as the firm's integrity capacity. Yet a signaling conflict can arise when a firm belongs to an organizational form that has a collective reputation for being unethical. In such circumstances, the firm's environmental performance may no longer credibly signal its underlying integrity capacity, leading markets to adjust downward the value they would otherwise place on the firm's environmental performance. Using longitudinal data on South Korean firms, we find that improvements in firm environmental performance lead to smaller increases in market values for firms belonging to a poorly reputed organizational form. However, firms can partially recover lost value by adopting firm features that reduce the signaling conflict, thereby restoring the notion of corporate sustainability performance driving firm market values.     

Combining grey relation analysis and entropy model for evaluating the operational performance: an empirical study

Decision-making on operational performance evaluation is a complex multi-objective problem. Through the combination of grey relation analysis and information entropy, the evaluation results are more objective and reasonable. This paper would introduce entropy into the weighting calculation of the grey relational analysis method for improving the precision. The improved decision model was applied in four notebook computer original design manufacturer companies. The result presented the proposed method is practical and useful. Significantly, the proposed method provides more flexible and objective information in determine the weights vector of the criteria. Also the study result represented that the combined method had certain scientific and rationality. The evaluation model indicates that this method be more reasonable and easier to grasp than other methods. As a result, it is easier to popularize this evaluation method in enterprises.     

It is merely a matter of time: A meta‐analysis of the causality between environmental performance and financial performance

Research on the relationship between corporate environmental performance (CEP) and financial performance (CFP) continuously receives high attention in both general media and academic publications. One central issue concerns the causal effects between the two constructs. Because existing primary literature is characterized by its heterogeneous study designs and mixed empirical evidence, the aim of this paper is to explicitly shed light on the causality effects between CEP and CFP by means of a meta‐analysis of 893 empirical estimates from 142 CEP–CFP studies. Our findings suggest that in the short run (1 year), financial resources can increase a firm's environmental performance as proposed by the slack resources hypothesis; however, the effects disappear in the long run (after more than 1 year). Conversely, increasing environmental performance has no short‐term effect on a corporate financial performance, whereas a firm significantly benefits in the long term, which is in accordance with the Porter hypothesis. Overall, our results show that the causality between environmental performance and financial performance depends on the time horizon.     

中关村创新力提升中存在的问题及解决途径——基于企业集群创新网络视角的分析

运用创新网络理论和企业集群理论,分析了中关村高新技术企业集群创新力的现状和问题。提出了完善中关村高新技术企业集群创新网络的对策建议:发挥政府主导作用,在高新技术企业、高校和科研院所、中介组织、金融机构等各个行为主体之间建设显性或隐性的联接,从而带动创新网络的形成和创新成果的诞生。     

The effect of scale and mode of ownership on the financial performance of the Turkish banking sector: results of a DEA-based analysis

Turkey and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to a stand-by arrangement at the outset of 2000. Consequently, Turkey implemented an exchange-rate based stabilization program to combat its high inflation. However, two financial crises followed: one in November, 2000 and the other in February, 2001. As the result some banks became problematic. This necessitated restructuring of the banking sector to increase its financial efficiency.This paper presents a financial performance index for commercial banks. The index allows one to observe the effects of scale and of the mode of ownership (public/domestic, private/domestic/foreign) on bank behavior and, therefore, on bank performance in a developing economy. It documents the effects of financial liberalization, cross-country movements, and the impact of financial crises originating in neighboring countries e.g. Russia. The study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to selected fundamental financial ratios using 1989-99 data from commercial banks in Turkey. Year-by-year results explain the effects on this sector of major shifts in both national macro-economic policy and various international developments. The banks that were taken over by the regulatory government agency most recently in the analyzed period were observed to perform poorly with respect to their DEA performance index values.     

文化创意产业集聚区效益的定性分析——以广州市为例

我国大城市的文化创意产业是借城市更新置换出来的土地而集聚发展起来的。本文以广州市为例,在阐释近年来借城市更新而发展起来的文化创意产业集聚区用地特征的基础上,试图分别从经济效益和社会效益两个角度,评估集聚区已产生的效益和预期的效益。研究显示,广州的文化创意产业集聚区可以从多方面对城市产生积极的影响,但由于存在一些尚未解决的问题,其效益仍未能全面体现。总体而言,集聚区的社会效益比较容易实现,也较为明显,经济效益则有待进一步提升。     

城管执法的正当性及价值分析——以北京市为例

城市管理综合行政执法是行政执法体制改革的产物,是《中华人民共和国行政处罚法》确定的相对集中行政处罚权制度在城市管理领域的体现。城市管理综合行政执法的存在具有正当性,在维护社会秩序、改善城市环境、引领执法体制改革、促进社会和谐及城市可持续发展等方面,具有重大意义和价值。     

An alternative to the weighted score card approach to measuring performance: An analysis of English and Welsh probation boards

The UK government published a weighted score card approach in 2003 to analyse the performance of Probation Boards in England and Wales. However, there has not been a thorough analysis of whether non-parametric methods could provide more advanced options for analysing performance than the standard Weighted Score Card approach – a variant of the Balanced Score Card. Our results show there is considerable divergence in the ranks of Probation Boards from that of the WSC when we include the input variable ‘resource expenditure’ within a DEA model, calling into question recent policy initiatives to increase efficiency in the national probation service.     

Front‐line managers as agents in the HRM‐performance causal chain: theory,analysis and evidence

Research on the link between HRM and organisational performance has neglected the role of front‐line managers, yet it is these managers who are increasingly charged with the implementation of many HR practices. Using an employee survey in 12 ‘excellent’ companies we explore the extent to which employee commitment towards their employer and their job are influenced by the quality of leadership behaviour and by satisfaction with HR practices. Both have a strong effect on employee attitudes. The article concludes with a case study of a planned effort to improve front‐line managers' skills in people management.