企业出口影响因素的研究述评——基于异质性企业贸易理论的视角

通过对国际贸易理论发展脉络进行梳理,从生产率、创新、汇率和贸易政策等四个方面归纳了关于企业出口影响因素的实证研究,针对大量实证研究进行了述评,指出中国的主要研究方向,以及对中国经济贸易政策制定的重大意义。     

Corporate Demography and Empirical Industrial Organization: A Critical Appraisal

The emerging field of corporate demography views corporations and industries in a similar way to human or animal individuals and groups. In spite of a surprisingly large overlap of subject matter with economics, corporate demography is not well-known by, nor easily accessible to economists. An extremely useful recent book, The Demography of Corporations and Industries, by Glenn R. Carroll and Michael T. Hannan (2000) should change that. This review essay critically examines corporate demography from an economic viewpoint. The very different view of competition in corporate demography gets particular attention.     

Innovation and the Evolution of Industry Structure

Abstract

Great advances have been made in recent decades enriching the economic theory of innovation and in understanding the role innovation plays in the survival and success of businesses. Advances have also been made in theoretical and empirical research into the relationship between innovation and industry structure. In what follows I comment on these advances and point to areas in which more theoretical work might extend our understanding of the links between innovation and industry structure.     

Strategic profiles of Brazilian exporters and performance implications

This study presents a taxonomic classification of manufactured products exporters based on strategic orientation which is the result of an analysis of a sample of 414 Brazilian exporters of manufactured goods. The analyses used Cluster analysis, MANOVA, ANOVA, post-hoc tests and crosstabs. The study identified four patterns of strategic orientation of Brazilian exporters and provided indications of correlations with firm and manager characteristics. The article includes a discussion of implications for export performance. Findings suggest that joint attention to planning and differentiation seems to pay off, but planning alone is insufficient to ensure winning results. The study has contributed to the literature by identifying clearly discernible patterns of strategic orientation of Brazilian exporters and their association with firm and manager characteristics. The study also discusses how export performance correlates with strategic orientation.     

Firm size, business experience and export intensity in SMEs: A longitudinal approach to complex relationships

The objective of the paper is to test the effect of firm size and business experience on export performance. In fact, despite a growing number of empirical studies, the question of the relationship between these variables is not clearly established. This research aims at contributing to a better understanding of these complex relationships with a special focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors develop a general model and test it using a sample of Italian manufacturing firms that spans the 1997–2001 period. Combining a time-series with a cross-sectional analysis, they use an econometric model in order to test the relationships. Their findings provide a strong support for both relationships. The results show that it is not business experience per se which is important but that it is the relative change in experience that truly impacts upon export performance. The model also reveals that industry effects are relevant.     

Innovation and export performance of emerging market enterprises: The roles of state and foreign ownership in China

This article examines the role of ownership for the relationship between innovation and exports. Analyzing a large firm-level data set on Chinese manufacturing firms during 2000–2007, we find that state ownership has a positive moderating effect on the innovation–export relationship. We ascribe this effect to state-owned firms’ privileged access to complementary resources and networks that strengthen their ability to use innovation to generate exports. In contrast to many earlier studies, we also find that foreign ownership has a negative moderating effect. One likely reason is that indicators of local innovation do not reflect the flows of knowledge between foreign-owned firms and their parent companies. This finding highlights the fact that innovation and production may be geographically separated within multinational enterprises. A policy implication of the analysis is that public support to innovation is likely to have stronger effects on exports when it targets firms that carry out most of their activities in domestic market.     

跨国外包体系下技术创新的出口效应——基于浙江省制造企业问卷调查数据的实证研究

本文运用浙江省制造企业调查问卷数据,实证检验了技术创新的出口效应。研究发现,技术创新对企业出口行为存在正面影响:技术创新强度越高,企业的出口倾向和出口强度越高。基于我国处于跨国外包生产体系之中,本文还研究了跨国外包、技术创新与出口之间的关系。研究发现跨国外包不仅直接推动了我国出口扩张,而且还通过促进技术创新间接地激励企业出口。本文的政策含义在于:我国本土企业应加强技术创新,保持出口持续扩张的态势,摆脱对跨国公司及其外包订单的依赖。     

出口与企业生产率:由实证而理论的最新拓展

出口与企业生产率之间关系的研究属于国际贸易研究的最新论题,这原本是个实证论题,后来被提升到理论层面。大量的实证研究文献集中在"自我选择效应"和"出口学习效应"两个命题。理论层面的拓展以对传统理论之企业无差异假定条件的打破为基点。文章在对1995-2006年关于出口与企业生产率关系的实证与理论研究进行归纳、总结的基础上提出了进一步研究的方向。     

Export strategy,export intensity and learning: Integrating the resource perspective and institutional perspective

Export intensity (EI) has been widely examined as a performance outcome of exporting firms. To date, studies on the determinants of EI have generated mixed and even contradictory results. To reconcile such inconsistencies, this study dichotomizes export strategy in emerging economies into two distinctive types, expansion-oriented vs. escape-oriented, with the former inspired by exploiting firm-specific competencies as portrayed by the RBV and the latter motivated by avoiding the domestic institutional deficiencies as informed by the institutional perspective. Different from prior findings in the International Business literature, this research finds that a firm’s extremely high EI might not result from their superior competencies. Instead, high EI firms might focus on export mainly for the purpose of escaping from their home country’s deficient institutional environment that places extra burdens in terms of costs of doing business. Such escape-oriented exporters are more sensitive and responsive to changes in the environment while they do not enhance their learning as much as those expansion-oriented exporters. Furthermore, institutional environment has heterogeneous impacts on firms with different ownership types. Our study helps integrate the insights from both the RBV and the institutional perspective, and our dichotomization of export strategy adds precision and sophistication to the understanding of EI and export performance. Our hypotheses are supported by an empirical study based on a sample of exporting firms in China between 1998 and 2007.     

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.     

基于生存分析模型的企业生存问题及其影响因素研究综论

文章从基于生存分析模型的企业生存问题研究框架着手,对现有文献进行了系统梳理,总结了当前企业生存问题研究中常用的方法和模型,归纳了可能影响企业生存的主要因素,并提出了未来的研究方向。     

Innovation dialectics: an extended process perspective on innovation in services

Services are characterised by the involvement of customers and other interest groups in the innovation process. The aim of this study is to understand how and why, in the service context, tensions and potential conflicts between heterogeneous interest groups unfold during processes of innovation. The empirical field in which the investigation was set is facility services, a type of business-to-business support services. The findings were extracted from a longitudinal, in-depth case study of a Danish, multi-national organisation over 13 years, complemented with an explorative study in the Danish facility service context. The findings suggest that tensions and conflicts between heterogeneous interest groups are an intrinsic element of innovation processes in services, and that emphasising them might actually support a clearer understanding of processes of innovation in services. The outcome of the analysis is a process model, which proposes innovation dialectics as one of the driving mechanisms of innovation in services.     

Business Survival and the Decision to Exit

The decision to exit is examined for a cohort of over 12,000 plants established in 1976. Using a longitudinal data base, the performance of the establishments is analysed over the subsequent 10 years. The empirical evidence suggests that start-up size, ownership status, and the industry environment affect the likelihood of a start -up subsequently exiting. Plants with more employees during the start -up year are found to have a lower likelihood of exit than do smaller plants. Similarly, establishnwnts which are independent are found to have a lower likelihood of exit within the following years than do newly created establishments belonging to a multi-plant firm. However, the determinants of exit apparently vary along with the age of the establishment. Innovative activity is found to raise the likelihood of establishment exit in the short run but lower it in the longer run.     

技术创新与出口:理论与实证研究的发展

从理论阐释和实证分析两个方面述评技术创新与出口关系的主要观点和相关文献。众多相关文献表明,技术创新活动是一国出口表现的主要驱动力之一,在扩大市场、提升国际竞争力以及增加企业利润方面起着积极的促进作用。     

Firm heterogeneity and FDI-related productivity spillovers: A theoretical investigation

A number of existing empirical studies have attempted to estimate the foreign direct investment (FDI)-related productivity spillover effects to domestic firms in host economies using various methodologies and measures of FDI. This literature has produced mixed results. While some studies found positive spillovers, others reported zero or even negative spillovers. In this paper, using a model of firm heterogeneity, we provide a rigorous theoretical justification for the mixed findings. We show that FDI-related productivity spillover effects can be decomposed into a direct and an indirect effect. If the direct effect is positive then relatively less capable domestic firms that were not able to survive in the industry (before the arrival of foreign firms) can enter the industry, which decreases the average (expected) productivity of the industry. If this indirect effect is sufficiently strong then the overall impact of FDI on productivity of domestic firms can be zero or negative. Hence, irrespective of the type of FDI (vertical or horizontal) and control variables included in empirical models, one may find negative or zero spillover effects.     

The death of firms: exploring the effects of environment and birth cohort on firm survival in Sweden

This paper investigates the death of firms and seizes a long-term perspective. It investigates the life spans of nearly 2,200 firms in seven birth cohorts of Swedish joint-stock companies, founded during seven separate years between 1899 and 1950. Research has traditionally emphasized individual- and micro-oriented factors in explaining post-entry performance, or has often focused on the influence of firm-specific structural factors (firm age and size). A less attended field recognizes environmental forces. This paper focuses on the interaction between the micro and macro levels, and combines structural and environmental factors. Employing a cohort approach, it relates firm survival to firm age and size, as well as to the effect of cohort affiliation and environmental change over time (period effects). During macroeconomic expansion, the risk of death decreases. Cohort effects are also evident. Firms founded during times of economic crisis exhibit lower survival rates. Consequently, cohort affiliation and environmental forces, i.e. period effects, can explain differences in death rates in different firm populations.

Venture capitalists at work: A diff-in-diff approach at late-stages of the screening process

In this paper we use a new methodology aimed at identifying only the venture capitalists (VC) treatment effect: we compare a representative sample of firms financed by private VC in the period 2004–2014 with a sample of firms rejected by VC at the very late-stages of the screening process. These firms narrowly lost the contest and are hence very similar, before VC financing, to the VC backed firms; self-selection is specifically taken into account. In line with previous results, Italian startups financed by VC reach a larger size and become more innovative than other startups. On the contrary, sales growth is similar and profitability is worse than firms in the control group. VC-backed companies experience larger rise in labor costs, while the commercialization of their innovative projects takes longer: this explains their worse profitability and the deterioration in their credit score. Both effects tend to disappear after four years from VC financing, when sales increase for VC-backed firms at the same pace as for the control group. Unlike other studies, no differences are detected for the survivorship rates of VC-backed firms in Italy. We also provide new evidence on the impact of VC on firms’ financial structures: VC-backed firms show a much larger increase in equity; this rise is however only half the increase in total assets that is hence not only explained by the injection of VC equity. Another result in this direction is that the effects on firms’ size and innovation hold when we restrict the control group to firms that also increase their equity from investors different from VC; this suggests that VC effects on size and innovation might also be linked to their managerial expertise and network connections. Finally, in line with previous evidence, the effects found in the paper are exclusively driven by independent VC investors compared with captive VC.     

A comparative study of the export problems of small computer software exporters in Finland, Ireland and Norway

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into the export problems of small computer software firms in Finland, Ireland and Norway. The study suggests that finance-related problems present exporters with the greatest difficulties and that these problems often intensify with increased international exposure. It also reveals that marketing-related factors tend to decline as firms become more active in export markets. The paper concludes that export policy-makers should seek to address these problems by improvements in training—particularly, in the area of export finance—and by providing a better financial infrastructure, in order to improve the international capabilities of small software firms.     

Entry,Growth and Patenting in Industrial Clusters: A Study of the Aerospace Industry in the UK

This paper studies how firm performance is influenced by the strength of the industrial cluster (or industrial district) in which it is located. The paper presents estimates of firm-level employment and patent growth models for a range of '5-digit' aerospace industries in the UK. In these models, employment in the firm's own sector and employment in other sectors is taken as a measure of the strength of the cluster. Strong positive clustering effects are found in many sectors, but nevertheless some clustering effects are negative. Entry into clusters of this industry is also examined and some sectors are found to attract new entry while others are only attracted.     

Rapid internationalization and exit of exporters: The role of digital platforms

Digital platforms have been developing fast which transform the benefits and costs of rapid internationalization of firms on them. Employing transaction cost economics perspective, we argue that the transaction attributes of asset specificity, transaction uncertainty, and transaction frequency, have all changed fundamentally in digital platform-based transactions. They render the organizational learning in rapid Internet exporting to counterbalance the diseconomies of time compression caused by the lack of organizational absorptive capacity. By using the three attributes as underlying mechanisms, we hypothesize that the expansion speed of exporters on digital platforms reduces exit hazards of the exporters. We further hypothesize that digital signals on product quality strengthen the main effect. As for digital infrastructure, we recognize its competing effects and make curvilinear moderating hypotheses. Survival analyses based on 353,636 entries of real transaction records from a digital exporting platform have provided robust findings. This study highlights the importance of examining how the digital platform reshapes the transaction attributes and internationalization-performance relationship.