Collusion vs. superiority : A Monte Carlo analysis

This paper develops a Monte Carlo procedure which simulates regression equations characteristic of the profit-concentration literature, given knowledge (lacking in empirical work) of the underlying parameters' true values. It is shown that concentration's coefficient in an industry profit-concentration regression may overestimate, underestimate or accurately reflect the impact of monopoly power on price depending on the assumed underlying model. Current empirical evidence, however, tends to be more consistent with the model that predicts concentration overestimates the monopoly power effect.     

Cyclical variation in the profit-concentration relationship

At least 15 profit-structure studies using Federal Trade Commission Line-of-Business data have found either a significantly negative or no relationship between profits and market concentration when firm market share is included in the analysis. The findings reported here suggest that the FTC Line-of-Business data are for years in which cyclical factors seriously distorted the profit-concentration relationship. This hypothesis is supported by both annual cross-section regressions and pooled regressions for the period 1947–1990.     

Advertising, Its Determinants, and Market Structure

This study derives a formal model of firm advertising behavior and applies it to the industry level to figure out the relationship between advertising and market structure. The firm advertising model shows that both consumer preference andfirm-specific advertising competence jointly determineprofit-maximizing advertising intensity. At the industry level, advertising intensity is represented multiplicatively by consumer preference and a measure of market structure, which reflects the joint distribution of the levels of advertising competence and market shares among firms. The new market structure measure suggests that those single-dimensional measures of market structure such as seller concentration and the Herfindahl index are inadequate in explaining interindustry differences in advertising intensity, and that the long-debated advertising-concentration relationship differs depending primarily on the appropriability of advertising. An empirical analysis of 426 five-digit Korean manufacturing industries shows that an inverted U-shaped relationship between the Herfindahl index and industry advertising intensity is observed for consumer goods industries but a lazy J-shaped relationship for producer goods industries.     

What Moves the Mortgage‐Backed Securities Market?

Using a vector autoregressive model with monthly data from 1988 through 2001, this study investigates the factors that drive the excess returns on a widely followed mortgage-backed securities (MBS) index. We find that eight important economic variables (industrial productions, new home sales, bond horizon premium, bond quality premium, mortgage rate, refinancing proxy, general stock market index and world bond market index) appear to move the excess returns on MBS. Impulse response analysis and variance decomposition further indicate a strong dynamic relationship between MBS excess returns and changes in these economic variables. Additional analysis of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae MBS also indicates that the risk of the MBS guarantor is an important determinant of the MBS return dynamics after the creation of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.     

Exploring the role of relationship pricing in industrial export settings: Empirical evidence from the UK

This paper sets out to shed initial empirical light on the role of relationship pricing in an industrial export context, by a) investigating the extent to which selected contextual variables shape the adoption of relationship pricing, and b) examining manifestations of relationship pricing in the process that industrial exporters use for levying their prices. Analyzing data from a stratified random sample of 243 UK exporters of industrial products, the results demonstrate that the adoption of relationship pricing is a) facilitated by the degree of an exporter's market orientation, export experience, and the level of formality in export price setting and b) hindered by firm age and export intensity. It is also shown that industrial exporting firms adopting relationship pricing tend to follow a more market-based export price decision-making process, as this is manifested in market-based export pricing information, objectives and policies. The practical implications of the findings are discussed and useful future research directions are highlighted.     

The effect of household wealth on the adoption of improved maize varieties in Zambia

Production and price risks that could render input use unprofitable sometimes prevent rural households from benefiting from input technological change. The household’s ability to cope with such risks and hence benefit from input technological change is often positively related to its wealth or stock of productive assets. Empirical evidence, however, suggests a non-linear relationship between wealth and adoption of new agricultural technologies so that within a rural community, households on the lower wealth continuum behave differently from those on the higher level. Using farm level data collected from 300 randomly selected households in three districts of Zambia in 2004/2005 crop season, this paper first stratifies households into poorly- and well-endowed households based on their access to productive assets and estimates separate double-hurdle models for the adoption of improved, high yielding maize (IHYM) varieties for each group. The results show that factors influencing the adoption and use intensity of IHYM varieties differ between the two groups. This draws attention to the need for recommending wealth group-specific interventions to increase the adoption and use intensity of such varieties and their subsequent impacts on food security and general livelihoods of the households. The explicit testing for the possibility that differences in household wealth affect the way in which other variables influence adoption decisions is the paper’s unique contribution to the adoption literature.     

Incorporating Network Externalities into the Technology Acceptance Model*

Research on network externalities has identified a number of product categories in which the market performance of an innovation (e.g., unit sales and revenues) is an increasing function of that innovation's installed base and the availability of complementary products. Innovation scholars have attributed these findings to the positive impact of network externality variables on consumer perceptions of innovation attributes. This paper provides the first empirical examination of these perceptual linkages by extending the Technology Acceptance Model to include consumer perceptions of network externality variables. The authors hypothesize that, when direct and indirect network externalities exist, consumer purchase intentions and consumer perceptions of an innovation's usefulness and ease of use will positively reflect perceptions of installed base size and the availability of complementary products. To test this reasoning, the authors developed new measures of consumer perceptions of network externality variables. These measures were incorporated into a survey that explored the attitudes in Japan of potential adopters toward digital music (DM) players at an early stage in the product life cycle. Findings reveal a direct positive relationship between ease of use and the perceived availability of digital music. The authors also find positive and significant relationships between both purchase intention and perceived usefulness and (1) the perceived size of the DM player installed base and (2) the perceived availability of digital music. An application of the Baron‐Kenny test for mediating variables reveals that (1) ease of use partially mediates the relationship between the perceived availability of digital music and perceived usefulness and (2) perceived usefulness partially mediates the relationship between the perceived availability of digital music and purchase intention. The research has important implications for future research on new product adoption and for the management of innovations that involve network externalities. The conceptual model provides a framework for testing alternative explanations of observed variations in the impact of network externalities within and across product categories. The empirical analysis provides guidance for managers who wish to manage the impact of network externalities on adoption. In addition to stimulating the size of the installed base and the variety of complementary products, executives must also manage consumer awareness of network externality variables and consumer understanding of the relationship between those variables and innovation attributes. Finally, traditional adoption models link consumer adoption decisions to perceptions of innovation attributes. The findings provided here imply that predictive accuracy of these models can be improved by including consumer perceptions of network externality variables.     

A Simulation Approach to the Appraisal of Income Producing Real Estate

The income approach to appraising real property has been criticized in at least three general areas: the use of point estimates for input variables and market value, the failure to use an after-tax valuation model, and the ability of a single valuation model to capture the market for a given property. The objectives of this study are the development of an analytical framework and computer model to overcome these criticisms. The computer model is developed using Monte Carlo simulation and allows the appraiser to consider uncertainty, after-tax cash flows and numerous valuation models. The ability of appraisers to generate the necessary inputs and the interpretation of the output from the model are demonstrated using a case study.     

Bridging the chasm between survey and case study research: Research methods for achieving generalization, accuracy, and complexity

This article describes how behavioral science research methods that management and marketing scholars apply in studying processes involving decisions and organizational outcomes relate to three principal research objectives: fulfilling generality of findings, achieving accuracy of process actions and outcomes, and capturing complexity of nuances and conditions. The article's unique contribution is in advocating and describing the possibilities of researchers replacing Thorngate's (1976) “postulate of commensurate complexity” - it is impossible for a theory of social behavior to be simultaneously general, accurate, and simple and as a result organizational theorists inevitably have to make tradeoffs in their theory development - with a new postulate of disproportionate achievement. This new postulate proposes the possibilities and advocates the building and testing of useful process models that achieve all three principal research objectives. Rather than assuming the stance that a researcher must make tradeoffs that permit achieving any two, but not all three, principal research objectives as Weick (1979) clock analogy shows, this article advocates embracing a property space (a three-dimensional box rather than a clock) view of research objectives and research methods. Tradeoffs need not be made; having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too is possible. The article includes a brief review of principal criticisms that case study researchers often express of surveys of respondents using fixed-point surveys. Likewise, the article reviews principal criticisms of case study research studies that researchers who favor the use of fixed-point surveys express.     

The Effects of Taxes and Organizational Variables on Research and Development Intensity

Prior research has failed to reach consensus on which variables explain private-sector research and development (R&D) spending. This study extends prior research explaining R&D spending of firms in the US private sector by regressing R&D intensity on a number of tax and organizational variables. COMPUSTAT data from 113 firms in 1994 are used to estimate the effects of the variables on R&D intensity (used interchangeably with R&D activity). Ordinary least square estimates indicate that firms that were eligible for the R&D credit had higher R&D activity than firms that were ineligible. R&D intensity is a decreasing function of both capital intensity and the debt to capital ratio. Neither management stockholding nor diversification strategy meaningfully influenced R&D activity. The reported results have implications regarding US tax policy towards the tax subsidy for R&D. The results also help to clarify prior findings regarding a number of organizational variables on R&D intensity. One implication of these results for US tax policy is that private sector R&D intensity can be meaningfully influenced by the level of tax subsidy.     

TIMING AND INTENSITY EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTMENTS

This paper examines the investment timing and intensity conditions under which advantages may exist for first movers in environmental investments. The potential advantages on which the paper focuses are timing and intensity of investments in recent pollution-reducing manufacturing technologies that produce salable product at the same time that they reduce pollution. The data come from 50 chemical bleached paper pulp manufacturers in eight countries. The model measures the impact of the independent variables on growth in profits from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, controlling for national differences in environmental regulations, among other variables. Results indicate a positive relationship between timing of investments and profit growth. There is also evidence that more intense investment patterns, when not tempered by sufficient time to absorb the investments, may lead to lower profit growth.     

The effects of complementarity of knowledge and capabilities on joint innovation capabilities and service innovation: The role of competitive intensity and demand uncertainty

Service innovation has become increasingly important for the growth of developed and developing countries. Despite an extensive body of literature on the role of joint innovation capabilities in improving a firm's innovativeness, the multivariate influences of operant resources and joint innovation capabilities, as well as the interplay among these in the prediction of service innovation have not been scrutinized in the context of B2B SMEs in a developing country. This study aims to fill this gap by testing a model that shows the relationships among complementarity of knowledge and capabilities as operant resources, joint innovation capabilities, and service innovation. We derive hypotheses about these relationships and test them using data from a sample of 302 respondents from 151 firms operating in the UAE. The results show that the relationships between complementarity of knowledge and joint innovation capabilities, and between joint innovation capabilities and service innovation, are significant and positive. They also show that the mediation effect of joint innovation capabilities on the relationship between complementarity of knowledge and service innovation is positive and full. This study also tests the moderating roles of competitive intensity and demand uncertainty in the relationship between joint innovative capabilities and service innovation and finds that their connection is stronger when competitive intensity is high.     

Export intensity,scope, and destinations: Evidence from Brazil

How do the three dimensions of geographic export diversification—namely, (1) export intensity, (2) export scope, and (3) export destinations—interact in determining firm performance? How does the export intensity–performance relationship change considering export scope and destinations? Drawing on institution-based and resource-based lenses, we argue that differences between home and destination country institutional environments are amplified by the scope or variety of export destinations. As firm resources nurtured in the home country may not fit an increasing number of different foreign institutional environments, the export intensity–firm performance relationship turns negative. Conversely, our panel data analysis suggests a positive relationship between export intensity and performance when exporters from an emerging economy increase their exports to a limited number of other emerging economies. Thus, our findings extend conventional wisdom on the export intensity–firm performance relationship and suggest that the international marketing strategy literature needs to simultaneously incorporate three dimensions (including export destinations) into the geographic export diversification construct.     

User participation and management information system use: A path analysis

This article proposes and empirically tests a causal model of user participation and management information system use. Based on a review of available literature, three variables including user understanding, system quality and user acceptance are identified as intervening in the relationship between user participation and system use. Causal orders among these variables are assumed and a causal model is constructed for empirical testing. Task complexity is introduced as a contingent variable affecting the structure of these causal relationships. The data are collected from 134 users of 77 different information systems in 32 Korean business firms. The results of data analysis support the causal model in general, but suggest that causal relationships among the variables are different according to task complexity. Two separate models of user participation and management information system use, based on the empirical results, are presented for further research, one for more complex and the other for less complex systems.     

THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE USE OF SOPHISTICATED CAPITAL BUDGETING PRACTICES AND CORPORATE PERFORMANCE

Since the early 1950s, the academic community has tried lo convince corporate managers that there are sophisticated techniques that can improve the capital budgeting decision-making process. Over the years, many studies have documented a trend toward increasing business use of such sophisticated capital budgeting techniques. However, there is no clear evidence whether better performing companies are more likely to employ sophisticated capital budgeting processes than are lower performing companies. This study is an attempt to measure the relationship between capital budgeting sophistication and business performance. It advances upon earlier studies by utilizing a more comprehensive capital budgeting sophistication metric, incorporating industry-adjusted independent variables (firm size, risk, capital intensity, and degree of focus), and by focusing on United States corporations. The results are similar with those of earlier studies; there is no discernible relationship between capital budgeting sophistication and corporate performance.     

Characteristics and mobile Internet use intensity of consumers with different types of advanced handsets: An exploratory empirical study of iPhone,Android and other web-enabled mobile users in Germany

This work explores personal characteristics and mobile Internet (MI) use behaviors of consumers equipped with four distinct types of advanced handsets for accessing the Internet via cellular radio infrastructures of mobile network operators (MNO). Furthermore, it investigates the extent to which personal and mobile appliance characteristics explain variance in actual MI use intensity. Data on two demographic variables, three MNO relationship characteristics and actual MI use intensity (average monthly volume of mobile IP traffic generated by a subscriber in May and June 2011) of 9321 adult consumers with a flat MI pricing scheme are extracted from customer files of the German subsidiary of a large international MNO. 959, 2213, 2410 and 3739 of the sample members use an Apple iPhone 3, an Apple iPhone 4, a model running with Google’s Android operating system (OS) and other MI-enabled mobile OS/phone types, respectively. Compared to the adult population in Germany, persons at least 50 years of age are clearly underrepresented among MI adopters with the four studied device types. Differences between the four phone type groups with regard to gender, age, time from enrollment and MI use experience emerge as statistically significant, but they achieve only minor substantial relevance. MI use intensity is highly positively skewed: In each of the four appliance groups, a small number of users disproportionately add to the total MI traffic generated by the subjects. Consumers’ advanced OS/handset type strongly contributes towards explaining MI use intensity variance. iPhone subscribers generate more traffic than Android customers who in turn show a higher MI activity level than individuals running other web-enabled mobile models. Age is the only studied personal characteristic consistently showing a (negative) association with MI usage, which both is statistically and materially significant. Conclusions are drawn for MNO on MI marketing issues. Implications of study limitations for research on MI adoption and use behaviors on the MI are also outlined.     

Cross-Functional collaboration,competitive intensity,knowledge integration mechanisms,and new product performance: A mediated moderation model

This study draws upon the structural contingency theory to develop a mediated moderation model in order to examine how knowledge integration mechanisms mediate the impact of competitive intensity on the cross-functional collaboration–new product performance relationship. A final sample of 182 Taiwanese manufacturing firms provides the data for the analyses. The results show that (1) competitive intensity weakens the effect of cross-functional collaboration on new product performance and (2) knowledge integration mechanisms mediate the negative effect of competitive intensity on the cross-functional collaboration–new product performance relationship. These results not only provide an explanation for the inconsistent findings documented in the marketing literature but also call on managers to take relevant actions to alleviate the negative influence of competitive intensity on the performance effects of cross-functional collaboration and knowledge integration mechanisms.     

科创企业研发投入对企业绩效的非线性影响——基于固定效应面板门槛模型的实证研究

在中美贸易摩擦的压力和后疫情时代“双循环发展”的新格局下,科创企业研发投入有效性问题备受关注。本文基于科创板上市公司2017~2019年面板数据,建立了固定效应面板门槛模型,实证检验了研发强度与企业绩效在不同研发强度和产出规模下的非线性关系,并揭示了研发回报率和研发产出弹性在不同研发强度下的非线性变化规律。研究表明:(1)研发强度与企业绩效呈“倒V形”关系,最优研发强度为2.42%~4.11%;(2)只有当产出规模达到一定水平,研发投入才能促进企业绩效;(3)使研发回报率和研发产出弹性最大的最优研发强度分别为2.42%~4.42%(或2.42%~4.11%)和2.42%~4.59%。研究结果可直接辅助科创企业界定研发投入的最优区间,理性权衡短期风险与长期收益,并最终达成最优的研发强度。     

The organizational form of vertical relationships: Dimensions of integration

In this paper we argue that the organizational form of a buying firm's vertical relationship with a supplier can be defined as a configuration of four distinct, but related dimensions of integration. These dimensions pertain to ownership integration (the extent that the firm owns the upstream component supplier), coordination integration (the intensity of information exchange to align the two stages of production), task integration (the extent that the buying firm performs upstream tasks), and knowledge integration (the extent that the buying firm possesses knowledge about the upstream component). Ranging from fully integrated to fully disintegrated, these dimensions can be combined to form various organizational configurations that better reflect the true nature of organizational forms than one-dimensional conceptualizations. Drawing on distinct fields of research (e.g. transaction costs economics, information-processing theory, and learning) the goal of this paper is to improve our understanding of the four dimensions of integration and their interrelationships. This is an important step for future processes of configurational theory building and normative testing.