Growth determinants in entrepreneurship: A longitudinal study of Spanish technology-based university spin-offs

The study explores whether the university origin of a technology-based firm conditions its growth in terms of both sales and employment. The small firm size of a significant percentage of technology-based university spin-offs (T-USOs) puts into question the policies geared towards promoting university entrepreneurship. A sample of 340 Spanish technology-based firms (219 T-USOs and 121 T-non-USOs) was constructed by using the non-parametric technique of propensity score matching and the data refer to the period 2001–2010. Applying panel data methodology, we find that the T-USOs outperform the T-non-USOs. Therefore, the need for support of university-based entrepreneurship by governments and by the universities is justified, because in this way, they are promoting economic growth and social development. By launching T-USOs, universities not only contribute to the economic growth but also to the internationalisation of the economy, as T-USOs show a more international orientation. In addition, the results lead us to emphasise the need to customise university policies aimed at promoting the growth of T-USOs. Given that the study is focused on a ‘moderate innovator’ country, the conclusions and proposals of this paper may be extrapolated to other countries with similar innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, namely the Mediterranean and Latin American countries.     

The impact of network capabilities and entrepreneurial orientation on university spin-off performance

Drawing on a database of 149 university spin-offs, we investigated the impact of network capability (NC), defined as a firm's ability to develop and utilize inter-organizational relationships, and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on organizational performance. Not only do the results suggest that a spin-off's performance is positively influenced by its NC, but the findings also indicate that a spin-off's EO fosters competitive advantages. Although no direct relationship is apparent between EO and sales growth, sales per employee, or profit attainment, moderated hierarchical regression analyses reveal that NC strengthens the relationship between EO and spin-off performance. In sum, our research shows that a spin-off's organizational propensities and processes that enhance innovation, constructive risk taking, and proactiveness in dealing with competitors per se do not enhance growth and secure long-term survival. However, we found that NC moderates the relationship between EO and organizational performance.     

A process study of entrepreneurial team formation: the case of a research-based spin-off

This paper describes how a team of entrepreneurs is formed in a high-tech start-up, how the team copes with crisis situations during the start-up phase, and how both the team as a whole and the team members individually learn from these crises. The progress of a high-tech university spin-off has been followed up from the idea phase until the post-start-up phase. Adopting a prospective, qualitative approach, the basic argument of this paper is that shocks in the founding team and the position of its champion co-evolve with shocks in the development of the business.     

Productive entrepreneurship and the effectiveness of insolvency legislation: a cross-country study

Small Business Economics - This paper studies the association between the effectiveness of insolvency regulations and entrepreneurship using multilevel modeling of about 300,000 individuals in 27...     

Institutional determinants of inward FDI: Evidence from Pakistan

FDI has been growing at a spectacular pace all over the world and emerging countries have been successful in attracting more FDI compared to developed countries. Institutional factors are becoming more important as determinants of inward FDI for emerging markets. However, research in this area is inadequate and also incosnsistent in terms of findings. In this paper, we have examined the institutional determinants of Pakistani FDI inflows and also examined the relative importance of those factors. The paper has found that certain institutional determinants such as size of the government, legal structure and strong property rights, freedom to trade and civil liberty have strong positive effect on FDI inflows. Among the institutional variables, regulation has been found to be most important to influence inward FDI flow to Pakistan. The paper has also found evidence that there was a structural break in FDI flows in Pakistan which coincides with market liberalization programme in early 1990s. This confirms the effectiveness of conducive institutional environment to attract foreign investment. Moreover, we have found that military government is more successful in attracting FDI compared to democratic government in Pakistan.     

Institutional determinants of emerging market returns and flows

Investors commonly rely on macroeconomic variables to drive capital allocation decisions. But other institutional factors may alter investor returns as well, particularly in emerging market countries. Given these concerns, this paper examines the effects of institutional factors—specifically democracy, transparency and corruption—on emerging market equity returns and flows. We find that institutional quality impacts stock market returns and flows in emerging markets where corruption, transparency, and democracy levels are below average. We also find that government-owned or controlled industries are positively impacted by a deterioration in the corruption and democracy indexes, while highly concentrated sectors, like the financial industry, are negatively impacted by improving transparency.     

Foreign direct investment and wages: a cross-country analysis

While globalization has led to overall economic growth in a number of countries, questions abound on its distributional effects, especially on rising wage inequality across nations. The main objective of this study is to investigate empirically the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on wages in a cross-country setting. We investigate the general equilibrium propositions that capital inflows (outflows) increase (lower) wages in host (home) countries due to the change in relative factor endowments. We also explore whether capital inflows have differential impacts on skilled and unskilled wages in developing economies. Time-series data on 26 countries, 15 developed and 11 developing, are used to fit the labour share equation derived from a translog GNP function with net FDI stock as one of its arguments. Results confirm that capital movement brings about a cross-country convergence of wages. However, there is some evidence that inward FDI flows increase the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers in developing countries.     

Drivers of non-profit activity: a cross-country analysis

This paper contributes to the existing debate on the determinants of non-profit activity. The main theories have been centered in (1) the study of the individual behavior of people (donors, non-profit entrepreneurs), (2) one single factor or (3) one single country. To quantify this approach, data for 38 countries have been used, extracted from World Values Survey, United Nations Development Program and Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. A structural modeling approach based in partial least squares (PLS) has been applied. The results provide evidence of the strength of environmental factors such as trust, economic development and social care public expenditures in non-profit activity. The model doesn’t confirm the existence of a positive relationship between entrepreneurship and non-profit activity. Nevertheless, the authors consider that the supply side theories and the idea of spatial production of entrepreneurship are quite consistent and find some signs evidencing a positive relationship between these variables.     

Reaping the financial and strategic benefits of a divestiture by spin-off

Because of their remarkable history of financial success, corporate spin-offs are the subject of perennial interest and investigation. We critically review quantitative and case-based research to determine the conditions under which a spin-off divestiture provides beneficial results for the conglomerate, the newly independent subsidiary, and the stockholders. The shared goal of spin-off researchers is to understand the rationale for the financial success that spin-off firms and their newly disconnected conglomerates experience. Our review and synthesis of the findings include 30 years of academic research by scholars in strategic and business management, commercial research by independent researchers and consulting firms, and IRS and US Treasury documents that detail when a spin-off qualifies for a corporate tax-free exchange. Our central finding is that spin-offs, conglomerates, and stockholders benefit from tax-free divestiture and subsequent refocusing by the companies. The article explains the breadth of spin-off divestitures and the benefits of their success in the US. These results center on helping decision-makers recognize the situational factors that support the choice of a spin-off strategy.     

Linking positive affect and motivation to transfer within training: a multilevel study

Motivation to transfer is a critical element for successful training transfer. Whereas recent research has shown that training‐related factors such as training design are related to motivation to transfer, participants’ affective experiences have been neglected. Based on the broaden‐and‐build theory of positive emotions, we conducted a multilevel study to investigate the relationship between positive affect and motivation to transfer at the individual and at the group level of analysis. A total of 867 training participants drawn from 78 three‐day training programmes were surveyed on the first day (T1) and the last day (T2) of the training. As expected, positive affect was found to be related to motivation to transfer at both T1 and T2. Furthermore, the relationship between positive affect at T1 and motivation to transfer at T2 was mediated by motivation to transfer at the individual and the group level at T1 and by positive affect at the individual level at T2.     

Testing Baumol: Institutional quality and the productivity of entrepreneurship

Baumol's [Baumol, W.J., 1990. Entrepreneurship: productive, unproductive and destructive. Journal of Political Economy 98 (5), 893–921] theory of productive and unproductive entrepreneurship is a significant recent contribution to the economics of entrepreneurship literature. He hypothesizes that entrepreneurial individuals channel their effort in different directions depending on the quality of prevailing economic, political, and legal institutions. This institutional structure determines the relative reward to investing entrepreneurial energies into productive market activities versus unproductive political and legal activities (e.g., lobbying and lawsuits). Good institutions channel effort into productive entrepreneurship, sustaining higher rates of economic growth. I test and confirm Baumol's theory, and discuss its significance to the literature, economic prosperity, and policy reform.     

Digital infrastructure and entrepreneurial action-formation: A multilevel study

This study investigates how country-level digital infrastructure shapes the relationships between the action-formation mechanisms of socio-cognitive traits, i.e., entrepreneurial self-efficacy, fear of failure, and opportunity recognition, and entrepreneurial action. We amalgamate the agent-centric social cognitive theory with the external enabler framework and apply mechanism-based theorizing to explain how access-related mechanisms provided by digital infrastructure influence entrepreneurial action-formation. Based on a multilevel analysis of 344,265 individual-level observations from 46 countries and an additional robustness analysis of 391,119 individuals from 53 countries, we find that an individual's proclivity to starting a new venture is contingent upon the level of the digital infrastructure of a country. The empirical results show that a country's digital infrastructure is an external enabler that moderates the relationship between socio-cognitive traits and entrepreneurial action.     

Institutional,cultural and industry related determinants of ownership choices in emerging market FDI acquisitions

In this study, we tackle a relatively un-researched question: What explains partial FDI acquisitions? The choice between full, majority, and minority ownership is explained on the basis of three locational factors – the differences, or “distances,” between the countries of the acquirer and target firm – operationalized in terms of (i) institutions, (ii) culture, and (iii) sectoral relatedness. The sample comprises 1389 acquisitions in India and China by acquirers from 33 nations over an 11-year period. We find that the likelihood of minority acquisition over majority or full becomes higher when acquisitions involve low institutional distance or high uncertainty avoidance distance. However, the likelihood of minority acquisition over full or majority becomes lower when acquisitions involve industry relatedness. The results add to our understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of partial versus full FDI acquisitions in emerging markets. This study adds to the nascent literature that uses country or location “distance” metrics to show how the multinational firm, being “multiple embedded” (Meyer et al., 2011), can take advantage of the dual location of home and host countries.     

Internal determinants of recycling behaviour by university students: a cross‐country comparative analysis

University students are a key group for research since they will be the consumers and the intellectual vanguard of the future and, therefore, a reference group for other consumers. Accordingly, data obtained from university students in Spain (n = 640) and the US (n = 597) were analysed to identify the main internal factors which lead them to participate in recycling activities. Given that morality‐based theories, and more specifically the Value–Belief–Norm (VBN) Theory, might be very useful in explaining pro‐environmental behaviour which requires personal sacrifices and whose benefits are mainly for the environment itself, that is the theoretical approach that we take for the selection and analysis of factors. Our findings support our thesis that environmental knowledge is a factor that should be (but is not currently) considered in the framework of VBN theory for predicting recycling behaviour. Although university students from Spain and the US have very different recycling rates, the internal factors that explain their recycling behaviour are very similar (motivations, perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE), environmental knowledge and gender). The elasticity of recycling behaviour to changes in internal factors is estimated with a view to making predictions, and altruistic motivations and PCE are found to be the factors that have the greatest effect in terms of improving recycling behaviour, followed by environmental knowledge. These predictions could help university policy makers take better decisions about the factors on which they need to act to increase recycling activities. Some guidelines for consideration in future intervention strategies to encourage this group to recycle are also provided.     

The determinants of service quality: issues for purchasing

The overall purpose of this research was to analyze internal communication patterns, service quality initiatives, supplier management strategies and internal performance in organizations providing high levels of service quality to their external customers. Data was collected from 118 purchasing executives of manufacturing and service organizations. Respondents were asked to assess external and internal service quality as well as identify a number of internal service quality-oriented activities employed in their firms. Data was summarized for respondents stating a high level of external service quality. Comparative information was also supplied for the respondents stating lower levels of external service quality.     

Corporate risk exposures,disclosure, and derivatives use: A longitudinal study

We conduct firm and industry-level examinations of key market risk exposures deemed material by managers over the period 2002–2016. We find that risk exposures have expanded in line with firms’ growth and globalization and that managers strategically select disclosure formats in recognition of firms’ demand for capital market access and need to protect proprietary information. Currency derivatives use has surpassed that of interest rate derivatives and, conditioned on a firm having the associated risk exposure, commodity derivatives use is the highest. Finally, we find large increases in risk exposures concurrent with the initiation of derivatives use.     

Interpersonal service quality of the Chinese: determinants and behavioral drivers

Service Business - The limited explanatory power of service quality models outside their nascent Western contexts is in no small part due to the significant role of cultures in constructing...     

Boundary-spanning activity,role dynamics,and job satisfaction: A longitudinal study

Boundary-spanning activity and its effects on role conflict and ambiguity and job satisfaction were studied in a large manufacturing organization. Longitudinal data were collected 11 months apart from 132 managerial, engineering, and supervisory employees. A corrected cross-lagged correlational analysis suggests no casual relationships between boundary-spanning activity and role conflict and ambiguity. Causal, positive relationships are suggested, however, between boundary-spanning activity and satisfaction with work, promotions, supervision, co-workers, and overall job satisfaction.     

A cross-country study of consumer innovativeness and technological service innovation

The current literature suggests that the concept of consumer innovativeness is universally applicable. Innovators are believed to be novelty seekers and risk takers independent of their national identity, and therefore to be attracted to similar characteristics of an innovation across most countries. However, research in intercultural marketing has shown that cultural norms and values have varying influences on the adoption of innovation, a finding that seems to contradict the assumption that the relationship between consumer innovativeness and adoption of innovation is universally uniform. This research investigates the effects of consumer innovativeness on attitude toward a service-based innovation across three European countries. The results of a multi-group structural equation modeling show that the relationship between consumer innovativeness and attitude toward innovation varies across the three dimensions of perceived novelty, perceived value, and perceived risk.