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The antecedents of SME innovativeness in an emerging transition economy

Understanding forces that contribute to the success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is very important, as these enterprises are vital for both developed and developing economies. Since innovativeness is among the most important means through which such businesses contribute to economic growth, numerous research studies were conducted to determine which factors positively impact SME's innovative efforts. This is an even more important issue for developing economies, where SMEs are often faced with inadequate infrastructure. Since there is a lack of studies on SME innovation in developing economies, often policy in such countries is based on findings from developed countries.In this paper, we explore factors that drive innovation activities in SMEs in a small emerging transition economy (Croatia), and compare it with findings from developed economies. In addition to factors used in most previous studies, we consider market scope, firm's market orientation and presence of strategic, managerial and marketing changes. We find that most factors that were found to be important in developed economies are important in developing economies as well. In addition to that, market scope was discovered to be a very important factor in both product and process innovation. Implementing corporate changes has positive impact on radical product innovation while implementing new organizational structures has positive effect on incremental innovation. When investigating determinants of product innovation, we distinguish new products of low novelty from new products of high novelty, and show that they need to be supported by different policies. To gain additional insight in innovation efforts, we examine obstacles to innovation. We find that firms that report facing obstacles are not less likely to innovate less, which suggests that innovators are able to work around obstacles without damaging effects to innovation. This study is based on a postal survey of 448 SMEs in Croatia, which was performed in 2004.     

Boiteux's solution to the shifting-peak problem and the equilibrium price density in continuous time

Summary. Bewley's condition on production sets, imposed to ensure the existence of an equilibrium price density when is the commodity space, is weakened to allow applications to continuous-time problems, and especially to peak-load pricing when the users' utility and production functions are Mackey continuous. A general form for production sets with the required property is identified, and examples are given of technologies which meet the weakened but not the original condition: these include industrial use and storage of cyclically priced goods. This gives a framework for settling Boiteux's conjecture on the shifting-peak problem. To make clear the restriction implicit in Mackey continuity, we interpret it as interruptibility of demand; and we point out that, without this assumption, the equilibrium can feature pointed peaks with singular, instantaneous capacity charges. The general equilibrium results are supplemented by results for prices supporting individual consumer or producer optima. Received: February 16, 2000; revised version: July 7, 2001     

Trading Hot-Air. The Influence of Permit Allocation Rules,Market Power and the US Withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol

After the conferences in Bonn and Marrakech, it is likely that international emissions trading will be realized in the near future. Major influences on the permit market␣are the institutional detail, the participation structure and the treatment of hot-air. Different scenarios not only differ in their implications for the demand and supply of permits and thus the permit price, but also in their allocative effects. In this paper we discuss likely the institutional designs for permit allocation in the hot-air economies and the use of market power and quantify the resulting effects by using the computable general equilibrium model DART. It turns out that the amount of hot-air supplied will be small if hot-air economies cooperate in their decisions. Under welfare maximization, more hot-airis supplied than in the case where governments try to maximize revenues from permit sales.     

Who is who

Praxis / MagazinNews

Who is who     

Accounting disclosure,corporate governance and the battle for markets: The case of trade negotiations between Japan and the U.S.

Developments in the socio-economic and political spheres impact upon accounting disclosure and corporate governance. In the context of globalisation, moves have been made ostensibly to converge practices towards global standards, which on the face of it equate to Anglo-American ways. Here, we focus on Japan in this context. We give particular attention to pressure apparently placed upon Japan by the U.S. vis-à-vis bilateral state-level trade negotiations – an under researched area – from the late 1980s. We critically interpret how the Japanese Government has responded to such apparent pressure.     

Wilhelm II. und die Presse — Ein Medienkaiser in seinem Element?

Even during his reign, Wilhelm II was, often derisively, characterized as the Reise- and Redekaiser (emperor of travel and talk). The last German Kaiser seemed to be omnipresent to his contemporaries. This impression was reinforced by the mass medium of the time: the press frequently picked up the Kaiser’s multiple and often deficient public appearances as a central theme. “The first German media star”, as Wilhelm II has also been called due to his affinity for the new medium of film, enjoyed the (medial) attention. Was the monarch a modern “media emperor”, however, who understood the importance, the specific rules, and the potential of the media, and consciously exploited it? My study answers this question based on sources including the writings of contemporary journalists, politicians, members of the entourage, and Wilhelm himself. The results show that Wilhelm’s relationship towards the press was extremely complex. It mirrors the Kaiser’s inner conflicts as well as the inconsistencies of his monarchical concept.