Language ability and entrepreneurship education: Necessary skills for Europe’s start-ups?

Language ability and entrepreneurial education are seen as essential resources for start-ups operating in intensified landscapes of internationalisation and globalisation. Deemed as the necessary skills for corporate effectiveness vis-à-vis rivals, this paper responds to calls for increased understandings of cultural components as vital to entrepreneurship and the product of institutional forces. Thus, it explores (a) the impact language ability has on start-up expansion; (b) the perceptions of international relations as based on language ability as a tool for cross-cultural communication; and (c) the role of educational context from the entrepreneurs’ perspective. Based on interviews from European online start-ups across three discrete contexts—Finland, Portugal and Sweden—it concludes that contextual trends regarding language and education are founded upon the cultural-cognitive and normative pillars of institutionalisation. Further, by combining actor-context perspectives, it poses that language ability and education are resources borne from the domestic environment which positively moderate the start-up’s international success. Nevertheless, the notion of learnt entrepreneurship remains contested. Taken together, this study contributes by offering deeper insight into the role of context on entrepreneurial tendencies by combining resource and institutional perspectives.     

The development of new higher education courses

The main objective of this study was to present a proposal for a model explaining the construction of a new higher education course to be offered to the market. Having quite a limited theoretical basis and with few investigations dealing with innovation in educational services, a case study was made to help in construction of the model. The case study, supported by studies found and adaptation of innovation in services to the educational sector, made construction of the model possible, and this is divided in three stages: antecedents, development, and implementation of the new higher education course. The proposed model can be useful for managers of higher education institutes when they decide to put new courses on the market. As for the academic field, the study presented attempts to clarify the phenomenon, as well as showing the need for further research into the subject.     

Real option pricing with mean-reverting investment and project value

In this work, we are concerned with valuing the option to invest in a project when the project value and the investment cost are both mean-reverting. Previous works on stochastic project and investment cost concentrate on geometric Brownian motions (GBMs) for driving the factors. However, when the project involved is linked to commodities, mean-reverting assumptions are more meaningful. Here, we introduce a model and prove that the optimal exercise strategy is not a function of the ratio of the project value to the investment V/I – contrary to the GBM case. We also demonstrate that the limiting trigger curve as maturity approaches traces out a nonlinear curve in (V, I) space and derive its explicit form. Finally, we numerically investigate the finite-horizon problem, using the Fourier space time-stepping algorithm of Jaimungal and Surkov [2009. Lev´y based cross-commodity models and derivative valuation. SIAM Journal of Financial Mathematics, to appear. http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=972837]. Numerically, the optimal exercise policies are found to be approximately linear in V/I; however, contrary to the GBM case they are not described by a curve of the form V*/I*=c(t). The option price behavior as well as the trigger curve behavior nicely generalize earlier one-factor model results.     

Using propensity matching estimators to evaluate the impact of privatization on wages

Whether the transfer of ownership rights to the private sector leads to a decline or increase in wage growth is theoretically ambiguous, given that the outcome depends on the uncertain interaction between firms and workers. Using propensity matching techniques, this article investigates the effects of privatization on wages in the Portuguese banking industry. The empirical results, obtained from Quadros de Pessoal for the period between 1989 and 1997, generally show a negative (positive) short-run (long-run) effect of privatization on relative wage growth for both men and women retained in the privatized firms. Moreover, the results show that the most educated and experienced (oldest) workers, as well as those in the high skill occupational categories, were more likely to experience a negative wage effect.     

Information and \sigma -algebras

In this work, we clarify the relationship between the information that an agent receives from a signal, from an experiment or from his own ability to determine the true state of nature that occurs and the information that an agent receives from a $\sigma $ -algebra. We show that, for countably generated $\sigma $ -algebras, the larger it is, the larger the information is. The same is true for general $\sigma $ -algebras after the removal of a negligible set of states.     

Underwriter Reputation in Brazilian IPOs

This study updates previous analyses of banks' activities in equity offerings in the Brazilian market. Using data for the 2004–2007 period, the study tests the hypotheses that banks with the highest reputations coordinate offerings with lower initial returns, lower levels of risk and charge more for their services. Three measures of reputation were constructed in line with measures used for the US market. None of the measures showed a statistically significant relationship with returns, risk, or remuneration. The difference between the mid-point of the preliminary price range and the offering price constituted the most significant element in the forecasting of returns.     

Performance Analysis of Sustainable Investments in the Brazilian Stock Market: A Study About the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE)

In this article, we studied the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) of the Brazilian Mercantile, Futures and Stock Exchange (BM&FBOVESPA), with the main objective of analyzing the performance of sustainable investments in the Brazilian stock market, during the period from December 2005 to December 2010. To achieve this aim, we characterized ISE portfolios and we compared its performance with the IBOVESPA (representing the market portfolio) and other BM&FBOVESPA sectoral indices. In the performance comparison, we used level of liquidity, return and risk indicators, as well as the following measures: Sharpe, Treynor, Sortino, and Omega. Our results show that although sustainable investments have presented some interesting characteristics, such as increasing liquidity and low diversifiable risk, they did not achieve satisfactory financial performance in the analysis period. This indicates that the constraints imposed by this type of investment in capital allocation in Brazil may be harming their return and risk attractiveness.     

Nutritional labelling information: Utilisation of new technologies

Abstract

The increase in food-related diseases in society has led to a variety of public policy and private sector initiatives, such as the use of nutritional labels. Although nutritional labels have been shown to be broadly effective in terms of informing food choice, their influence is moderated by a variety of factors, such as how information is conveyed and processed by consumers. Recent advances in technology might overcome these limitations. Using a choice experiment, this paper examines consumer preferences for alternative technological devices that may aid consumer processing of nutritional information on food packaging. The results show which attributes of the technology consumers prefer, and identifies three distinct segments of consumers (‘information hungry innovators’, ‘active label readers’, and ‘onlookers’), and differences between them in relation to their preferences, demographics, and psychographic characteristics. The identification of segments is a novel aspect of this research, and highlights the importance of finding more customised solutions to the communication of nutritional information – an issue to which technology can contribute.     

Technical change: It should be positive and make sense!

We present the results of eight models that differ with respect to the time behavior of technical inefficiency and the presence of country heterogeneity. When taken into account, heterogeneity raises average technical change estimates, however technical progress rankings become counter-intuitive.     

The diffusion of exporting in Brazilian industrial clusters

The present research aimed at understanding the process by which firms in a cluster start to export based on systemic interactions, and the process of diffusion of exporting as a business strategy within the cluster. Diffusion was defined, following Rogers’ (1995: 5) seminal work, as ‘the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system’. The research method used was industry case studies and the unit of analysis selected was the cluster. Two manufacturing industries were chosen to be investigated, and within each geographic area clusters were identified as the origin of dynamic export growth in the industry. Players in each industrial cluster, as well as other significant actors, were interviewed. Extensive secondary data research was done to study clusters’ historical development. Detailed analysis and a comparison of the experiences permitted the extraction of some general conclusions concerning the similarities and differences between the clusters in terms of the adoption and diffusion of exporting. Results showed that the diffusion of exporting in an industrial cluster is quite similar to the dissemination of technical innovation. Social ties were important to facilitate the diffusion of exporting in one of the clusters studied. Also, the role of domestically-owned flagship firms in leading the internationalization process proved to be important in only one of the clusters, while the role of external actors was fully supported in the two industries studied. Finally, a number of support institutions, private and public, interfered in different stages of the internationalization process. In both industries, the federal government had only a late and limited impact on export initiation and development.