Relational paths in business network dynamics: Evidence from the fashion industry

This paper addresses the topic of business network dynamics. Starting with a review of the IMP literature, it aims to shed light on potential relational paths by which a firm may reconfigure its business network. To this end, two main emerging paths are described: integration and substitution. Methodologically, the paper presents and discusses the data collected during a longitudinal case analysis of four Italian textile producers. The main implications for business networks stemming from these emerging relational paths are described. In particular, the main findings from the cases analyzed suggest that business network dynamics should be interpreted in terms of the processes of both business network change and consolidation.     

Machine tools and mass production in the armaments boom: Germany and the United States, 1929–44

This article anatomizes the ‘productivity race’ between Nazi Germany and the US over the period from the Great Depression to the Second World War in the metalworking industry. We present novel data that allow us to account for both the quantity of installed machine tools and their technological type. Hitherto, comparison of productive technologies has been limited to case studies and well‐worn narratives about US mass production and European‐style flexible specialization. Our data show that the two countries in fact employed similar types of machines combined in different ratios. Furthermore, neither country was locked in a rigid technological paradigm. By 1945 Germany had converged on the US both in terms of capital‐intensity and the specific technologies employed. Capital investment made a greater contribution to output growth in Germany, whereas US growth was capital‐saving. Total factor productivity growth made a substantial contribution to the armaments boom in both countries. But it was US industry, spared the war's most disruptive effects, that was in a position to take fullest advantage of the opportunities for wartime productivity growth. This adds a new element to familiar explanations for Germany's rapid catch‐up after 1945.     

Indices for Working Land Conservation: Form Affects Function

Using environmental indices (EIs) to rank applications for enrollment in conservation programs is becoming common practice. However, there is little guidance on how it should be done. The indices adopted by existing programs have often been linear, using weighted averages of environmental parameters without explicit consideration of whether they represent a reliable preference ordering on environmental states. Our article investigates society's weights for addressing multiple resource concerns and how functional forms of EIs can influence program outcomes. We propose a means by which preference weights are observed from policymaker actions. Weights for multiple resource concerns are determined and combined with biophysical crop simulation data to create an environmental index (EI) for crop rotations. This index is developed using alternative function forms to score conservation efforts on working cropland and to measure their effect on program outcomes.     

National Determinants of Family Firm Development? Family Firms in Britain, Spain, and Italy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

We provide here a complement to recent work on family business,which has demonstrated the need to go beyond the generic definitionof the family firm to place personal capitalism in an appropriateinstitutional, historical, and cultural framework. By focusingon the nineteenth- and twentieth-century experiences in Britain,Spain, and Italy, we challenge the notion that in the nineteenthand twentieth centuries there was anything so simple as a Mediterraneanmodel for family business. Rather, we demonstrate the need toconsider family businesses in national and regional contextsif we are to understand their various capabilities and characteristics.We use similarities and differences in the experiences and responsesof families and firms in the three countries to support thisclaim.     

Ownership structure,risk and performance in the European banking industry

We compare the performance and risk of a sample of 181 large banks from 15 European countries over the 1999–2004 period and evaluate the impact of alternative ownership models, together with the degree of ownership concentration, on their profitability, cost efficiency and risk. Three main results emerge. First, after controlling for bank characteristics, country and time effects, mutual banks and government-owned banks exhibit a lower profitability than privately owned banks, in spite of their lower costs. Second, public sector banks have poorer loan quality and higher insolvency risk than other types of banks while mutual banks have better loan quality and lower asset risk than both private and public sector banks. Finally, while ownership concentration does not significantly affect a bank’s profitability, a higher ownership concentration is associated with better loan quality, lower asset risk and lower insolvency risk. These differences, along with differences in asset composition and funding mix, indicate a different financial intermediation model for the different ownership forms.