Am Tage schaue ich nicht fern!

Although the share of older people in our society increases, the media sciences rarely examine this group of media users. Existing studies often limit themselves to chronological age and neglect a more theoretical approach. This study includes theoretical references from gerontological research, which describes aging as a multidimensional process, and links them to user-oriented perspectives of mass communication research. Referring to qualitative data from interviews with elderly people, the study achieves to identify prospects, appraisals and resources, which influence media use of people in the process of aging.     

Incubator,technology, and innovation centres in Switzerland: features and policy implications

Only since the early 1990s, when unemployment rates in Switzerland soared to unprecedented levels, has federal technology and innovation policy begun to design their activities with regard to employment and the establishment of new firms. Now, all across the country, private as well as public incubator facilities, technology and innovation centres have begun to spring up. This paper starts by describing the theoretical and methodological background of a survey of incubator, technology and innovation (ITI) centres. In a first step, all cantonal offices for economic promotion were asked to report and to describe incubator facilities, technology and innovation centres within their realm. In a second step a selection of centres were analysed in depth. The key findings are that: (1) ITI centres are most commonly established by a combination of public and private initiatives; (2) the main motive for the creation of ITI centres is to promote startups and the innovative potential; (3) most ITI centres offer space to rent and make available joint amenities; (4) ITI centres are predominantly in manufacturing, services, and development activities; their level of technology input is high or very high; and (5) the spatial reach of most of the ITI centre is on the region. Together with selected foreign experiences, some conclusions and recommendations for the operation of such centres are formulated.     

Are born globals really born globals? The case of academic spin-offs with long development periods

Most research on the born global phenomenon investigates firms from the point of their legal founding. Studies in the field of entrepreneurship show nonetheless that international firms undergo long pre-founding periods, which are likely to affect growth and internationalization in newly founded firms. In this study, we investigate three academic spin-offs with advanced technologies that are attractive in a global market. These firms had experienced extended time in developing their technologies, two of them in pre-founding periods. We examine here the networks of academic spin-offs in three stages: idea conception, technology development, and growth and internationalization. The research builds on diverse theories: born global theory, research on academic spin-offs, entrepreneurial firms, and network theory. We use a multiple case study to investigate the three spin-offs and a process approach in interviewing that includes the biographic histories of the focal firms. In analysis, we identify networks that provide financial resources, knowledge, innovation and technology resources, marketing, and reputational resources. Networks acquired at different stages and network changes greatly affected growth and internationalization in the focal firms. We also find that networks and resources acquired in pre-founding periods had great implications for growth and internationalization in the young firms. Our research therefore highlights the problem of age in the born global literature and we argue for the need to include pre-founding periods to better understand the born global phenomenon.     

Properties of emerging organizations: empirical evidence from Norway

The process of new venture creation is of central importance to entrepreneurship. The effects of initial organizing have a direct effect on survival, yet empirical examination of the dimensions of emerging organizations is limited. Using longitudinal data on 203 nascent entrepreneurs from Norway over the course of four years (1996?C1999), this paper empirically tests four properties of emerging organizations??intentionality, resources, boundary, and exchange??and their effect on the likelihood of continuing the organizing effort (Katz and Gartner, Acad Manage Rev 13(3):429?C441, 1988). Consistent with previous research, our results suggest that organizations which engage in a greater number of organizing activities are more likely to continue the organizing effort. In addition, intentionality, boundary, and exchange are positively associated with organizational emergence, whereas resources are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for organizations to continue organizing. The concentration of organizing activities is also positively associated with the likelihood of continuing the organizing effort.     

Financial markets at the crossroads: Fears of a great crash

Not so long ago the international financial markets were being acclaimed as the cure-all for debt crises and interest rate and exchange rate risks, but new developments are giving increasing cause for concern, as the Deutsche Bundesbank¹ noted recently. Pessimists are spreading a mood of disaster and are already predicting the collapse of the world financial system.² What is the basis for such fears? How serious is the danger of a crash?     

Expected EPS and EPS Growth as Determinantsof Value

This paper develops a parsimonious model relating a firm’s price per share to, (i), next year expected earnings per share (or 12 months forward eps), (ii), short-term growth (FY-2 versus FY- l) in eps, (iii), long-term (asymptotic) growth in eps, and, (iv), cost-of-equity capital. The model assumes that the present value of dividends per share (dps) determines price, but it does not restrict how the dps-sequence is expected to evolve. All of these aspects of the model contrast sharply with the standard (Gordon/Williams) text-book approach, which equates the growth rates of expected eps and dps and fixes the growth rate and the payout rate. Though the constant growth model arises as a peculiar special case, the analysis in this paper rests on more general principles, including dividend policy irrelevancy. A second key result inverts the valuation formula to show how one expresses cost-of-capital as a function of the forward eps to price ratio and the two measures of growth in expected eps. This expression generalizes the text-book equation in which cost-of-capital equals the dps-yield plus the growth in expected eps.This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung