How do female entrepreneurs perform? Evidence from three developing regions

Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey data, we analyze performance gaps between male- and female-owned companies in three regions—Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Latin America (LA), and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Among our findings are significant gender gaps between male- and female-owned companies in terms of firm size, but much smaller gaps in terms of firm efficiency and growth (except in LA). Part of the reason women run smaller firms is that they tend to concentrate in sectors in which firms are smaller and less efficient (in ECA and SSA). By contrast, we find no evidence of gender discrimination in access to formal finance in any of the three regions, although in ECA women are less likely than men to seek formal finance. Finally, while female entrepreneurs receive smaller loans than their male counterparts, the returns from each dollar they receive is no lower in terms of overall sales revenue.     

The impact of imports on price-cost margins: An empirical illustration

This article decomposes the impact of imports on domestic price-cost margins into separate price and cost effects. Using data from 24 food-processing industries, the empirical results show that although the direct impact of imports on prices is always negative, a positive net impact on price-cost margins occurs in industries characterized by low own-price elasticity of demand and diseconomies of scale. Further results show that the disciplining effect of imports is more preponderant the lower the degree of domestic competition. First version received: September 2000/Final version received: March 2002 RID="*" ID="*"  Professor and Associate Professor, respectively, in their respective departments. They can be reached at rigoberto.lopez@uconn.edu or elena.lopez@uah.es. The authors are grateful to two anonymous referees for their fruitful and helpful comments. Financial support provided by the USDA CSREES special grant No. 00-34178-9036 and by the Cátedras del Banco Santander Central Hispano-Universidad de Alcalá. This is Scientific Contribution No. 1794 of the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station. RID="*" ID="*"  Professor and Associate Professor, respectively, in their respective departments. They can be reached at rigoberto.lopez@uconn.edu or elena.lopez@uah.es. The authors are grateful to two anonymous referees for their fruitful and helpful comments. Financial support provided by the USDA CSREES special grant No. 00-34178-9036 and by the Cátedras del Banco Santander Central Hispano-Universidad de Alcalá. This is Scientific Contribution No. 1794 of the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station.     

Antecedents and outcomes of personal mastery: cross-country evidence in Higher Education

This paper contributes to our understanding of personal mastery by providing fresh insights from a cross-national study in Higher Education (HE). It presents findings from a rich sample of informants in two well-established universities in the UK and Vietnam, and develops a framework that illustrates the antecedents and outcomes of personal mastery in the two cultures. The multi-level analysis performed provides valuable insights that extend our current understanding of personal mastery beyond the individual level as it is traditionally theorized. Instead, we are able to show that a number of contextual conditions at the organizational, industry and the national culture that may also have a bearing on the way personal mastery is cultivated. By contributing a richer account of the multifaceted nature of personal mastery, the paper draws attention to a range of implications for both future research and practice. In particular, it invites practitioners in HE to apply the theories they develop in practice.     

The Effect of R&D Services Offshoring on Skilled Employment: Firm Evidence

The offshoring of high‐tech services has greatly increased in recent years, with consequences for firms demand for skilled employment in firms. This paper specifically analyses the relationship between R&D offshoring and the demand for R&D employment using firm‐level data for Spanish manufacturing and services companies during the period 2004–11. Estimating different specifications with panel data techniques, we find that this association is statistically positive. In particular, for services firms a 1 percentage point increase in R&D offshoring raises the demand for researchers by about 11 per cent.     

Economic Effects of the Syrian War and the Spread of the Islamic State on the Levant

This paper uses a global computable general equilibrium framework with new detail on six Levant countries – the Arab Republic of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and Turkey – to quantify the direct and indirect economic effects of the Syrian war and the advance of the Islamic State on the Levant. Syria and Iraq bear the brunt of the direct economic costs, while the other Levant countries lose in per capita but not in aggregate terms as the inflows of refugees increase the size of their populations. The war has undermined progress towards deeper regional trade integration, thus adding to varying degrees to the direct costs sustained by the Levant economies and, in the cases of Syria and Iraq, doubling their welfare losses. All Levant countries are foregoing opportunities to expand intra‐Levant trade and the associated gains in economic efficiency. The average welfare effects are not indicative of the distributional effects of war within countries.     

The (missing) subjects of research on gender and global governance: Toward inquiry into the ruling relations of development

Responding to the Special Issue's call for “new thinking” on gender and governance in developing societies, we introduce our research on the social organization of development knowledge and its ethical implications. Our feminist-based approach, institutional ethnography, analyses the ruling relations of development and the standpoints represented in knowledge about development and its governance. Our paper offers an alternative to what we see as “the institutional standpoint” prevailing, but taken for granted, in business and society scholarship addressing development. Instead of theorizing development relationships between institutions and their “stakeholders,” we illustrate what can be learned about the social relations of development beginning from the experiences of local subjects. Our analysis of an environmental research and development project in Uzbekistan shows that being missed is knowledge about development subjects that could have revealed what is locally relevant and needed. Instead, we discover gender inequality being constituted, unknowingly, within this project's institutionally generated knowledge and the activities it authorizes.     

Context,market economies and MNEs: The example of financial incentivization

This is a study of the relative utilization of reward systems within and between capitalist archetypes: the study includes not only a closer focus on diversity within and between coordinated market economies, but pays specific attention to the Japanese case, and a systematic comparison of the reward practices adopted by multinational enterprises vis-à-vis their local peers. The study uses the most recent (at the time of writing) wave of the Cranet international survey of HRM. We found clear, firm-level evidence that share schemes and performance related pay exhibit significant differences both within and between varieties of capitalism, highlighting the extent to which key features of reward system continue to vary according to institutional setting, and whether an organization is multinational or not.     

Pigs in Space: Modeling the Spatial Structure of Hog Production in Traditional and Nontraditional Production Regions

We posit a spatially explicit, county-level model of the hog production sector and estimate how numerous firm-specific, locality-specific, and spatial agglomeration factors affect the location, movement, and intensity of hog production within 15 key hog production states. Spatial agglomeration, urban encroachment, input availability, firm productivity, local economy, slaughter access, and regulatory stringency variables affect the sample regions' spatial organization. Analyses suggest that western states in the sample may shape hog production levels by wielding traditional business recruitment and retention tools (e.g., tax rates, environmental stringency) while Corn Belt states may shape hog production via nontraditional tools (e.g., land use controls).     

Evaluating the Relative Efficacy of the Marketing Function in the Construction Complex of Ukraine

The break up of the USSR pushed 15 constituent states into a transition phase from a regulated economy to a free market style one. Partially, this involved the wholesale importation of a variety of theories, strategies, and operational plans. This paper seeks to examine the efficiency of the use of the marketing communications mix in medium and large firms in the Ukraine’s construction complex during the transition period to a market oriented economy. In order to do so, a survey of the most significant, privately owned firms in the industry was conducted. A variety of quantitative measures were employed, including econometric estimates and certain elasticity coefficients that allowed us to asses existing tendencies in the industry, identify problems, and to make tentative recommendations.