Using users: When does external knowledge enhance corporate product innovation?

Prior research on corporate innovation highlights the importance of accessing external knowledge from other firms and universities. However, survey evidence indicates that product users are perhaps the most important source of external knowledge. We build on existing theory to identify the conditions under which user knowledge contributes to corporate innovation and when the benefits will be greatest. Using a panel dataset of medical device companies and their collaborative efforts with innovative physicians, we find evidence that inventive collaborations with users enhance corporate product innovation and that the benefits are greatest in new technology areas and in the generation of radical innovations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The sales recovery audit: Learning to walk the talk

Little research attention has been devoted to the impact of salesperson failure and recovery management on customer relationship development. This paper develops a theoretically anchored and externally validated sales recovery audit for the purpose of assessing sales organization performance in these matters. Results based on a survey of 177 sales managers indicate that practice of sales recovery efforts lags behind their perceived importance as they relate to organizational success. The sales recovery audit presented here can be a useful tool to continuously evaluate and enhance sales recovery efforts for the purpose of building a stronger relationship selling organization.     

Lending technologies,lending specialization,and minority access to small-business loans

We investigate minority access to small-business loans using a probit model of loan application denial that recognizes two loan types (line-of-credit loans and non-line-of-credit loans) made by two lender types (commercial banks and nonbank financial institutions). We estimate our model on data from the 1998 Survey of Small Business Finances. We find evidence consistent with minority equal access to bank credit lines and nonbank non-line-of-credit loans in highly competitive loan markets; in less competitive markets we find evidence consistent with unequal access to these loans. We also find evidence consistent with unequal minority access to bank non-line-of-credit loans, regardless of loan market competitiveness. Our findings differ from previous research which treats small-business loans as a homogenous product and finds evidence consistent with unequal minority access to small-business loans generally. We argue that the existence of multiple small-business lending technologies and loan specialization by lenders account for our findings and demonstrate the need to treat small-business loans as a heterogeneous product when investigating equal access to small-business credit.     

The UK demand for steel

The paper suggests a short-run model of the demand for steel that may be used for forecasting future trends. The paper commences with consideration of a long-run model which is estimated using cointegration analysis. An error correction model is then developed to depict the short-run movements to equilibrium. This can be used for the purpose of ex-post forecasting.     

Pecking order as a dynamic leverage theory

Static tradeoff theories, which do not explicitly treat the impact of transaction costs, do not explain the policy of asymmetry between frequent small debt transactions and infrequent large equity transactions. Nor do these theories explain why the debt ratio is allowed to wander a considerable distance from its alleged static optimum, or how much of a distance should be tolerated. We offer a class of diffusion models that mimic this behaviour in a stochastic-dynamic framework and are designed to optimize a financing strategy using any static tradeoff theory as input. The models developed reveal the determinants of the size and frequency of equity transactions and the range of values over which leverage variations are tolerated in four generic scenarios. They also yield a new formulation of the cost of capital that recognizes stochastic transaction costs and a penalty for deviation from any static-optimal leverage. Our class of models augments the pecking order theory, provides a flexible quantitative framework for its implementation as a decision tool, and facilitates the formulation of additional hypotheses for its empirical validation. Symmetrically, our results show the importance of dynamic factors in designing and interpreting empirical tests of static tradeoff theories. The results presented have important implications for the role played by static tradeoff theories in a stochastic-dynamic framework. One such implication is that the static-optimal leverage has no direct effect on the firm's leverage policy in this setting. The target leverage for refinancing transactions is different from the static-optimal leverage, and the mean leverage is generally different from both. As a consequence, the latter cannot be used to estimate the former. Another implication is that even when the mean leverage equals the static optimum, mean reversion is not an optimal behaviour and therefore not a legitimate test for the existence of a static tradeoff in a dynamic context. Still another implication is that wide variations in leverage ratios cannot be interpreted as evidence of leverage indifference. It follows that the pecking order theory is consistent with static tradeoff theories and does not require the assumption of leverage indifference.