The Impact of Knowledge Resources on New Venture Performance

A new venture's strategy—and thus its performance—is based upon the knowledge the firm has about its market, its opportunity in that market, and its appropriate conduct to take advantage of that opportunity. Resource-based theory underscores knowledge as a type of resource that confers competitive advantage and the potential for sustainability, two factors that are critical for start-ups. Three types of procedural knowledge are considered to be important at start-up: (1) about the industry in which the venture competes; (2) about the type of business approach the venture is pursuing; and (3) about creating, building, and harvesting new ventures. Knowledge useful to the new venture is developed either through relevant personal experiences or by accessing relevant knowledge possessed by others. Hypotheses are developed regarding the impact on the performance of new ventures as a result of these sources of knowledge, and these relationships are explored in a study of new technology-based firms.     

Shipment frequency of exporters and demand uncertainty

This paper examines how exporting firms adapt to the uncertainty stemming from demand volatility. By using monthly customs data from France, we decompose exports into different extensive and intensive margins including two novel margins: the number of months the firms exported (frequency) and the average export value per month. We establish four empirical patterns. First, firms export less to markets with higher demand volatility. Second, this effect is mainly explained by the frequency margin. Third, volatility affects the frequency margin through two channels: indirectly through lower trade volume and directly through logistics re-optimization. In particular, our results suggest that firms send less frequent, larger shipments to more uncertain markets conditional on total exports. Fourth, the effect of demand volatility is magnified on markets with longer time-to-ship. We propose that these observations are in line with simple stochastic inventory management approaches.     

Endogenous mechanisms and Nash equilibrium in competitive contracting games

We model strategic competition in a market with asymmetric information as a noncooperative game in which each firm competes for the business of a buyer of unknown type by offering the buyer a catalog of products and prices. The timing in our model is Stackelberg: in the first stage, given the distribution of buyer types known to all firms and the deducible, type-dependent best responses of the agent, firms simultaneously and noncooperatively choose their catalog offers. In the second stage the buyer, knowing his type, chooses a single firm and product-price pair from that firm’s catalog. By backward induction, this Stackelberg game with asymmetric information reduces to a game over catalogs with payoff indeterminacies. In particular, due to ties within catalogs and/or across catalogs, corresponding to any catalog profile offered by firms there may be multiple possible expected firm payoffs, all consistent with the rational optimizing behavior of the agent for each of his types. The resolution of these indeterminacies depends on the tie-breaking mechanism which emerges in the market. Because each tie-breaking mechanism induces a particular game over catalogs, a reasonable candidate would be a tie-breaking mechanism which supports a Nash equilibrium in the corresponding catalog game. We call such a mechanism an endogenous Nash mechanism. The fundamental question we address in this paper is, does there exist an endogenous Nash mechanism—and therefore, does there exist a Nash equilibrium for the catalog game? We show under fairly mild conditions on primitives that catalog games naturally possess tie-breaking mechanisms which support Nash equilibria.     

Tariff Liberalization and Trade Integration of Emerging Countries

This paper investigates how tariff liberalization has affected exporting at the product‐destination level in emerging countries. We use a highly disaggregated (six‐digit level of the harmonized system—HS—classification) bilateral measure of market access to compare tariffs applied in 1996 and 2006, which includes the timing of the Uruguay Round and episodes of bilateral liberalization. Our econometric estimations consider impacts of tariff cuts on three components of the trade margins: extensive margin of entry (new trade relationships at the product‐destination level), extensive margin of exit (disappearance of existing relationships) and intensive margin of trade (deepening existing relationships). Our main estimates indicate that a reduction of bilateral applied tariffs of 1 percentage point increases the extensive margin of entry by 0.1% and the intensive one by 2.09%, while it reduces the extensive margin of exit by 0.25%.     

Simulating World Trade in the Decades Ahead: Driving Forces and Policy Implications

Notwithstanding the current slowdown, the geography and composition of international trade are changing fast. We link a macroeconomic growth model and sectoral computable general equilibrium framework in order to project the world economy forward to the year 2035 and assess to what extent current trends in trade are expected to continue. Constructing fully traceable scenarios based on assumptions grounded in the literature, we are also able to isolate the relative impact of key economic drivers. We find that the stakes for developing countries are particularly high: the emergence of new players in the world economy, intensification of South–South trade and diversification into skill‐intensive activities may continue only in a dynamic economic and open trade environment. Current trends towards increased regionalisation may be reversed, with multilateral trade relationships gaining in importance. Hypothetical mega‐regionals could slow down, but not frustrate the prevalence of multilateralism. Continuing technological progress is likely to have the biggest impact on future economic developments around the globe. Population dynamics are influential as well: for some countries, upskilling will be crucial; for others, labour shortages may be addressed through migration. Several developing countries would benefit from increased capital mobility; others will only diversify into dynamic sectors, when trade costs are further reduced.     

Relational Goods and Associational Participation

Abstract *** :  In this paper, we focus on the role of interpersonal contact and the possibility of a relational motive to explain participation and volunteering in associations. Drawing on the relational goods theory, we show that associational activities are favorable to production and consumption of such goods. So, associational participants are expected to have more personal interactions. This theoretical hypothesis is tested using a cross‐sectional data set conducted in France in 1999. Our econometric analysis, which controls for endogeneity of associational participation using a simultaneous equations model, emphasizes a significantly positive relationship between this participation and preferences for relational goods .     

Assessing hierarchical differences in job-related attitudes and turnover among retail managers

A model of organizational turnover is expended from previously reported models to include an extraorganizational antecedent and comparison across two different hierarchical levels of management. Role ambiguity, role conflict, and work-family conflict were used as antecedents of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to leave, and actual turnover. The basic model of turnover was supported in both levels of management. In addition, several additional relationships that have been found in previous studies were tested. Implications of these results for retail managers are discussed. She received her Ph.D. from Oklahoma Stae University. Her research interests include retail turnover, socialization of entry-level management trainees, the role of social support in reducing employee stress, consumer distribution systems in Russian and Poland, and motivation of Russian and Polish employees. Her articles have appeared inJournal of Retailing, International Marketing Review, andMarketing Education Review. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. His research interests include attitude-behavior relationships, information processing, and the use of structural equations in marketing. His research has appeared in theJournal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Advertising, andJournal of Business Research. He received his Ph.D. from University of Utah. He has extensive experinece in computer applications in marketing and business and has conducted research and seminars for a variety of companies. His major interests are in quantitative methods and sales manamgement. His articles have appeared inJournal of Retailing, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Business Horizons, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, andJournal of Business Logistics and Business.