Innovation type and external knowledge search strategies in KIBS: evidence from Canada

Service Business - Do different types of innovation require distinct kinds of external knowledge search strategies? This paper explores this question using an original innovation survey of 385 KIBS...     

Family firms and corporate social performance: evidence from Korean firms

This study examines the effects of family firms on the corporate social performance of Korean firms and analyses how their effect varies depending on the presence of family CEOs or chaebols. Based on the agency theory, we find that family firms exhibit lower corporate social performance. In particular, there is no difference in the performance of related stakeholders, such as society, consumers, environment, and employees, compared to non-family firms, but corporate governance registers as low performance. We further find that family firms managed by family CEOs show lower corporate social performance, whereas chaebol firms show higher corporate social performance.     

投资者保护与创业

我们通过私募资金市场(private capital mar- ket)搜寻模型的均衡,来研究投资者保护对外部融资可得性(availability)、企业家才能(entrepreneurship)和创业所产生的影响。除了搜寻成本(friction)之外,我们还考察了合约成本,特别是由于企业家(entrepre- neur)可能侵夺融资人(financier)所导致的事中和事后(expost)道德风险问题。在我们的模型中,政府选择投资者保护水平,以确定项目盈余(match surplus)在创业者与融资人之间的可转让性。结果表明任何鼓励(抑制)企业家才能的做法也会鼓励(抑制)创业。因此,投资者保护的创业效应取决于各种搜寻成本和合约成本的相对影响。只有当投资者保护对与事中道德风险相比的事后道德风险问题产生更大的影响时,加强投资者保护才能促进创业。我们也发现搜寻成本削弱了投资者保护的积极效应,同时,合约成本则修正了标准的荷氏(Hosios)效率条件。     

Opacity of young businesses: Evidence from rating disagreements

A conventional wisdom in the contemporary corporate finance literature argues that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are informationally opaque. We use data from two credit information companies and in particular their disagreements over the creditworthiness of SMEs to study the empirical relevance of this often invoked assumption. Our panel data analysis shows that once unobserved firm-effects are controlled for, the disagreements (i.e., rating splits) are inversely related to the age of firms. We are not able to document such a robust relationship between the disagreements and the size of firms. This finding holds a lesson for empirical corporate finance researchers who need firm-level proxies for informational imperfections and asymmetries: of the two often-used proxies, firm size is not as closely related to informational opacity as firm age is.     

Bribery in Indonesia: some evidence from micro-level data

This paper outlines and tests a model in which firms seek to reduce the cost of taxes and regulatory compliance by offering bribes to government officials. It finds that firms' profitability (scaled by production costs) largely determines both the amounts paid and the time spent negotiating bribes with officials. Competition between arms of the bureaucracy for bribe income seems to be a result of decentralisation, but the analysis suggests that this competition would lead to a spreading of bribes among a larger number of officials rather than to a significant increase in their total amount. Local governments may be able to raise more revenue by reducing the number of taxes and regulations and using part of the increased revenue to raise the salaries of officials, while devoting more effort to restraining corrupt behaviour. But progress may be blocked by central government tax officials increasing their demands for bribes.     

Contracts,Negotiation, and Learning: An Examination of Termination Provisions

Taking a temporal view of learning in partnerships, we argue that learning to contract from prior relationships can be manifested not only in an increase in the level of contractual detail but also in a decrease in negotiation time for a given level of contractual detail. We analyse the influence that the length of prior relationships and the detail of termination provisions have on negotiation time, or the time period that it takes for partners to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. We find that: (1) the length of prior relationships has a curvilinear, U‐shaped effect on negotiation time, suggesting the possibility of diverse learning mechanisms as the relationship unfolds; (2) the impact of the detail of termination provisions on negotiation time varies across different types of termination provisions; and (3) it takes a shorter time to negotiate certain types of termination provisions when partners have longer prior relationships. Beyond suggesting the need to investigate the consequences of contractual provisions for collaborators, our study proposes negotiation time as an additional indicator of a learning‐to‐contract effect that complements existing ones.     

Healthcare costs in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and disease progression during targeted therapy: a real-world observational study

Aims: To assess healthcare costs during treatment with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and following disease progression in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Methods: A retrospective analysis of medical records of US community oncology practices was conducted. Eligible patients had advanced NSCLC (stage IIIB/IV) diagnosed between January 1, 2008 and January 1, 2015, initiated treatment with erlotinib or afatinib (first-line or second-line), and had disease progression. Monthly Medicare-paid costs were evaluated during the TKI therapy period and following progression.

Results: The study included 364 patients. The total mean monthly cost during TKI therapy was $20,106 (95% confidence interval [CI]?=?$16,836–$23,376), of which 47.0% and 42.4% represented hospitalization costs and anti-cancer therapy costs, respectively. Following progression on TKI therapy (data available for 316 patients), total mean monthly cost was $19,274 (95% CI?=?$15,329–$23,218), and was higher in the 76.3% of patients who received anti-cancer therapy following progression than in the 23.7% of those who did not ($20,490 vs $15,364; p?<?.001). Among patients who received it, anti-cancer therapy ($11,198; 95% CI?=?$7,102–$15,295) represented 54.7% of total mean monthly cost. Among patients who did not receive anti-cancer therapy, hospitalization ($13,829; 95% CI?=?$4,922–$22,736) represented 90.0% of total mean monthly cost. Impaired performance status and brain metastases were significant predictors of increased cost during TKI therapy.

Limitations: The study design may limit the generalizability of findings.

Conclusions: Healthcare costs during TKI treatment and following progression appeared to be similar and were largely attributed to hospitalization and anti-cancer therapy. Notably, almost one-quarter of patients did not receive anti-cancer therapy following progression, potentially indicating an unmet need; hospitalization was the largest cost contributor for these patients. Additional effective targeted therapies are needed that could prolong progression-free survival, leading to fewer hospitalizations for EGFR mutation-positive patients.     

Entrepreneurial Aspirations: Another Form of Job Search?

We study the labour market behaviour of employed individuals that have entrepreneurial aspirations in addition to aspirations to switch job. We analyze empirically these two “search processes” side-by-side and find that entrepreneurial aspirations and aspirations to switch job are relatively common. However, most employees are not engaged in both search processes, nor are the two processes alike: It is more difficult to empirically explain entrepreneurial aspirations than aspirations to switch job. Only few observable characteristics of the employed are related to both processes. Varied experience and job dissatisfaction are directly related to the probability of having entrepreneurial aspirations and aspirations to switch job, while job tenure is inversely related to them. Our analysis also contributes to the understanding of the process of transition from work into entrpreneurship: Employees who can experiment with new things in their present job, regard the content of their work important, and are dissatisfied with their superiors have more often entrepreneurial aspirations than others.     

Institutional determinants of ownership stake in cross-border acquisitions in Africa: The moderating role of geographic distance

We look at how emerging markets' institutional features affect ownership stake in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) within Africa. Particularly, we show that the presence of shared colonial history between the home and host country and the extent of fractionalization distance and formal institutional distance influence the acquiring firm's decision regarding its ownership stake in the target. Moreover, we show that geographic distance between the home and host country, by augmenting uncertainty faced by acquiring firms, moderates the relationship between these institutional features and ownership stake. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 341 intra-Africa CBAs from 2001 to 2016. Generally, we find that greater ex ante uncertainty and ex post costs increase ownership stake. Specifically, greater geographic distance strengthens the positive relationship between shared colonial history and ownership stake and reverses the negative relationship between formal institutional distance and ownership stake. As for fractionalization distance, the relationship is more nuanced and needs to be further studied. We contribute to advance research on south–south CBAs in general, particularly within Africa, as well as to extend hostage theory in foreign market entry strategies in and from emerging markets.