Entrepreneurship: Catallactic and constitutional perspectives

The most important distinction between Virginia political economy (VPE) and the other branches of public choice scholarship is a close affinity of the former to Austrian economics. Contributions in both the Virginia and the Vienna (Austrian) traditions have emphasized this connection and highlighted the analytical and ideological interdependencies of the two schools. This paper argues that an application of the Austrian theory of political entrepreneurship to the VPE framework can provide important insights regarding the direction of political change. Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurship explains that coordination of individual action is possible where price signals provide information. When price signals are absent the entrepreneurial process breaks down. There is common ground between Kirznerian entrepreneurship and Buchanan’s creative action. Scholars at the intersection of the Virginia and the Vienna traditions can use this common ground to make pattern predictions regarding the direction of political change.     

What drives college-age Generation Y consumers?

Generation Y (individuals ages 14-31 in 2008) are in the marketplace with the numbers and the purchasing power to have an unprecedented impact on the economy. Despite the potential of this group as a whole, especially the middle-aged members of this generation (ages 18-22) who are in the highly coveted college-student market, much is unknown about the motivations behind these individuals' consumption behavior and preferences. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature by exploring the antecedents of the consumption behavior of college-aged Generation Y individuals. The findings indicate that issues relating to socialization, uncertainty reduction, reactance, self-discrepancy, and feelings of accomplishment and connectedness drive Y consumers' product purchases and retail patronage. This article discusses these issues as well as their theoretical and managerial implications.     

Does being your bank’s neighbor matter?

This paper provides new evidence on the role of distance between banks and borrowers in bank lending. We argue that delegated monitors face higher costs of collecting information about nonlocal borrowers due to the difficulty of obtaining and verifying soft information over distances. Further, the higher information collection and monitoring costs associated with distance should be reflected in loan terms. Empirically, loan spreads are increasing in the distance between borrowers and lenders. Finally, banks are more likely to include covenant provisions or require collateral when lending to borrowers located far away.     

Patent breadth as effective barrier to market entry

Firms protecting their invention by a patent have the legal right to exclude competitors from using the patented matter. However, despite patent protection, competitors could enter the market by ‘inventing around’. Provided that inventing around becomes more difficult the broader a patent is, the strength of protection against market entry increases in patent breadth. Building on a theoretical benchmark formalizing the relationship between varying patent breadth and the threat of market entry, our empirical analysis supports the prediction that inventors perceive broad patents as effective market entry barriers.     

High‐Growth Women’s Entrepreneurship: Fueling Social and Economic Development

High‐growth firms, often referred to as “gazelles,” are equated with entrepreneurial success and celebrated as the key to growing economies, and women’s entrepreneurship is a vehicle of economic and social development. This special issue publishes papers that address the general lack of research on high‐growth women’s entrepreneurship. In this introduction paper, we offer an adapted framework for the factors driving high growth across multiple levels: individual (entrepreneur and entrepreneurial team characteristics), venture (strategy, organizational structures, and systems), resources, location, and environment. We also introduce the papers in this special issue and present an overview of the contributions to this issue.     

The link between product diversification and performance among Spanish manufacturing firms: Analyzing the role of firm size

This study sheds additional light on the product diversification‐performance relationship for firms in a country having recently attained an advanced economy status in our period of analysis. We assume there will be an inverted U‐shaped relationship and use a sample of small, medium, and large Spanish manufacturing firms between 1994 and 2008. Our findings provide solid support for this assumption, and are identical when the sample consists of small, medium, and large firms and of large firms alone. Our results also suggest that the larger the firm, the higher the optimal level of diversification. Panel data models are used to control for unobservable heterogeneity and potential endogeneity problems. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Return of the State: Neocollectivism,Agrarian Politics and Images of Technological Progress in the MAS Era in Bolivia

The Movement towards Socialism (MAS) party promised to break with neoliberal politics when it rose to power in Bolivia in 2006. Using the concept of neocollectivism to characterize MAS agrarian politics, this paper examines one of its key instruments for achieving rural development: the state enterprise EMAPA. This state company, which supports small producers, envisions a new agrarian structure of production and commercialization, one that will break the power of the Santa Cruz–based agro‐industrial elite. Drawing on a discussion of the mechanisms of governance employed by this state entity, we argue that new complexities in state–civil society relations and a low state capacity have constrained its ability to shift power relationships between the state and the agro‐industrial elites. Instead of reducing the dependency of small producers on agro‐industrial capital, the Bolivian state has increased it, thereby undermining its goal of redistribution. The paper also analyses different moments of politicization and depoliticization in the intervention process arising from the demand for political change, as well as for technically efficient and profitable agricultural production.     

The Agenda for Ethics in Human Resource Management

In April this year a Conference on Ethical Issues in Contemporary Human Resource Management was held at the Management School, Imperial College, London, and jointly sponsored by the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA) and the UK Chapter of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN-UK). We are indebted to the organisers of the Conference, Dr Diana Winstanley, Lecturer in Human Resource Management at Imperial College Management School, Dr Jean Woodall, Reader in Human Resource Management at Kingston Business School, and Professor Edmund Heery, Professor of Human Resource Management at Cardiff Business School, for the following overview of the ethics agenda emerging for modern HRM as this figured in contributions to the Imperial College Conference. All the papers delivered at the Conference are obtainable from Dr Diana Winstanley, Imperial College Management School, 53 Prince's Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PG, tel: (44)(0) 171-594-9114.     

The Future of Japanese Manufacturing in the UK

The expansion of Japanese FDI into the UK manufacturing sector during the 1980s and early 1990s gave rise to the debate on the Japanization of British industry. The paper argues that this debate was constructed from a Western perspective. It did not locate the strategies and structures of Japanese subsidiaries within the broader context of how Japanese multinational corporations were evolving in this period. The necessity to look at these issues from a more global perspective is reinforced by the changes which have occurred since the mid 1990s in the environment for Japanese multinationals. The global economy offers more choices to firms about their location as well as facing them with a more competitive environment. In the Japanese case, this is leading to a growing differentiation between standardized mass production (which can be located in Asia and Eastern Europe) and science–led sectors of industrial production (which necessitate location near to centres of research and development expertise in the USA and Europe). This means that Japanese firms are reconsidering the strategy and structure of their subsidiaries in the UK. Standardized mass production will only survive in the UK as long as costs can be pushed further down and productivity increased, both of which are difficult conditions to meet given possibilities elsewhere in the world for cheap mass production. The growing area of investment will be in science–based manufacturing, though here the UK will be competing against the USA and Germany for Japanese investment. Here, however, the organizational and management characteristics of Japanese subsidiaries will make the necessary connections with local managers and local networks of expertise difficult to achieve. Thus Japanese subsidiaries in the UK are in a period of prolonged uncertainty about their role in the future. These changes open up the necessity for a new agenda of research which goes beyond the Japanization approach and is concerned with the organization and management of Japanese multinationals in an era of global competition.