Technology transfer and the creation of companies: the CSIRO experience

There is increasing interest worldwide in stimulating the emergence and growth of new technology–based companies, and in the role of public–funded research agencies in this process. This paper examines the experience of CSIRO, Australia's largest R&D organisation, in creating new companies, as part of its technology transfer activities.
Three modes of technology transfer are described, namely Non–Commercial Transfer, Commercial Transfer and New Company Generation. The technology transfer 'mix', that is the relative weight given to the different modes, has changed in CSIRO and in other public funded agencies in recent years. The increased importance being given to New Company Generation in CSIRO is attributed to the development of in–house commercial expertise, changing public expectations and the increased availability of venture capital.
CSIRO's experience with spin–offs and other new companies is analysed, and the challenges related to effective use of this mode of technology transfer are discussed.     

Calculating the equity cost of capital using the APT: the impact of the ERM

One of the expected benefits of membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) was a reduction in risk which should lead to a lower cost of capital and foster investment and growth. Using the APT, we investigate the behavior of the equity market risk premium for the London Stock Exchange prior to and during sterling's membership of the ERM. We find that prior to and during the first year of membership the equity market risk premium fell quite dramatically. However, when conflict between domestic and ERM policy requirements arose at the turn of 1991, the equity risk premium increased and continued to do so until sterling's exit, partially wiping out the benefits of membership of the ERM.     

Issues management and organizational accounts: An analysis of corporate responses to accusations of unethical business practices

When external groups accuse a business organization of unethical practices, managers of the accused organization usually offer a communicative response to attempt to protect their organization's public image. Even though many researchers readily concur that analysis of these communicative responses is important to our understanding of business and society conflict, few investigations have focused on developing a theoretical framework for analyzing these communicative strategies used by managers. In addition, research in this area has suffered from a lack of empirical investigation. In this paper we address both of these weaknesses in the existing literature. First, we explicate Impression Management Theory as an appropriate framework for studying organizational communicative responses, paying particular attention to the concept of accounts. Second, we critique previous investigations of organizational accounts and discuss the major contributions of our study. Third, we propose a coding system and content analyze the accounts offered by managers from 21 organizations that were recently the targets of consumer boycotts. Finally, we report the results of our empirical investigation and discuss ethical issues related to organizational accounts. Dennis E. Garrett (Assistant Professor, Division of Marketing, University of Oklahoma) is a co-author of Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation (John Wiley and Sons, 1988). His articles have appeared in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Strategies, Business and Society Review, Journal of Marketing Education, and Communication Monographs. In 1987, he was selected as the Outstanding Professor on Campus by the University of Oklahoma Student Association.Jeffrey L. Bradford (Graduate Student, Division of Marketing, University of Oklahoma) is completing his Ph.D. in Marketing in the College of Business Administration. Renee A. Meyers (Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Oklahoma) has published articles in Human Communication Research, Communication Yearbook, Communication Monographs, and Journal of Applied Communication. Her doctoral dissertation from the University of Illinois was selected as the 1987 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation by the Speech Communication Association.Joy Becker (Graduate Student, Division of Marketing, University of Oklahoma) is completing her M.B.A. degree in the College of Business Administration.     

THE (AGGREGATE) DEMAND FOR STATE‐LOTTERY TICKETS: WHAT HAVE WE REALLY LEARNED?

Lottery‐demand models using aggregate data are often used to make inferences regarding individual behavior, the most important being the distributional burden of lottery‐ticket expenditures. It is shown here that estimates for the income elasticity and the cross‐price elasticity will only be representative of individual behavior under extremely restrictive assumptions. In fact, estimation of aggregate‐demand models presupposes that the income elasticity is equal to one. Cross‐sectional analyses using microlevel data face similar restrictions on consumer behavior. Remedies are discussed, but more conclusive evidence on the distributional burden of lotteries will remain elusive until better individual‐level data become available. (JEL D11, H71, H22)     

United States–Cuba Agricultural Relations and Agrarian Questions

In the wake of Cuba's far‐reaching, halting economic reforms, geopolitical rapprochement and trade openings with the United States (US) offer opportunities and risks for Cuban small‐scale farmers and agrarian cooperatives: pressures, paradoxes and potential abound. Meanwhile, on the margins, agro‐ecologically oriented tours bring admiring US students, farmers and agrarian advocates. Cubans concur that the country must solve key problems in its agricultural sector to overcome the contradictions of its agri‐food model, and that this entails more exchange with the US – but in what capacity and on what terms? The current crossroads begs the classic agrarian question, even as it updates it. Having experienced and survived the promises and disasters of both capitalist and communist agricultural economies, Cuban farmers expand the original ‘peasant’ protagonist. As they navigate new non‐state markets and recent re‐entrenchment of state control of prices, Cuban farmers and cooperatives struggle to avoid monopolizing tendencies of unfettered capitalist as well as communist agricultural economies – both of which have historically been ecologically damaging. US agribusiness courts Cuba, but not as mere unidirectional capture: Cubans are inviting and leveraging trade to end the embargo, which is increasingly being modified altogether. Key Cuban agrarian principles of resilience and cooperativismo have persisted through capitalist and communist crises: could they influence prospects for agro‐industrial hegemony from the North?      

The value of non-personally identifiable information to consumers of online services: evidence from a discrete choice experiment

We estimate the value of non-personally identifying information to consumers of online services through a discrete choice experiment based on hypothetical streaming video services. Non-personally identifying information for online services is typically information on the ways in and times at which customers use the service, and is distinct from personally identifying information such as email addresses or telephone numbers. For most of our survey respondents, we find no evidence that they were willing to pay to avoid sharing their non-personally identifying information with third parties. A smaller group of respondents never selected a service that shared information with third parties.     

The market value for product attribute improvements under price personalization

Personalization of the marketing mix is a topic of much interest to marketing academics and practitioners. Using discrete choice demand theory, we investigate the aggregate market value for product attribute improvements when firms are engaged in personalized pricing. Our results provide a theoretically grounded rule for how to aggregate consumer valuations to assess the overall profitability of attribute improvements under price personalization. Under common pricing, each consumer contributes the same margin. Profitability of an attribute improvement is thus driven by inducing more consumers to buy. Consumers with high choice probabilities are given less weight in the market valuation under common pricing as they are less responsive to attribute improvements. Under personalized pricing, profitability of an attribute improvement is driven by extraction of consumer surplus from high valuation consumers. Consumers with higher valuations, and consequently higher choice probabilities, are given more weight in the market valuation under personalized pricing. Since individual consumers play a more central role in the market valuation under personalized pricing, estimation of consumer-level valuations is of increased importance. Under common pricing, the market valuation for an attribute improvement is robust to extreme estimates of the consumer-level valuations. Through our theoretical and empirical analyses, we demonstrate that this robustness does not hold under personalized pricing.     

An option pricing approach to the valuation of real estate contaminated with hazardous materials

This paper uses option pricing to examine how the presence of hazardous materials affects real estate value. The property owner has two options. The first option is to remove the hazardous materials at the best time. The second option, embedded in the first one, is to redevelop the property at the best opportunity. The owner has three possible timing strategies with respect to the exercise of these two options: remove the hazardous materials first and retain the option to redevelop the property later, remove and redevelop at the same time, or do nothing. Conditions under which the presence of the hazardous materials may either expedite or postpone the decision to redevelop are also derived. If the regulatory environment does not allow the property owner to make optimal timing decisions with respect to the exercise of these options, then our results provide an indication of the cost of regulation as measured by the additional loss in property value.     

The Efficiency of Sharecropping: Evidence from the Postbellum South

In this article, we investigate why sharecropping rose sharply in the postbellum South. Our hypothesis is that sharecropping was desirable because sharecropped farms could be more productive than owner-operated farms and perhaps more productive than rented farms. Using the data from the postbellum South, we find strong empirical support for this hypothesis. Our results show that the output elasticity of sharecropped farms is higher than that of owner-operated farms on all occasions and that of rented farms on some occasions. The differences in productivity are statistically significant, and the results are very robust. These empirical results refute the long-held notion that sharecropping is inefficient. Contrary to the view that, like a tax, sharecropping produces disincentives to work, the results in this article suggest that sharecropping might have created an incentive among farmers for its rapid and widespread use in the postbellum South.     

Heterogeneity distributions of willingness-to-pay in choice models

We investigate direct and indirect specification of the distribution of consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for changes in product attributes in a choice setting. Typically, choice models identify WTP for an attribute as a ratio of the estimated attribute and price coefficients. Previous research in marketing and economics has discussed the problems with allowing for random coefficients on both attribute and price, especially when the distribution of the price coefficient has mass near zero. These problems can be avoided by combining a parameterization of the likelihood function that directly identifies WTP with a normal prior for WTP. We show that the typical likelihood parameterization in combination with what are regarded as standard heterogeneity distributions for attribute and price coefficients results in poorly behaved posterior WTP distributions, especially in small sample settings. The implied prior for WTP readily allows for substantial mass in the tails of the distribution and extreme individual-level estimates of WTP. We also demonstrate the sensitivity of profit maximizing prices to parameterization and priors for WTP.