Epistemological foundations of international entrepreneurship

International entrepreneurship emerged in recent years as a promising research stream focusing on how firms explore and exploit opportunities across borders, creating customer value and anticipating competitors’ moves. This study addresses international entrepreneurship literature challenges by analyzing more than seventy studies from the last twenty-four years that deal with the international new venture’s phenomenon. Particularly this study discusses five literature challenges: the increased amount of international entrepreneurship content among different journals; the different types of research conducted in the international entrepreneurship field; international new ventures and high-tech industry; the controversy in the definition and the different labels given to the firms with international presence right from their birth or shortly after; and, the factors that characterize successful firm internationalization. The study findings offer a comprehensive review, synthesis, and organization in the field.     

European Green Mutual Fund Performance: A Comparative Analysis with their Conventional and Black Peers

In recent years, several countries have enacted guidelines and/or mandatory laws to increase the presence of women on the boards of companies. Through these regulatory interventions, the aim is to eradicate the social and labor grievances that women have traditionally experienced and which has relegated them to smaller-scale jobs. Nevertheless, and despite the advances achieved, the female representation in the boardroom remains far from the desired levels. In this context, it is now necessary to enhance the advantages of board gender diversity from both ethical and economic points of view. This article examines the relation between board gender diversity and economic results in Spain: the second country in the world to legally require gender quotas in boardrooms and historically characterized by a minimal female participation in the workforce. Based on a sample of 125 non-financial firms listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2009, our findings show that in the period analyzed the increase of the number of women on boards was over 98 %. This suggests that compulsory legislation offers an efficient framework to execute the recommendation of Spanish codes of good governance by means of the increase in the number of women in the boards of firms. Furthermore, we find that the increase in the number of women on the boards is positively related to higher economic results. Therefore, both results suggest that gender diversity in boardrooms should be incremented, mandatory laws being a key factor to do so.     

Why offer lower prices to past customers? Inducing favorable social price comparisons to enhance customer retention

Price discrimination policies vary widely across companies. Some firms offer new customers the lowest price; others give preferential prices to their past customers. We contribute to the literature on price discrimination in behavior-based pricing by exploring how customers’ social price comparisons, i.e., comparing one’s price to that received by similar peers, impact the optimal structure of price discrimination. Social price comparisons have a negative (positive) impact on customers’ transaction utility if the price charged to past customers is higher (lower) than a new customer’s price. Using an analytical model with vertically differentiated firms, we show that a firm with relatively large market share will reward its past customers with relatively low prices when social price comparisons have a sufficiently large impact on utility. Furthermore, we find that social price comparisons lead to a relaxation of the price competition for new customers. Thus, both firms can earn higher profits when such comparisons are made than when they are absent. We also examine how other factors, such as horizontal competition and strategic customers, interact with social price comparison concerns to impact pricing strategies. Finally, we show how pricing behavior differs when price comparisons are based on historic reference prices rather than on peers’ prices.     

Buchbesprechungen

Zusammenfassungen  Im Fach Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft liegen bislang kaum empirische Daten zur Situation des promovierten wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses vor. Diese Studie gibt Aufschluss über Besch?ftigungssituation, Berufszufriedenheit, Betreuung sowie Karrierevorstellungen und -strategien der Post-Doktorandinnen und-Doktoranden des Faches. Die Ergebnisse einer Befragung im deutschsprachigen Raum zeigen, dass die Postdocs mit ihrer beruflichen Situation, vor allem mit den Arbeitsinhalten und der Flexibilit?t der Arbeitszeiten zufrieden sind und eine akademische Karriere anstreben. Die Konkurrenz und die Hürden auf dem Karriereweg werden allerdings als gro? wahrgenommen. Zudem scheinen die als vielversprechend eingesch?tzten Karrierestrategien wie das Publizieren in internationalen Fachzeitschriften nur schwer umsetzbar zu sein. Einzig jene Postdocs, die von ihrer/m vorgesetzten Professor/in beim Publizieren und beim Aufbau eines Netzwerks unterstützt und betreut werden, schaffen es, viel zu publizieren und international in Erscheinung zu treten. Hingegen sind zwei andere Gruppen weniger erfolgreich in der Umsetzung der eigenen Ziele bzw. verfolgen mit der Habilitation eher traditionelle Karrierestrategien.

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Are many paths leading to Rome? Professional situation and career strategies of post-doc scholars in communication and media studies

There are hardly any data on the situation of post-doc scholars in the field of communication and media studies. This study describes the employment, job satisfaction, mentoring, and career concepts and strategies of post-docs in the field. A survey among post-docs in the German-speaking countries shows that they are satisfied with their job situation, especially the kind of work they have to do and the flexibility of their working hours. They also aspire to a career in academia. Competition and obstacles on the career path are, however, perceived as considerable. Some strategies such as publishing in international journals are seen as promising, but hard to attain. Only those post-docs who are supported by the professor they work for succeed in publishing much and getting to be known internationally. Other groups are less successful in reaching their goals or pursue the traditional career path of habilitation.

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Dr. Werner Wirth ist ordentlicher Professor für empirische Kommunikations- und Medienforschung am Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung (IPMZ) der Universit?t Zürich. Ilona St?mpfli (lic. rer. soc.) ist wissenschaftliche Assistentin am IPMZ. Saskia B?cking (Dr. des.) ist ebenfalls wissenschaftliche Assistentin und Dr. J?rg Matthes wissenschaftlicher Assistent am IPMZ.     

Efficiency of Nonpoint Source Pollution Instruments: An Experimental Study

In nonpoint source pollution problems, the regulator does not observe each polluters individual emission, which prevents him from using the conventional policy instruments. Therefore, new instruments have been designed to regulate this type of pollution. In an experiment, we compare the efficiency of some of these instruments: an input-based tax, an ambient tax/subsidy, an ambient tax, and a group fine. We assume that polluters themselves are affected by environmental damages. A control session without any regulation is also carried out in order to study the status quo situation. Our experimental data show that the input tax and the ambient tax are very efficient and reliable, and the group fine is fairly efficient and reliable. These instruments improve social welfare with respect to the status quo. On the contrary, the ambient tax/subsidy decreases social welfare with respect to the status quo, and its effect is very unreliable.     

Efficiency Measurement in Network Industries: Application to the Swiss Railway Companies

The persistence of increasingly high government subsidies in Switzerland’s railroads has led the federal and cantonal authorities to discussing the possibility of high-powered incentive contracts such as those based on cost efficiency benchmarking. Railways are however, characterized by a high degree of unobserved heterogeneity that could bias the efficiency estimates. This paper examines the performance of several panel data models to measure cost efficiency in network industries. The unobserved firm-specific effects and the resulting biases are studied through a comparative study of several stochastic frontier models, applied to a panel of 50 railway companies operating over a 13-year period.* The authors wish to thank Michael Crew and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions. Aurelio Fetz provided an excellent assistance, which is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.This revised version was published in June 2005 with corrections in the author affiliations.     

On consistency of redescending M-kernel smoothers

M-estimators and M-kernel estimators with a redescending ψ-function are not in general consistent. This is often handled by means of coupling the estimator to a consistent one. Coupling the estimator to the (inconsistent) starting point improves the jump preserving properties. However, the consistency depends heavily on the shape of the density of the residuals. This paper shows inconsistency under convenient conditions as well as consistency – even at jump points – under somewhat stronger conditions. Research supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and by grant Mu 1031/4-1/2 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft     

The Productivity of Government Spending in Asia: 1983–2000

Leightner [The Changing Effectiveness of Key Policy Tools in Thailand. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for East Asian Development Network, EAON Working Paper 19(2002)x0219-6417] develops a new analytical technique, named Reiterative Truncated Projected Least Squares (RTPLS), which produces 1/2 the error of OLS when omitted variables interact with the included independent variable. In this paper, RTPLS is applied to annual panel data on government spending and GDP from 1983 to 2000 for 23 developing Asian and Pacific countries. RTPLS produces estimates for the government spending multiplier for these countries and shows how omitted variables have affected these multipliers across countries and over time.JEL Classification: C13, E62, O23     

Economic convergence and the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate in central and eastern Europe

The paper presents an extended version of the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate model (FEER), which introduces potential output into foreign trade equations. We show that with this specification and under some plausible assumptions the equilibrium exchange rate is consistent with the behavioral equilibrium exchange model (BEER). We use the extended FEER model to analyze fluctuations of the real exchange rate in four central and eastern European countries. The resulting FEER calculations show that the appreciation of the real exchange rates in these countries in the past nine years is largely an equilibrium phenomenon.     

Planung und Unternehmenserfolg: Stylized Facts aus der empirischen Controllingforschung im deutschsprachigen Raum von 1990–2007

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht, inwieweit die empirische Controllingforschung im deutschsprachigen Raum von 1990 bis 2007 belastbare Aussagen (“Stylized Facts”) zum Zusammenhang zwischen der Gestaltung der Planung als bedeutsamem Teil der Controllerarbeit und dem Controlling- bzw. Unternehmenserfolg erarbeitet hat. Insgesamt werden fünfzehn Studien analysiert, aus denen Stylized Facts zu Planungsintensit?t, Planungsrationalit?t, Planungsoffenheit, Planungsintegration und Planungsdauer sowie zu Opportunismus und Kompetenzgef?lle als soziale Gestaltungsfaktoren der Planung hergeleitet werden. Zum einen zeigen die Ergebnisse den Beitrag der empirischen Controllingforschung zum Verst?ndnis der Planung als Führungsteilfunktion. Zum anderen k?nnen verschiedenste Aussagen zur Gestaltung der Planung in handlungsleitender Form an die Unternehmenspraxis zurückgespielt werden.