The booster function and the entrepreneurial quality: an application to the province of Seville

The objectives of this paper are two-fold. First, to elaborate a theoretical model that shows the characteristics of an entrepreneur of quality and the factors that influence them. Second, to apply the model to entrepreneurs in the province of Seville, one of the least developed areas in the European Union. The purpose is to show the importance of entrepreneurship for business success and, more importantly, in economic development. In summary, the model shows that entrepreneurs of quality possess an intrinsic motivation and, as consequence of this, they adopt some energizer behaviours, such as the capacity for innovation, ambition and co-operation with others. The model also takes into account factors that influence these characteristics, including the personal context of the entrepreneur, such as experience, education and family, and the global context, such as productive opportunities, socio-cultural factors and political-institutional factors. In the analysis of the entrepreneurs of Seville, the paper mainly focuses on the motivation and the energizer behaviours and their interdependence. The empirical findings indicate that the model is valid.     

The institutional embeddedness of local inter-firm networks: a leverage for business creation

There is an increasing concern for the notion of ‘embeddedness’ of economic activity; yet the conceptualization of the concept and its operationalization remain underdeveloped. First, embeddedness may concern, on the one hand, the structure of relations that tie economic actors together (structural embeddedness) and, on the other hand, the social strands supplementing economic strands in each relation (substantive embeddedness). In this paper, a network framework is outlined which proposes several layers or ‘orders’ of embeddedness. Focusing on small firms, the point of departure is individual exchange relationships as personal ties combining economic and social concerns. First-order embeddedness concerns the localized business networks created by combining these dyadic relations. Second-order embeddedness is achieved when considering also the memberships of business persons in economic and social local institutions while third-order embeddedness concerns the special cases where these institutions bridge gaps between firms. The network model is operationalized and applied to a small Swedish industrial (furniture) community, its firms and economic/social institutions. The findings generally support the applicability of the model and demonstrate the supplementarity of different layers/orders of embeddedness. Further research challenges are deduced and implications for practitioners are provided.     

Hyperbolic Efficiency and Parametric Distance Functions: With Application to Spanish Savings Banks

Distance functions are gaining relevance as alternative representations of production technologies, with growing numbers of empirical applications being made in the productivity and efficiency field. Distance functions were initially defined on the input or output production possibility sets by Shephard (1953, 1970) and extended to a graph representation of the technology by Färe, Grosskopf and Lovell (1985) through their graph hyperbolic distance function. Since then, different techniques such as non parametric-DEA and parametric-SFA have been used to calculate these distance functions. However, in the latter case we know of no study in which the restriction to input or output orientation has been relaxed. What we propose is to overcome such restrictiveness on dimensionality by defining and estimating a parametric hyperbolic distance function which simultaneously allows for the maximum equiproportionate expansion of outputs and reduction of inputs. In particular, we introduce a translog hyperbolic specification that complies with the conventional properties that the hyperbolic distance function satisfies. Finally, to illustrate its applicability in efficiency analysis we implement it using a data set of Spanish savings banks.     

Sequential coding of maternal sensitivity: application of nonlinear dynamic analyses and reliability

Quality & Quantity - In infant development, maternal sensitivity is a central construct in the study of the processes involved in the caregiver-infant relationship and child attachment. The...     

Three Corrected Score Tests for Generalized Linear Models with Dispersion Covariates

We develop three corrected score tests for generalized linear models with dispersion covariates, thus generalizing the results of Cordeiro , Ferrari and Paula (1993) and Cribari-Neto and Ferrari (1995) . We present, in matrix notation, general formulae for the coefficients which define the corrected statistics. The formulae only require simple operations on matrices and can be used to obtain analytically closed-form corrections for score test statistics in a variety of special generalized linear models with dispersion covariates. They also have advantages for numerical purposes since our formulae are readily computable using a language supporting numerical linear algebra. Two examples, namely, iid sampling without covariates on the mean or dispersion parameter oand one-way classification models, are given. We also present some simulations where the three corrected tests perform better than the usual score test, the likelihood ratio test and its Bartlett corrected version. Finally, we present a numerical example for a data set discussed by Simonoff and Tsai (1994) .     

Family firm’s management composition: the role played by family members’ age in TMT and supervisor levels

Quality & Quantity - Family firms (FFs) are the backbone of entrepreneurial fabric in many countries. Management of such businesses is complex because of their features: the overlap between...     

Energy and CO2 emission relationships in the NAFTA trading bloc: a multi-regional multi-factor energy input–output approach

The North-America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has brought together the economies of Canada, Mexico, and the US into forming one of the largest trading blocs worldwide (within the top CO₂ emitters). However, the current global protectionist discourse threatens the agreement. This paper analyzes the energy and energy-related CO₂ emission relationships between NAFTA countries in 2014 to gain insights into the climate change implications of current integration and the possible cancelation of the agreement. The analysis is performed with a multi-regional version of the multi-factor energy input–output model. The results show that NAFTA has not built a single integrated energy system, though it has helped reduce energy-related CO₂ emissions. Moreover, if NAFTA is not revoked, further integration would depend on the capacity of the Mexican energy sector to converge to the performance of its trade partners’ energy sectors. Conversely, a broken deal would induce negative environmental externalities.     

Sustainability Development and the Quality of Assurance Reports: Empirical Evidence

There is a rising trend among companies to publish their sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Assurance of these reports is a valuable voluntary tool to provide them with higher credibility. Nonetheless, the quality of assurance reports differs in practice and the objective of this paper is to provide evidence in this new area of research. Indeed, we are pioneers in developing an index to measure the quality of assurance reports. We choose the Spanish setting because it is the worldwide leading country as regards CSR reporting (KPMG, 2011; Sierra et al., 2012). We have found evidence on the determinants for CSR reporting posited by existing literature that have an impact on (a) the decision of companies to publish their CSR reports, (b) the decision to assure the CSR report or not and (c) the decision to hire the assurance services from an auditor or a consultant and the subsequent quality of the assurance report. Last but not least, our results from a sample of 161 CSR assurance reports evidence that assurance reports are of fairly acceptable quality, according to the index proposed. Furthermore, the value of the quality index is significantly higher if the assurance services are provided by an auditor (as opposed to a consultant) and if the CSR reporting company is larger. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

WHY FREE MARKETS SHOULD NOT BE BLAMED FOR THE CURRENT RECESSION

Interventionist thinkers are now claiming intellectual victory, blaming the free‐market system and its ideology for the current economic collapse. We find this thesis untenable, drawing on the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Instead, we argue that the roots of our present downturn lie in the monetary system, whose institutional structure is far from any free‐market ideal. Moreover, several government policies have contributed to the problems.