LONG‐RUN VERSUS SHORT‐RUN PERSPECTIVES ON CONSUMER SCHEDULING: EVIDENCE FROM A REVEALED‐PREFERENCE EXPERIMENT AMONG PEAK‐HOUR ROAD COMMUTERS

Earlier studies on scheduling behavior have mostly ignored that consumers have more flexibility to adjust their schedule in the long run than in the short run. We introduce the distinction between long‐run choices of travel routines and short‐run choices of departure times, using data from a real‐life peak avoidance experiment. We find that participants value travel time higher in the long‐run context, supposedly because changes in travel time can be exploited better through the adjustment of routines. Schedule delays are valued higher in the short run, reflecting that scheduling restrictions are typically more binding in the short run.     

Optimal number of accrual groups and accrual group sizes in longitudinal trials with discrete‐time survival endpoints

In longitudinal trials, the number of accrual groups and their sizes should carefully be chosen to ensure a desired power to detect a specified treatment effect. Methods are proposed to obtain a cost‐effective combination of the number and size of accrual groups that provides high efficiency at minimal cost. We focus on trials where an event occurs at any point in time, but it is recorded on a discrete scale. The Weibull survival function is considered for modeling the underlying time to event. By using a cost function, it is shown that the ratio of the cost of recruiting and treating subjects to the cost of measuring them and also the survival pattern highly influence the optimal combination of the number and size of accrual groups. A maximin approach is further presented to obtain robust designs with respect to poor specification of these modeling parameters. We also show the application of the proposed optimal design methodology using real examples.     

Corporate entrepreneurship initiatives: Antagonizing cognitive biases in business model design

Entrepreneurs designing novel business model configurations face cognitive biases that derive from limited mental capacity to deal with complex and uncertain decision contexts. Building on the notion of the business model as an idiosyncratic mental representation that organizes managerial understanding of value creating and value capture, we investigate how entrepreneurs cope with cognitive biases inherent in business model design. We conducted a total of 35 in‐depth interviews with entrepreneurs situated in 15 corporate entrepreneurship initiatives in Germany. Our study results suggest that entrepreneurs counter cognitive biases by combining intuitive and deliberate reasoning approaches. Specifically, we identify five cognitive mechanisms and two higher level cognitive processes undergirding entrepreneurial reasoning in the design of new business models. Our findings provide empirically grounded insights into the cognitive perspective in business model research and help to theorize managerial reasoning during the process of business model design.     

Outside Board Members in High Tech Start-ups

Board composition in large organizations has been subject to much empirical research, however, little attention has been focused on board composition in start-ups, and more specifically high tech start-ups. This lack of research is surprising given that many high tech start-ups have multiple equity stakeholders such as venture capitalists or public research organizations, such as universities. Given that high tech start-ups are commonly resource-poor these external stakeholders may play an important role in accessing critical external resources. Drawing on agency theory, resource dependence theory and social network theory we examine the tensions that exist between the founding team and external equity stakeholders in determining the presence of outside board members. In particular we focus on whether or not the outside board members have either complementary or substitute human capital to the founding team. We test our model on a sample of 140 high tech start-ups in Flanders. Our results indicate that high tech start-ups with a public research organization as an external equity stakeholder are more likely to develop boards with outside board members with complementary skills to the founding team.      

Technology transfer offices as boundary spanners in the pre-spin-off process: the case of a hybrid model

Over the past decades, universities have increasingly become ambidextrous organizations reconciling scientific and commercial missions. In order to manage this ambidexterity, technology transfer offices (TTOs) were established in most universities. This paper studies a specific, often implemented, but rather understudied type of TTO, namely a hybrid TTO model uniting centralized and decentralized levels. Employing a qualitative research design, we examine how and why the two TTO levels engage in diverse boundary spanning activities to help nascent spin-off companies move through the pre-spin-off process. Our research identifies differences in the types of boundary spanning activities that centralized and decentralized TTOs perform and in the parties they engage with. We find geographical, technological and organizational proximity to be important antecedents of the TTOs’ engagement in external and internal boundary spanning activities. These results have important implications for both academics and practitioners interested in university technology transfer through spin-off creation.     

The more business owners, the merrier? The role of tertiary education

Policy in developed countries is often based on the assumption that higher business ownership rates induce economic value. Recent microeconomic empirical evidence may lead to a more nuanced view: Especially the top-performing business owners are responsible for the value creation of business owners. Other labor market participants would contribute more to economic value creation as an employee than as a business owner. The implied existence of an “optimal” business ownership rate would thus replace the dictum of “the more business owners, the merrier.” We attempt to establish whether there is such an optimal level, i.e., a quadratic relation between the business ownership rate and economic output rather than a linear or higher-order relationship, while investigating the role of tertiary education. Two findings stand out. First, by estimating extended versions of traditional Cobb–Douglas production functions on a sample of 19 OECD countries over the period 1981–2006, we indeed find robust evidence of an optimal business ownership rate. Second, the relation between business ownership and macroeconomic productivity is steeper for countries with higher participation rates in tertiary education. Thus, the optimal business ownership rate tends to decrease with tertiary education levels. This is consistent with microeconomic theory and evidence showing that business owners with higher levels of human capital run larger firms.     

Firm-size wage differentials in the Netherlands

An unsolved problem in modern labor economics is the positive relation between the size of the firm in which a worker is employed and his wage. One line of research that has been developed quite recently in this field is the application of endogenous switching regression models. In this paper we utilize such a model to investigate firm-size wage differentials in the Netherlands. The principal findings are that larger firms pay higher returns on schooling whereas smaller firms tend to reward IQ. Combined with the finding that high IQ-workers are sorted into the largest firms, the results are consistent with a model of job screening. Furthermore, we find that employed sons of self-employed fathers are more likely to work in small firms and that wage prospects for all types of workers are indeed most favorable in larger firms.     

Entrepreneurship Selection and Performance: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Education in Developing Economies

This meta-analytical review of empirical studies of the impactof schooling on entrepreneurship selection and performance indeveloping economies looks at variations in impact across specificcharacteristics of the studies. A marginal year of schoolingin developing economies raises enterprise income by an averageof 5.5 percent, which is close to the average return in industrialcountries. The return varies, however, by gender, rural or urbanresidence, and the share of agriculture in the economy. Furthermore,more educated workers typically end up in wage employment andprefer nonfarm entrepreneurship to farming. The education effectthat separates workers into self-employment and wage employmentis stronger for women, possibly stronger in urban areas, andalso stronger in the least developed economies, where agricultureis more dominant and literacy rates are lower.