New Technologies and International Locational Choice for Research and Development Units: Evidence from Europe

This study examines the factors governing the decision to locate new research and development facilities at locations distant from company headquarters. The 20 firms surveyed are German, Swiss, Dutch, Japanese and Finnish multinationals. Development laboratories, it was found, followed the established pattern of being located away from headquarters only when distant markets attain a critical size. For research laboratories, however, the decisive factor in all cases is a desire to tap into the expertise developing in 'centres of competence' such as the American Northeast in biotechnology. This factor only operates when the new technology is otherwise unfamiliar to the investing company. This factor overrides the conventional wish to minimize the costs of internal and external communications.     

The energy crisis and the third world

The economic implications of the latest upsurge of the oil prices for the whole world—and for the developing countries in particular—are such as to make a strategy of common responsibility of industrialized and developing countries more urgent than ever. Rainer Offergeld, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation, elucidates his ideas about such a strategy.     

Socioemotional Wealth and Innovativeness in Small‐ and Medium‐Sized Family Enterprises: A Configuration Approach

What makes small‐ and medium‐sized family firms (family SMEs) innovative? Some family firm dynamics promote, yet others hinder innovation. It remains unclear whether combinations of family firm dynamics increase innovativeness. Our configurational perspective of socioemotional wealth (SEW) unravels determinants of family SMEs' innovativeness. We conduct a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis with 452 Swiss family SMEs. We categorize SEW dimensions into configurations of necessary and sufficient conditions. We contribute to theory on family SMEs' innovativeness because we reveal that the interplay of SEW dimensions leads to innovativeness. This offers practitioners a better framework to choose between SEW configurations.     

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