Are more resources always better for growth? Resource stickiness in market and product expansion

We examine how managerial growth logics combine with financial and human resource slack to influence the short‐term revenue growth of a sample of 112 manufacturing firms drawn from a unique database provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Our results provide evidence that firms pursuing product expansion logics generally grow more slowly than firms that are not expanding their product base, but that financial slack positively moderates this relationship. We also find that human resource slack enhances short‐term market expansion, but slows down short‐term product expansion. We discuss the implications of these results for resource‐based views of growth. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Audit Fees: A Meta‐analysis of the Effect of Supply and Demand Attributes*

We evaluate and summarize the large body of audit fee research and use meta‐analysis to test the combined effect of the most commonly used independent variables. The perspective provided by the meta‐analysis allows us to reconsider the anomalies, mixed results, and gaps in audit fee research. We find that, although many independent variables have consistent results, several show no clear pattern to the results and others only show significant results in certain periods or particular countries. These variables include a loss by the client and leverage, which have become significant in comparatively recent studies; internal auditing and governance, both of which have mixed results; auditor specialization, regarding which there is still some uncertainty; and the audit opinion, which was a significant variable before 1990 but not in more recent studies.     

Is Country Diversification better than Industry Diversification?

In this paper, we develop a framework in which one can examine the source of industry and country diversification by examining their underlying return components. We find that the global cash flow factor explains on average 39% of the variation of country cash flows and global discount rates explain 55% of the variation of country discount rates. These are much less than the explanatory power of the two factors over industry cash flow and discount rate variations, which are 72% and 78% respectively. This suggests that global factors are much less important for return components at country level than at the industry level. As a result, both better diversification of expected returns and cash flows across countries determine the larger benefits of country diversification versus industry diversification. Moreover, emerging markets tend to have much smaller co‐movements of both dividends and expected returns with those of the world, suggesting a lower degree of integration with the world goods and financial markets. Our results cast doubt on the prevailing wisdom that country diversification should be replaced by industry diversification.     

The Association of Natural,Social and Economic Factors with Bird Species Richness in Rural England

At a global level, increasing emphasis on sustainable development highlights the importance of maintaining and enhancing biodiversity. Within the European Union, agricultural reforms will have a considerable influence on the links between biodiversity, agriculture and rural communities over the next 10–20 years. An understanding of the associations between biodiversity and the rural economy is important for the development of policies to promote environmentally sustainable economic and social well‐being. However, investigations of this type are frequently hindered by the different ways in which data in the natural and social sciences are collected. In this paper, we develop an innovative approach to combine data using a common spatial unit. We illustrate the application of this approach by examining associations between bird species richness, environmental and socio‐economic variables. Our results show how the statistical relationship between biodiversity and environmental factors is strengthened and contextualised by prevailing socio‐economic conditions. This example highlights the additional insights that can be gained from such an integrative approach, especially in terms of the questions it raises about the inter‐relationships between the social, physical and ecological dynamics of rural environments.     

Knowledge relatedness and the performance of multibusiness firms

This study examines corporate performance effects of cross‐business knowledge synergies in multibusiness firms. It synthesizes the resource‐based view of diversification and the economic theory of complementarities to conceptualize cross‐business knowledge synergies in terms of the relatedness and the complementarity of knowledge resources across business units of the multibusiness firm. The study hypothesizes that corporate performance is improved when the firm simultaneously exploits a complementary set of related knowledge resources across its business units. In a sample of 303 multibusiness firms, the study finds that synergies arising from product knowledge relatedness, customer knowledge relatedness, or managerial knowledge relatedness do not improve corporate performance on their own. Synergies arising from the complementarity of the three types of knowledge relatedness significantly improve both market‐based and accounting‐based performance of the multibusiness corporation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

分形理论及其在企业组织中的应用

分形是非线性科学发展的重要分支 ,其最大魅力是它的“自相似性” ,分形几何学的产生及企业在复杂多变的环境中利用分形理论进行组织设计 ,最终形成“分形企业” ,以达到与企业环境的自适应。     

Are 18 Holes Enough for Tiger Woods?

This article addresses the selection problem in promotion tournaments. I consider a situation with heterogeneous employees and ask whether an employer might be interested in repeating a promotion tournament. On the one hand, this yields a reduction in uncertainty over the employees’ abilities. On the other hand, there are costs if a workplace stays vacant.     

Child–mother nutrition and health status in rural Kenya: the role of intra‐household resource allocation and education

There exists gender bias in resource ownership in many parts of Kenya with women being more disadvantaged. Resource ownership and control within the household has differential impacts on the health and overall well‐being of male and female members. This paper examines intra‐household resource ownership and how it affects nutrition and health status of household members. Data from a household survey containing detailed gender‐disaggregated information on resource ownership as well as food and anthropometry were collected from a rural Kenyan district and used in the analysis. Results showed that male members of the household had more access to education, income and land than the females. Mothers’ education, household income, frequency of illness and nutrient intake were the most important factors that contributed to the nutritional status of children. The education and household’s economic status were important determinants of child morbidity. Malnutrition and poor health of children and women is linked to the existing poverty in the study region, therefore emphasis needs to be put on eradication of discrimination against women in accessing education and accessing land, which will contribute to an increase in household incomes. Government policies need to focus on promotion of nutrition education through adult education programmes and incorporating it in the school curricula. Improvement of health‐care facilities in rural areas is also paramount to improving health and nutrition in these areas.     

高技术企业成长模式国际比较及我国的选择

选择一种良好的成长模式是高技术企业得以健康成长的基石。在对国外高技术企业的成长过程和模式分析的基础上,针对国外高技术企业的典型成长模式(自成长模式、政府主导型成长模式和混合型成长模式)中的参与主体、资金来源、技术创新和企业文化进行对比分析,得出适应我国高技术企业现状和特点的成长模式。