The need for an alternative to shareholder value creation? The Ethomed student experience

This article aims to highlight the need for a radical break with the methodological individualism that dominates the fields of economics and management, especially finance. It advocates the need to try to understand the issues and methods that are required to coordinate economic action in order to meet social needs.The article questions methodological individualism and the dominant role played by shareholders. Is it possible to promote social welfare simply by considering it to be a result of a shareholder value maximization point of view? If not, this implies not only understanding fully the challenges that we face but also being innovative regarding the way in which we coordinate the actions that are necessary to meet these challenges head on, and perhaps promoting another character as a substitute for the shareholder.     

Economic slowdowns,hazard rates and foreign ownership

This paper evaluates the link between foreign ownership and firm exit during crises, using a longitudinal micro dataset over an 18-year period. We address two main questions: first, if foreign affiliates have different failure rates than domestic firms during economic downturns, and second if the foreignness effect differs between two different economic downturns. The results partially confirm the liability of foreignness argument, suggesting that when the crisis was more pronounced at home than abroad, the differences in hazard rates between foreign and domestic firms reduce. The footloose argument is also only partially confirmed. For policy makers, our results on survival dynamics during crises are not against policies stimulating inward investment. There is no need to fear that foreign firms destabilize more than usual the host economy during economic slowdowns by immediately closing down operations.     

税收优惠影响企业创新产出的多元机制研究——来自中国软件与集成电路产业的证据

创新政策一直是激励企业创新的重要手段，其中税收优惠政策是一种具有市场导向性的激励政策，对企业创新具有良好的促进作用，但是政策对企业产生激励作用的原因尚不清晰。选取对我国技术突破有重要作用的软件与集成电路企业，采用2006-2018年中国A股上市公司数据，聚焦2011年国家对软件与集成电路行业的两个税收优惠政策，运用双重差分法对企业创新产出影响进行实证研究。结果发现：税收优惠政策对发明专利申请有显著促进作用，而对非发明专利申请无显著影响。融资约束、企业避税行为等是税收激励政策发挥作用的主要渠道。另外，税收优惠政策对不同规模、产权和区域企业有不同影响，税收优惠政策对大型企业、国有企业以及中西部地区企业创新产出促进作用更大。从税收优惠政策长期影响看，该政策对专利申请的影响存在时滞性，而发明专利申请在政策发生当年就显著增加。研究结论可为明晰税收优惠政策、融资约束与企业创新产出间关系提供有益启示。     

知识重叠、知识库特性与创新绩效

以往研究着重探讨重叠/非重叠知识在技术并购中的创新效应，然而在测度知识重叠时仅关注到数量属性而忽略了质量评估。因此，构建一个新的理论框架，利用国家知识产权局2008-2018年专利授权数据，分析217家中国机械制造企业352次国内技术并购案例，探索知识库中重叠、非重叠知识数量和质量属性对并购后创新绩效的影响。结果表明，高质量重叠知识对并购后的企业创新绩效具有正向影响，而高质量非重叠知识则有负向影响。同时，探讨知识数量对并购后创新绩效的影响。研究结果强调了知识重叠对企业获取外部知识的重要性，对企业技术并购实践具有借鉴作用。     

The role of accelerators in firm survival: An fsQCA analysis of Italian startups

Accelerators are a recent yet rapidly growing phenomenon within entrepreneurial ecosystems. The distinctive characteristics exhibited by accelerators, relative to previous incubation models, imply that accelerators may play a different role and have a different impact on the survival rates of participating firms. In this study, we explore the relationship between participation in an accelerator program and firm survival using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with key variables related to firm survival. We analyze 38 accelerated startups from five Italian accelerators and a control group of 38 non-accelerated Italian startups. Our findings support the business accelerator literature that regards accelerators as a new and distinct generation of business incubators. Our results suggest that participation in accelerator programs on its own does not influence firm survival. However, we found a relationship between firm survival and accelerated technology-based firms that do not export and between firm survival and accelerated firms in the service sector with a small team that do not export. We conclude that factors affecting the survival of accelerated firms are different from factors affecting the survival of incubated firms, providing further evidence of the characteristics that distinguish accelerators from incubators.     

锚企业与科技新城共生模式研究:以阿里巴巴和杭州未来科技城为例

以阿里巴巴和杭州未来科技城为例，采用Logistic模型探讨锚企业与科技新城共生模式，结果表明：总体而言，阿里巴巴和未来科技城属于互利共生模式，阿里巴巴成长会促进未来科技城发展，而未来科技城发展也会反哺阿里巴巴的成长。2013-2016年两者共生系数之间的差值不断缩小，表明阿里巴巴和杭州未来科技城的共生模式从偏利共生转向互利共生。     

Non-farm entrepreneurship in rural sub-Saharan Africa: New empirical evidence

We report on the prevalence and patterns of non-farm enterprises in six sub-Saharan African countries, and study their performance in terms of labor productivity, survival and exit, using the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study - Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). Rural households operate enterprises due to both push and pull factors and tend to do so predominantly in easy-to-enter activities, such as sales and trade, rather than in activities that require higher starting costs, such as transport services, or educational investment, such as professional services. Labor productivity differs widely: rural and female-headed enterprises, those located further away from population centers, and businesses that operate intermittently have lower levels of labor productivity compared to urban and male-owned enterprises, or enterprises that operate throughout the year. Finally, rural enterprises exit the market primarily due to a lack of profitability or finance, and due to idiosyncratic shocks.     

Critical success factors for the sustainability of Kaizen event human resource outcomes: An empirical study

Kaizen events have been widely reported to produce positive change in business results and human resource outcomes. However, sustaining or improving upon the results of a Kaizen event over time can be difficult for many organizations and has received limited empirical research attention to date. This paper identifies the factors that most strongly influence the sustainability of work area employee attitudes and commitment to Kaizen events based on a field study of 65 events in eight manufacturing organizations. The findings also present guidelines for organizations and areas for future research.     

The international diversification-performance link in Spain: Does firm size really matter?

This study provides new insights into the link between international diversification and firm performance in a sample of large manufacturing firms and SMEs based in Spain for the 1994–2008 period. Specifically, the focus is on how the nature and shape of this relationship may vary over time with firm size. The results show the existence of a horizontal-S curve when the whole sample of firms is considered in the empirical analysis. However, major differences are found between SMEs and large firms, and even within the actual group of SMEs. Strong support is found in large firms for the existence of a horizontal-S curve. Within the group of SMEs, there are small firms with a linear and negative relationship, whereas medium-sized firms record a U-shaped form. These findings suggest that as the international diversification-performance link is size-dependent, future research should explicitly consider firm size in order to better understand the nature of this relationship.     

基于钻石模型的滨海新区制造业产业集群发展研究

天津滨海新区升格为国家级综合改革试验区的战略目标,是把以滨海新区为增长极的京津冀打造为环渤海乃至中国北方经济增长的发动机和最具国际竞争力的都市圈。本文借鉴迈克尔·波特的国家竞争优势钻石模型,构建一个地区制造业升级的竞争模型,并借助于这一模型对滨海新区制造业产业集群竞争力进行分析,从而就提升其产业集群竞争力进行了对策探析。