Knowlege networks for innovation in small Scottish software firms

This paper examines the emergence of small indigenous software companies in Scotland, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the region's socio-economic infrastructure as a foundation for innovative new business ventures. Following a brief review of some of the accepted wisdom on high-tech start-ups and regional economic development the paper provides some background information on the Scottish region, comparing new firms in the software industry with the foreign multinationals that dominate the local IT industry. A framework - the ‘sociotechnical constituencies’ approach - is then proposed that allows the author to examine networks of specialist knowledge that underlie new business development. Agglomeration effects and the influence of ‘clusters’ of complementary types of knowledge, expertise and innovative competencies at the regional level are at the heart of the analysis. The framework is applied to a sample of local firms, looking at how ‘learning’ via sociotechnical networks underlies their evolution. Policy-makers' attempts to boost the region's new business birth rate and promote the hoped-for ‘silicon glen’ effect are viewed in the light of the study's findings.     

Enterprise systems’ life cycle in pursuit of resilient smart factory for emerging aircraft industry: a synthesis of Critical Success Factors’(CSFs), theory,knowledge gaps,and implications

The research aims to investigate business value critical success factors (CSFs) of enterprise systems (ES) through their life cycle in pursuit of resilient smart factory for emerging aircraft industry. This article provides an extensive literature analysis of past 22 years based on conscientious criteria of authors: (i) who have published strategic content relevant to CSFs, (ii) received more than 300 citations and (iii) concurrently published two or more papers relevant to ES CSFs. The most cited strategic CSFs were termed as classical CSFs. The 22 CSFs were identified, validated and synthesised for better understanding of success across life cycle by aircraft industry experts. The top 10 empirically verified CSFs have numerous differences with past generic classical CSFs. This article canvases real insights of two distinct views: process and variance approaches of the ES CSFs. The process approach, which is a neglected research area, facilitates the researchers for identification of ES life cycle process coupled with a view of resource deployment when it is needed the most. While the variance approach facilitates practitioners and researchers in finding out which resource (CSF) is relatively more important. The significant findings for ES life cycle can help the practitioners and researchers to make rational decisions throughout the ES life cycle.     

A quintessential immigrant niche? The non-case of immigrants in the Dutch construction industry

Students of immigrant entrepreneurship show a distinct preference for ethnic concentrations. They focus on small entrepreneurship in sectors with large concentrations of immigrant businesses or on ethnic commercial precincts. This preference stems from practical and theoretical considerations. It seems that the study of such concentrations, or niches, is essential to the theoretical understanding of the structural determinants of small entrepreneurship and the processes of economic incorporation of immigrants. This paper challenges this orthodoxy. It argues that it is important to assess the factors and processes that positively and negatively affect the formation of niches. This argument is corroborated by an analysis of the construction industry in the Netherlands. According to Waldinger (1995: 577), ‘construction represents the quintessential ethnic niche’, but immigrants in the Netherlands did not carve out a niche. This exceptional situation can be attributed to a sector-specific configuration of social, economic and institutional processes.     

加入WTO对中国工业的综合性影响分析

本文根据我国加入WTO的有关法律文件 ,分析了扩大开放的各个方面对工业的影响及其相互作用 ,在此基础上对整个工业受到的综合性影响做出基本判断。由此得出的结论是 :在过渡期间 ,市场开放的各种影响尚未完全形成 ,对整个工业的综合性影响还不大 ;而过渡期完成之后 ,全方位开放带来的各种影响将全面显现并相互作用 ,产生综合性、全局性和深层次的影响 ,从而对整个工业发展的冲击会比较突出地表现出来。如果没有其他因素的变化和影响 ,这个较大的冲击将发生在 2 0 0 5— 2 0 1 0年期间。     

滨海新区服务业与区域经济发展

近年来,国家对振兴环渤海区域经济与设天津滨海新区的开发开放给予高度重视。滨海新区已经由城市发展战略纳入国家总体发展战略,这对滨海新区的发展是一个难得的历史性机遇。因此,如何发展好天津滨海新区服务业,服务于区域经济发展,对于振兴环渤海经济和北方地区经济有着重要作用。     

东亚“雁阵模式”式微原因新析及启示

经济全球化时代,维系“雁阵模式”运行的宏观背景条件正在丧失,“雁阵模式”开始走向终结。日本经济的“制度疲劳”、“四小龙”的兴起、中国的崛起以及亚洲金融危机只是“雁阵模式”式微的表层原因,其真正原因是经济全球化及其机制的作用:即全球信息化、世界经济一体化、跨国公司的发展、知识经济在世界范围的兴起,成为“雁阵模式”终结的力量。“雁阵模式”的终结对于中国产业结构调整与优化,具有重要启示作用。     

产业集群与珠三角地区经济发展

产业集群作为区域经济发展理论的创新，在促进区域经济发展的过程中具有提高区域竞争力，带动整个区域经济发展的内在机理。本文以珠三角为例分析了以产业链为纽带构筑产业集群的经济框架，在此基础上提出了珠三角地区产业集群培育和发展的政策建议。     

Brand Name Audit Pricing,Industry Specialization,and Leadership Premiums post‐Big 8 and Big 6 Mergers*

This paper investigates brand name, industry specialization, and leadership audit pricing in the wake of the mergers that created the Big 6 and the Big 5 accounting firms. For samples of Australian listed public companies in each of the postmerger years 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1998, we estimate national audit fee premiums for the Big 6/5 auditors and the industry specialists and leaders. We find limited support for the ability of the Big 6/5 to obtain fee premiums over non‐Big 6/5 for those industries not having specialist auditors. Nonspecialist Big 6/5 auditors are able to obtain fee premiums over nonspecialist non‐Big 6/5 auditors for those industries having specialist auditors. However, this result only holds among the smaller half of our sample. We do not find strong support for the presence of industry specialist premiums in the postmerger years, especially after 1990, using various definitions of industry specialist. We find, at best, limited support for the presence of industry leadership premiums. The evidence suggests that after the Big 8/6 audit firm mergers, some caution is required in generalizing the Craswell, Francis, and Taylor 1995 finding of national market industry specialist premiums. More generally, the study raises questions about the tenuous link between the concept of specialization and national market‐share statistics.     

The telecoms boom and bust 1996-2003 and the role of financial markets

Financial crises are still as much a part of the modern, information-and-communication-technology-based (ICT) economy as they were of previous economies. Why are we apparently unable to learn lessons from the past and avoid what Charles Kindleberger (2000) has called manias, panics and crashes? Why is it that our sophisticated stock of information, made readily and relatively cheaply available to us by our investment in ICTs, and our abundant theories and models, have not allowed us to steer clear of these financial excesses? The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the processes and mechanisms that have played a significant role in causing the Telecoms Boom and Bust, 1996-2003. The question of whether anything can be done about these processes and mechanisms in order to try and modify such financial excesses in the future is taken up in the conclusion.JEL Classification: A12, D8, E3, G1, L63, L96, N2, O30The author would like to acknowledge, without implicating, the helpful discussion with Richard Burns, Fred Bleakley and others who commented on an earlier version of this paper at Institutional Investors European Institute meeting in Berlin in March 2003, and with Stan Metcalfe on other occasions. In addition, thanks are due to many friends in NTT and InfoCom who assisted my learning about the Telecoms Industry and its dynamics.     

In or out? explaining state shares of the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement

In 1998, 46 states were involved in a Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with the tobacco industry. The other four states settled on their own. Our goal is to answer a counter factual question: how would these four states have fared had they been included in the MSA? We use data from Viscusi (2002 Viscusi WK (2002) Smoke‐Filled Rooms Chicago University of Chicago Press  [Google Scholar]) to explain settlement shares for states participating in the 1998 tobacco MSA, and to predict settlement shares for the four nonparticipating states. We find that two nonparticipating states (Minnesota and Mississippi) may have fared substantially worse had they been included in the MSA.