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.     

Do telecom carrier takeovers create value? Longitudinal analysis of U.S. telecom carrier takeovers from 1996 to 2005

Takeovers by telecommunications carriers have surged during between 1996 and 2005, stimulated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In this study, we hypothesize and test the short-term and long-term performance of telecommunications carrier mergers and acquisitions (M&As) between 1996 and 2005 according to three main categories (strategic types, bidder characteristics, and payment methods). For short-term performance, this study investigates abnormal market returns of bidding firms after M&A announcements and our study shows that telecommunications carrier M&A announcements do result in a significant increase in shareholder wealth in the short run. However, from a long-term perspective, which has been investigated in terms of the survival rate and the operating performance after M&As, the telcos experience a statistically significant decrease of up to 10%. The results also show that though strategic type, bidder characteristics, and payment method play an important role in the value creation of M&As in the short term, only the bidder size matters in the success of M&As over a long period of time.     

跨期知识整合与新产品开发绩效关系实证研究——基于珠三角和长三角地区企业的数据

根据已有研究成果,文章首先分析了跨期知识整合的内涵和机制,并根据理论分析建立了结构方程模型,设计了"跨期知识整合对新产品开发绩效影响的调研问卷",在珠三角和长三角地区选择了上海、广州、杭州、深圳等地的多家企业进行调研,并回收了245份问卷,根据分析结果发现跨期知识整合对新产品开发绩效之间有正向影响。     

基于个体差异的报童群体决策研究

通过实验研究群体决策和大五人格对报童订购的影响。研究表明大五人格中开放性维度能很好地预测个体和群体决策者的订购行为。在个体实验中,开放性越高的个体更不易产生锚定效应,其他四种人格特性与锚定偏差无显著关系;在群体实验中,群体的开放性得分均值、群体中高开放性成员所占的比例与锚定偏差呈负相关关系。通过比较两种实验结果,发现群体锚定倾向明显小于个体锚定倾向,而群体决策并没有优于个体决策。该研究结果对企业人员招聘、构建决策团队及降低决策偏差有一定参考价值。     

产业链整合对建筑工业化协同创新绩效的影响研究

市场竞争日趋激烈,创新过程日益复杂,协同创新成为主流的创新范式。而我国建筑工业化正处于创新驱动发展不足的初级阶段,如何通过产业链整合实现建筑工业化的协同创新,进而提高创新绩效是值得研究的问题。本文从产业链整合着手,探讨建筑工业化的技术链整合、产品链整合、创新协同性、创新绩效之间的相互影响关系。首先根据理论分析提出假设,然后运用26家代表性企业的278份问卷作为样本数据进行验证。实证分析表明：产业链整合对创新协同性、创新绩效均有正向显著作用;技术链整合在产品链与创新协同性之间、创新协同性在产业链整合与创新绩效之间起完全中介作用;政策在产品链整合与创新协同性之间起正向调节作用,而在技术链整合与创新协同性之间的调节作用却不显著。研究结论对于建筑工业化政策制定、产业链完善、企业管理等方面具有重要意义,同时展望了需要进一步关注的方向。     

Has the “CEO effect” increased in recent decades? A new explanation for the great rise in America's attention to corporate leaders

We introduce a new explanation for one of the most pronounced phenomena on the American business landscape in recent decades: a dramatic increase in attributions of CEO significance. Specifically, we test the possibility that America's CEOs became seen as increasingly significant because they were, in fact, increasingly significant. Employing variance partitioning methodologies on data spanning 60 years and more than 18,000 firm‐years, we find that the proportion of variance in performance explained by individual CEOs, or “the CEO effect,” increased substantially over the decades of study. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Level and Stability of Institutional Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from Taiwan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of shareholding stability of institutional investors on firm performance. We analyze 647 sample companies listed in the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2009 using the coefficient of variance of institutional holding proportion as the measure for ownership stability. The empirical results show that increasing stability of institutional holdings is related to better firm performance. The low-risk and younger firms with higher CEO incentive compensation, larger insider holdings, and higher growth usually have better performance. Furthermore, when the long-term institutional shareholdings, particularly of foreign institutions, are higher, the firm performance is better.