External Sources of Innovative Capabilities: The Preferences for Strategic Alliances or Mergers and Acquisitions

This paper explores the preferences that companies have as they use alternative (quasi) external sources of innovative competencies such as strategic technology alliances, mergers and acquisitions, or a mix of these. These alternatives are studied in the context of distinct industrial, technological and international settings during the first half of the 1990s. Different strategies followed by companies and the role played by routinized sets of preferences are also taken into consideration. The analysis demonstrates that these options are influenced by both different environmental conditions and firm specific circumstances, such as those related to protecting core businesses.     

A Multilevel Multinomial Analysis of Interviewer Effects on Various Components of Unit Nonresponse

This note demonstrates an application of a multilevel multinomial model. We use that model to analyse interviewer effects on various components of unit nonresponse to a face-to-face survey: refusals and noncontacts. The model allows for an analysis of these two interviewer effects and a possible connection between both at the same time. Our results show that both the chances for refusals as for noncontacts are subject to interviewer effects. We also find some evidence for a relation between both interviewer effects: interviewers who obtain more refusals are also more likely to report noncontacts. That result is however at least partly dependent on an outlier, an interviewer with a high number of refusals and noncontacts.     

A NOTE ON SEMIPARAMETRIC ESTIMATION OF FINITE MIXTURES OF DISCRETE CHOICE MODELS WITH APPLICATION TO GAME THEORETIC MODELS*

We view a game abstractly as a semiparametric mixture distribution and study the semiparametric efficiency bound of this model. Our results suggest that a key issue for inference is the number of equilibria compared to the number of outcomes. If the number of equilibria is sufficiently large compared to the number of outcomes, root‐n consistent estimation of the model will not be possible. We also provide a simple estimator in the case when the efficiency bound is strictly above zero.     

Quantity and quality of information and SME financial structure

We test whether the amount and/or quality of financial statement information affects the financial structure of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Belgian SMEs are used, because there are important differences in disclosure and audit requirements among them. Consistent with the traditional view that asymmetric or incomplete information restricts access to external funds, our results indicate that both the amount and quality of financial statement information are positively related to SME leverage. In addition, we find that leverage is positively related to asset structure, growth (prospects) and median industry leverage, and negatively related to firm age and profitability.     

Optimal variable weighting for ultrametric and additive tree clustering

A method is developed which for a given objects by variables data matrix estimates weighted inter-object distances that are optimally suited for either an ultrametric or an additive tree representation. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated on two synthetic data sets having a known tree structure and on one real data set. In the final section, some possible extensions of the present method are discussed.     

Sustainable Development and Well-Being: A Philosophical Challenge

This paper aims at gaining a better understanding of the inherent paradoxes within sustainability discourses by investigating its basic assumptions. Drawing on a study of the metaphoric references operative in moral language, we reveal the predominance of the ‘well-being = wealth’ construct, which may explain the dominance of the ‘business case’ cognitive frame in sustainability discourses (Hahn et al. in Acad Manag Rev 4015:18–42, 2015a). We incorporate economic well-being variables within a philosophical model of becoming well (Küpers in Cult Organ 11(3):221–231, 2005), highlighting the way in which these variables consistently articulate a combination of ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ concerns. We then compare this broad understanding of well-being with the metaphors operative in the sustainable development discourse and argue that the sustainability discourse has fallen prey to an overemphasis on the ‘business case’. We proceed to draw on Georges Bataille to challenge the predominance of these value priorities and to explore which mindshifts are required to develop a more comprehensive understanding of what is needed to enable ‘sustainable development’.     

An Introduction to the Patstat Database with Example Queries

This article provides an introduction to the Patstat patent database. It offers guided examples of 10 popular queries that are relevant for research purposes and that cover the most important data tables. It is targeted at academic researchers and practitioners who are willing to learn the basics of the database.     

Returns to alliance portfolio diversity: The relative effects of partner diversity on firm's innovative performance and productivity

This study considers the impact of diversification in types of technological alliances, resulting in alliance portfolio diversity, on various dimensions of a firm's performance, as they relate to exploration and exploitation. Using a large panel of innovative firms in the Netherlands, this study shows that partner type diversity in a firm's alliance portfolio has an inverted U-shaped relationship with productivity and radical innovative performance and a positive relationship with incremental innovative performance. Moreover, the results suggest that a lower level of diversity is needed to achieve an optimal level of productivity compared to radical innovative performance, whereas for incremental innovative performance a higher level of portfolio diversity appears to give the best performance.     

MGNREGA in Tamil Nadu: A Story of Success and Transformation?

Social protection has emerged as a key driver of development policy at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. It is widely considered a ‘good thing’ that has the potential not only to alleviate poverty and vulnerability, but also to generate more transformative outcomes in terms of empowerment and social justice. Based on an ethnographic study of the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India's flagship social protection policy, this paper takes a critical look at what this policy's ‘success’ consists of. The study was carried out in Tamil Nadu, a state widely presented as a ‘success’ in terms of MGNREGA's implementation, and describes who participates in the scheme and how success is understood and expressed at different social and bureaucratic levels. In terms of MGNREGA's outcomes, we conclude that the scheme is benefitting the poorest households – and Dalits and women in particular – especially in terms of providing a safety net and as a tool for poverty alleviation. But the scheme does more than that. It has also produced significant transformative outcomes for rural labourers, such as pushing up rural wage levels, enhancing low‐caste workers' bargaining power in the labour market and reducing their dependency on high‐caste employers. These benefits are not only substantial but also transformative in that they affect rural relations of production and contribute to the empowerment of the rural labouring poor. However, in terms of creating durable assets and promoting grassroots democracy, the scheme's outcomes are much less encouraging.