Network embeddedness in the internationalization of biotechnology entrepreneurs

This study investigates how entrepreneurs of biotech enterprises embed in domestic and international networks so as to internationalize. We advance a contextual framework of embeddedness of internationalizing entrepreneurs, providing a contribution (i) by synthesizing and applying existing conceptual insights from the networking literature to provide a more culturally sensitive view of getting embedded for international entrepreneurship in the biotech industry and (ii) by adding insights into the practices and (micro)processes of how and in what ways embeddedness integrates with the internationalization of biotech entrepreneurs. Our study involves six entrepreneurs from Canada, Finland, and New Zealand. Context-specific embeddedness was studied by exploring the (i) type, (ii) strength, (iii) locality, and (iv) importance of the international and national network ties among internationalizing entrepreneurs. We found differences in relation to the locality of universities and research institutes, role and type of financiers, and customer focus in internationalization. For instance, while customers were central to the embeddedness of Canadian and New Zealand entrepreneurs, Finnish entrepreneurs had no focus on their customers, but acted solely through sales channels and partners. The customer focus of New Zealand entrepreneurs was mainly international, whereas it was domestic in the case of Canadian entrepreneurs.     

Delegating effectively across cultures

This article builds on the contingency approach to global leadership to examine empowerment in a cross-cultural context. Drawing upon ethnographic research on employees of a French NGO in Madagascar, our study demonstrates that effective empowerment is not dependent on the amount of delegation, but rather it is dependent on how delegation is performed. Understanding the cultural representations of formalization, skill development, collective work, and decision-making appeared to be crucial to effective delegation in Madagascar. This result suggests that managers should adapt the way that they empower their teams based on the conditions and forms of delegation prevailing in local cultures.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: Theory and Application to China

The paper investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth. A model of endogenous growth first highlights the transfer of foreign technology as a key determinant of economic growth, and suggests that economic growth may conversely influence the inflows of foreign capital. Simultaneous-equation model estimation based on a sample of 24 Chinese provinces, from 1985 to 1996, confirms the fundamental role played by foreign investment in provincial economic growth in China, and stresses the importance of potential growth in foreign investment decisions.     

Institutional and economic drivers of entrepreneurship: An international perspective

Entrepreneurial activity varies significantly across countries and over time. The economic and institutional context is a determining factor that can drive and lend shape to entrepreneurial activity. The search for a deeper understanding of the role of this factor constitutes a promising and important research stream. A thorough review of the specialist literature identifies groups of countries with similar economic and institutional environments. Subsequent analysis highlights differences in entrepreneurial activity and innovation outcomes between these homogeneous groups. Results indicate significant differences, not only in entrepreneurial activity, but also in the type of entrepreneurship and innovation results. These findings mark a relevant step forward in the identification of different environment types, and the effects of environment on entrepreneurial activity and innovation results.     

The advertising performance of non-ideal female models as a function of viewers' body mass index: a moderated mediation analysis of two competing affective pathways

Advertisements often display ideal female bodies which create unattainable standards of beauty, generating body anxiety and disorders in female viewers. Accordingly, public health concerns would encourage the use of natural, unedited models in advertisements. However, the advertising performance of natural models remains contentious. We argue that previous inconsistent findings about this performance may result from a complex causal framework in which natural models impact performance through two affective mediators (body anxiety, and repulsion toward the model), while allowing moderation by the viewer's own body mass index (BMI). Data collected in a nationally representative sample of 400 young women largely (but not entirely) validate this causal framework. Natural models triggered repulsion in viewers with higher BMI, which hurt advertising performance. Body anxiety, however, was positively correlated with advertising performance, and did not mediate any effect of natural models.     

Regional variations in entrepreneurial cognitions: Start-up intentions of university students in Spain

Empirical research has recently paid considerable attention to the role of environmental factors in explaining regional variations in entrepreneurial activity. However, cognitive models have not usually included these factors in their analyses. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify some of the environmental cognitive elements that may explain regional differences in start-up intentions. Thus, an entrepreneurial intention model is developed, theoretically based on the planned behaviour approach, institutional economic theory and social capital theory. The empirical analysis is carried out using structural equation techniques over a sample of 549 final year university students from two Spanish regions (Catalonia and Andalusia). Results confirm that valuation of entrepreneurship in each region helps explain regional differences in entrepreneurial intentions. As expected, social valuation of the entrepreneur was higher in the more developed region (Catalonia), positively affecting perceived subjective norms and behavioural control. In Andalusia, the influence of perceived valuation of the entrepreneur in the closer environment was more important, affecting attitude towards the behaviour and subjective norms. These results explain some of the differences in the pool of potential entrepreneurs in each region. They also justify the need by public-policy decision-makers to promote more positive entrepreneurial values in relatively backward regions.     

A Micro‐Decomposition Analysis of Aggregate Human Development Outcomes*

We show how differences in aggregate human development outcomes over time and space can be additively decomposed into a pure mean income (growth) component, a component attributed to differences in the distribution of income, and components attributed to ‘non‐income’ factors and differences in the model linking outcomes to income and non‐income characteristics. The income effect at the micro level is modelled non‐parametrically, so as to flexibly reflect potentially complex distributional changes. Our proposed method is illustrated using data for Morocco and Vietnam, and the results offer some surprising insights into the observed aggregate gains in schooling attainments.     

Internal selection and market selection in economic Genetic Algorithms

Genetic algorithms have been established as an alternative to neoclassical optimization for the illustration of economic agents’ behavior. Critics however, doubt they depict the particularities of social evolution, because they fail to describe intentional behavior. The current paper argues that advocates as well as critics of the procedure have overlooked the crucial necessity to distinguish between internal and external selection in the economy and to include both in economic Genetic Algorithms. The paper claims that such a differentiation will allow the model to depict intentional decisions as well as market selection and help to understand the effects of bounded rationality. It illustrates this point with a brief example modeled after the new-versus-new competition between lean-burn engines and catalysts in the 70th.