How technology-based firms become also highly innovative firms? The role of knowledge, technological and managerial capabilities, and entrepreneurs’ background
To what extent is the likelihood that a Technology-Based Firm – TBF – turns into a Technology-Based and Highly Innovative Firm – TB&InnF – is influenced by technical capabilities or managerial capabilities and education background? We analyse this question using a novel data panel assembled for 326 Spanish industrial firms, along the period 1998–2014. Our findings show the probability of becoming a TB&InnF growths when firms are able to accumulate a high endowment of knowledge and technological capabilities, and a managerial team with experience, a strong power position and previous technical or managerial education background. Results also indicate the CEO's educational profile in manageme…
Which Factors Favour Becoming a Technology-Based & Highly Innovative Firm? The Role of Knowledge, Technological and Managerial Capabilities, and Entrepreneurs’ Education Background
Which resources and capabilities ease the change to become a Technology-Based and Highly Innovative Firm – TB&InnF –, focused in the creation of value to market? We analyse this question using a novel data panel assembled for 326 Spanish industrial firms, along the period 1984-2012. Our findings show the probability of becoming a TB&InnF growths when firms are able to accumulate a high endowment of knowledge and technological capabilities, and a managerial team with: experience, strong power position and previous technical and managerial education. Results also indicate the CEO´s educational profile in management is preferable to a pure technical profile, because this complements firm´s kno…
Leverage and Family Firms
This chapter analyses the relationship between ownership structure and leverage, providing an integrated theoretical approach that combines traditional financial theories, agency theory, and recently developed theories relating to non-financial preferences. The results show that, after controlling for endogeneity, being a family firm has a positive effect on the propensity to incur debt. These findings add to the existing body of literature and underline the need for a multi-theoretical approach when explaining the capital structure of family firms. The authors apply panel data methodology to control for individual heterogeneity of family firms. The chapter uses a sample of Spanish firms op…
Information Disclosure and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Evidence from the Spanish Tourism Industry
Of all the resources and capabilities that have a well-established impact on decision-making, information stands out. With the advent of the digital economy, organizations have been making significant information and communication technology (ICT) investments, but the empirical evidence of the impact of these investments on business outcomes has been inconsistent. This article studies the conditions that disclosed information resources and ICT must fulfil in order to become a source of sustainable competitive advantage in tourism organizations. The results point to the need to identify distinct financial and non-financial information dimensions, distinguished according to their direct poten…
Asset Tangibility, information asymmetries and intangibles as determinants of family firms leverage
Using a sample of Spanish tourism small and medium-sized firms, we have tested the impact of family control, publicly-available information and tangibility on financial structure, providing a multi-theoretical model that incorporates contributions from the classical theory of finance, inspired by agency theory, the behavioural theory of the firm and strategic theory. The results point to the need to jointly consider the effects of information transmission practices, asset investment decisions and ownership structures on debt capacity. The results show how family control is associated with propensity to take on debt, so that the desire to maintain social control and socioemotional wealth pre…
Family Firm Heterogeneity and Tax Aggressiveness: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis of the Impact of Different Family Generations
This paper analyses tax aggressiveness in family firm generations. Moreover, taking into account the heterogeneity in family firms, we check whether the successive generations in control show different tax avoidance behaviour. The empirical evidence, based on the quasi-experiment of the 2012 Spanish thin capitalization rule, reveals that there is a positive relationship between tax aggressiveness and successive generations. Moreover, the founder and second generations follow a similar conservative tax avoidance approach, whereas the third and fourth generations are found to be more tax aggressive.
Information assets: A typology of disclosed and non-disclosed information
Abstract The debate surrounding the value of disclosed and non-disclosed information as a competitive element has stalled; it has not been possible to make a universal, precise claim as to their potential to generate competitive advantages. This empirical inconsistency can be explained in part by the heterogeneity of information assets, which can give rise to different information dimensions, each offering different potential for generating results depending on the degree to which they meet the conditions of complementarity and co-specialization with other resources. This article helps to move forward on this issue by presenting a theoretical construct of the concept “information assets" an…
A global model for the estimation of transport costs
This paper presents a model of transport cost determinants that corrects the specification problems observed in the transport cost equations in previous literature. The model includes freight transport supply and demand, as well as infrastructure quality and non-time-varying fixed effects related to the route, the exporting company, its strategy and the product. In addition, when defining the origin-destination routes, the model more appropriately accounts for economies of network and economies of scale. In order to build the database, 583 personal interviews were conducted over the course of 2011 with producing companies that ship goods and with the logistics operators. As a result, 305 ro…