Search results for "firms"
showing 10 items of 158 documents
Quantifying sunk costs and learning effects in R&D persistence
2020
Abstract This paper analyzes and quantifies the fundamental factors that are likely to cause persistence in performing R&D activities: the existence of sunk costs associated with R&D activities and the process of learning that characterizes this type of activity. We estimate our model with Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 1991-2014. By decomposing the effects of sunk costs and learning effects, we find that both are important determinants of R&D persistence, and that failing to allow for learning systematically overestimates sunk cost effects. Both large firms and SMEs benefit from direct and indirect (via productivity) effects of R&D experience, but in large firms this is more li…
Bank-firm credit network in Japan. An analysis of a bipartite network
2015
We present an analysis of the credit market of Japan. The analysis is performed by investigating the bipartite network of banks and firms which is obtained by setting a link between a bank and a firm when a credit relationship is present in a given time window. In our investigation we focus on a community detection algorithm which is identifying communities composed by both banks and firms. We show that the clusters obtained by directly working on the bipartite network carry information about the networked nature of the Japanese credit market. Our analysis is performed for each calendar year during the time period from 1980 to 2011. Specifically, we obtain communities of banks and networks …
Constructing the Audit Risk Assessment by the Audit Team Leader When Planning: Using Fuzzy Theory
2021
The aim of this study is to construct the assessment of the expected audit risk by the audit team leader (ATL) during the planification phase of the audit. The ATL plays an important role within the audit, and even more so regarding small and medium-sized (SME) audit firms. The audit risk assessment is critical as relying more (less) on internal controls implemented by the client leads to performing less (more) substantive audit procedures. This is determined by the ATL based on their professional judgement and previous experience. The use of fuzzy theory has powerful potential into the audit arena, as the audit risk assessment (outcome) is critically related to the auditors’ judgement and …
International student mobility in Southern-Latin Europe: beyond the EU logics, towards a new space
2018
This paper discusses international student mobility (ISM) in Southern-Latin Europe, specifically Italy, Portugal, and Spain, analysing the inflow of international students as reflected in the UNESCO, OECD and European Commission databases. Only recently Italy, Portugal and Spain, as latecomers, have become more actively involved in ISM dynamics. This trend has been a response to EU pressures to internationalization, instrumented through the consolidation of the Bologna process and the need to build a common space of higher education. The analysis shows that at the intra-European level Italy, Portugal and Spain share similar ISM patterns; however, in the global context other logics shape ISM…
The “Start-up a Business” Strategy in the Succession Process Planning at the Top of Family Firms.
2019
In small family firms, succession to the top is very critical stage of their lives. A high percentage of these firms do not survive their founder. When the successor takes the reins of the company, he has no experience and reputation. For this reason, he very often fails to allow the family firm to survive after its founder. Although many streams of research address succession in family businesses, significant gaps in the literature remain in the field of the strategies that can mitigate the vulnerability of the family firms when the old leader retires and a new leader takes the reins of the company. The underlying argument in this paper is: By starting up one’s own company some years befor…
Dealing with abnormal business growth by leveraging local area common goods: an outside-in stakeholder collaboration perspective
2020
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to illustrate how for a business located in a local area that does not portray the characteristics of the “Silicon Valley” stereotype, developing a strategy that pretends to autonomously set its boundary spanning may lead to unsustainable growth.Design/methodology/approachThis work suggests Dynamic Performance Management (DPM) as a method to implement an outcome-based view of sustainable development of small- and micro-sized organizations in their own context. A case study shows how collaboration between the public and the business sector may improve local area's outcomes and develop common goods in the context.FindingsAmong the “abnormally-grown” small-a…
The Variation of Export Prices Across and within Firms
2016
This paper uses transaction-level trade data to analyse the differences in export prices across and within Spanish manufacturing firms in the year 2014. The transactional nature of the database uncovers sizable differences in the price that an exporter charges for the same product and destination. These differences are related to the number of goods covered within each product category, volume discounts and vertically differentiated varieties. Export prices are positively correlated with firms’ productivity, destination markets’ GDP per capita and distance to Spain. These latter results suggest that Spanish exporters compete in quality.
Sviluppo e Innovazione nell'Hi-tech in Sicilia. Un'indagine sulle imprese àncora e sulle reti innovative nell'area di Catania
2011
The purpose of this report is to scrutinize the development of the microelectronics and nanotechnology cluster from an original anchor fi rm perspective and to examine the processes through which the roles of anchors and their networks of relationships with the most important players of the cluster evolved over the last quarter of the century. On the ground of the analysis of archival data, internal documents and reports, academic publications, and personal interviews with key managers, researchers, and crucial actors from both private and public sides – performed coherently with the snowballing method – the report identifi es the emergence and development of the microelectronics and nanote…
Italy’s North-South Divide Yet Again: Some New Evidence from Firms, Sectors and Territories
2021
The recent literature on the North-South divide in Italy has refuted a homogeneous reading and treatment of the “Southern question” and has recalled the importance of deep intra-South disparities. This paper contributes to this line of research, offering some descriptions of intra-South disparities. We first make use of data at the firm level pertaining to the manufacturing sector between 2008 and 2019 to show how productive units differ within each macro-area according to their main balance-sheet indicators and to technical efficiency, both in terms of their average and variability. Secondly, we use different data available at the provincial level to assess the territorial disparities exis…
A bottom up approach to evaluate risk in network environment
2008
Firms dependence on environment has been contended in various way one of the most suited is the collaboration among other firms in order to realize extra rents. Firm dependence on environment is particularly crucial in sector characterised by complex technology or complex product (product requiring an articulated supply chain) that make the market instable. In this scenario the alliance, whatever is the inter-organizational solution chosen, causes new forms of dependence that are the origins of network risks. In order to evaluate correctly the extra rents a long range perspective has to be assumed and a financial analysis has to be followed. To evaluate expected cash flows it needs to known…