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Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using two waves (2013, 2015) of the Micro, Small, and Medium sized Enterprises (MSMEs) survey of Vietnamese manufacturing firms, this paper first explores what drives firms' decision to have a domestic standards certificate, taking into account a rich number of factors related to the cost and expected benefits of certification as well as institutional factors. It further explores the presence of a positive and significant effect of domestic certificates on firm growth, testing whether these serve as signalling devices for desirable attributes under information asymmetry. Evidence is indeed found for a signalling effect of domestic standards certification, being stronger for female-run businesses. Results hold even when controlling for international certifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with a study which analyzed transformation in the Russian pulp and paper industry in the 1990s, focusing on ownership changes and their effects at the regional and local scales. History of the Russian pulp and paper industry; State of the forest sector in northwestern Russia; Regional variation in mill ownership.

The COVID-19 pandemic severely tested the resilience and robustness of supply chains for medically critical items and various common household goods. Severe and prolonged shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators in the United States have revealed vulnerabilities in the supply chains of such essential products in a time of need. Consequently, corporations have felt public pressure to rethink their supply chains. We begin this paper by examining the underlying causes of the prolonged shortages of critical products in the US as well as government’s and some companies’ initial response. Drawing from the lessons learned from the COVID pandemic, we propose a research agenda and opportunities to develop responsive supply chains to fight future pandemics. These opportunities revolve around measures that are intended to improve the supply chain responsiveness of essential products to combat future pandemics and other major public health emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soldiers and Aliens: Men in the Australian Army's Employment Companies during World War II.: By June Factor. To be sure, wartime necessity rather than noble sentiment dictated the Australian Army's incorporation of "aliens" into the employment companies, but eventually most of these men were treated with decency and respect. During World War II, the Australian Army raised thirty-eight employment companies for service on the home front. [Extracted from the article]

Capital and routine building repairs - attics, basements, roofs, ventilation ducts, and cabinets for sewerage and other pipes, trash chutes, and so on - can be done by private repair companies and organizations on a competitive basis without involving budget resources since they are, in essence, commercial entities. This article analyzes current problems in housing-and-utilities services and their impact on ecology. At present, programs have been outlined to reclaim landfills, separate waste collection, and build enterprises to sort and process garbage. [Extracted from the article]

For the 30 years between 1837 and 1867, the Gateshead Observer provided coverage of local and national business, financial and political news that rivalled and frequently surpassed that of the various Newcastle papers and was vastly superior to that of other north-eastern publications. This article examines how this came about. It also considers how a newspaper avowedly political in its foundation emerged, as a result of the particular circumstances of Gateshead's enfranchisement and industrial development and the individuals involved, essentially as a paper for the business community. This case study also reveals how the provincial press can shed light on an otherwise very much under-documented period of local business history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the commercial production of photographic printing paper in Australia in 1890 to 1900. It is stated that the marketing of new photographic papers produced by Australian firms challenged the previous tradition of reliance on overseas sources. According to the author, the first type of photographic paper manufactured in the country was the albumen paper followed by chloride paper and bromide paper. She emphasizes that the said decades depict the rapid rise of businesses offering accessible and reliable photographic equipment.

This paper deals with theoretical and empirical aspects of firm behaviour under imperfect competition and uncertainty. It contains an analysis of the behaviour of a firm facing a stochastic demand curve for its output in the ordinary (home market), but in addition with access to a backstop (international) market. The theory is thus a variation of the theory of dumping. Since the expected volume in general differs from the volume at the expected price, a price-setting mode is not equal to a quantity mode. Cyclical dumping, in the sense of a negative correlation between domestic and foreign sales, would occur if the firm adhered to a pricing mode in the ordinary market, and was able to learn about the demand conditions in the ordinary market before it decided how much to sell in the international market. The empirical part of the paper is an illustration of how to test for different behavioural modes and cyclical dumping by applying the model to the Canadian pulp and paper industry. In the empirical exercise the domestic markets are the North American market for pulp and newsprint, while the backstop market are the corresponding European markets. One of the main results of this exercise is that the Canadian industry seems to operate under pricing behaviour for both pulp and newsprint, while cyclical dumping on the European market applies only for pulp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the lack of data-literate talent in business organizations, there is a need to develop more effective data literacy education at university level. With the aim of informing improvement, a systematic, quantitative literature review of data literacy education was undertaken. The review of 71 articles revealed that data literacy education predominantly relies on existing learning theories and teaching strategies, lacks empirical studies, and lacks agreement about what competencies constitute data literacy. These findings highlight the need for empirical research to establish what needs to be taught and how it can be best taught. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature has problematized the limits of deeply held assumptions about linear, unidirectional upgrading trajectories in global value chains (GVCs). As firm and chain trajectories and sources of upgrading have changed in recent years, GVC analysis has adjusted to focus on new emerging actors and new distributions of power within value chains. After a discussion of some limits to the treatment of upgrading in the GVC literature, the paper develops a simple extension of the classical model of upgrading in ways that do not presuppose particular valuations of functional, product, and processes upgrading, and that do not fetishize upgrading as such. The paper works with case studies of four Chinese firms located in Ningbo, China. Each 'wears multiple hats' and together they provide illustrative examples of the limits of linear, unidirectional approaches of upgrading. This simple model has the singular advantage of ensuring that trajectories of business upgrading and downgrading in GVCs can be understood as always open, often operating in diverse and contradictory ways. In this sense, the confusion of upgrading with firm strategy with their regional impacts can be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enable you to remain competitive in future, you must already start to focus your company on the task of meeting the challenges that are emerging from development trends stretching back over several years and which are becoming more apparent all the time. These trends are leading to increasing levels of complexity, dynamism and uncertainty in the corporate environment. This paper is an attempt to highlight these technological and structural developments, frequently referred to as megatrends: changes of a fundamental nature with far-reaching implications for the economy and society with attendant opportunities and threats to industry. One focal point of this paper will therefore be the fundamental developments in the microelectronics sector and their wider implications, which will necessarily lead to a consideration of the technologies of IT and telecommunications. Another aspect receiving attention here will be the problems facing industry in the wake of structural change of this magnitude as well as the key measures adopted to enable industry to cope with these problems successfully. This will demonstrate that structural change is not due solely to the increasing level of globalization of world business. Indeed, it will be shown that other significant influencing factors are to be found in the trend moving us from an information society to a knowledge society, and in the transition from an industrial society to one based on services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software module clustering approaches can provide a better understanding of large and complex software systems through decomposing the enterprise resources into classified modules which are smaller, and therefore easier-to-handle. As the dimensions and complexity of enterprise software projects are continuously increasing, handling a large software project is going to be more challenging. The challenge would be more complex if the experienced personnel is considered as well. Therefore, appropriate automatic software modularization clustering methods are required in resource management. This paper provides a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the software modularization clustering models. We studied a wide range of papers from 2001 to 2020 to provide our SLR. Also, a technical taxonomy is presented to classify the existing papers on software modularization clustering models and algorithms. The software module clustering methods are categorized into three main classes. Finally, new challenges and forthcoming issues of software modularization clustering models are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In summary, both works investigate how information technology (IT) can be deployed more effectively in the service of the markets. Two papers that open this issue of I JMIS i engage at a deep level the human-machine interactions that permeate our everyday life. The agility of the unit is affected negatively by the loss of autonomy with respect to the IT applications, before regaining the ground and tending upwards. [Extracted from the article]

Green technology innovation (GTI) is an important driver for national green development and a strong fulcrum for the clean production of companies. This paper focuses on the impact of top management team's (TMT's) inherent characteristics on GTI from the perspectives of TMT heterogeneity and text tone in management discussion and analysis (MD&A), as well as the moderating role of executive compensation incentives and financial constraints. The results reveal that: a) the TMT heterogeneity has different effects on companies' GTI; b) the tone in MD&A can significantly promote the companies' GTI; c) both executive compensation incentives and financial constraints significantly adjust the relationship between the TMT heterogeneity or the tone in MD&A on GTI but in different directions. Moreover, the basic conclusions suitable for non-state-owned companies yet differ in state-owned companies considering the property heterogeneity. Thus, this paper constructs a new integrated framework of TMT heterogeneity, tone in MD&A, executive compensation incentives and financial constraints to stimulate the enthusiasm and initiative of companies to develop GTI, which has an important practical significance on accelerating the sustainable development of green production in developing countries. Finally, this paper offers corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, previous studies believed that the export market of enterprises was homogeneous. There is no difference in each export market, which is obviously inconsistent with the actual trade situation. This paper divides the export market of enterprises into main export market and secondary export market according to the export status, explores the export changes of enterprises to the main export market and secondary export market respectively when the temporary trade barriers of the main export market to the trade exporting country are raised. This paper focuses on the impact of the main export market on the anti-dumping degree, countervailing level and the improvement of trade safeguard measures on the export conversion of enterprises between the main and secondary markets. The research shows that the increase of the anti-dumping degree of the main market against the trade exporting countries will lead to the higher probability of role exchange between the main and secondary markets; The countervailing level of the main market against the trade exporting countries rises, and the export of enterprises is more likely to turn to the secondary market; The greater the trade safeguard measures in the main market, the more likely the secondary market will become the main market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an expectation management policy, central bank communication can affect corporate market expectations, thus effectively guiding corporate investment and financing behavior. Based on the quarterly data of non-financial listed enterprises from 2007 to 2020, this paper analyzes the relationship between central bank communication and non-financial corporate leverage differentiation. The results show that central bank communication can reduce corporate leverage differentiation. The increase in the degree of bank credit discrimination can further amplify the inhibitory effect of central bank loose communication on the leverage differentiation of non-financial enterprises. The mechanism analysis shows that central bank communication can affect the leverage differentiation of non-financial enterprises by reducing financial mismatches, stabilizing the market expectation mechanism, and reducing managers' myopia. The results of the extended analysis show that the central bank's loose communication can inhibit the degree of leverage differentiation between zombie firms and non-zombie firms, and improve the dynamic adjustment speed of corporate capital structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key aspect of sustainable business development involves protecting a company's products from counterfeiting. Since this can impact brand's image and often, product counterfeits are of a minor quality which can be dangerous and even pose health hazards. Counterfeiters gain profits by manufacturing products using lesser quality materials and production methods. Many counterfeit products in the market are difficult to identify for a normal customer and require to be examined by a trained professional which is time-consuming and costly. In this paper, we propose a method for identifying counterfeit by a simple scan of the quick response code on the product. Since these codes are unique and are implemented by unique algorithms, it is almost impossible to forge them. Also, implementing an encrypted peer-to-peer system for the database makes it impossible for attackers to tamper with the database. The proposed method collectively not only helps laypersons to identify the authenticity of products but also an ownership tracking system where products are linked to the owners' account which will allow them to produce proof of purchase and authenticity when reselling products and when claiming the warranty of the product. This will help in reducing manufacturing and materials costs used from traditional methods against counterfeiting such as Radio-Frequency Identification and the Hologram technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The improvement of total factor productivity (TFP) can improve the production efficiency of enterprises and ultimately promote high-quality economic development. This paper takes Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2020 to examine the impact of institutional investor network embedding on Firms' TFP. The study finds that institutional investor network embedding can promote the growth of Firms' TFP. Institutional investor network embedding improves Firms' TFP by improving information transparency and firms' innovation level, alleviating agency problems, and playing an active role in supervision and governance. The positive impact of institutional investor network embedding on TFP is more significant among firms with low audit quality and corporate governance level. This conclusion holds true using alternative variables, changing the construction standard of institutional investor network, and using propensity score matching and the Heckman two-stage methods. This paper enriches the research on the influencing factors of Firms' TFP and the economic consequences of institutional investor networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2004 the IASB issued the Discussion Paper 'Preliminary Views on Accounting Standards for Small and Medium-Sized Entities'. This invited comments on the central question of whether the IASB should develop separate standards for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and on further issues and questions arising from this. This paper briefly introduces the background to the publication of the Discussion Paper. This is followed by a review of prior literature on SME financial reporting implications, prepared by the European Accounting Association's Financial Reporting Standards Committee as the basis of its response to the Discussion Paper. The paper concludes with a brief summary of events and issues arising since the end of the consultation period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops comparative case studies of the Virginia, Somers Isles, and Hudson's Bay Companies' colonies. The analysis uncovers significant historical layering through multifaceted and dynamic modes of production, class relations, corporate governance forms, land ownership schemes, and legal arrangements. Company colonies emerged as hybrid combinations of partially feudal company-owned plantations using white indentured servitude together with proto-capitalist stockholding and freehold land, nascent Black slavery, Indigenous dispossession, and illiberal legislative assemblies oriented to company prerogatives in a largely pre-Westphalian international order. Complex historical layering indicates that no single theoretical approach can fully capture all nuance; thus, the paper mobilizes its case studies to explore critical understandings of these companies through a company-state sovereignty focus, a Marxian view of privatized land and labour, and a Weberian perspective on early capitalist public-private institutional alliances. The paper concludes with connections to contemporary anti-colonial political struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indonesian government has been working hard to engage with the world market as tariffs continue to decrease. However, the government seems to be following the global trend of relying on non-tariff measures (NTMs) to regulate the Indonesian market and protect the country's industries. This paper assesses whether these measures hurt firms by limiting their access to better quality and cheaper foreign inputs. It builds on the findings of Amiti and Konings (2007) by assessing the impact of trade policy shocks on firms' total factor productivity (TFP). It finds that tariffs and NTMs hurt firms' TFP significantly and reduce employment. The impact is less severe for bigger firms, confirming the heterogeneous effect of trade policy. The results suggest unintended consequences of protectionism in the Indonesian market. Moreover, as the country seeks to boost foreign investment, more protectionism may be used to keep mark-ups in the domestic market high as an incentive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies (Routledge) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper demonstrates that the alternative data of manager turnover can provide investors and policymakers with a more timely and available predictor of new firm performance beyond the traditional financial information. This paper constructs a comprehensive alternative dataset of manager turnover that covers a near-population sample of new firms in the United Kingdom. It shows that manager departures and appointments can predict new firms' survival and growth, even after controlling for firm financials. In addition to the within-firm prediction, the average manager turnover in other firms of the same industry can cross-predict individual firm performance. The within-firm prediction is more pronounced for non-family firms, smaller firms and firms incorporated during or after the Great Recession, and the cross-firm prediction is stronger for younger firms. This paper sheds light on the power of alternative data in the prediction of firm performance, particularly for new firms that often do not have available information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the perspective of signalling theory, this paper examines the impact of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on competitors' innovation. Using the unbalanced panel data of Chinese listed pharmaceutical companies from 2014 to 2018, this paper examines how cross-border M&As affect competitors' innovation inputs and analyses the moderating effect of tax incentives. The results find that after cross-border M&As, the competitors of the merging firms significantly increase their R&D investment. Cross-border M&As transform competitors' innovation types, and competitors turn to high-risk exploratory R&D. Tax incentives weaken the role of cross-border M&As on competitors' innovation. The paper provides implications for firms to re-examine and adjust cross-border M&As and R&D strategies, and provides references for the government's innovation encouragement policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-innovation is a complex activity that requires diverse knowledge and an extensive R&D and technology portfolio. This paper investigates the strategies employed by firms and the extent to which green and non-green R&D can influence eco-innovation. We address two research questions: Is investment in green R&D valuable and sufficient for successful eco-innovation? What types of investment are needed for eco-innovation? Our findings provide a better understanding of the mix of knowledge fields required for eco-innovation. To investigate internal firm R&D strategies we use unique data that allow us to identify the influence of the stocks of green and non-green R&D on eco-innovation and the importance of complementarity among specific R&D strategies and knowledge for eco-innovation. Our findings will be relevant for policymakers and firms, to promote investment in R&D to enable eco-innovation and ensure a quick transition to a green society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyse the innovation strategies followed by firms in transition countries between 1999 and 2014. During this period, institutional changes related to pro-competition reforms have changed the matrix of incentives that firms face. We shed new light on the correlation between the pressure of competition with firms' innovation strategies in transition countries by analysing complementarity between creative destruction and creative accumulation strategies on firms' productivity. Using econometric technics for panel data, our results show negative effects of competitive pressure on creative destruction strategy, and no effects on creative accumulation. Moreover, a positive complementary effect of these strategies on firms' productivity is observed. Rather than homogeneous market-driven innovation strategies, an uneven learning path with specific combinations of creative destruction and accumulation under different competitive regimes seems to emerge. These results allow us to suggest a policy mix that articulates stimulus to innovative persistence associated with competitive capacity of the firms and incentives to cooperation between firms, in order to make the most of the complementary effects of different innovative strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies KMV modified model to construct a local governments' debt risk index by using the local governments' financial revenue and expenditure data and the data of Chinese A-share listed companies, and studies the relationship between local government debt risk and enterprise innovation. The results show that the increased risk of local government debt can encourage enterprises to increase R&D investment, which is more significant when the enterprises are politically connected, the provincial officers have a longer tenure, the provinces are more market-oriented, and the enterprises get more refunds of taxes. This paper provides empirical evidence for the state theory, which suggests that competition for political promotion among local officials can make the goal of personal political promotion of officials agree to intend to maximize social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The view that the investment function is characterized by a stable relationship is subjected to an objective statistical test. The test utilizes a statistic which equals the ratio of the sum of squared residuals of one-period prediction from the k + 1 period to the Tth period to the sum of squared residuals of one period prediction from the k + 1 to the Tth period, where k is the number of estimated coefficients in the model and T is the sample size. The results for the period 1950 to 1976 suggest that the investment function at the macro level and for the pulp and paper products industry, became unstable (at the 10% level) around 1973 while the investment function for the chemicals and allied products industry destabilized about 1966. For the textile mill products industry, the rubber industry and miscellaneous plastics products industry, the results indicate no appreciable (statistically significant) change in the relative importance of the underlying investment determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a key for implementing circular economy. Through IS, wastes produced by one company are used as inputs by other companies. The operations of IS suffers from uncertainty barriers since wastes are not produced upon demand but emerge as secondary outputs. Such an uncertainty, triggered by waste supply-demand quantity mismatch, influences IS business dynamics. Accordingly, companies have difficulty to foresee potential costs and benefits of implementing IS. The paper adopts an enterprise input-output model providing a cost–benefit analysis of IS integrated to an agent-based model to simulate how companies share the total economic benefits stemming from IS. The proposed model allows to explore the space of cooperation, defined as the operationally favourable conditions to operate IS in an economically win-win manner. This approach, as a decision-support tool, allows the user to understand whether the IS relationship is created and how should the cost-sharing policy be. The proposed model is applied to a numerical example. Findings show that cost-sharing strategies are dramatically affected by waste supply-demand mismatch and by the relationship between saved and additional costs to run IS. Apart from methodological and theoretical contributions, the paper proposes managerial and practical implications for business strategy development in IS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the enterprises artist-teachers in adult community learning (ACL) engage with and how these form their identity. This is significant to consider as artist-teachers in ACL are overlooked in the published literature. ACL is comprised of community-based learning delivered by local authorities and general further education colleges. Thornton defines the artist-teacher as an individual dedicated to both art and teaching. This is visualised in his Artist Teacher Model. However, Thornton ignores other enterprises that an artist-teacher could be involved in. This paper then considers Daichendt's use of Wallace and Gruber's networks of enterprises. Using the earliest recorded artist-educator, George Wallis, as a case study, Daichendt highlights how one is often engaged in several enterprises and uses the network of enterprises to visualise this. Participant interviews and focus groups test if this is more appropriate for the artist-teacher in ACL than Thornton's model. The impact of this research on practice is an improved understanding of the multifaceted identities of artist-teachers. The paper helps to produce new knowledge around the identity and introduces newly developed visual tools for tracking this, including the Tetrad Identity Model, and the ATLS. These tools may also be used for other professionals with multifaceted identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2014, Alibaba went public in the United States through the largest IPO (initial public offering) in history, raising $21.8 billion and elevating the company's value to $218.7 billion. The successful listing of Alibaba, the world's largest online and mobile commerce enterprise, has attracted a lot of attention to investment strategy; in particular, the dual-class share structure of Internet enterprises designed to protect the control rights of company founders and the promotion of enterprise IPO have become a focus for international scholars. Based on the IPO case of Alibaba Group, this paper studies the dual share system of Alibaba with regards to three aspects: theoretical analysis, case analysis and financial index analysis. First, it introduces the literature relevant to the dual share system. It then takes Alibaba as a case study in order to analyse the reasons for the success of its IPO, and studies the impact of the dual share system on this IPO. Finally, it analyzes the effect and influence of the dual share system on IPO with regards to four dimensions of financial performance. Through the discussion in this paper, we hope to provide better ideas and suggestions for companies planning an external IPO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an integrated methodology aimed at diagnosing supply chain resilience in terms of (1) internal dynamic capabilities of an enterprise, and (2) resilience of its suppliers. In addition, unlike other research, it integrates the suppliers’ resilience evaluation into the order size allocation plan. Multi-attribute decision making (MADM) algorithms were employed to quantify the relative importance to evaluate the internal and external resilience of an enterprise. Furthermore, the MADM output was combined with a multi-objective programming model formulated to solve the order size problem considering economic and resilience objectives. The applicability of the developed methodology is demonstrated via a dairy manufacturing enterprise that suffered from disruptions attributed to COVID-19. The results translate the enterprise’s non-viable manufacturing due to its poor external and internal resilience profiles. It is emphasized that if an enterprise fails to develop internal capabilities such as readiness and sensing, the enterprise could also fail in managing external resilience. A resilient supply chain requires a blend of internal and external resilience. This work represents the first quantitative attempt to provide a unified methodology for identifying and measuring internal and external resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a significant role in our social and daily life for technological development. The efficient integration of AI into business organizations or firms is improving performance and efficiency on a significant scale. Nowadays, artificial intelligence (AI) is assisting criminal activities or committing crimes through autonomous activity related to business, e-commerce, and market manipulation. AI could be used to aid criminal activity or, in certain situations, a mistake has resulted in criminal activity and most of the fields lack strong legislative safeguards due to the regulatory challenges imposed by the special nature of AI-Crime (AIC). The paper has examined the application and criminalization of AI in business and firm management. As we will have to strengthen the legislation for managing, preventing, and punishing AI-based business-related crimes, the last segment of the paper has suggested recommendations to counter the regulatory challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The silver economy, also referred to as the third age economy, is the sum of all economic activity that serve the needs of people aged 50 and over, including the products and services they purchase directly and the further economic activity this spending generates (European Commission, [4]). The findings from the five papers highlight the awareness and interest in older adults from the academic community, of the potential value they provide for enterprises and the economy. Based on this data, the European silver economy currently constitutes the third largest economy in the world. The seminal work of Penrose ([15]) on firm growth, Acs and Audretsch ([1]) on innovation and small firms and Porter ([17]) on competitiveness, amongst many others remains steadfast in our understanding of enterprise growth. [Extracted from the article]

Assesses the proposed Small Business Service of the British government. Issue on customer services; Details on the structure of the proposed service; Indicators of the importance of small businesses.

We consider an integrated batching problem for steel-making and continuous casting process of steel plate manufacturing. For steel-making, slab batching problem is defined to make charges from slabs, and for continuous casting, charge batching problem is defined to make casts from charges. Our batching problem is regarded as a combination of slab batching and charge batching problems. Since steel-making and continuous casting are processes that must be synchronised, two batching problems must be integratedly handled. However, because of their difficulties, most papers solved each batching problem sequentially. We deal with a batching problem under bi-strand casting environment where slabs are cast with two strands. We also consider practical aspects that were barely considered before such as slab length difference constraints between strands and casts having few charges. We propose two mixed integer programming models. The first one is to create frames to define the overall structure of the solution and the second one is to fill the created frames with slabs to concretise the solution. The proposed matheuristic algorithm solves the problem in an integrated manner and finds a near-optimal solution in a reasonable time. It outperforms the company's current practice, as shown in experiments with real and randomly generated data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original versions of the papers for this special issue were presented at an international workshop sponsored by the US National Science Foundation on Strategic Research Partnerships convened at SRI International, Washington DC on 13 October 2000. The objectives of that workshop were to evaluate the policy needs for indicators related to the formation, activities, and economic consequences of alliances and research partnerships, to appraise the current availability and characteristics of such data and indicators, and to advise NSF on the possibility of developing research partnership indicators.[SUP1] The workshop papers and discussion appraised the potential use and the nature of such indicators. The approach was essentially based on three questions: • Are research partnerships important to the economic system? Do they deserve policy attention? Are they important from an economic or policy perspective? • What data initiatives are needed to understand the economic importance or policy relevance of research partnerships? • What can NSF do about it? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the impact of "Business Tax to Value-added Tax" on enterprises' innovation output, substantive innovation and the related mechanism. We use a natural experiment involving China's business tax changing to value-added tax ("BT to VAT") and a mediating effect mechanism to identify any causality. The results reveal that "BT to VAT" reform has prompted enterprises to increase their innovation output and substantive innovation, and the level of R&D investment plays an intermediary role in the relationship between "BT to VAT" and the entire innovation output and the relationship between "BT to VAT" and the substantive innovation output of enterprises. Further analysis demonstrates that firms with different ownership types, in different industries and with different degrees of marketization respond differently to the "BT to VAT" policy. Our findings are only significant for non-state-owned enterprises, high-tech enterprises and enterprises in high-marketization degree area. This paper provides a theoretical and empirical basis for detailed analyses of the effects of "BT to VAT" policy, particularly the government's subsequent improvement to the tax reform policy, to further stimulate enterprise investments in innovation as well as industrial upgrading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis in this paper was performed before the disastrous and unsolicited invasion of Russia to Ukraine. The paper aims to identify if the biggest Russian gas exporter Gazprom used market power to decouple its gas prices from European gas hub benchmarks. The empirical analysis is based on pairwise price convergence between the Russian pipeline and European gas hubs. The main finding shows that Gazprom takes advantage of its market position. The proposed model does not support the company's claims of pipeline price tightness to liquid European gas hubs, and rather proves fluctuating and unstable price convergence between pipelines and hubs from 2016 to March 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, a robust and trendy-stable price convergence is observed between the Russian pipeline gas and Brent benchmark. Methodologically, the paper contributes with a modified convergence model compliant with gas market fundamentals and suggests a time-expanding concept missed in previous studies. Ongoing political and European gas market developments of 2022 (during the paper review) support the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The virtual agglomeration of manufacturing realises the ubiquitous connection and efficient allocation of technological innovation resources, and becomes a new driving force for improving the technological innovation efficiency of enterprises and building a strong manufacturing country. This paper constructs a theoretical framework to investigate the impact of the specialised and diversified virtual agglomeration of manufacturing on the efficiency of enterprise technological innovation. This paper uses the adjusted location entropy and the Herfindahl-Hirschman index to measure the level of specialised and diversified virtual agglomeration of manufacturing. Using Chinese manufacturing data (2008–2021), empirical tests confirm that the specialised and diversified virtual agglomeration of manufacturing can improve the efficiency of enterprise technological innovation. Additionally, the mechanism test results show that the specialised virtual agglomeration of manufacturing improves the technological innovation efficiency of enterprises through competition and knowledge spillover, and the diversified virtual agglomeration improves the technological innovation efficiency of enterprises through knowledge spillover. However, the effect of specialised virtual agglomeration of manufacturing on the efficiency of enterprises` technological innovation will be adjusted by the age of enterprises. These results are pivotal for understanding the realistic path of virtual agglomeration of manufacturing to improve the technological innovation efficiency of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of relative endowments of skilled labour and physical capital on the location choices of multinational firms (MNEs). We demonstrate potential methodological issues and possible solutions related to the identification of vertical MNE activity when using aggregate country-level data. To support our analysis, we introduce data matching and various assumptions with respect to the degree of profit shifting activities of MNEs that we apply to study unilateral inward foreign direct investment (FDI) across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Our choice of data is motivated by various legislation gaps, taxation specificities, and growing equity stocks in sectors related to profit shifting in the aforementioned economies. Ultimately, we highlight the importance of international tax differences and the growing discrepancy between real and reported cross-country FDI data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several types of relations between information assets of two firms, among which substitutable relation is such that even when one of the firms is successfully breached by one hacker, both firms would incur loss and the hacker gets benefit. This paper examines security investment and information sharing of two substitutable firms through constructing a game-theoretic model between these firms and one hacker. We derive the following interesting results: (a) the firm with more efficient security investment suffers weaker cyber-attack from the hacker because the rational hacker would switch its emphasis to the less efficient firm; (b) one firm’s aggregate defense increases with its unit investment cost for the positive interdependence when this cost remains high due to more shared information and enhanced security investment from the other firm; (c) although a widely-used compensation mechanism can urge the firms to invest more when security loss remains low, it increases their expected costs because of the excess investment; (d) unlike simultaneous game, each firm’s aggregate defense always increases with the unit cost of cyber-attacks under sequential game since the hacker has an advantage of learning the firms’ security decisions. These results give fresh managerial guidelines to security experts of firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a lack of feasible managerial tools to support companies in their greening initiatives. The objective of this paper is to propose a tool – Green Karma – for monitoring and proactively managing initiatives for environmental sustainability. We present findings from an action research project involving two freight transport companies. The tool is based on Quality Function Deployment but has been adapted to capture various dimensions of environmental efforts. As goals, in traditional QFD labelled as 'customer needs', we applied national environmental goals, thereby widening the scope of the customer to a societal perspective. Regarding the means, traditionally labelled as 'functions', we instead documented greening initiatives in the companies and applied them in the tool. Using the Green Karma tool resulted in increased pro-activity. New initiatives were taken among the companies. Furthermore, a more structured approach and firm commitment to realise ideas were observed. Thus, the tool has shown its potential to increase the pace of greening the companies' operations and strategies. QFD has previously been used to analyse and prioritise environmental activities but it has not been used before as a proactive tool for driving and implementing environmental initiatives. In this paper, such an application is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a representative survey of firms in 38 countries, eight of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this paper documents the impact of COVID-19 and firms' coping strategies in SSA, benchmarking with other regions. The paper shows that the impact of the pandemic is more pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa compared with other regions. This disproportionate impact is not explained by differences in sectoral composition and other firm characteristics, but likely by the level of development. This underscores the important economic and structural contexts that predate the pandemic in understanding the differential impact. Contrary to expectations, the findings show that businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to adjust their operations or products and services to adapt to the shock than those in other regions. However, firms in the region lag in leveraging digital technologies, remote working, and e-commerce, compared with those in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how emotion rules are socially constructed and how and why they are enacted and challenged through specific modes of embodiment in face-to-face interactions. The paper broadens the understanding of emotion rules by connecting them to aesthetics to explore face-to-face interactions. This paper is based on ethnographic data gathered from a two-year study of a micro-sized service company. It explores the structure, function, and meaning of three emotion rules: (1) the emotionality rule, (2) the enthusiasm rule, and (3) the nice way rule as enacted by the company's chief executive officer (CEO) and employees. This paper enhances the understanding of the role of emotion rules in establishing an innovative and democratic organisation. It offers insight into how emotion rules were enacted, challenged, and broken in an unexpected situation when the CEO announces her non-consultative decision that affected the company's employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Russian industrial heritage and its interactions with society. It focuses on changing identities and the transformation of industrial enterprises from connecters to the future in Soviet times, to bridges to both the past and the future for different social groups in post-Soviet Russia. Based on regional examples from the Russian northwest, this article analyzes the trajectories of industrial enterprises from urban centers to peripheries, and the socio-cultural appropriation they experience. Based on newspaper articles, online comments of citizens, and materials from Internet communities, this analysis explores discussions about the reuse of abandoned industrial heritage in Russia. First, it shows how industrial enterprises have moved from centers of the future to peripheries of the past during the last century, and continue to do so at present. Second, it examines how citizens interact with them today, producing nostalgia for the "lost" Soviet past and using abandoned buildings for stalker adventures. The paper concludes that abandoned enterprises transform from industrial centers to cultural sites, binding past, present and future together in a temporal conjunction where three unique temporalities co-exist and overlap: the socialist past, the modern Russian present, and imagined futures. Abandoned heritage is a dynamic participant in cultural and social activities but simultaneously it signifies disappearing industrial socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's higher education expansion increases firms' human capital input in terms of the number of educated employees, while its quality undergoes questioning. It is unknown what employees with higher education bring to the firm in China. Considering that investment decision is one of the most important drivers of firm value, we examine how employees with higher education affect firms' investment efficiency in this paper. We document that the number of employees with higher education increases by 89% from 2008 to 2021. We further find that more employees with higher education are associated with higher investment efficiency through mitigating over- and underinvestment. This association is stronger for firms with high product market competition, low customer concentration, state-owned enterprises, and high senior manager education. Collectively, the results suggest that the information inputs channel, monitoring channel and up-and-down communications channel are likely underlying mechanisms through which higher educated employees affect firms' investment decisions. Overall, our paper sheds light on the real effect of higher educated employees on firms' investment efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the micro effect of export stimulus policy. We use the seven rounds of export tax rebates implemented by the Chinese government during the international financial crisis as a natural experiment and explore their impact on the export resilience of firms using the difference-in-differences approach. We find that the export resilience of Chinese enterprises increased by 0.027 standard deviations due to export tax rebates. Further studies confirm that export tax rebates significantly improve export resilience mainly by reducing value-added taxes, expanding production scale, and accelerating the adjustment of export structure. In addition, the positive effect of export tax rebates varies among enterprises and products. These results highlight the critical role of stimulative policies in promoting export resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]