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We develop a model of sluggish firm entry to explain short‐run labor responses to technology shocks. We show that the labor response to technology and its persistence depend on the degree of returns to labor and the rate of firm entry. Existing empirical results support our theory based on short‐run labor responses across U.S. industries. We derive closed‐form transition paths that show the result occurs because labor adjusts instantaneously while firms are sluggish, and closed‐form eigenvalues show that stricter entry regulation results in slower convergence to steady state. Finally, we show that our theoretical results hold in a quantitative model with capital accumulation and interest rate dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors estimate the effects of U.S. manufacturers' use of staffing services on measured employment and labor productivity between 1989 and 2009. Using time series data constructed from the Occupational Employment Statistics program, they document the dramatic increase in manufacturers' use of staffing services to fill core production occupations and to adjust employment levels during recessions. In 2006, just before the recent recession, staffing services added an estimated 9.2% to manufacturing employment, compared with only 2.3% in 1989. Outsourcing to staffing services significantly dampened measured employment volatility and inflated the growth and volatility of measured labor productivity in manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider boards as human groups in the uppermost echelon of corporations and examine how an informal hierarchy that tacitly forms among a firm's directors affects firm financial performance. This informal hierarchy is based on directors' deference for one another. We argue that the clarity of the informal hierarchy can help coordinate boardroom interactions and thereby improve the likelihood of the board's contributing productively to the firm's performance. We further identify a set of internal and external contingencies affecting the functioning of the informal hierarchy. Our analysis of seven-year panel data on 530 U.S. manufacturing firms provides support for our arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do unions really impede manufacturers' output flexibility? If so, in what ways? The authors propose a methodology for qualifying George Stigler's concept of output flexibility, and for decomposing the effects of unionization on average cost differences between union and non-union plants. Using a recently compiled data set on U.S. three-digit manufacturing industries from 1973 to 1996, they adapt this methodology to simulate the effects of unionization on flexibility and average costs for average-size plants. Simulation results indicate that higher unionization was associated with higher average costs and lower flexibility than low unionization. Higher average costs appear to have been primarily due to higher fixed costs, such as higher benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of strategies used to appropriate innovation rents on firm performance is analyzed using a sample of U.S. public manufacturing firms. Stronger appropriability at the firm level, achieved through patent protection or the ownership of specialized complementary assets, leads to superior economic performance, as measured by the stock market valuation of a firm's R& D assets. Among commonly used ‘nonconventional’ patent strategies, preemptive patenting allows incumbents to strengthen their market power. Consistent with theory, such effect is higher for incumbents with higher ex ante market power and facing a higher threat of entry, and lower when R& D competition is characterized by the discovery of drastic innovations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the outlook for growth in information services in the United States and calculates the wage bills for information and material workers in the two broad categories of product and service industries. The study is based on the distribution of gross national product in four supersectors--products versus services and information versus material--during 1967, 1992, and 1997. Occupations and sectors are classified in terms of market transaction or delivery form, tangible or intangible form, or the production process. Data includes the number of material and information workers in the employment and wage bill for 1999. Factors contributing to trends in the service economy, five differences in the material/information dichotomy, and management strategies are mentioned.

According to dynamic capability theory, some firms are better able than others at altering their resource base by adding, reconfiguring, and deleting resources or competences. This study focuses on the first form of dynamic capability: the competence to build new competences. Two such second-order competences are studied: the ability to explore new markets and the ability to explore new technologies—referred to as marketing and R&D second-order competences, respectively. Using two wave panel data on a sample of U.S. public manufacturing firms, five organizational antecedents of these second-order competences are examined: willingness to cannibalize, constructive conflict, tolerance for failure, environmental scanning, and resource slack. Willingness to cannibalize, constructive conflict, scanning, and slack have contemporaneous effects, while scanning also has a lagged effect and slack has a U-shaped lagged effect on marketing and R&D second-order competences. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been claimed that American employers' experiments in private welfare capitalism collapsed during the Great Depression, giving place to the welfare state and industrial unionism. Recent studies, however, reveal considerable differences in experience across firms. The author of this study,who characterizes private welfare capitalism as a set of human resource management practices constituting an implicit contract equilibrium, tests the implications of implicit contract theory using data from fourteen leading manufacturing firms. The repudiation of implicit contracts, she finds, was positively correlated with the severity of the depression's impact experienced by firms and negatively correlated with the effectiveness of "internal enforcement mechanisms" instituted by firms. Furthermore, she finds that greater breaches of implicit contracts were associated with greater employee support for industrial unions and more explicit employment contracts concluded under the New Deal. A comparative case study complements the quantitative analysis by exploring internal dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking an organizational learning and adaptation perspective, we compared "relay" CEO successions with nonrelay inside successions and outside successions. Data on 204 CEO successions between 1993 and 1998 in nondiversified U.S. manufacturing firms showed that the likelihood of relay succession was negatively associated with the number of internal candidates and positively associated with presuccession firm performance. We also found that relay successions led to better postsuccession firm performance, particularly at lower levels of presuccession firm performance and higher levels of postsuccession strategic and industry instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-run interindustry comovement may be due either to common shocks or to complementarities that progagate shocks across sectors. This paper assesses the importance of input-output linkages. aggregate activity spillovers, and local activity spillovers to comovement in postwar U.S. manufacturing. I find that input-output linkages and local activity spillovers are important to comovement. while aggregate activity spillovers are not important. I find that complementarities are important to aggregate volatility, even after I remove observable aggregate shocks from the data. Local spillovers are particularly important, explaining between 15 and 36 percent of manufacturing employment volatility. The importance of local spillovers stems from the fact that industries that cluster together in space also comove through time, contrary to the Marshallian idea that industries with negatively correlated fluctuations should cluster together in order to stabilize local demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how to properly specify and test for factors that affect exchange-rate exposure. Starting from theoretical underpinnings and a sample of U.S. manufacturing industries between 1979 and 1995, we find that 4 of 18 industry groups are significantly exposed to exchange-rate movements through the effect of industry competitive structure, export share, and imported input share. On average, a 1% appreciation of the dollar decreases the return of the average industry by 0.13%. Consistent with our model's predictions, as an industry's markups fall (rise), its exchange-rate exposure increases (decreases). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test theories of product differentiation and firm capabilities using data from the U.S. automobile industry. We find managers introduce new models close to their existing ones but far from rival models. We also find entrants and foreign manufacturers locate models closer to rival models. These results are consistent with both economic models of product differentiation and theories of firm capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses frameworks from the strategic management and operations strategy literatures to explore the relationships among collaboration, technology, and innovation in small and medium-sized manufacturers. Statistical analysis of the responses of 200 New Hampshire manufacturing companies in four SIC code industries (fabricated metals, industrial equipment, electrical and electronic equipment, and instruments) leads to the development of a strategic supplier typology which is useful in explaining the differences in the composition and performance of various types of suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investments in dispersed foreign subsidiaries and international joint ventures (IJVs) are often thought to enhance corporate flexibility and thereby reduce risk. The authors tested these predictions from real options theory and the international strategy literature using a set of recently developed downside risk measures. The evidence reveals that U.S. manufacturing firms with greater multinationality or investment in IJVs do not generally obtain lower levels of downside risk. Implications for theory and future empirical research are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To obtain the greatest benefit from its information system, an organization must determine which applications will provide the most benefit to organizational performance. This study reviews data collected from 310 manufacturing firms in Israel and 197 such firms in the U.S. For each firm, data were obtained about the benefits derived from using information systems, as perceived by a senior manager, and the organization's operating characteristics. Data were pooled across both countries. No meaningful relationship was found between the benefit a firm derives from its overall information systems application portfolio and its organizational operating characteristics. However, for two individual applications, the benefit derived is linked significantly to the organization's operating characteristics. Thus the model relating benefits from information systems to the organization's operating environment, first demonstrated by data collected in Israel, is confirmed by the data collected in the U.S. The model applies across both countries, even though there may be differences between the two countries, for example, in culture, size of businesses, and relationship with customers and suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how value is created in horizontal mergers and acquisitions. More specifically, it examines the impact of post-acquisition asset divestiture and resource redeployment on the long-term performance of horizontal acquisitions. The data come from a detailed survey of acquiring firm managers and cover 253 horizontal mergers and acquisitions that were initiated by European and U.S. firms in manufacturing industries for the period 1988–1992. This study incorporates insights from the cost efficiency and resource-based theories to propose a model of the effects of asset divestiture and resource redeployment on long-term acquisition performance. Overall, our results show that both asset divestiture and resource redeployment can contribute to acquisition performance, with, however, a significant risk of damaging acquisition performance when the divested assets and redeployed resources are those of the target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship intensity and five specific strategic management practices in a sample of 169 U.S. manufacturing firms. The five strategic management practices include: scanning intensity, planning flexibility, planning horizon, locus of planning, and control attributes. The results of the study indicated a positive relationship between corporate entrepreneurship intensity and scanning intensity; planning flexibility, locus of planning, and strategic controls. The fine-grained nature of these results may be of practical use to firms that are trying to become more entrepreneurial and may help researchers better understand the subtleties of the interface between strategic management and corporate entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research examining firms' economic exposures to exchange rate movements has not differentiated periods of foreign currency appreciation and depreciation when estimating exposure coefficients. Recent theoretical developments regarding real options and pricing-to-market suggest corporate exposures may be asymmetric (i.e., the financial performance impact of a foreign currency appreciation may not be offset by the currency`s depreciation). Our empirical analysis indicates that for the small percentage of U.S. manufacturing firms exposed to currency appreciations or depreciations, their exposures are asymmetric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors develop a conceptual model of the circulation of corporate control--the instability in formal authority at the top of large corporations. According to their model, chief executive officer (CEO) selection is both a political contest for the top executive position and an ideological struggle among members of the firm's political coalition over defining the corporate agenda and strategy. The authors apply the model to analyze the selection of functional backgrounds of 275 new CEOs in large U.S. manufacturing firms from 1981 to 1992. Results show that the circulation of control adds to previous explanations based on strategic contingencies and institutional isomorphism. Furthermore, the authors find evidence of an ideological and political obsolescence of financial CEOs and a change in the strategic contingencies that previously favored finance and the financial conception of control. Results suggest that conceptions of control are best understood as styles, rather than institutions, as these conceptions are neither taken for granted nor isomorphic across industries or the manufacturing sector, but are subject to sectoral variation, contestation, and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For exiting products, statistical agencies often impute inflation from surviving products. This understates growth if creatively-destroyed products improve more than surviving ones. If so, then the market share of surviving products should systematically shrink. Using entering and exiting establishments to proxy for creative destruction, we estimate missing growth in US Census data on non-farm businesses from 1983 to 2013. We find missing growth (i) equaled about one-half a percentage point per year; (ii) arose mostly from hotels and restaurants rather than manufacturing; and (iii) did not accelerate much after 2005, and therefore does not explain the sharp slowdown in growth since then. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides overview of potential tobacco industry arguments in an industry lawsuit and scientific evidences to support a menthol product ban by the U.S. Food and Drtug Administration (FDA). Topics discussed include FDA's authority to regulate menthol, and legal challenge to a ban that will likely delay implementation of a product standard. Also mentioned is the likelihood of a product standard victory in court in the context of the FDA's comprehensive nicotine frameworks.

This paper offers an understanding of the Trump administration's (Administration) often-perplexing approach to international trade policy and, in particular, the Administration's repeated threats to withdraw from or renegotiate bilateral, regional and multilateral trade agreements. The central premise offered here is that all Administration trade actions--including both its approach to trade agreements and its threats or use of unilateral import restrictions--must be seen in terms of two fundamental goals. The first is to eliminate U.S. trade deficits with foreign countries (individually or collectively). The second is to restore the U.S. manufacturing sector by limiting imports and by bringing back to the U.S. manufacturing that had been moved to other countries. Renegotiation of trade agreements and imposition of import restrictions are closely integrated tactics used to accomplish these goals. Thus, neither should be seen as an end in itself, but rather as leverage toward achieving whatever specific goal the Administration seeks at the time. In one situation, import restrictions (or threat thereof) may serve as leverage in a trade agreement negotiation. In another situation, a trade negotiation may be conducted in a manner that provides leverage to obtain a limitation of imports. In analyzing this approach to trade, this paper addresses the following: A brief summary of the Trump Administration's trade policy and objectives; specific examples of the Administration's leverage-based strategy in action; and more detailed discussions of the Administration's leverage strategies in the three most important areas of U.S. trade today: US-China trade, the effort either to change or withdraw from the World Trade Organization, and the attempt to reshape the structure of North America by renegotiating or withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patent ownership Fragmentation following the U.S. pro-patent shifts has built overlapping intellectual property rights or patent thickets. This has made the use of others' innovations costlier due to transaction costs, licensing fees, and hold-up. Using panel data on 2,441 public U.S. manufacturing firms for 1976–2002, I find that patent thickets lower firms' expected profit and their market value. I also find that firms with a large patent portfolio experience a smaller effect, likely because stronger bargaining position lowers the hold-up likelihood. There is no systematic time effect from patent thickets on firms' market value with a large patent portfolio size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1990 and 2008, air pollution emissions from US manufacturing fell by 60 percent despite a substantial increase in manufacturing output. We show that these emissions reductions are primarily driven by within-product changes in emissions intensity rather than changes in output or in the composition of products produced. We then develop and estimate a quantitative model linking trade with the environment to better understand the economic forces driving these changes. Our estimates suggest that the implicit pollution tax that manufacturers face doubled between 1990 and 2008. These changes in environmental regulation, rather than changes in productivity and trade, account for most of the emissions reductions. (JEL F18, H23, L60, Q52, Q53, Q56, Q58) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To judge the welfare performance of manufacturers' brand advertising, this article first lays out some of the basic economic relationships between manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, and consumers in a consumer goods industry. It then identifies and analyzes the basic forces that propelled brand advertising into prominence in the late nineteenth century. Conditions in the pre-advertising era, which have lingered on in many unadvertised product classes, are compared with those that prevail in heavily advertised industries. By most of the criteria against which its performance is appraised, advertising receives fairly good grades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of selected west-European countries into a single market has caused concerns about U.S. exporters' access to the new European market. This article examines strategic export planning for the European market of small U.S. exporters in manufacturing industries on the basis of the strategic market planning framework developed by Abell and Hammond (1979). The proposed model incorporates market attractiveness as a predictor variable in addition to more traditional company background variables in examining export planning status of small U.S. exporters. Findings of a survey conducted in a Midwestern state among active exporters of manufactured goods demonstrate how company characteristics and market attractiveness are related to export planning status. Most exporting manufacturers have responded actively to changes in the European market by completing and enacting strategic export plans. Factors that influence exporters' strategic export planning behavior are entry barriers, changes in European market characteristics, company size, exporting experience, and primary export target markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that firms choose joint venture forms overseas when confronted with high socio-cultural distance. However, the probability of choosing the joint venture form is expected to be moderated by the firm-specific characteristics of the investing firm as well as country-specific characteristics of the country of investment. This study examines the moderating role of some firm- and country-specific factors on a firm's choice of joint venture form in response to socio-cultural distance. The firm-specific factors examined in this study include size, multinationality, and technological intensity; and the country-specific factors examined in this study include country risk and market potential. Recent data from a sample of U.S. manufacturing firms is used to test the contingency hypotheses. Results indicate the usefulness of the contingency approach for modeling choice of joint ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether procyclical productivity is due to cyclical variations in the rate of utilization of labor or to technological externalities. By looking at the relation between sectoral productivity and the level of aggregate activity, empirical evidence is presented to distinguish the two hypotheses. Analysis of two-digit U.S. manufacturing Industries shows that sectoral productivity is more closely related to the rate of change of aggregate activity than to its level. This result is consistent with the interpretation that cyclical productivity is due to cyclical variations in the rate of utilization of labor, which responds to expected future industry conditions. Aggregate variables in production-Function regressions have there Fore the role of forecasting variables for future industry conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that attempts to determine the manufacturing industry's wage rigidity by studying data from 450 manufacturing industries within the United States between 1958 and 1989. The authors attempt to determine the connections that exist between nominal wage growth and the unexpected and expected inflation within the market. The estimates that they propose for expected inflation appear to remain constant through many of the industries. For unexpected inflation, the industries show signs of increases in employment and decreases in real wages.

The article comments on the paper "Inflation Uncertainty, Relative Price Uncertainty, and Investment in U.S. manufacturing," by John Huizinga. As a central banker, the author is concerned with the quantitative effects of inflation on investment. Huizinga argues that inflation generates uncertainty about the future value of relative prices, which, in turn, generates uncertainty about the profitability of an investment project. The author wishes Huizinga addressed whether the monetary authorities should be targeting a low or zero rate of inflation or attempt to reverse unanticipated movements in the price level.

The article comments on the paper "Inflation Uncertainty, Relative Price Uncertainty, and Investment in U.S. Manufacturing," by John Huizinga. The paper tries to show how inflation uncertainty might reduce aggregate investment. Huizinga presents four steps to his arguement: increased uncertainty can cause firms to postpone investment decisions, time variation in the conditional time series variance of inflation, a postive relation to the cross-sectional variance of real profits, and that inflation uncertainty can lead to less investment.

In this article the authors discuss importance of studying inventory investment from a macroeconomic standpoint, noting that it is seen as a major source of fluctuation in aggregate output. They present and test a multivariate flexible accelerator model for inventory investment using data from finished good inventories in the U.S. manufacturing sector. Their reason for applying a multivariate model instead of the traditional univariate design is based on the idea that the decisions the firms make on finished goods will interact with their decisions on other related stocks.

For most of the semiconductor industry's history, U.S. producers were undisputed leaders in market share, product introduction, and process technology advance. After losing this dominant position and enduring significant market share losses during the early 1980s, U.S. semiconductor firms and the federal government took corrective actions on several fronts. A concerted effort in improving product quality and manufacturing process yields narrowed the gaps between U.S. and foreign competitors. U.S. firms also exited from product lines in which their historic skills at product innovation provided limited competitive advantage. Federal government initiatives, ranging from trade policy to financial support for university research and R&D consortia, also played a role of uncertain magnitude in the industry's revival. The resurgence of the industry is an impressive feat, but the unexpected nature of this revival, its complex causes, and the fragility of its foundation suggest that U.S. semiconductor firm strength cannot be taken for granted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the U.S. manufacturing industry's efforts to build competitive advantage through a global network of capabilities. Due to difficulties brought about by transitions to global competition, plant location decisions made during the 1980s were mostly tactical, stop-gap actions resulting in short-lived benefits and in company facility networks that were either unbalanced, inefficient, or ineffective. The author believes that a capability-focused approach to the decision of facility location can be used to create a network of capabilities that would include plants as an integral part. The networks resulting from this approach can support the company's competitive advantage on an enduring basis.

Beginning in the late 1960s, the widespread acceptance of a new manufacturing technology and the emergence of sophisticated new foreign competitors, first in Europe and later in Asia, radically changed the competitive environment in the tire markets of North America. They set off a chain of events that, combined with the globalization of automobile manufacturing, led to a massive restructuring of the U.S., European, and Japanese tire industries. This article describes the competitive strategies that The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company developed during the eighties in an effort to adapt its business activities to a rapidly changing competitive environment. It chronicles how, in March of 1988, the implementation of those strategies, combined with courses of action pursued by other major world tire companies, resulted in the Bridgestone/Firestone merger, the largest acquisition in history of a U.S. manufacturer by a Japanese corporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of engineering design in the competitiveness of manufactured goods. Experts say as a nation the U.S. has neglected engineering design research and practices. They say to regain world manufacturing leadership the U.S. must take a more strategic approach by improving engineering design processes. Engineering design refers to the development of a product through its technical conception through detail design, and the design of the related manufacturing process and tooling.

The article discusses the competitive challenges related to the development of high definition television (HDTV). Experts say there is a danger in equating the competitiveness of a nation with that of a single industry. They say economy-wide policies should focus on increasing investment levels in physical, human, and knowledge capital. The development and commercialization of consumer electronics and HDTV in the U.S. is seen as an opportunity for the strengthening of U.S. competitiveness in the electronics complex and more generally in manufacturing. Protectionist or exclusionary policies appear to be unwise.

The article presents a forecast for U.S. manufacturing changes in the 1990's. Many companies and their managers have already committed substantial energy and resources to "closing" the technology gap. Among the forecasted changes are restructuring and cutting excesses from existing manufacturing processes and adopting one or more of the tools or techniques that have proved useful to leading manufacturers including total quality management (TQM). Japan's use of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) is also being examined as a possible approach for U.S. manufacturers.

The article focuses on the manufacturing legacy of the United States. A brief historical overview of manufacturing management is presented, using select examples such as the Mesta Machine Company. The evolution of management practices and the ideas and concepts of scientific management as posited by Frederick Taylor are discussed. Some themes in the development of technology management are outlined, such as continual improvement initiatives, addressing commercial needs, and the link between product and process innovation. Experiences regarding manufacturing management gathered from the United States' participation in World War II are considered.

The single most important explanation for the decline in the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing is management's view of the role of the manufacturing function. Restoring our competitive edge requires a basic change in the philosophy, perspective, and approach of American companies toward manufacturing. This article examines the traditional U.S. view of manufacturing and describes how it needs to be changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Line of Business (LB) program within the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and its involvement in legal actions and controversy. The article discusses the background of the LB program, which began in the 1940s, and describes how the program uses Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) categories to track corporations and require business reporting. The article also discusses the justifications made for the LB program, stating that American manufacturing's increasing diversification made it difficult to track industrial performance, and also that it helps enforce industrial laws and consumer protection efforts. The article discusses potential problems with the LB program.

The author examines the determinants of control loss in the marketing channels of 40 U.S. manufacturers, each of which has vertically integrated into wholesale distribution by the establishment of manufacturers' sales branches. The central hypothesis tested is that the efficiency of a vertically integrated system depends on the adoption of organizational forms which enable the firm to limit the degree of control loss and subgoal pursuit predictably resulting from vertical expansion. Control loss is operationalized in terms of the extent to which the travel and entertainment expenses of branch sales personnel exceed necessary levels. The results demonstrate the important influence of organizational structure and control systems on the efficiency of marketing operations. The findings are interpreted in terms of Williamson's organizational failures framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that American manufacturing unions, if they are to revitalize themselves numerically and politically, must develop new strategies in order to cope with rapidly changing environments. After reviewing two action paradigms that are available for unions, we show why manufacturing unions have adopted the economic rather than political paradigm. We argue that the economic paradigm is viable only under a specific set of conditions that no longer apply. Finally, long-term adherence to the economic paradigm produces resistance to paradigmatic change in response to external changes in many unions. As an illustration, we use the American auto industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing recognition of some strategic advantages held by small firms, little comparative research has been performed on the advantages and disadvantages accruing to firm size. In order to delineate the differential responses of small and large businesses to their environmental context, we perform a comparative analysis of the impact of industry structural characteristics on the formation of large and small businesses in a large sample of U.S. manufacturing industries from 1977 to 1987. The results suggest that small businesses possess certain resources that allow them to overcome some barriers which create greater difficulties for their larger counterparts, as well as allow small businesses to exploit certain industry opportunities more readily than larger ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]