Industrial Demography Research Articles

Sisterhood in COVID-19’s she-cession: does stronger female representation mean weaker female discrimination?

PurposeGender equality is an important issue targeted all around the world, see, for example, the Gender Equality Strategy articulated by the European Union (EU). These goals were hindered by COVID-19, which caused a well-documented she-cession: females were hit harder than males. This paper shows that a “sisterhood behaviour” can mitigate the effects of the she-cession: female decision-makers were more likely to favour other females in recruitment and retention.Design/methodology/approachMotivated by theories from psychology and industrial demography, we hypothesise a so-called sisterhood effect or homophily: female decision-makers are more likely to favour other females in recruitment and retention. We use firm-level survey data from 19 European countries collected before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we apply a difference-in-differences methodology to test the hypothesised sisterhood behaviour.FindingsOur study finds that in firms where the top manager was a woman, gender discrimination was less likely or even not at all presented, i.e. COVID-19 did not decrease the proportion of female employees.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that promoting gender equality in leadership dimensions can also moderate discrimination at the level of the employees. Therefore, in a wider context, gender equality goals are interrelated.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to analyse the existence of the theories mentioned before in a manager – employee relationship using firm-level data from the COVID-19 period.

"Industrial Demography"

"Industrial Demography"

Financial and economic determinants of firm default

This paper investigates the relevance of financial and economic variables as determinants of firm default. Our analysis covers a large sample of medium-sized limited liability firms. Since default might lead, through bankruptcy or radical restructuring, to firm’s exit, our work also relates to previous contributions on industrial demography. Using non parametric tests we assess to what extent defaulting firms differ from the non-defaulting group. Bootstrap probit regressions confirm that economic variables, in addition to standard financial indicators, play both a long and short term effect. Our findings are robust with respect to the inclusion of Distance to Default and risk ratings among the regressors.

Dwarf giants, giant dwarfs. Reflections about the Italian ‘industrial demography’ at the beginning of the new millennium

This article deals with the evolution of different forms of business enterprise in the economic history of Italy. In the 150 years since its unification, Italy has experienced a successful mix of business typologies with different contribution to the economic development of the country. In this article, the contribution of big business – privately, foreign owned and State controlled – is reviewed, as well as the long-standing presence of small firms and industrial districts. The most recent evolution in this framework, which has been a distinctive feature of Italian capitalism for over a century, has been the emergence of aggressive, medium-size, internationally oriented specialized firms. Strengths and weaknesses of this varied industrial demography are discussed in the light of the different technological waves that have been characteristic Italy's presence among the most advanced economies in the World.

Credit chains and bankruptcy propagation in production networks

We present a simple model of a production network in which firms are linked by supplier–customer relationships involving extension of trade–credit. Our aim is to identify the minimal set of mechanisms which reproduce qualitatively the main stylized facts of industrial demography, such as firms’ size distribution, and, at the same time, the correlation, over time and across firms, of output, growth and bankruptcies. The behavior of aggregate variables can be traced back to the direct firm–firm interdependence. In this paper, we assume that the number of firms is constant and the network has a periodic static structure. But the framework allows further extensions to investigate which network structures are more robust against domino effects and, if the network is let to evolve in time, which structures emerge spontaneously, depending on the individual strategies for orders and delivery.

A Spatial Interpretation of the Density Dependence Model in Industrial Demography

In this paper the density dependence model, which was developed in organizational ecology, is compared to the economic-geographical notion of agglomeration economies. There is a basic resemblance: both involve some form of positive feedback between size of the population and growth. The paper explores how the theoretical concepts compare to each other, and if an interdisciplinary cross-fertilization between both is fruitful. It is found that there are a number of important similarities in the underlying theories. These refer to the process of legitimation, which has some close similarities to concepts derived from theories of new industrial districts, such as social capital, institutional thickness, and innovative milieux. Differences remain important as well. For instance, the sociological interpretation of competition is not transferable into notions of agglomeration economies. An important conclusion is that agglomeration effects can and should be incorporated into the density dependence model.

Technology use and plant closure

This paper aims to contribute to the empirical literature on industrial demography. It analyzes a stratified sample of the Italian metalworking industry composed of 810 plants with more than 10 employees. It considers plant closure over the period 1989–1997. Probit type econometric models are estimated in order to provide evidence on the explanatory factors of the likelihood of closure with special attention being devoted to technological variables. The paper extends previous empirical results along a number of directions. First, in spite of the fact that use of advanced technologies, especially in the design and engineering sphere, favors survival, remarkable differences do emerge between different individual technologies; ceteris paribus, plants having adopted technologies characterized by sizable, product-specific investments turn out to be less likely to be shut down. In addition, the ownership status of plants is found to influence the probability of closure. Likelihood of survival is lower for plants that belong to multi-unit organizations than for those owned by single-plant firms, even though the difference between the two plant categories decreases with plant size. Altogether, such results point to the relevance of irreversibility and sunk costs for understanding exit behavior.

Skewed distributions of firm sizes—an evolutionary perspective

The fact that business firms sizes show long-term stable skewed distributions is a well-established ‘stylized fact’ of industrial demography. One of the plausible explanations of this phenomenon is based on Gibrat's law of proportionate effect. Other explanations focus on optimal allocation of scarce factors of production. This paper proposes a different explanation, based on evolutionary mechanisms of industrial development, especially those related to search for innovation and selection. The outline of the evolutionary model of industrial dynamics is presented in the first section of the paper. In the second, part a simulation study of the model, focused on the necessary conditions of emergence of skewed firm size distributions, is presented. It is shown how skewed size distributions emerge if we allow firms to search for innovation and allow for entry of new firms.

Long-term Evolutionary Change in Organizational Populations: Theory, Models and Empirical Findings in Industrial Demography

Organizational ecology is a theoretical perspective on organizations that attempts to explain long-term social evolution, especially the rise and fall of organizational populations. This artist review the most sustained demographic research program of the perspective, one based on the density-dependent model of legitimation and competition. It discusses the theoretical model and evidence from industrial demography that has been offered in its support as well as criticisms that have been registered. Unresolved research problems of the program are identified and three major models-in-progress attempting to address these open questions are discussed and compared. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.

Technological Regimes, Industrial Demography and the Evolution of Industrial Structures

The purpose of this paper is to weave together the new theories and empirical evidence analyzing firms and industries in motion, or what has been termed ‘industrial demographics’. In particular, the links between the technological regime underlying an industry and the observed patterns of industry demography are emphasized. Although a major conclusion of this new literature is that the structure of industries is perhaps better characterized by a high degree of fluidity and turbulence than stability, the patterns of industry demographics vary considerably from industry to industry. And what apparently shapes the evolution of firms particular to a specific industry is, as much as anything else, the knowledge conditions shaping the technological regime underlying that industry.