Industry-specific Characteristics Research Articles

Managing Interactions between Technological and Stylistic Innovation in the Media Industries

The processes of technological innovation have been widely researched, but their interactions with another type of innovation that is particularly important in sectors like the fashion and the media content industries have been neglected: stylistic innovation. This paper puts forward the idea that a better understanding of such interactions between content and technology in the media industries might help explaining differences in the receptiveness of firms towards new technological opportunities. The nature of the interactions, so it is argued in this paper, depends on three groups of key factors at the level of the product, the organization and the industry: among them, first, the locations of the different types of innovation in the media product's components; second, organizational factors like the identity and the reputation of a firm with respect to the above types of innovation; and third, the industry-specific characteristics of the certification environment in which the firms operate. Awards are discussed as specific instantiations of micro certification environments indicating quality with respect to stylistic and/or technological product features. To round off the theoretical part, a definition of stylistic innovation is developed with reference to the key concepts discussed in this paper. Within the media sector the literary publishing industry has been chosen to provide the subject of the empirical part. Two cases related to the introduction of eBook technology are presented: one is a study of the first digital literary publisher in Europe and the other is a case study of the first international eBook award, which mixes technological and stylistic criteria. Theory and cases lead to a number of hypotheses offered as potential departure points for future research into the interactions between innovation in style and technology.

The context of dominance: an industry‐driven framework for exploiting reputation

AbstractIn spite of the growing interest in sustainable advantages, there has been little effort by strategy researchers to investigate market dominance. In this paper, the extent of dominance by leading firms is linked to the ability to develop and exploit their reputation as a key resource. Results from a wide spectrum of consumer product markets indicate that the advantages that stem from reputation are typically tied to specific industry characteristics. In particular, dominance is more likely to be observed in industries that offer consumer products that are purchased frequently and have lower prices. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Electronic Tickets, Smart Cards, and Online Prepayments: When and How to Advance Sell

Electronic Tickets, Smart Cards, and Online Prepayments: When and How to Advance Sell

Identifying the external effects of human capital: a two-stage approach

In this study microdata from the Guatemala household Survey are analysed using a testable model of endogenous growth in order to detect any external effects of education. In the first stage of the analysis, a wage equation is estimated and the internal effects of education are filtered out. In the second stage, the resulting industry wage premiums are regressed on average human capital as well as industry-specific characteristics to account for external effects. While stronger conclusions cannot be drawn, the hypothesis that external effects may be present cannot be rejected.

Determinants of new product introductions in the US food industry: a panel-model approach

Economic theory suggests that market structure variables influence technical change, growth and new product introductions. Based on a broad data set for new product introductions in various food industries, it is elaborated in this article how market structure variables affect innovative activities in the US food sector. It is different from earlier studies in the way that cross-sectional and time-series data are combined and panel data models are used in the econometric analysis. A major result is that new product introductions are driven by market structure variables and industry-specific characteristics, i.e. fixed effects. A significant determinant of new food product introductions is the concentration ratio which affects the number of innovations in a nonlinear form. The fixed-effects estimates reveal a U-type effect of concentration on innovations. Furthermore, the number of firms, the degree of existing product differentiation and the size of a market show a positive influence on the number of innovations. From a methodological point of view, plain OLS models yield biased results on the concentration-innovation linkage and on the relationship between the size of a market and innovations. Therefore, it is very important to include sector-specific characteristics as is done in the fixed-effects models.

The duration of new firms in banking: an application of Cox regression analysis

This paper studies the duration of two cohorts of entrants in the Italian financial intermediation industry. Using the Cox (1972) Proportional Hazards Model, it analyses the link between duration of each newborn firm and its start-up size, as well as a series of industry-specific characteristics. It emerges that not only did regulatory reform in 1990 result in a process of branch proliferation and industry concentration, but it also set in motion a pre-entry selection mechanism. Conversely, before completion of the regulatory reform, in 1989, entry was possible even for very small firms, and larger new entrants survived longer than their smaller counterparts, and this independently of the features of spatial and structural competition.

Industrial Performance, Agglomeration, and Foreign Manufacturing Investment in the UK

This paper examines the relationship between the comparative advantage of UK industries, and new inward investment into these industries. The paper demonstrates that the extent of foreign manufacturing investment in an industry, and the spatial agglomeration of that industry, are significant determinants of industry comparative advantage, thus providing evidence of agglomeration benefits to both domestic and foreign firms. The paper then shows that industry comparative advantage itself, together with a series of industry specific characteristics, are important determinants of new foreign manufacturing investment, thus providing evidence of the dynamic benefits of foreign direct investment in the UK economy.

What Determines the Number of Bank Relationships? Cross-Country Evidence

We investigate the determinants of multiple-bank relationships using a new data set comprised of 1129 firms across twenty European countries. We first document large cross-country variation in the average number of bank relationships per firm, exposing a richness in the financial systems of European countries that goes beyond simply being termed bank-dominated. We find, after controlling for firm and industry-specific characteristics, that the average number of bank relationships per firm is non-monotonically related to the fragility of a country?s banking system and negatively related to the efficiency of its bankruptcy process and enforcement of creditor rights. Moreover, we find that although concentrated banking systems reduce the number of bank relationships, public bond markets have a complementary effect and increase the average number of banks per firm. We extend our analysis to industry-level effects and also study the robustness of our results using a different data set on bank relationships in Norway. Overall, our study provides a rich set of results that should aid in sorting out theories in banking, corporate governance and financial system architecture.

Trade policy and learning by doing: the case of semiconductors

The study examines the role of learning by doing for production of different types of semiconductors and how this affects the dynamics of market structure. For erasable programmable read only memories (EPROMs) the learning curve determines aggregate market dynamics, whereas for dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) economies of scale seem to be more important. These results are compared with some stylised facts. For EPROMs, persistence of leadership in product innovation could be observed, whereas for DRAMs, there was leap-frogging in product innovation. Moreover, scope for vertical product differentiation is more enhanced for EPROMs and price competition is less intense. These findings are then related to the problem of identifying the appropriate trade policies in oligopolistic industries. The analysis concerns the antidumping actions undertaken by the European Commission. It is shown how markets enjoying similar patterns of protection have a completely different evolution of market shares for European producers. The conclusion for strategic trade policy is that industry specific features matter crucially.

Attitudes of end-users towards information technology in manufacturing and service industries

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for end-user attitudes towards information technology and defines how end-users initially develop interest in and learn about computers. Additionally, it reports the results of an empirical inquiry in two industries, based on the conceptual model. The findings suggest that end users in the manufacturing industry manifest attitudes and intentions towards computer use that differ from those of users in the service industry. The research suggests the need for consideration of industry-specific characteristics in information systems research and applications. Finally, the paper discusses managerial implications of the findings and recommends that managers integrate end-user and computer technology.

New-firm startups, technology, and macroeconomic fluctuations

New-firm startup activity is examined within a framework pooling a cross-section of 117 industries over six time periods between 1976 and 1986. A model is introduced relating startup activity both to elements of the business cycle, in particular the macroeconomic growth rate, the cost of capital, and the unemployment rate, and to industry-specific characteristics, especially the technological conditions underlying the industry. The pooled cross-section regression results suggest that macroeconomic fluctuations as well as industry-specific elements contribute to startup activity. While new-firm startups respond positively to macroeconomic growth, they are promoted by a low cost of capital and high unemployment rate. A somewhat surprising result is that new-firm startups are not apparently deterred in capital intensive industries and where R&D expenditures play an important role. The empirical results suggest that new firms may be able to overcome their inherent size and experience disadvantages in such markets through exploiting university research and pursuing innovative activity.

The Response of Domestic Prices to Expected Exchange Rates

This article examines the recent U.S. price experience in response to the actual and anticipated rise and fall of the dollar, and tests for determinants of the observed price effects. An index of real exchange-rate expectations is developed and used to explore its role in determining domestic producer prices. Actual and expected future real exchange rates are seen to have opposite impacts on domestic price determination at the industry level. Further, the industry-specific characteristics interact asymmetrically with actual and expected real exchange-rate changes. Copyright 1992 by University of Chicago Press.

New-Firm Survival and the Technological Regime

The survival rates of over 11,000 firms established in 1976 are compared across manufacturing industries. The variation in ten-year survival rates across industries is hypothesized to be the result of differences in the underlying technological regime and industry-specific characteristics, especially the extent of scale economies and capital intensity. Based on 295 four-digit standard industrial classification industries, new-firm survival is found to be promoted by the extent of small-firm innovative activity. The existence of substantial scale economies and a high capital-labor ratio tends to lower the likelihood of firm survival. However, these results apparently vary considerably with the time interval considered. Market concentration is found to promote short-run survival, while it has no impact on long-run survival. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.

Small-Firm Entry in US Manufacturing

A cross-section empirical analysis examining the entry behavior of small firms is provided in this paper. While the authors find that certain traditional market structure characteristics and entry barriers have a strong impact on small-firm entry behavior, the reliance upon innovative strategy by small firms also explains a significant amount of the variation in the pattern of entry by small firms. They conclude that small-firm entry is at least partially determined by entry barriers, industry-specific characteristics facilitating retaliatory conduct by incumbent firms, and the reliance upon innovative strategy by small firms. Copyright 1989 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Brand names, ignorance, and quality guaranteeing premiums

Recent literature contains several theories of how self-enforcing agreements rely on repeat-purchase mechanisms to ensure product quality. Some have suggested the use of advertising as a signal of future actions in such games. This article extends these recent studies for the case where firms face temporary changes in cost or demand curves and offers an initial attempt at providing a statistical test of the Klein–Leffler model. It is found that the deviations in the advertising–sales ratio from the levels that can be explained by industry-specific characteristics are consistently contrary to what their model predicts. These results hold over a very wide range of depreciation rates for advertising and for the many individual industries examined. The results are only weakly affected when the presence of measurement error is explicitly recognized.

Intermarket Differences in the Early Diffusion of an Innovation

The rate of technological change, and the rate at which the new technology diffuses through an industry, is of increasing importance in evaluating the performance of firms in an industry. Recent research efforts to understand the diffusion process include the work of Benvignati [1], Mansfield [8], Mansfield, et. al. [9], Reinganum [11], and Romeo [12; 13]. Typically, the empirical analyses trace the diffusion of the same innovation in different industries or several innovations as they diffuse through a particular industry. In contrast to these previous efforts, this paper analyzes the diffusion of a single innovation in the same industry but across different geographic markets. Since the focus is on a particular innovation, one is able to control for variables, such as the capital cost of the innovation or the potential profitability of an innovation, that otherwise would vary significantly across innovations. Since the focus is on a particular industry, it is not necessary to control for industry specific characteristics, such as type of product or extent of product differentiation, although intermarket differences may come into play in explaining the diffusion process across geographic markets. Specifically, this study analyzes the early diffusion of the optical scanner through the food store industry in the largest U.S. metropolitan areas. The early rate of diffusion of this innovation varies considerably across these markets, and this research attempts to identify economic variables that can explain the observed variation.

Government policies towards innovation: A review of empirical findings

Since the Second World War, governments in Western mixed economies have become increasingly involved in promoting technical innovation in industry. The analytical basis for this involvement is deficient, as is empirical information and analysis on its effects. But it is probable that, from an economic viewpoint, governments have been mistaken in supplementing normal industrial activity by financing large-scale development projects in technically sophisticated industry. They should instead be financing longer-term basic and applied research, as well as increasing technical awareness in more traditional industries. More needs to be known about the factors affecting innovative decisions in industrial firms, including the effects of industry-specific characteristics and of government policies.

Evaluation of the industrial potential of cassava based on pasting properties of cassava flour from Ugandan elite varieties

The importance of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) as a source of bio-polymers and as an industrial crop is based on its adaptability for various end-uses and high productivity potential. Cassava’s transformation from its traditional uses, therefore, calls for application of targeted varieties with industrial specifications. Even cassava-based products require understanding of the variety based attributes. However, lack of information about cassava variety traits has limited targeting of different varieties or products for specific industrial uses. The objective of this study was to profile the released Ugandan cassava varieties for biochemical composition and critical industrial attributes. Dry matter content ranged from 30 to 38%, but was not a significantly different (P>0.05) variable among the cassava varieties. Starch yield to dry matter ratio ranged from 0.617 to 0.831, representing 61.7-83.1% starch recovery from different varieties. Flour pasting properties showed significant differences (P<0.05), especially in the time to attain peak viscosity and the time at which the initial rise in viscosity due to pasting was achieved. Pasting temperatures of the flour also ranged from 69-74°C and were within the recommended range for cassava based industrial products. Flour showed significant differences when the paste was cooled, especially for the setback (245-1410 cP) and final viscosities (3522-6730 cP). Pasting properties showed that Ugandan cassava varieties can be categorised into three distinct groups, and hence differ in suitability for various cassava flour-based applications. The observations from this study are important in developing a realistic variety use strategy, especially for niche industries. The observed variabilities can be used in two different ways; (i) selections in the current germplasm for a variety(ies) for specific industrial applications, and (ii) hybridisations within this existing germplasm and subsequent selection of new varieties with industry specific characteristics.