Post-entry Performance Of New Firms Research Articles

Pre-entry knowledge base complexity and post-entry growth: evidence from Italian firms

Abstract Knowledge is largely recognized as a key driver of survival and growth of new entrants. Previous literature on the role of pre-entry knowledge in post-entry performance has focused on entrepreneurial and managerial capabilities and education and on knowledge incorporated in material and immaterial resources. In this paper, taking to the firm level the intuition behind the notion of economic and technological complexity of countries, we hypothesize that post-entry performance of new firms may be explained by their knowledge base complexity, which captures the reinforcing mechanism between variety and creation of new valuable knowledge. We provide a measure of firm-level complexity derived from the analysis of textual content of patents and exploit it to examine the empirical relation between pre-entry complexity of knowledge and post-entry growth in a sample of Italian firms entering the market in 2009-2011. Baseline results show a significant and positive association between knowledge complexity and post-entry growth, even after controlling for firm characteristics and year, sector, and region fixed effects. Robustness analysis reveals that this positive effect is more significant over the medium run than in the initial years after entry, while relatively weaker for the so-called Innovative Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.

Duration of new firms: The role of startup financial conditions, industry and aggregate factors

This paper documents the relative importance of firm, industry and aggregate factors on the post-entry performance of new firms. This study utilizes a unique administrative dataset, T2LEAP, which contains employment and balance sheet information for all incorporated Canadian firms. The data allow us to include financial variables such as the debt-to-asset ratio (leverage) and document their impact on firm survival. We perform duration analysis on all the entrant manufacturing firms during the period 1985–1996. In addition to leverage, we find that: firm characteristics such as size and labour productivity; industry conditions, such as the real exchange rate, the difference in the US–Canada tariff rates, entry penetration, and the capital–labour ratio; and aggregate conditions in terms of the yield gap also play a role in the survival prospects of new firms.

Who succeeds as an entrepreneur? An analysis of the post-entry performance of new firms in Japan

Using a dataset of 5911 new Japanese firms, this paper examines whether the probability of an entrepreneur’s success is related to the entrepreneur’s human capital and gender, and the initial size of the firm. We propose three economic performance measures indicating an entrepreneur’s success, and estimate probit models to investigate their determinants. The empirical evidence suggests that an entrepreneur’s related business experience before start-up, and initial firm size tend to be positively related to the probability of success, while an entrepreneur’s age and the female dummy are negatively related. The negative effect of age contradicts Cressy’s (1996) human capital hypothesis.

The role of linkages in firm performance: evidence from southern Italy

This paper estimates the probability of success of post-entry performance of new firms, using survey data from a group of southern-Italian small firms. Several factors involving inter-firm linkages contribute to success, especially production for order and subcontracting. The empirical investigation supports Hirschman’s idea on the industrialization process and positive assessments of the downsizing phenomenon in Italy.

Innovation, growth and survival

The purpose of this paper is to explain why the likelihood of survival and post-entry growth rates vary systematically from industry to industry. In particular, the post-entry performance of new firms is linked to the underlying technological conditions in an industry. In industries where innovative activity, and especially the innovative activity of small firms, plays an important role, the likelihood of new entrants' surviving over a decade is lower than in industries where innovative activity is less important. At the same time, those entrants that are able to survive exhibit higher growth rates. In addition, the conditional likelihood of surviving an additional two years for entrants that have already survived the first few years is actually greater, and not lower, in highly innovative industries. The evidence therefore suggests that a highly innovative environment exerts a disparate effect on the post-entry performance of new entrants. Those new firms that are able to adjust and offer a viable product apparently experience higher rates of growth and a greater likelihood of survival. But overall, entrants and certainly new firms that are not able to adjust and produce a viable product are confronted by a lower likelihood of survival in highly innovative environments.

Firm selection and industry evolution: the post-entry performance of new firms

A dynamic framework based on the process of firm selection and industry evolution is used to analyse the post-entry performance of new firms. In particular, it is hypothesized that, based on the stylized fact that virtually all new firms start at a very small scale of output, firm growth and survival are shaped by the need to attain an efficient level of output. The post-entry performance of more than 11,000 U.S. manufacturing firms established in 1976 is tracked throughout the subsequent tenyear period. Firm growth is found to be negatively influenced by firm size but positively related to the extent of scale economies, capital intensity, innovative activity, and market growth. By contrast, the likelihood of survival is identified as being positively influenced by firm size, market growth, and capital intensity, but negatively affected by the degree of scale economies in the industry. When viewed through the dynamic framework of firm selection and industry evolution, the empirical results shed considerable light on several paradoxes in the industrial organization literature, such as the continued persistence over time of an asymmetrical firm-size distribution consisting predominantely of suboptimal scale firms, and the failure of capital intensity and scale economies to substantially deter the entry and start-up of new firms.

Firm Entry and Postentry Performance in the U. S. Chemical Industries

This paper examines the impact of entry on the structure of the U.S. chemical industries in the period 1963-1982. The paper measures both the immediate impact of entrants in terms of number, size and market shares and their subsequent growth and/or exit. Particular attention is devoted to the examination of entrant heterogeneity. The paper finds that while a large number of entrants appear in the chemical industries, they have a relatively small long-run impact. In addition, compared to previous work entrants are less important in the chemical industries than in manufacturing sector as a whole. Finally, the post-entry performance of new firms varies significantly across different categories of entry. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version o (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

The Survival Technique and the Extent of Suboptimal Capacity

E survival technique used by George Stigler and T. R. Saving in identifying "optimal" scales of firm and plant is a tempting source of information in an area where data have not been plentiful, but many economists retain doubts about the usefulness of such estimates. This paper offers some evidence on the reliability of the survival technique and uses it as a basis for some generalizations about the present structure of industry. In Part I estimates of optimal scale based on plant-size data in five large industries for the last 27-36 years are compared with such engineering estimates as are available. In Part II the rate of adjustment toward optimal scales in these industries is evaluated. In Part III an attempt is made to determine the size of market necessary for the attainment of high degrees of "rationalization." Finally, in Part IV the relationship between concentration and the extent of suboptimal capacity is investigated in a number of industries using Census data.