Government policy emphasises five ‘drivers’ of productivity: competition, enterprise, innovation, investment and skillsand each of these has been the subject of major programmes of reform (HM Treasury, 2006). Despite this, andnotwithstanding some improvement, UK productivity in terms of output...

This paper re-examines the link between new firm formation and subsequent employment growth. It investigates whether it is possible to have the wrong type of entrepreneurship - defined as new firm formation which leads to zero or even negative subsequent employment growth. It uses a very similar...

We apply a panel vector autoregression model to a firm-level longitudinal databaseto observe the co-evolution of sales growth, employment growth, profits growth andgrowth of R&D expenditure. Contrary to expectations, profit growth seems to havelittle detectable effect on R&D investment. Instead,...

Ludewig and Sadowski (2009) empirically examine the economic value of organizationalcapital. They use a comprehensive panel data set from the Institute for EmploymentResearch (IAB) that provides standard information about inputs and outputs of theproduction process of German corporate...

This paper analyzes the problem of deriving predictions, regarding supply behavior of acompetitive firm, from prior consistency postulates about input-output choices made by such afirm. It extends the literature by introducing a consistency postulate for firm choice, which isweaker than...

In this paper we empirically examine the impact of competition between Microfinance Institutions(MFIs) on the efficacy of loan contracts when the MFIs make use of joint liability loan contracts. Morespecifically, we aim to find out whether competition will reduce the power of the self-selection...

This paper extends the standard Hotelling model with quadratic transport costs to the multi-firm case. Considering locational equilibria we show that neither holds the Principle of Maximum Differentiation - as in the duopoly model - nor does the Principle of Minimum Differentiation - as in the...

Since the 1950s our modern society has been in a stage of transformation. The grounds of economic action have been changed due to radical technological transformation in microelectronics, biotechnology, and the development of new manufacturing as well as socio-cultural changes. (...)

The Leicester Business School Occasional Papers reflect the scholarship and research of staff, postgraduates and others associated with the school. Many of the papers take the form of preliminary reports of research in progress or explorations of theoretical ideas. Publication of such work in...

In this paper, we open up the black box that has been the introduction of open practices into firms’ commercial R&D strategies. Most of the existing research on the phenomenon of open innovation focuses on its interorganizational aspects. In contrast, the effect that the opening of boundaries...