Benchmarking of innovation processes requires the reliable assessment of nondocumented organizational characteristics. Based on key informant literature we discuss the difficulties of gaining reliable information from respondents and identify potential sources for heterogeneous perceptions among...

This paper is an empirical test of the hypothesis that the appropriateness of different business strategies is conditional on the firm's distance to the industry frontier. We use data on four 2-digit high-tech manufacturing industries in the US over the period 1972-1999, and apply...

The question of whether or not mergers and acquisitions have helped to enhance banks' efficiency and profitability has not yet been conclusively resolved in the literature. We argue that this is partly due to the severe methodological problems involved. In this study, we analyze the effect of...

This study provides new stylized facts on the determinants of corporate failure and acquisition in Germany. It also offers important lessons for the design of empirical studies. We show that firms experiencing failure or acquisition are significantly different from surviving firms on a number of...

This paper is a summary of three implementation studies on the efficiency of job placement service and programme placement at public employment service offices in Sweden. By the research design 'Comparisons by pairs of offices under matched control of external independent variables' the studies...