Begriffe wie Informations-, Wissens-und Dienstleistungsgesellschaft prägen das Bild heutiger Volkswirtschaften. Der Dienstleistungssektor hat weltweit stark steigende Zuwachsraten und drängt den klassischen Industriesektor immer stärker in den Hintergrund, die zunehmende Auseinandersetzung...

Will an enterprise in the information age be able to afford to remain just an ordinary firm? Breathtaking progress in the fields of telecommunications and the ur-gency to concentrate on core competencies are revolutionising the company form of output production.(...) [Hans A. Wüthrich, Andreas...

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...

The aim of this study is to evaluate employees’ productivity in relation to their contract status.This study uses (a) survey data collected among manufacturing sector firms, having morethan 15 employees, in Cameroon between April and May 2006 and (b) information issued bythe National Institute...

This paper examines the determinants of young innovative companies’ (YICs) R&D activitiestaking into account the autoregressive nature of innovation. Using a large longitudinal datasetcomprising Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1990-2008, we find that previousR&D experience is a...

The UK’s business R&D (BERD) to GDP ratio is low compared to other leading economies,and the ratio has slowly declined over the 1990s. This paper uses data on large UK firms toanalyse the link between R&D and productivity over the 1989-2000 period. Using aproduction function approach, and a...

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...