Market growth is driven by product innovation. Beyond functional satiationthe marginal utility of product performance and variety decreases. We argue that socialcomparisons underlying innovation diffusion results in consumer motivations for upwardassimilation toward the behavior of better...

Mirroring the railroad industry of the 1940’s and 1950’s, the trucking industry today appearsto be achieving impressive productivity gains. But it is easy to confuse true productivityadvances in transportation industries with changes in ton-miles per unit of input that are duesimply to changes...

In their quest to become highly efficient and professional asset managers in maintaining their roadnetworks and delivering a programme of network improvements some road administrations haveundergone significant changes in the way they operate in order to become more efficient and provide amore...

Das neue, von Dr.-Ing. Ansgar Woltering, DB Systel GmbH, verfasste Arbeitspapier befasst sich mit der bedarfs- und marktgerechte Ausgestaltung und Bereitstellung von Services in Bezug auf Informations- und Telekommunikationstechnik (ITK). Insbesondere wird auf das Instrument des Benchmarking...

The German government has spent between 7bn and 11bn Euro per year on active labor market policies (ALMP) in East Germany in the last decade. The effectiveness of the most important programs (in terms of participants and spending) such as job-creation schemes and vocational training has been...

Fostering and supporting start-up businesses by unemployed persons has become anincreasingly important issue in many European countries. These new ventures are beingsupported by various governmental programs. Potential benefits include not only the end ofunemployment for the new entrepreneur but...

Support schemes for unemployed aiming for self-employment have been recently reformedseveral times. In 2003, the start-up subsidy was added to the existing bridging allowance...

This paper examines to what extent recent empirical evidence can collectively andsystematically substantiate the claim that entrepreneurship has important economic value.Hence, a systematic review is provided that answers the question: What is the contribution ofentrepreneurs to the economy in...

Academic entrepreneurship has become an increasingly important channel through whichuniversities contribute to economic development. This paper studies academic entrepreneursusing a comprehensive venture capital database...

Existing literature suggests that entrepreneurs with prior firm-founding experience have moreskills and social connections than novice entrepreneurs. Such skills and social connectionscould give experienced founders some advantage in the process of raising venture capital.This paper uses a large...