The allocation of authority affects the communication of information about clients within banks. We document that in small business lending internal control leads loan officers to propose inflated credit ratings for their clients. Inflated ratings are, however, anticipated and partly reversed by...

This paper examines the relationship between organization contextual variables and humanresource management (HRM) practices in small firms. The proposed model is based on anintegration of theoretical perspectives, including the resource-based approach, institutionaltheory, transaction cost...

We show why the new information abundance - the IT revolution - shifts and distorts the size distribution of firms, explaining the general and continuing downsizing trend of the recent decades, and reversing the previous 1880/1960-70 secular increase of big business. We formulate an information...

We explain the firm downsizing trend of the recent decades by the new abundance of information - the ICT revolution. Production processes differ in their information requirements: while decentralized production by means of market exchanges is information-intensive, less information per unit of...

On average, small business support projects appear to improve beneficiary sales, and the growth effect is obvious when supporting young or growing firms. However, the effect is largely offset by sales reductions due to overcrowding. Small business support projects must be operated in two ways to...

The import competition literature suggests that Chinese industrial policies and technological trends have altered the nature of competition with China so that it does not take place on a level playing field anymore. Empirical evidence about firms' reactions in developed economies to competition...

Die Bundesregierung möchte die öffentliche Vergabe von Aufträgen im Zuge ihrer Novellierung nachhaltiger und effizienter gestalten, ohne dabei die Zugangshürden für KMU zu erhöhen. Unsere Analyse öffentlich verfügbarer Stellungnahmen zur Novellierung der öffentlichen Vergabe in...

Im deutschen Sprachraum spricht man vom "Mittelstand" - international wird dagegen der KMU-Begriff verwandt. Aber beschreiben beide Begriffe dasselbe Phänomen? Dieser Beitrag analysiert die Begrifflichkeiten von Mittelstand und KMU sowie die Begriffe, die grundlegend für das Verständnis des...

Die in der jüngsten Vergangenheit zu beobachtenden strukturellen Veränderungen der Unternehmenslandschaft berühren auch und gerade den Mittelstand. Wir unter-suchen Mittelstand im Spannungsfeld unserer definitorischen Merkmale, nämlich der Identität von Eigentum und Leitung einerseits und...

This paper investigates the role of personal relationships for doing business in the Greater Pearl River Delta, China. First, it discusses the interplay of formal and informal (relationship-based) institutions from the point of view of institutional economics, with a focus on economies with weak...