Topic Firms

Determinants of Export Behaviour of German Business Services Companies

The determinants of export behaviour at firm level have been widely investigated for manufacturing companies. By contrast, what has remained largely neglected is a detailed investigation in the service sector. As aggregate statistics show, international trade in services has grown significantly over the last few years. However, it is unclear why some companies export and others do not. This paper presents ...

Demand Side Analysis of Microlending Markets in Germany

In developing and transition economies, microlending has become an effective instrument for providing micro businesses with the necessary financial resources to launch operations. In the industrialized countries, with their highly developed banking systems, however, there has been ongoing debate on the question of whether an uncovered demand for microlending services exists. The present pilot study ...

Are Private Equity Investors Good or Evil?

The paper investigates the motives of activity (entry and exit) of Private Equity (PE) investors in European companies. Investment of a PE firm is not viewed unambiguously. First, it is claimed that PE investment is made for the sake of seeking short-term gains by taking control and utilizing the company's resources. Second, a PE firm invests because of prior identification of chances to add value ...

Subsidiary Role and Skilled Labour Effects in Small Developed Countries

This paper considers the proportion of skilled labour employed by subsidiaries in small countries in the context of the strategic role of subsidiaries. Strategic role is connected to autonomy and intra-organisational relationships and the mandates given to the subsidiary. In the paper, we draw on the literature on the strategic development of multinational corporations, and insights from inward foreign ...

Corporate Debt Maturity Choice in Transition Financial Markets

This paper investigates the determinants of liability maturity choice in transition markets. We formulate a model of firm value maximization that describes managers' choice of optimal debt structure. The theoretical predictions are tested using a unique panel of 4,300 Ukrainian firms during the period 2000-2005. Our estimates confirm the importance of liquidity, signaling, maturity matching, and agency ...

Is Entrepreneurial Success Predictable? An Ex-Ante Analysis of the Character-Based Approach

This paper empirically analyzes whether the character-based approach, which focuses on the personality structure and the human capital of business founders, allows prediction of entrepreneurial success. A unique data set is used consisting of 414 persons whose personal characteristics were analyzed by different methods, namely an one-day assessment center (AC) and a standardized questionnaire, before ...

Locational Conditions, Cooperation, and Innovativeness: Evidence from Research and Company Spin-offs

This paper has two goals. First, it analyzes the extent to which the innovativeness of spin-offs, either born from a research facility or from another company, is influenced by locational conditions. Second, it provides evidence on how important local cooperation links are in comparison to nonlocal ones. Using a sample of approximately 1,500 East German firms from knowledge-intensive sectors, we estimate ...

Uncertainty Determinants of Firm Investment

We investigate the impact of measures of uncertainty on firms' capital investment behavior using a panel of U.S. firms. Increases in firm-specific and CAPM-based measures have a significant negative effect on investment spending, while market-based uncertainty has a positive impact

Does Corporate Governance Determine Dividend Payouts in Poland?

This study examines the relation between corporate governance practices measured by the Transparency Disclosure Index (TDI) and dividend payouts in Poland. Our empirical approach lies in constructing measures of the quality of the corporate governance in 110 non-financial companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange between 1998 and 2004.We find evidence that an increase in the TDI or its sub-indices ...

Corporate Debt Maturity Choice in Transition Financial Markets