Organic and acquisitive employment growth : re-examining,testing and extending Penrose's Growth Theory.

Edith Penrose’s theory of firm growth postulates that a firm’s current growth rate will be influenced by the adjustment costs of, and changes to a firm’s productive opportunity set arising from, previous growth. Although she explicitly considered the impact of previous organic growth on current organic growth, she was largely silent about the impact of previous acquisitive growth. In this paper we extend Penrose’s work to examine that the relative impact of organic and acquisitive growth on the adjustment costs and productive opportunity set of the firm. Employing a panel of commercially active enterprises in Sweden over a 10 year period our results suggest the following. First, previous organic growth acts as a constraint on current organic growth. Second, previous acquisitive growth has a positive effect on current organic growth. We conclude that organic growth and acquisitive growth constitute two distinct strategic options facing the firm, which have a differential impact on the future organic growth of the firm.

A study of entrepreneurship : Taiwanese digital content companies in China

China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has greatly enhanced global interest in investment in the Chinese media market, where demand for digital content is growing rapidly. The East Asian region is positioned as a growth area in many forms of digital content and digital service industries. China is attempting to catch up and take its place as a production centre to offset challenges from neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, Taiwan is seeking to use China both as an export market and as a production site for its digital content. This research investigates entry strategies of Taiwanese digital content firms into the Chinese market. By examining the strategies of a sample of Taiwan-based companies, this study also explores the evolution of their market strategies. However, the focus is on how distinctive business practices such as guanxi are important to Taiwanese business and to relations with Mainland China. This research examines how entrepreneurs manage the characteristics of digital content products and in turn how digital content entrepreneurs adapt to changing market circumstances. This project selected five Taiwan-based digital content companies that have business operations in China: Wang Film, Artkey, CnYES, Somode and iPartment. The study involved a field trip, undertaken between November 2006 and March 2007 to Shanghai and Taiwan to conduct interviews and to gather documentation and archival reports. Six senior managers and nine experts were interviewed. Data were analysed according to Miller’s firm-level entrepreneurship theory, foreign direct investment theory, Life Cycle Model and guanxi philosophy. Most studies of SMEs have focused on free market (capitalist) environments. In contrast, this thesis examines how Taiwanese digital content firms’ strategies apply in the Chinese market. I identified three main types of business strategy: cost-reduction, innovation and quality-enhancement; and four categories of functional strategies: product, marketing, resource acquisition and organizational restructuring. In this study, I introduce the concept of ‘entrepreneurial guanxi’, special relationships that imply mutual obligation, assurance and understanding to secure and exchange favors in entrepreneurial activities. While guanxi is a feature of many studies of business in Pan-Chinese society, it plays an important mediating role in digital content industries. In this thesis, I integrate the ‘Life Cycle Model’ with the dynamic concept of strategy. I outline the significant differences in the evolution of strategy between two types of digital content companies: off-line firms (Wang Film and Artkey) and web-based firms (CnYES, Somode and iPartment). Off-line digital content firms tended to adopt ‘resource acquisition strategies’ in their initial stages and ‘marketing strategies’ in second and subsequent stages. In contrast, web-based digital content companies mainly adopted product and marketing strategies in the early stages, and would adopt innovative approaches towards product and marketing strategies in the whole process of their business development. Some web-based digital content companies also adopted organizational restructuring strategies in the final stage. Finally, I propose the ‘Taxonomy Matrix of Entrepreneurial Strategies’ to emphasise the two dimensions of this matrix: innovation, and the firm’s resource acquisition for entrepreneurial strategy. This matrix is divided into four cells: Effective, Bounded, Conservative, and Impoverished.

Dopamine and visually regulated eye growth in chick

Retinal image properties such as contrast and spatial frequency play important roles in the development of normal vision. For example, visual environments comprised solely of low contrast and/or low spatial frequencies induce myopia. The visual image is processed by the retina and it then locally controls eye growth. In terms of the retinal neurotransmitters that link visual stimuli to eye growth, there is strong evidence to suggest involvement of the retinal dopamine (DA) system. For example, effectively increasing retinal DA levels by using DA agonists can suppress the development of form-deprivation myopia (FDM). However, whether visual feedback controls eye growth by modulating retinal DA release, and/or some other factors, is still being elucidated. This thesis is chiefly concerned with the relationship between the dopaminergic system and retinal image properties in eye growth control. More specifically, whether the amount of retinal DA release reduces as the complexity of the image degrades was determined. For example, we investigated whether the level of retinal DA release decreased as image contrast decreased. In addition, the effects of spatial frequency, spatial energy distribution slope, and spatial phase on retinal DA release and eye growth were examined. When chicks were 8-days-old, a cone-lens imaging system was applied monocularly (+30 D, 3.3 cm cone). A short-term treatment period (6 hr) and a longer-term treatment period (4.5 days) were used. The short-term treatment tests for the acute reduction in DA release by the visual stimulus, as is seen with diffusers and lenses, whereas the 4.5 day point tests for reduction in DA release after more prolonged exposure to the visual stimulus. In the contrast study, 1.35 cyc/deg square wave grating targets of 95%, 67%, 45%, 12% or 4.2% contrast were used. Blank (0% contrast) targets were included for comparison. In the spatial frequency study, both sine and square wave grating targets with either 0.017 cyc/deg and 0.13 cyc/deg fundamental spatial frequencies and 95% contrast were used. In the spectral slope study, 30% root-mean-squared (RMS) contrast fractal noise targets with spectral fall-off of 1/f0.5, 1/f and 1/f2 were used. In the spatial alignment study, a structured Maltese cross (MX) target, a structured circular patterned (C) target and the scrambled versions of these two targets (SMX and SC) were used. Each treatment group comprised 6 chicks for ocular biometry (refraction and ocular dimension measurement) and 4 for analysis of retinal DA release. Vitreal dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) was analysed through ion-paired reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (HPLC-ED), as a measure of retinal DA release. For the comparison between retinal DA release and eye growth, large reductions in retinal DA release possibly due to the decreased light level inside the cone-lens imaging system were observed across all treated eyes while only those exposed to low contrast, low spatial frequency sine wave grating, 1/f2, C and SC targets had myopic shifts in refraction. Amongst these treatment groups, no acute effect was observed and longer-term effects were only found in the low contrast and 1/f2 groups. These findings suggest that retinal DA release does not causally link visual stimuli properties to eye growth, and these target induced changes in refractive development are not dependent on the level of retinal DA release. Retinal dopaminergic cells might be affected indirectly via other retinal cells that immediately respond to changes in the image contrast of the retinal image.

Effect of female sex hormones on Chlamydia trachomatis growth and gene expression

Transmissible diseases are re-emerging as a global problem, with Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) becoming endemic. Chlamydia trachomatis is the leading cause of bacterially-acquired STD worldwide, with the Australian cost of infection estimated at $90 - $160 million annually. Studies using animal models of genital tract Chlamydia infection suggested that the hormonal status of the genital tract epithelium at the time of exposure may influence the outcome of infection. Oral contraceptive use also increased the risk of contracting chlamydial infections compared to women not using contraception. Generally it was suggested that the outcome of chlamydial infection is determined in part by the hormonal status of the epithelium at the time of exposure. Using the human endolmetrial cell line ECC-1 this study investigated the effects of C. trachomatis serovar D infection, in conjunction with the female sex hormones, 17β-estradiol and progesterone, on chlamydial gene expression. While previous studies have examined the host response, this is the first study to examine C.trachomatis gene expression under different hormonal conditions. We have highlighted a basic model of C. trachomatis gene regulation in the presence of steroid hormones by identifying 60 genes that were regulated by addition of estradiol and/or progesterone. In addition, the third chapter of this thesis discussed and compared the significance of the current findings in the context of data from other research groups to improve our understanding of the molecular basis of chlamydial persistence under hormonal different conditions. In addition, this study analysed the effects of these female sex hormones and C. trachomatis Serovar D infection, on host susceptibility and bacterial growth. Our results clearly demonstrated that addition of steroid hormones not only had a great impact on the level of infectivity of epithelial cells with C.trachomatis serovar D, but also the morphology of chlamydial inclusions was affected by hormone supplementation.

Entrepreneurship and family firms : growth and survival

Family businesses dominate in a majority of economies (Astrachan and Shanker, 2003; Chrisman, Chua, and Sharma, 2005; Morck and Yeung, 2004). As entrepreneurial activities have been shown to be central to economic growth it is essential that family businesses, irrespective of ownership patterns, not only survive but also grow thus growing the economy overall. While a great deal is known about entrepreneurial activities and a body of knowledge is being developed in relation to entrepreneurial processes in family firms, more needs to be understood in relation to the dynamics of entrepreneurial activities at the individual family firm level. One area of particular interest is the dynamics within the business and the family and how these dynamics impact upon entrepreneurial activities. Specifically how relationships between and among family members engaged in the business can interact with professional non-family member senior executives. The senior executives can actively use their positions in such ways that initiatives suggested by family members are less successful than they might be. This paper addresses how ‘family’ aspects of a business can assist or impede the entrepreneurial activities of individuals. It takes into account some of the unique features of family businesses – such as the importance of ‘familiness’ as a competitive advantage; the direct links between ownership and control of a business and the recognition (often implicit) that individuals in families do make a difference to how the business functions (Habbershon and Williams, 1999, Sharma, 2004; and Tokarczyk, Hansen Green, and Down, 2007). This emphasis on individuals in families fits well with the idea of entrepreneur as individual, as expressed by Schumpeter (1934), Baumol et al (2007). The theoretical approach that adopted to explore the dynamics of processes occurring within family firms is structuration theory combined with a theory of embeddeness (Dacin, Ventresca and Beal, 1999; Giddens, 1979, 1984, Jack and Anderson, 2002; and Sarason, Dean and Dillard, 2006).

Internal audit quality, audit committee independence, growth opportunities and firm performance

This study explores whether the relation between internal audit quality and firm performance is associated with firm characteristics of information asymmetry and uncertainty (growth opportunities) and certain governance controls (audit committee effectiveness). The results from this preliminary study of 60 Malaysian companies show that the association between internal audit quality and firm performance is stronger for firms with high growth opportunities and that this positive association is weakened by increasing audit committee independence. These findings demonstrate the internal auditors conflicting roles and question the governance recommendations that require all members of the audit committee to be non-executive directors.

Urban growth management for sustainable urbanization : examples from Asia-Pacific city regions

During the past three decades cities in the Asia-Pacific region have undergone massive transformations, characterised by rapid population growth and urbanisation. The rapid pace of globalisation and economic restructuring has resulted in these cities receiving the full impact of urbanisation pressures. In attempting to ease these pressures, major cities have advocated growth management approaches that give particular interest to sustainable urbanization and emphasise compact and optimum development of urban forms. This paper seeks to provide an insight into sustainable urbanisation practice, particularly on the promotion of compact urbanisation within Asia-Pacific’s fastest growing regions. The finding shows that within the context of resource constraints, sustainable urbanisation has been a key factor in the adoption of urban growth management initiatives promoting viable use of scarce resources for urban expansion.

Factors affecting reproductive performance of the prawn, Penaeus monodon

The growth of the Penaeus monodon prawn aquaculture industry in Australia is hampered by a reliance on wild-caught broodstock. This species has proven difficult to breed from if broodstock are reared in captivity. Studies were therefore carried out to investigate factors controlling reproduction and influencing egg quality. Results of the studies revealed that patterns of nutrient accumulation during early ovary development are altered by captive conditions, possibly contributing to reduce larval quality. The sinus gland hormones were shown, together with the environment, to regulate two stages of ovary development. In a separate study it was further revealed that the hormone methyl farnesoate (MF) could negatively regulate the final stages of ovary development. Lastly it was shown that broodstock reared in captivity are less likely to mate and that this is due to inherent problems in both the male and the female prawns.

Internetalisation : the Internet's influence on international market growth in the firm's outward internationalisation process

It has been suggested that the Internet is the most significant driver of international trade in recent years to the extent that the term =internetalisation‘ has been coined (Bell, Deans, Ibbotson & Sinkovics, 2001; Buttriss & Wilkinson, 2003). This term is used to describe the Internet‘s affect on the internationalisation process of the firm. Consequently, researchers have argued that the internationalisation process of the firm has altered due to the Internet, hence is in need of further investigation. However, as there is limited research and understanding, ambiguity remains in how the Internet has influenced international market growth. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore how the Internet influences firms‘ internationalisation process, specifically, international market growth. To this end, Internet marketing and international market growth theories are used to illuminate this ambiguity in the body of knowledge. Thus, the research problem =How and why does the Internet influence international market growth of the firm’ is justified for investigation. To explore the research question a two-stage approach is used. Firstly, twelve case studies were used to evaluate key concepts, generate hypotheses and to develop a model of Internetalisation for testing. The participants held key positions within their firm, so that rich data could be drawn from international market growth decision makers. Secondly, a quantitative confirmation process analysed the identified themes or constructs, using two hundred and twenty four valid responses. Constructs were evaluated through an exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling process. Structural equation modelling was used to test the model of =internetalisation‘ to examine the interrelationships between the internationalisation process components: information availability, information usage, interaction communication, international mindset, business relationship usage, psychic distance, the Internet intensity of the firm and international market growth. This study found that the Internet intensity of the firm mediates information availability, information usage, international mindset, and business relationships when firms grow in international markets. Therefore, these results provide empirical evidence that the Internet has a positive influence on international information, knowledge, entrepreneurship and networks and these in turn influence international market growth. The theoretical contributions are three fold. Firstly, the study identifies a holistic model of the impact the Internet has had on the outward internationalisation of the firm. This contribution extends the body of knowledge pertaining to Internet international marketing by mapping and confirming interrelationships between the Internet, internationalisation and growth concepts. Secondly, the study highlights the broad scope and accelerated rate of international market growth of firms. Evidence that the Internet influences the traditional and virtual networks for the pursuit of international market growth extends the current understanding. Thirdly, this study confirms that international information, knowledge, entrepreneurship and network concepts are valid in a single model. Thus, these three contributions identify constructs, measure constructs in a multi-item capacity, map interrelationships and confirm single holistic model of ‗internetalisation‘. The main practical contribution is that the findings identified information, knowledge and entrepreneurial opportunities for firms wishing to maximise international market growth. To capitalise on these opportunities suggestions are offered to assist firms to develop greater Internet intensity and internationalisation capabilities. From a policy perspective, educational institutions and government bodies need to promote more applied programs for Internet international marketing. The study provides future researchers with a platform of identified constructs and interrelationships related to internetalisation, with which to investigate. However, a single study has limitations of generalisability; thus, future research should replicate this study. Such replication or cross validation will assist in the verification of scales used in this research and enhance the validity of causal predications. Furthermore, this study was undertaken in the Australian outward-bound context. Research in other nations, as well as research into inbound internationalisation would be fruitful.

Vitronectin modulates human mesenchymal stem cell response to insulin-like growth factor-I and transforming growth factor beta 1 in a serum-free environment

The use of animal sera for the culture of therapeutically important cells impedes the clinical use of the cells. We sought to characterize the functional response of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) to specific proteins known to exist in bone tissue with a view to eliminating the requirement of animal sera. Insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), via IGF binding protein-3 or -5 (IGFBP-3 or -5) and transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta(1)) are known to associate with the extracellular matrix (ECM) protein vitronectin (VN) and elicit functional responses in a range of cell types in vitro. We found that specific combinations of VN, IGFBP-3 or -5, and IGF-I or TGF-beta(1) could stimulate initial functional responses in hMSCs and that IGF-I or TGF-beta(1) induced hMSC aggregation, but VN concentration modulated this effect. We speculated that the aggregation effect may be due to endogenous protease activity, although we found that neither IGF-I nor TGF-beta(1) affected the functional expression of matrix metalloprotease-2 or -9, two common proteases expressed by hMSCs. In summary, combinations of the ECM and growth factors described herein may form the basis of defined cell culture media supplements, although the effect of endogenous protease expression on the function of such proteins requires investigation.