New dimensions on the economics of the entrepreneurial process

This thesis examines the transition of employees into entrepreneurship, with particular emphasis on the role of workplace characteristics in influencing this movement. The first main chapter examines whether the determinants of becoming an intrapreneur differ from those that support transitions into independent entrepreneurship. The results show that intrapreneurs resemble employees rather than entrepreneurs, contrary to what the entrepreneurship theory would suggest. Yet it shows that those intrapreneurs that expect to acquire an ownership stake in the business, unlike the rest of intrapreneurs, possess traditional entrepreneurial traits. Chapter 3 investigates how workers’ degree of specialisation determines their decision to found a firm. It shows that entrepreneurs emerging from small firms, i.e. generalists, transfer knowledge from more diverse aspects of the business and create firms more related to the main activity of their last employer. Workers in large firms, however, benefit from higher returns to human capital that increase their opportunity costs to switch to entrepreneurship. Since becoming an entrepreneur would make part of their specialised skills unutilised, the minimum quality of the idea at which they would be willing to leave will be higher and, therefore, entrepreneurs emerging from large firms will be of highest quality. Chapter 4 analyses whether the reason to terminate an employment contract is associated with the fact that the majority of entrepreneurs appear to set up their business after having worked for a small firm. Moreover, it studies how this pattern varies as the labour market conditions worsen. The effect of layoffs turns out to be a key driver in the entry to entrepreneurship and it is found to exert a greater effect the smaller the firm workers are dismissed from. This has been reflected in an overall larger flow of employees from small firms moving into entrepreneurship over the recession.

The impact of regulation and ownership structure on market orientation in the tourism industry in China

The nature of market orientation and its impact on business performance and other related outcomes have been extensively researched in a range of service contexts including tourism. In contrast, our understanding of the factors that influence market orientation is still limited. This paper reports on a study that contributes to our understanding of the determinants of market orientation within the tourism sector by focusing specifically on the role played by two strategically important variables, namely government regulation and ownership structure. The study analyses two national samples of hotels and travel services in the rapidly growing tourism industry in China. The hotel sector has been open to foreign investment for two decades and has a diversified ownership structure, whereas the travel services sector has been dominated by government owned firms and relatively closed to foreign investment. The results of the survey suggest that of the two new antecedents, only government regulation has a significant role to play in driving market orientation. Internally, access to appropriate managerial and marketing capabilities was identified as a significant predictor of the development of market orientation.

The return of the Prince of Denmark: a survey on recent developments in the economics of innovation

It is well known that innovation is the engine that drives the growth machine of modern capitalist economies. Therefore, not surprisingly, substantial attention has been devoted by economists to the process behind the production of innovations. Three areas have recently emerged as relevant in the field. These are: the impact of spillovers on productivity; the different forms of R&D cooperation and the role of patents in fostering innovations when these are cumulative. In this paper I summarise the relevant literature in these three areas by discussing where the current literature stands and what are its future developments.

The economics of copyright

The copyright industries — such as music, film, software and publishing — occupy a significant and growing share of economic activity. Current copyright law protects the creator for up to 70 years after their death, significantly longer than patent protection (20 years after invention). Copyright law aims to balance the incentive to create new work against the costs associated with high prices and restricted access to this work. This paper reviews the economic issues behind copyright and how these are challenged by changes in technology and market structure. While economics provides a powerful conceptual framework for understanding the trade-offs involved, the paper argues that our empirical knowledge base is very weak. Much more empirical analysis is needed to understand the impacts of changes to copyright legislation. Without such analysis, policy and legal debates will continue to be based largely on anecdote and rhetoric.