Anne S. York

The Effects of Geography and Age on Women's Attitudes towards Entrepreneurship Evidence from the State of Nebraska

This study examines the role of geography and age on mens and womens attitudes towards entrepreneurship. The authors use data collected through a telephone survey of a large-scale sample of adult residents of Nebraska, a state in the Midwestern USA. Data reveal that in Nebraska the number of younger men and women intending to start their own businesses is increasing. It was also found that rural women favoured more entrepreneurial education and believed more strongly in the importance of contributing economically to their communities than did rural men. The findings highlight the need for providing additional entrepreneurial training and assistance targeted at women, which in turn may lead to their playing a greater role in economic development.

University technology transfer office success factors: a comparative case study

This study reviews the literature involving critical factors contributing to university technology transfer office success and then examines those factors within a stratified sample of four comparative case studies of peer university technology transfer offices. Two models of relative success and failure emerged, based on similarities and differences along the eight factors identified in the literature. Two additional success factors emerged during the course of the research. The ways in which technology transfer offices organised the commercialisation process, along with the degree of focus on both internal and external website utility, also seemed to play a significant role in university technology transfer office success.

The impact of structural prescriptions on joint venture survival

Prior research on joint ventures using both legal and strategic perspectives provides several transaction cost‐based prescriptions for structuring joint ventures to minimize the threat of opportunistic behavior by venture partners. However, the effects of these prescriptions on the subsequent survival of the alliance are largely untested. Using survey data from senior managers responsible for alliance participation to explore these relationships, results show that many of the prescriptions that impact venture formation also impact survival, but in a somewhat different and more complex manner than previously thought. Managers desiring to influence the long‐term survival of a joint venture should focus on the factors that best fulfill their goals for the partnership. By clarifying these issues we seek to inform our understanding of how the transaction cost‐based prescriptions influence alliance survival, enhance managers’ ability to capture the gains from this potentially valuable strategic tool, and raise important considerations for future research.

Vertical Versus Horizontal Integration in the Biopharma Industry: The Link between Acquisition Announcements and Stock Market Performance

Declining productivity and disappointing lack of profitability after three decades of biotechnology commercialization, despite enormous investment and the great promise of breakthrough solutions, have led researchers to question whether traditional horizontal acquisition strategies result in superior firm performance. Our chapter explores the answer to this question as well as to the role that disclosure plays in this important emerging industry. Using standard event study methodology, we examine differences in market performance of vertical versus horizontal acquisition strategies, along with the role played by the amount of information disclosed in the announcement. Our results suggest that vertical acquisitions underperform horizontal acquisitions, with the amount of disclosure playing a role in the markets ability to react to a firms acquisition strategy accurately and quickly. Our results suggest that accountants who have called for additional disclosure, especially in complex industries such as biopharma, are correct in assuming that nonfinancial information plays a significant role in investors’ valuation of an acquisition event. Managers of biopharma firms, however, are cautioned that more disclosure, through the reduction of uncertainty, may result in lower market valuations for acquirers.

BIOTECHNOLOGY INNOVATION: A LEGITIMACY-BASED VIEW

Disruptive technology platforms from emerging companies hold great promise for exploiting innovation, but often face legitimacy hurdles due to their liability of newness. Nascent firms must learn new roles with limited precedent, and establish ties with an environment that may not fully understand or value their existence. Using a legitimacy-based lens in the context of the biotechnology industry, we posit a sequential construct — cognitive, regulative, and normative legitimacy — to evaluate emergent technology platforms. Our model of biotechnology platform emergence may provide insights for understanding how breakthroughs achieve legitimacy in the scientific community, mobilize resources and talent, and attain commercial success.