Birgit Hagen

The International Growth of e-Commerce Ventures

At the beginning of the internet era in the 1990s, the hypothesis of a borderless world was put forward and profound changes in international business practices were imagined (for example, Quelch and Klein, 1996; Hamill, 1997). Hamill (1997, p.300) saw the internet as ‘a fundamentally different environment … and new international marketing paradigms may have to be developed to explain internationalization processes’.

Acquired Trademarks and Family Business: Insights from the European Manufacturing Industry

Objectives . This study investigates the impact of corporate governance on the relationship between intangible assets and firm performance. The difference between internally and externally generated intangibles, ie trademarks, is taken into account. Methodology . A regression analysis is employed on 86 listed manufacturing companies across Europe, namely, Italy, Germany, France, Spain and the UK. Findings . We find that externally acquired trademarks per se do not affect firm performance. Family governance has a negative moderating impact on this relationship: too much family can jeopardize the positive effect of externally acquired trademarks on firm growth. Research limits . Our analysis is based on listed firms, which limits analysis to relatively larger firms. Smaller firms might follow different logics and are thus an interesting target for future research. Moreover, the analysis considers only brands which were codified and capitalized through trademarks reported in accounting statements: it excludes the (significant) informal and tacit side of reputation and recognition. Notwithstanding this limit, our approach allows to develop a quantitative analysis based on objective data. Practical implications . From a managerial point of view, the better understanding of the effects of trademark acquisition under different forms of governance enables the evaluation and optimization of trademark-related investments. Originality of the study . We bridge the open innovation stream of research with the family business perspective and add an additional hitherto understudied type of intangibles, ie trademark, to the respective areas of research.