Irene Daskalopoulou

Utilising a farm typology to identify potential adopters of alternative farming activities in Greek agriculture

Farm household survival strategies are acknowledged to determine the adoption of alternative farm enterprises as part of the farm households production and reproduction pattern and are, thus, used to identify the potential adopters of such enterprises. The present work utilises an ideal typology of Greek farms in order to identify different types of farms as regards their mode of survival. Each survival strategy is linked to different motives for and constraints against the adoption of alternative farm enterprises. Results show that three types of farm households may be identified, namely subsistence, survivalist and productivist farm households. The potential adopters of alternative farm enterprises may be traced among farm households that pursue a survivalist mode of production. It is argued that the diversity of farm structures observed within this type of farm households cannot be regarded as the decisive factor as far as their mode of survival is concerned. Rather, it is considered to form a context of different motivations for and constraints against the adoption of alternative farming activities.

Urban Tourism Competitiveness: Networks and the Regional Asset Base

Firms are acknowledged to be important actors involved in the deployment of resources available to a tourism destination. In turn, successful tourism firms can contribute to building the competitive advantage of tourism destinations through affecting a destinations tourism product or service. The present study analyses business performance in urban tourism using networks and entrepreneurial perceptions over a citys asset base as a framework of competitive performance. Business performance is measured in terms of productive efficiency—that is, technical and scale efficiency. Results indicate that networks and entrepreneurial perceptions of a citys asset base constitute important determinants of the successful operation of tourism businesses.

Social capital and innovation in the services sector

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of social capital on innovation through the analysis of the selective nature of network alliances in the tourism sector which is subject to a complex competition – cooperation context.Design/methodology/approach – The paper approximates social capital via active and purposeful engagement in network alliances and estimates several probit models in order to test for the effect of social capital on innovation activity using cross‐section tourism data for Greece.Findings – Overall results indicate that a firms knowledge base is conducive to innovation activity. Nevertheless, the explanatory power of knowledge base variables weakens once the underlying social capital generation mechanisms are taken into consideration. The selective nature of network links is also evidenced.Research limitations/implications – The use of cross‐section data might be viewed as a limitation. Nevertheless, the robust methodological approach and the very satisfactory fit of the ...

Service quality and store performance: some evidence from Greece

Purpose – To contribute to the largely unexplored issue of directly assessing the effect of service quality factors on store performance.Design/methodology/approach – Service quality is decomposed into tangible elements, such as store size and personnel. A binary probit model is utilized in order to analyze the effect of various service quality factors on the probability that a store performs above average compared with its competitors.Findings – Results indicate that the store size, product variety, location and belonging to chain, variables exert the largest positive effect upon the probability that a store experiences above‐average performance.Research limitations/implications – The present study suffers the limitation of a rather small usable questionnaires sample, albeit that the very satisfactory fit of the estimated econometric model allows for the findings to be a reliable comparison basis with future findings.Practical implications – The approach proposed here can be widely used for empirical inv...

Innovation and Small Firms’ Growth Prospects: Relational Proximity and Knowledge Dynamics in a Low-tech Industry

The paper tests the hypothesis that innovation activity determines the growth prospects of small low-tech firms. Innovation here is analysed as a function of a firms knowledge base and the relational proximity processes it is involved in. Analysis refers to small and medium- sized enterprises in tourism under the premise that important insights might be provided as regards to the functioning of innovation processes in low-tech industries.

Rent seeking or corruption? An analysis of income satisfaction and perceptions of institutions in Greece

Abstract The paper analyses the relationship between market allocations of income and individuals’ perceptions over certain institutional characteristics in order to shed light on the underlying societal and business attitudes toward rent-seeking and corruption. The theoretical context is used to construct a set of five hypotheses which are empirically tested with the use of subjective micro data provided by the European Social Value survey. Results indicate that the distinction between rent-seeking and corruption as drawn from subjective micro perceptions is indeed a challenging task. In particular, results regarding the society in general indicate that certain institutional characteristics seem to be understood as a search of governmental efficiency rather than as corruption. In the case of the entrepreneurs, evidence is provided over the pursuit of rent-seeking activities. Entrepreneurs are in favor of the existence of social state institutions which however should operate in a free market economy that allows individuals to perform political lobbying and take advantage of opportunities even when these are not along the lines of productive entrepreneurship.

Is productive inefficiency a fatal disease? The effects of technical and scale efficiency in firm exit: the case of the Greek rubber and plastic industry

This article presents an integrated framework for testing the effects of productive efficiency, i.e. technical efficiency (TE) and scale efficiency (SE), on firm exit, facilitating the identification of the effects, causing a firms operation at increasing or decreasing returns to scale. A panel data set of firms in the plastics and rubber industry of the Greek manufacturing sector is used to study the effect that TE and SE may have on a firms probability to exit. Results reveal that technical efficiency is the most critical factor influencing firm exit, while SE exerts a quadratic effect on the probability to exit.

Regional determinants of manufacturing start-ups in Greece: evidence on the effect of agglomeration economies

This article analyses the regional determinants of manufacturing start-up ratios in Greece. Emphasis is placed on the effect of agglomeration economies, which are distinguished between urbanization and localization economies. The data refer to the establishments realized in the 51 Greek prefectures (NUTS III level) in 2005. Results indicate that negative urbanization economies prevail. Localization economies in the form of positive Marshallian and negative Jacobian externalities are observed and constitute important determinants of start-up ratios. Results regarding the effect of other factors such as expected demand and profit, cost and human resources factors are as anticipated.

A comparative study of business incubators and technoparks in the EU

The present study undertakes a comparative analysis of the development of business incubators and technoparks in the EU member countries. We estimate three intensity indicators for business incubators and technoparks activity and use both a uniform and a weighted rank order of the EU member countries to illustrate regional differences in the intensity of incubation activity within the EU. Exploratory analysis reveals that a countrys development level differentiates its ability to benefit from additive effects generated by the presence and operation of business incubators.

Satisfaction with democracy and social capital in Greece

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different types of social capital contribute to the satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in Greece. Understanding the relationship between different variants of social capital and SWD allows one to situate the Greek democracy in the continuum of democracy types, from primary to modern.,The study uses microdata extracted from the European Values Surveys of 2002-2010 and multivariate regression analysis.,The results are compatible with a conception of the Greek political organization as a civil virtue democracy. A change in the nature of the relationship is observed after the recent economic crisis in the country.,The study contributes to the empirical knowledge regarding the relationship between different variants of social capital and SWD.,Using a typology approach, the micro-relationship between democracy and social capital is analyzed as embedded in a continuum of different democracy types. In addition, this is the first study that uses microdata to analyze the effect of social capital upon SWD in Greece. The results of the study provide valuable understanding of the social and institutional arrangements that might sustain Greece’s efforts to meet its overall developmental challenges.