Mary L. Williams

A Resource-Based Framework for Assessing the Strategic Advantages of Family Firms

The Resource-Based View (RBV) of competitive advantage provides a theoretical framework from the field of strategic management for assessing the competitive advantages of family firms. The RBV isolates idiosyncratic resources that are complex, intangible, and dynamic within a particular firm. The bundle of resources that are distinctive to a firm as a result of family involvement are identified as the “familiness” of the firm. This approach provides a research and practice method for assessing the specific behavioral and social phenomena within a firm that provide an advantage. Using a familiness model for assessing competitive advantage overcomes many of the problems associated with the generic claim that family companies have an advantage over nonfamily companies. It also provides a unified systems perspective of family firm performance.

Discontinuance among new firms in retail: The influence of initial resources, strategy, and gender

Abstract Women-owned businesses represent one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. economy. Their rate has increased more than six-fold since 1970. Despite this growth rate, the number of firms owned by women still lags behind that of men, and the sales and income of women-owned firms are significantly lower than those of men-owned firms. The discrepancy between the number of businesses owned by women and men and their economic success has been a popular theme among researchers. Some have suggested that performance differentials result from disparate structural positions women and men occupy in work and society, whereas others attribute the differences to deep rooted interpersonal orientations. This study examines whether the performance differences can be explained by variations in initial resources and founding strategy. We test whether women have fewer start-up resources, and if they do, whether they can compensate for these deficiencies through their founding strategy. Recent work in social psychology argues that strategic choice is shaped by experiences to which individuals have been subjected, and that women and men have fundamentally different socialization experiences. We test the assumption that if the strategy that women-owners adopt exploits the unique capabilities they derive from their socialization, they can improve the performance of their firms and ward off discontinuance. We examine the discontinuance pattern of 203 new firms in the retail industry. This industry was selected because women entrepreneurs often choose to operate in this industry, giving us a basis for comparing women-owned and men-owned firms. We classify the firms into six strategy archetypes. The arche-types range from a broad focus where founders emphasize multiple strategic foci simultaneously to narrowly targeted differentiation strategies. We assume that the experiential base of women entrepreneurs limits their successfully executing pricing strategies. We hypothesize that women-led firms decrease the odds of discontinuing by adopting one of two strategy types: (1) narrow differentiation strategies that seek to satisfy a narrow segment of the market and that do not rely on “pricing,” or (2) broad “generalists” strategies that emphasize service and quality but not pricing, and take advantage of womens capability for handling multiple stakeholders simultaneously. The results offer support for using an integrative model to explain the performance of women-owned firms. Women-owned firms have higher odds of discontinuing than men-owned firms, and women appear to have fewer resources to start their businesses. Women owners were less likely to have instrumental experience from working in the retail industry and start their businesses on a smaller scale then men but were no less likely then their male counterparts to have access to credit from formal financial institutions, or to be disadvantaged by starting fewer other new businesses. Despite some apparent situational disadvantage, resource deficiencies do not appear to affect the odds of women-owned businesses discontinuing as much as they do men-owned initiatives. The findings indicate support for the supposition that women owners can use founding strategy to decrease the odds of discontinuing business. A broad generalists strategy that represents a multi-focused approach was found to benefit women-owned businesses most. Overall, the results suggest that men use prior business experience and human capital to affect the survival status of their businesses. Women appear to find strategic choice more beneficial. Future research is recommended to further elaborate the integrative model. Special attention should be given to developing alternatives to measures traditionally used in gender research. Many researchers charge that those typically used reflect male derived measures. Similarly, greater attention should be given to understanding why the scale of women-owned businesses at start-up is substantially smaller than that of men, since scale has been shown to be related to subsequent growth and survival.

Gender Differences in Economic Knowledge: An Extension of the Analysis

Least-squares regression results show no consistent evidence that gender differences exist in college student performances on economic exams. Males do not perform better on questions requiring quantitative skills, nor do females perform better on questions requiring verbal skills.

The impact of parental occupation and socioeconomic status on choice of college major

This study examines the effects of socioeconomic status and parental occupation on choice of college major, with special attention directed toward female and male differences. The study uses multinomial logit analysis and data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 1990 Survey of Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS). Having a father in a professional or executive occupation has a larger effect on female students than does having a mother in a similar occupation. The opposite holds for males. Women from families with high socioeconomic status are less likely to major in business; the opposite holds for males. Students who believe that being very well off financially is very important are more likely to major in business than are other students.

Relatedness and corporate venturing: Does it really matter?☆

Abstract Although many studies have focused on the issue of relatedness in corporate venturing, it is still unclear whether high or low levels of relatedness between a new venture and the parent firm leads to success as measured by venture performance. In this study, we raise the question of whether or not relatedness plays a determinant role in affecting success at the venture level. The study analyzes data on 88 new industrial product corporate ventures from STR4, the corporate start-up database of the PIMS project. Based on a review of the strategic management and corporate entrepreneurship literature, this study generates five hypotheses concerning the relationships among relatedness, the intangible assets of the parent firm, the entry strategy of the new venture, and the ventures market share. Two rival hypotheses on the general impact of relatedness on venture performance are generated. Theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that highly related ventures benefit from existing resources, exploiting corporate know-how, and sharing experience effects. This leads to the first hypothesis which states that high-related ventures achieve higher market shares relative to low-related ventures. On the other hand, the disadvantages generally associated with high levels of relatedness—such as higher coordination costs, political problems associated with resource sharing—appear to negatively affect the profitability (e.g.,R01) or the direct costs of the venture, leading to the rival hypothesis. Results indicate that there are no significant differences in the market shares achieved by high-, medium- and low-related ventures and that, therefore, relatedness does not affect venture performance. The third hypothesis predicts that, given the parent firm has developed high levels of intangible assets, high-related ventures achieve higher market shares than low-related ventures. Prior research has shown that intangible assets have a positive effect on venture performance. High-related ventures make possible higher levels of exploitation of the intangible assets held by the parent firm than low-related ventures, other things being equal. If well managed, these assets can neutralize the negative effects of high-relatedness, thus a positive interaction between relatedness and intangible assets should take place. Results support the hypothesis and show that the highest market shares are achieved by those ventures with high levels of relatedness and high levels of intangible assets. Two rival hypotheses concerning relatedness and its effects on the aggressiveness of entry strategy of the venture (as measured by relative price, relative promotional effort, and relative product quality) are generated. The first hypothesis states that the more related the venture, the more aggressive the entry strategy. High-relatedness implies high levels of resource sharing that should decrease the incremental costs needed to launch the venture. Thus high-related ventures have greater amounts of resources to be used for aggressive entry strategies than low-related ventures. The rival hypothesis states that the less related the venture, the more aggressive the entry strategy. There is empirical evidence that increased resource sharing is associated with increased direct costs. Thus, as compared with low-related ventures, high-related ventures might be handicapped in pursuing aggressive entry strategies. Results indicate that there is no significant relationship between relatedness and the aggressiveness of the entry strategy. Overall, this study suggests that the decision concerning the degree of relatedness does not explain, by itself, venture performance—nor does it explain the entry strategy chosen at the venture level. Only when combined with the intangible assets held by the firm at the corporate level does relatedness appear to determine venture success. Implications for practioners are: top management cannot decide a priori whether or not a new corporate venture should be highly related to the parent firm; high image firms should only venture in highly related businesses. Building image at the corporate level pays if various high-related ventures are present. Suggestions for further research are also offered.

Income and the recycling effort: a maximization problem

Abstract This paper theoretically derives the impact of changes in the households income on its trash recycling effort. Comparative statics are developed to derive the expression for the change in the amount recycled with a change in income. Each term in the expression is shown to have an economic interpretation. The magnitude and the likely signs of the terms are discussed in determining the direction of the net effect. Finally, empirical estimates from previous research are evaluated within the context of the implications of the theoretical derivations.

Intangible assets, entry strategies, and venture success in industrial markets

Abstract This study assesses the impact of intangible assets on the venture success of firms as they enter into industrial markets that are new to them. A “new” market is one that is geographically new for the firm or is a product market where this firm did not originally compete. The analysis is based on the Profit Impact of Market Strategy database, which contains information on 91 new ventures into industrial markets. Five hypothesis were tested in this study: 1. H1: High levels of intangible assets will be positively associated with performance of firms entering new markets. 2. H2: High levels of intangible assets increase the likelihood of success, regardless of the timing of entry. 3. H3: In explaining venture performance, there will be a positive interaction effect between promptness of entry and level of intangible assets. Pioneer entrants will benefit substantively more from high levels of intangible assets then will later entrants. 4. H4: High levels of intangible assets enhance success irrespective of aggressiveness of entry. 5. H5: In explaining performance, there will be a positive interaction between level of intangible assets and aggressiveness of entry—firms with high levels of intangible assets will gain substantively more from aggressive pricing, promotion, and high quality, than firms with low levels of intangible assets. One specific intangible asset (corporate image) is empirically analyzed, and the results support our hypotheses. A strong corporate image enables the firm to achieve greater success when they enter into new ventures, and the interaction of image with aggressive promotional, pricing, and quality strategies is significant in explaining this success. Implications for practioners are: high-image firms reap enormous benefits from increased promotional efforts, high quality, and aggressive entry. Low-image firms are severely penalized when they aggressively enter a market and may he better off entering the market slowly and at low prices.

Modelling Occupational Choice in Blue-Collar Labor Markets.

Abstract This paper presents rational, adaptive, and naive expectations models of the occupational choice of students in vocational and technical schools. The models were estimated using the method of Seemingly Unrelated Regressions. None of the three models consistently out-performed the other two. Vocational and technical school students were found to be responsive to the opportunity cost of their occupational choice. They were not necessarily responsive to the level of demand. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the students occupational choice is influenced in large part by variables such as parental occupations and attitudes toward vocational and technical education.