The authors examine the value-destroying and value-enhancing effects of a giant player's foreign entry on incumbents operating in that region. They use Wal-Mart's entry into the United Kingdom, through its acquisition of Asda, as the empirical context. Drawing on the marketing, strategy, and finance literature streams, the authors develop hypotheses as to why some incumbents are negatively affected whereas others actually may benefit from the entry of a giant competitor. Their measure of performance impact is the change in shareholder value around the announcement date, which has recently been recognized as an important metric to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing actions. The authors find strong support for the conceptual model, which distinguishes between the seriousness of the threat to the incumbents and their capacity to withstand the threat. The authors validate their findings using three alternative measures of company performance: percentage growth in the incumbent retailer's sales, earnings before interest and taxes, and return on assets between 1998 (the year before the Asda takeover) and 2002 (three years after the takeover). The authors discuss various managerial implications of their results. By acting proactively, incumbents can mitigate the negative performance consequences, while maximally benefiting from the positive implications of a giant competitor's entry.

"Business start-ups lack prior history and reputation, face high failure risk, and have highly concentrated ownership. The resulting information and incentive problems, combined with entrepreneurial private benefits of control, affect initial financing decisions. This paper examines simultaneously the impact of these issues on leverage, debt mix and maturity. We find that start-ups with high adverse selection and risk shifting problems contract less bank debt but compensate with other debt sources. Start-ups in growing industries have lower leverage, but raise more bank debt. Entrepreneurs with large private control benefits contract less but longer term bank loans to lower the default probability." Copyright 2007 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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This paper empirically investigates the forces that shape the post-entry exit probability of entrepreneurial start-ups, with an emphasis on the impact of incumbents' strategic behavior in financial markets. We find that entrepreneurial start-ups in highly competitive industries are more likely to exit and that leverage compounds this exit risk. However, the latter result only holds when potential adverse selection and moral hazard problems in financial markets are large at start-up. Under these circumstances, competitors can negatively influence creditors' perceptions on entrepreneurial quality or behavior through aggressive strategic actions to impede future financing and induce the start-up's exit.

This paper empirically examines the influence of operating activities and financial and investment decisions in the start-up year on post-entry survival, taking industry effects into account. Compared to traditional financial ratios, we find that funds flow measures are superior in identifying those start-up characteristics that are related to subsequent failure. In the first year, failed firms typically generate less cash flows, incur higher labour expenses, use more trade credit and financial debt, limit inventories and are cash constrained. Surprisingly, industry effects do not have a significant impact. From these results, we draw conclusions for public policy. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000.