Who Enters, Where, and Why? The Influence of Capabilities and Initial Resource Endowments on the Location Choices of De Novo Enterprises

Are all startups affected similarly by clusters? Agglomeration, competition, firm heterogeneity, and survival

“…Following the established literature on agglomeration (McCann and Folta, 2008;Rosenthal and Strange, 2006) but opening up the distinct theoretical mechanisms, we next develop hypotheses for the beneficial effects of (1) the level of local skilled labor, defined here as the number of employees within an economic area and focal industry relative to the nationwide number of employees in that industry; (2) the level of specialized suppliers, defined here as the number of suppliers to a focal industry within an economic area, weighted by the importance of the focal industry to these suppliers; and (3) the level of purchasers, defined as the number of customers of a focal industry located in the same economic area, weighted by the importance of the focal industry to these customers. Next we examine the detrimental effects of the local level of competition, which we define in line with prior studies of agglomeration in an inverse employment-based Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (e.g., Pe'er et al, 2008). We then introduce the moderating effects of total assets and the firm's quality of human capital compared to competitors.…”

“…Other studies have tried to account for such heterogeneity among firms with the help of different forms of fixed-effect models that control for unobservable factors related to cross-sectional structures yet do not provide an insight into the roles that this heterogeneity plays in determining firms' performance (Lomi, 1995;Pe'er et al, 2008). Research in the resource-based view of strategic management (Barney, 1991;Helfat and Lieberman, 2002;Peteraf, 1993;Sapienza et al, 2006;Sharma and Kesner, 1996), and on strategic entrepreneurship in particular (Hitt et al, 2001;Ireland et al, 2003), however, suggest that firms' heterogeneity is central to understanding the behavior of new ventures, as well as the effects of this behavior on survival.…”

“…First, we use the ratio of firms per employee in a given three-digit industry and economic region. This measure is very common in the industrial organization literature and has been used in the agglomeration literature (Glaeser et al, 1992;Henderson, 2003;Pe'er et al, 2008;Rosenthal and Strange, 2003). Measuring local competition in the manner just described, Glaeser et al (1992) find that an increase in competition is positively associated with the growth of surviving local companies.…”

Industrial Dynamics and Clusters: A Survey

“…In a recent study, RIGBY and BROWN (2013) indeed found such effects using various indicators for competences. A more refined hypothesis could be that the relationship between firm competence and localisation economies is bell-shaped, with firms with intermediate levels of capabilities profiting most from clustering as some minimum capabilities are necessary to be able to absorb knowledge from nearby firms (COHEN and LEVINTHAL, 1989;PE'ER et al, 2008;VAN OORT et al, 2012). Such a hypothesis links to the literature on the location of multinational firms, where it has been argued that firms with the most advanced capabilities have most to lose to competing firms in a cluster (SHAVER and FLYER, 2000), unless these are difficult and costly to learn by others (ALCÁCER and CHUNG, 2010 Regarding the specific mechanism of knowledge spillovers, the use of network analysis on collaboration data has been shown to be promising.…”

Technologiebasierte Spin-offs – Ein Forschungsüberblick zu Einflussgrößen ihrer Entwicklung

“…B. ausgebildetem Personal, Kooperationspartnern, wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen, Kapitalgebern und Infrastruktureinrichtungen, gesichert werden (vgl. Audretsch et al 2005;Nelsen 2005;Pe'er et al 2008;Rothaermel und Thursby 2005). Die Standortentscheidung beeinflusst auch die Nähe und den Zugang zu regionalen Absatzmärkten, die besonders für Güter mit hohen Transportkosten bzw.…”