The Incubator Hypothesis: Evidence from Five Cities

The purpose of this paper is to review the past evidence and to offer some new data to assess whether the incubator hypothesis can be empirically supported. In particular the two general aspects of the hypothesis will be tested. First, we will examine the proposition that highly centralized locations are attracting a disproportionate number of new firms and/or the employment associated with new firms. Second, we will test the hypothesis that new firms which are formed in high density areas move outward from such sites in their early years of existence in order to expand their productive activities. We refer to these as the "simple and "dynamic" hypotheses in the rest of the paper. Our analysis is based on the experience of all manufacturers in several U.S. cities. We recognize that it is quite possible that the hypothesis could hold for certain industries even if it is unsupported for all firms together. Our intent, however, is to test the validity of the hypothesis as a general theory of intraurban location behavior. The paper consists of three sections. The first two present evidence on the "simple" and "dynamic" hypotheses. The final section summarizes our findings and offers some conclusions.

Induction of Pluripotency in Human Keratinocytes Through mRNA Transfection

INDUCTION OF PLURIPOTENCY IN HUMAN KERATINOCYTES THROUGH mRNA TRANSFECTION. Robert D. Leone, Peter M. Rabinovich, Eugenie Cheng, Efim Golub, and Sherman M. Weissman. Department of Genetics, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are epigenetically reprogrammed somatic cells that exhibit developmental and proliferative characteristics of embryonic stem (ES) cells. Other than alterations made during the reprogramming process, iPS cells are genotypically identical to donor tissue, giving them significant potential in regenerative medicine, basic biology of genetic disease, and drug development. Presently, iPS cell derivation largely relies on the introduction of reprogramming factors (eg, OCT4, SOX2, KLF4, c-MYC) directly into cellular genomes, leaving cells vulnerable to insertional mutagenesis and persistent expression of oncogenic transcription factors. This severely limits their use in clinical and research settings. Here we describe the reprogramming of human keratinocytes through the introduction of exogenous mRNA transcripts. mRNA presence within cells is transient and is unlikely to have permanent effects on the cellular genome, thus avoiding the pitfalls of present methods of iPS cell generation. Several benchmarks have been achieved toward this end, includ-ing: 1) successful expression in human cells of reprogramming factor proteins through the introduction of exogenous mRNA transcripts; 2) phenotypic transformation of human keratinocytes toward ES cell morphology by transfection with mRNA reprogramming factors; and 3) alkaline phosphatase activity (a well described early marker of pluripotency) in a small proportion of transformed cells. These results imply that mRNA transfection may be a viable method for reprogramming somatic cells towards pluripotency

Psychological Implications of Customer Participation in Co-Production

This is the published version. Copyright 2003 by the American Association of Marketing.Customer participation in the production of goods and services appears to be growing. The marketing literature has largely focused on the economic implications of this trend and has not addressed customers’ potential psychological responses to participation. The authors draw on the social psychological literature on the self-serving bias and conduct two studies to examine the effects of participation on customer satisfaction. Study 1 shows that consistent with the self-serving bias, given an identical outcome, customer satisfaction with a firm differs depending on whether a customer participates in production. Study 2 shows that providing customers a choice in whether to participate mitigates the self-serving bias when the outcome is worse than expected. The authors present theoretical and practical implications and provide directions for further research

Cartographie de la vulnérabilité des populations face aux phénomènes volcaniques et aux lahars du Mont Pinatubo (Philippines) : cas du bassin de la rivière Pasig-Potrero (province de Pampanga)

International audienceThis study aims at assessing the vulnerability of populations in the Pasig-Potrero River basin, who are threatened by the recurrent lahars of Mt Pinatubo volcano (Philippines) in the aftermath of its 1991 eruption. A survey, carried out between February and March 1998, enabled us to define and to map different levels of risk perception, the quality of potential behavioural patterns in the event of further lahars, and attitudes in the event of an evacuation order. It was then possible to work out a classification and to map the patterns of human vulnerability in the study area. This study points out that, while risk perception is quite high, some problems remain, notably concerning the warning systems and the behaviour of the population in the case of an evacuation. Theses results should assist in elaborating risk and disaster scenarios. They are intended to be used for operational purposes in crisis management such as the organization of disaster relief, and in land use planning

Managing Business-to-Business Customer Relationships Following Key Contact Employee Turnover in a Vendor Firm

This is the published version. Copyright 2002 by the American Marketing Association.Customers form relationships with the employees who serve them as well as with the vendor firms these employees represent. In many cases, a customer’s relationship with an employee who is closest to them, a key contact employee, may be stronger than the customer’s relationship with the vendor firm. If the key contact employee is no longer available to serve that customer, the vendor firm’s relationship with the customer may become vulnerable. In this article, the authors present the results of two studies that examine what business-to-business customers value in their relationships with key contact employees, what customers’ concerns are when a favored key contact employee is no longer available to serve them, and what vendor firms can do to alleviate these concerns and to retain employee knowledge even if they cannot retain the employee in that position. The studies are based on a discovery-oriented approach and integrate input from business-to-business customers, key contact employees, and managers from a broad cross-section of companies to develop testable propositions. The authors discuss managerial and theoretical implications and directions for further research

The Theoretical Separation of Brand Equity and Brand Value: Managerial Implications for Strategic Planning

During the past 15 years, brand equity has been a priority topic for both practitioners and academics. In this paper, the authors propose a new framework for conceptualizing brand equity that distinguishes between brand equity, conceived of as an intrapersonal construct that moderates the impact of marketing activities, and brand value, which is the sale or replacement value of a brand. Such a distinction is important because, from a managerial perspective, the ultimate goal of brand management and brand equity research should be to understand how to leverage equity to create value

Postscript: Preserving (and Growing) Brand Value in a Downturn

We have taken the opportunity provided by the current worldwide recession to further explore the implications of the relationship between brand equity and brand value that we proposed previously,1,2 and our analysis reveals that companies have one of two strategic options for surviving. The “Just Good Enough” strategy maximizes current value, potentially hurting brand equity and appropriable value (or potential future value) in the process, while the “Altered Amortization” strategy offers an opportunity to chase current value while maintaining brand equity with current prospects and activating latent equity with potential prospects, which may increase appropriable value. Anything between these two is a non-viable long-term strategy and companies hoping to ride it out “in the middle” may not make it. We explain both of these strategies below and offer a framework for analyzing which one is right for your brand