The Impact of State and Foreign Ownership on Post-Transition Industrial Concentration: The Case of Polish Manufacturing

This paper reports an analysis of the determinants of the level and changes in Polish industrial concentration in the early post-transition era. The empirical evidence is based on a panel of 144 Polish manufacturing industries over the period 1989-1993. The results suggest that both state and foreign ownership have a significant impact on industry concentration and this relationship is U-shaped. Minimum efficient scale is found to be the only other factor to impact on industry concentration.Post-transition; Foreign Direct Investment; State ownership; industry concentration

Firm Turnover, Restructuring and Labour Productivity in Transition: The Case of Poland

This paper explores the impact of turnover and restructuring on labour productivity in the Polish economy over the period 1988-1993. Changes in aggregate productivity are decomposed into elements corresponding to productivity growth among survivors, market share growth by survivors and the contributions of entering and exiting firms. The traditional entry and exit effects begin to work as transition to a market economy progresses. However, initial productivity improvements are due to changes to market shares of the existing firms following the break-up of large enterprises. Regression analysis shows that changes in the firm-level productivity are affected by restructuring and a more competitive economic environment.

Who gets privatised? An empirical analysis of Polish manufacturing

This paper employs a multinomial logit model to examine what determines the choice of a particular firm for a given privatisation method. A variety of hypotheses about possible determinants of ownership change are tested using an extensive data set for Polish manufacturing at the beginning of transition. The results at a firm as well as at a sector level give strong support to the hypothesis of the importance of resource constraints on the choice of ownership. Large firms with high financing requirement are more likely to be owned by outsiders. High sectoral capital intensity discourages small insider owned firms while high degree of product differentiation is a constraint for different investors, with the exception of outsiders. We also find that firm quality, measured by profitability and exporting outside the Soviet block, appeals to all types of investors but, additionally, privatisation offers outsiders ways of entering sectors with substantial entry barriers.privatisation methods; ownership change; multinomial logit

Strategy Choices of Firms and Market Structure

This paper suggests a new approach to the empirical analysis of market structure. Market concentration is an aspect of distribution of market shares of firms, and market shares are best modelled at the firm level, bringing into play strategy choices made by firms. It follows that a useful approach to explaining concentration would be a two stage one: to estimate firm size or market shares as a function of firm level determinants, and to use the information in these estimates to assess the relative contributions of firm characteristics to concentration. The method is illustrated by application to selected Polish manufacturing industries in the early transition period.Market concentration; Firm Strategy; Transition; Poland

The nature and extent of internet-enabled e-business adoption by Australian wineries, and factors affecting this adoption

This research investigates the nature and extent of e-business adoption by Australian wineries in order to describe the activity and increase understanding of the factors influencing the behaviour. Pilot study interviews grounded the research and provided industry-based direction for the survey. A census survey of the 2003 population of Australian wineries, excluding micro-wineries, used a self-administered mail questionnaire. Response rate varied by winery size, from 15% of small wineries up to 46% of very large wineries. Data was collected in five e-business process domains: e-mail, external web sites, and winery B2C web sites, extranets, and intranets; on perceptions of influence of four factors in each process domain: 1) relative advantage, 2) resource capacity, 3) supply chain activity, and 4) government activity; and on barriers to further adoption. Analysis of the survey responses supported the proposition that the nature and extent of adoption varies significantly by winery size. In general, small wineries find less benefit than larger wineries. Customer type and level of customer power also vary by winery size with winery B2C web strategies differing as a result. The proposition that the factors influencing e-business adoption vary between different types of e-business was also supported. This finding indicates that customised frameworks for particular e-business process domains will have increased relevance, and generalisations regarding the level of influence individual factors have on e-business adoption per se are inappropriate. Influence from the activities of supply chain and government organisations, the subject of the third and fourth propositions, was also found. The impact level of these external environment factors increased with winery size. In particular it is the powerful business customers and the Australian Government that drive some of the e-business adoption by wineries. Criticism of low levels of adoption by Australian small and medium sized enterprises in government funded reports appears harsh when applied to small and medium wineries after findings demonstrate that they derive less benefit from e-business than larger wineries. Reduction of the most common barriers to increasing adoption - the high cost and low quality of network connections in regional locations – remains the responsibility of government