The energy-efficient transformation of EU business enterprises: Adapting policies to contextual factors

Business contexts differ in their ability to foster the energy-efficient transformation (EET) of enterprises. Accordingly, energy efficiency policies have to be adapted to different situations. The present paper analyzes the relationships between the EET of European Union (EU) business end-users and three contextual factors, i.e. high energy prices, stringency of regulations, and society's alertness toward environment conservation. Enterprises from 9 EU Member States have been grouped according to country, industry and size. The final sample includes 256 enterprise classes, and the model controls for the innovation propensity and energy intensity of each enterprise class. Our results show that regulatory stringency is the most impactful contextual factor, while the environmental alertness of society does not have a significant effect. Concerns over energy costs have not been found to drive EET per se, but more energy-intensive enterprise classes are more likely to react to high energy prices. We discuss the implications of our results for the EU governments that are currently monitoring and refining the transposition of the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive

Is Green the New Gold? Venture Capital and Green Entrepreneurship

We test whether born-to-be-green represents a signal toward potential venture capital (VC) investors on a sample of Italian, independent, unlisted, high-tech entrepreneurial firms. We employ several identification strategies by controlling for the major potential signals, and the alleged selection bias between green and non-green entrepreneurs. We exploit firm-level information about the “active search for VC financing”. Alternatively, we exploit the cross-local communities variation in the awareness about environmental issues in an Instrumental Variables setting. Our results show that neither running a business based on green technologies nor positioning a business in a green sector per se are strongly correlated with the likelihood to get VC. Instead, we find that born-to-be-green can be a reliable signal for investors only when entrepreneurs perform activities based on green technologies/products and position their business in a green sector, at the same time. Further, we present three contingencies that moderate the association between green business propositions and the likelihood to get VC, namely the technical/scientific education of the founder(s), the origin of the firm as academic spin-out, and the presence of corporate shareholders into the venture’s equity. The paper offers relevant managerial implications

Business incubation models and institutionally void environments

This paper builds a conceptual framework of business incubation models in institutionally void environments, a relevant yet understudied topic in the extant literature. On the basis of a qualitative approach based on the analysis of five case studies drawn from a sample of business incubators in Egypt, and grounding on the literature on institutional voids, we posit that there is a necessity for two different incubation models in institutional laggard environments, typically found in, yet not limited to, developing countries. In particular, we show evidence that the two models supply and facilitate different needs of entrepreneurs, in different stages of entrepreneurial life cycle. We further argue that the incubation model choice is contingent on the incubator sponsors, i.e. affiliation of the incubator, mainly through available resources and imposed objectives. Finally, we offer implications for policy makers who can use the framework to design the regulations in a way that will stimulate appropriate incubator creation and hence sustain local entrepreneurship, as well as for incubator managers who can follow the findings to position their incubation model in line with their resources, capabilities and objectives

Conference

We draw from resource dependence theory and literature on institutional voids and sponsorship to derive a conceptual framework that is subsequently corroborated on the basis of qualitative methodology, i.e. case studies of an appropriate sample of business incubators in Egypt. We posit that there is a necessity of two different incubation models in developing countries due to more severe institutional voids, and show evidence that they supply and facilitate different needs of entrepreneurs, in different stages of entrepreneurial life cycle. We further argue that the incubation model choice is contingent on the incubator sponsors, i.e. affiliation of the incubator, mainly through available resources and imposed objectives. Finally, we offer implications for policy makers who can use the findings to design the regulations in a way that will stimulate appropriate incubator creation and hence sustain entrepreneurship, as well as for incubator managers who can follow the findings to position their incubation model in line with their resources, capabilities and objectives