An empirical study on the relationship between the spatial environment and the survival of old firms in the Netherlands

This is an empirical research on old firms in the Netherlands where old firms are defined als those firms that were founded before 1851 and still exist today. The study is divided in two main parts. The first part is descriptive and provides information on the firm population at stake. The regional differences concerning age, size, sector and percentage of the total firm population are shown. In the second part, an analysis on the outcome of a survey conducted at the research population is presented. The analysis focuses on the relation between firm characteristics and the spatial environment and whether or not similarities can be identified in these old firms. Overall, economic theory suggests that forces external to the firm such as strong competition, lagging demand, or technological drawbacks are the dominant determinants of firm closure. In this line of reasoning it may be claimed that low competition, growing demand and innovative behaviour might stimulate survival chances of firms on the long run. There are few sources on firm's activities during the life course of individual firm and on the influence of the spatial environment on these firm activities. This study might shed some light on the relationship between the spatial environment, specific firm characteristics and long term survival of firms in the Netherlands. Insight in the background of 'long-term' survival of firms can be of importance to industrial organization research and firm demography and also to the economic and regional policymaking in understanding and stimulating regional dynamics. Furthermore it might help to identify indicators of more successful firm strategies.

The inert firm; why old firms show a stickiness to their location

This paper investigates the tendency of older firms to show stickiness to their home-region or fixed location, with the increase of age (in years since founding), as found in earlier research. Empirical evidence supporting this argument is found from a telephone survey under the population of old firms in the Netherlands. In the current paper an analysis is done to determine which other firm characteristics -next to age in years-, influence this stickiness to place; such as innovative behaviour, network relationships, market, size (in number of employees), region and location type. This analysis is done on written questionnaires of 179 firms in the Netherlands, 37 of these firms are specifically labelled as ‘old firms’ (founded before 1851). Tested is whether inert behaviour, which according to the theory of structural inertia increases with age, also has an influence on the location of firms. Furthermore, the relationship between the spatial environment and other firm characteristics is investigated.

What fires up my cooking? The choice for a sustainable cuisine: passion and self-transcendence in the restaurant business

The restaurant business is highly unsustainable and the sector contributes to a large extent to environmental pollution. However, some restaurateurs have chosen a more sustainable cuisine. As food sustainability is a contested issue, we have considered several descriptions of food sustainability and have assessed how theseare influenced by a passion for hospitality. Theoretically, the choice for sustainable food can be based on a passion for the hospitality business and a passion for sustainability. Surveys were used to gather data that were analysed using logistic and linear regression models. Findings suggest that some entrepreneurs claim to serve sustainable food, but do not. Others serve only one type of sustainable food, but not the other types. Interestingly, these groups also differ in their motivations for starting their restaurants. The choice to serve sustainable food is negatively influenced by entrepreneurial passion and positively by sustainability passion. Conventional restaurants have a passion for the hospitality industry, while the restaurants that serve sustainable food do not share that hospitality passion, but rather a passion for sustainability. Our research adds to the academic debate on the tensions that restaurateurs and entrepreneurs in general face in their different motivations.Keywords: food sustainability, emotions, entrepreneurial passion, quantitative, sustainable entrepreneurship, value

Investigating spatial concentration of sustainable restaurants:It is all about good food!

This research addresses the role of sustainable demand and psychological and cultural factors in the spatial concentration of sustainable SMEs. We analyze the spatial concentration of sustainable SMEs in the restaurant sector in the Netherlands. We argue that traditional agglomeration theories can partially explain spatial concentration of sustainable SMEs, but are not sufficient in explaining the sub-sector concentration of sustainable entrepreneurs. Demand, psychological and cultural factors could explain sub-sector concentration of sustainable restaurants. We use sustainable entrepreneurship theory to explain this difference. We analyze spatial concentration of sustainable SMEs in three ways. First, we investigate spatial concentration based on all individual locations of sustainable restaurants with an average nearest neighbor analysis. Second, we analyze spatial autocorrelation with use of the Moran's I statistic. Finally, we map the clustering of sustainable restaurants with a Getis-Ord Gi* analysis. We use sustainable restaurants as a percentage of conventional restaurants in a region in the Netherlands. While controlling for conventional clustering, we find a single large cluster of sustainable restaurants. Arguably, this clustering is caused by a spatial variation of demand and individual psychological traits of sustainable entrepreneurs, which together represent a regional culture of sustainable entrepreneurship

Motivation and Productivity of Employees in Higher Education during the First Lockdown

In a cross-sectional study among 623 employees of a higher education institution, we examined the relations between perceived competence, autonomy, relatedness, intrinsic motivation, and productivity during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. The results indicate that, relative to the period before the lockdown, the employees experienced an increase in autonomy and competence, but a decrease in relatedness, intrinsic motivation, and productivity. Structural equation modelling revealed that the decrease in productivity can be explained by a decrease in intrinsic motivation, which in turn can be explained by changes in relatedness, autonomy, and perceived competence. Thus, during the lockdown, both positive and negative motivational consequences of teleworking were observed. However, the ultimate consequence for employees’ productivity was negative. An important difference between this study and previous studies on the topic of teleworking, is that the present examined the motivational process under extreme circumstances in which employees had to switch overnight form onsite to remote working

Editorial Preface: Elderly Mobility

This Special Issue of TeMA Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment collects the research works of one of the sessions organised in the framework of the XX Scientific Meeting of the Società Italiana degli Economisti dei Trasporti e della Logistica (SIET), focused on the MOBILAGE (Mobility and aging: daily life and welfare supportive networks at the neighbourhood level) research project financed by Fondazione Cariplo within the “Aging and social research: people, places and relations” 2017 Call for scientific research. The session was addressed to investigate elderly (people aged 65+) mobility, by exploring the supply and demand of Local Public Transport (LPT) in urban areas

Book Reviews

A Tale of More than Two Cities: Deconstructing Sustainable Urbanity: OECD, Rethinking Urban Sprawl: Moving towards Sustainable Cities, OECD Publishing, Paris 2018, 166 pages; Nico TILLIE, Synergetic Urban Landscape Planning in Rotterdam: Liveable Low-Carbon Cities, TU Delft, Delft 2018, 284 pages; Ashley DAWSON, Extreme cities: The peril and promise of urban life in the age of climate change, Verso, New York 2019, 378 pages.Ari-Veikko ANTTIROIKO, Wellness City, Health and Well-Being in Urban Economic Development, Palgrave Pivot, Cham 2018, 159 pages.Alex JOHNSON, Book Towns. Forty-Five Paradises of the Printed Word, Frances Lincoln, an imprint of the Quarto Group, London 2018, 192 pages.Rachel DODDS, Richard W. BUTLER (eds.), Overtourism: Issues, Realities and Solutions, De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2019, 288 pages

"The older adult' doesn't exist:Using values to differentiate older adults in the Dutch housing market

To date most prognoses of older adults in the housing market have been based on average housing preferences and average housing market behaviour of all persons in a certain age cohort. Due to socialcultural and social-economic dynamics, the relationship between age and housing is expected to change for successive cohorts. This study sets out to improve housing preferences estimates by recognizing the growing differentiation among older adults. This heterogeneity is analysed by differentiating older adults on their lifestyles (operationalized as values), using latent class analysis as a clustering technique. These analyses result in older adults being classified into five segments on the basis of their viewpoints, motivations and attitude. Next, for each lifestyle segment a separate discrete choice model is estimated, offering insight in the relative importance that these segments give to various housing attributes. The findings demonstrate advantages over a traditional, single model approach and can be helpful in formulating contemporary housing policy