Family involvement and firms’ establishment mode choice in foreign markets

Extant literature on foreign entry increasingly recognizes firms’ heterogeneity as a potential reason for inconsistency in results on the establishment mode choice, i.e. whether and under which conditions firms should choose to enter a new country through a greenfield investment or an acquisition. Our study contributes to this debate by identifying family ownership and family involvement in management as potential powerful sources of such heterogeneity. Integrating international business studies with both corporate finance literature on family firms and recent contributions from the Socio Emotional Wealth perspective on family ownership, we claim that, due to greater risk aversion and lower access to information, the family involvement either in the firm ownership and management leads to a higher propensity towards greenfield initiatives (vs. acquisitions). However, we also find that such a propensity decreases with international experience especially in family-owned firms given the greater ability of professionalized management to overcome family-related concerns on making acquisitions. Our analysis on 1,045 foreign initiatives undertaken by 311 Italian family and non-family firms between 2003 and 2013 confirms our expectations – indicating family ownership as a significant driver of international business choices

Modulares Produktionssystem zur automatischen Herstellung von dreidimensionalen Gewebestrukturen

WO 2010130302 A1 UPAB: 20101130 NOVELTY - Automatic production of biological tissue newly constituted from animal or human donor tissue, involves providing the donor tissue at an input interface of first module which is specifically embodied to isolate from the donor tissue donor tissue cells of at least one cell type and to single out these cells (cell extraction module), to obtain singled-out cells of cell type that are isolated from donor tissue; transferring the isolated cells at a first interface of transition to a second module which is specifically embodied to propagate the respectively isolated cells of the cell type. DETAILED DESCRIPTION - Automatic production of biological tissue newly constituted from animal or human donor tissue, involves providing the donor tissue at an input interface of a first module which is specifically embodied to isolate from the donor tissue donor tissue cells of at least one cell type and to single out these cells (cell extraction module), to obtain singled-out cells of the at least one cell type that are isolated from the donor tissue; transferring the isolated cells at a first interface of transition to a second module which is specifically embodied to propagate the respectively isolated cells of the cell type (cell expansion module), so that in each case at least one cell group made up of propagated cells of the cell type is obtained from the isolated cells; transferring the cell group at a second interface of transition to a third module which is specifically embodied to newly constitute a biological tissue with the cell groups (tissue construction module), so that a newly constituted biological tissue is obtained from cell groups of at least one respective cell type; and providing the newly constituted biological tissue at an output interface. The newly constituted biological tissue contains at least one cell layer of fibroblasts and at least one cell layer of keratinocytes. INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are included for the following: (1) device for the automatic production of biological tissue newly constituted from animal or human donor tissue comprising a first module (cell extraction module) which is specifically embodied to isolate from the donor tissue donor tissue cell of at least one cell type and to single out these cells, comprising an input interface and a first transfer interface for transferring the isolated cells, second module (cell expansion module), specifically embodied to propagate the isolated cells of the in each case at least one cell type, which is connected downstream of the first module and shares with the first transfer interface, comprising a second transfer interface for transferring a group of propagated cells; and a third module (tissue constitution module), specifically embodied to newly constitute a biological tissue with the cell group, which is connected downstream of the second module and shares with the second transfer interface, comprising an output interface for ejecting the newly constituted biological tissue; and (2) computer program product for controlling the material flow in a device, where the first module has between the input interface and first transition interface a first material flow rate, the second module has between the first transition interface and second transition interface a second material flow rate and the third module has between the second transition interface and output interface a third material flow rate, where the program steps involves detecting at least one of the first, second and third material flow rates and/or state variables of the first, second and third modules; controlling at least one first, second and third material flow rate different, as a function of the detected at least one material flow rate and/or state variable in order to adapt the material flow rates of the modules to one another. USE - For automatic production of biological tissue newly constituted e.g. multilayered tissue from animal or human donor tissue e.g. biopsate of the human or animal body, multilayered skin tissue, or artificial multilayered skin tissue. ADVANTAGE - The method provides a complete automation that increased product safety and reproducibility when compared to common manual production processes in GMP-compliant laboratories. The modular construction also allows individual modules, such as the cell extraction module, the cell expansion module, or elements of the modules, such as the multifunctional pipette, the tissue grinder, to be operated individually in a flexible and stand-alone manner. As result the complete automation, the cell extraction process proceeds more rapidly than the manual laboratory process. This minimizes the risk of the biopsate drying out during the processing process

How does a succession influence investment decisions, credit financing and business performance in small and medium-sized family firms?

We examine the influence of succession in small and medium-sized family businesses by focusing on investment decisions, credit financing, and business performance. Using data on German SMEs, we find that the succession event affects investment behavior negatively before but positively after the transfer takes place when compared to firms without any succession intentions. With respect to performance, we show that firms’ growth rates increase after succession has taken place. Although hypothesized, we find no empirical evidence to suggest that banks tend to reject successors more often than they reject other business owners when deciding to extend credit to firms for investment purposes