What Do I Take With Me: The Impact of Transfer and Replication of Resources on Parent and Spin-Out Firm Performance

Focusing on entrepreneurial ventures created by employees leaving a firm, our study examines the differential impact of knowledge transfer and knowledge spillovers on both parent and spin-out performance. While extant research often uses knowledge transfer and spillover interchangeably, our study distinguishes between the two based on the “rivalness” of the relevant knowledge. We theorize that both knowledge transfer (proxied by the size of the exiting employee team) and knowledge spillovers (proxied by the experience of the exiting employee team) will aid spin-out performance. However, knowledge transfer, being more rival, will have a greater adverse impact than knowledge spillovers on parent firm performance. Using U.S. Census Bureau linked employee-employer data from the legal services industry, we find support for our hypotheses. Our study thus contributes to extant literature by highlighting a key dimension of knowledge — rivalness — and the differential competitive dynamics effect of resources with varying degrees of rivalness.

Essential oil composition of Pterospartum tridentatum grown in Portugal

The essential oils, isolated by hydrodistillation and distillation-extraction, from the aerial parts of different populations of Pterospartum tridentatum collected during the flowering phase, at different locations in Portugal, were analysed by GC and GC-MS. All the P. tridentatum populations studied afforded a yellowish oil in a yield 0.05% (v/w). cis-Theaspirane (2-14%), trans-theaspirane (2-17%) and octen-3-ol (2-37%) were, in variable amounts, the dominant components of the oils. Cluster analysis of the essential oil compositions from the nine populations studied, confirmed a major chemical variability. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Firm entry diversity, resource space heterogeneity and market structure

Evolutionary explanations of market structures have usually focused on the selection pressures impacted by a number of factors such as scale economies, niche width, firm size and consumer heterogeneity. How selection processes work in markets is highly dependent on the available firm type variation at entry. In order to explore the implications of different degrees of firm diversity at entry on posterior market selection processes, we develop an agent-based computational model. Results indicate that a proper understanding of market selection processes should, indeed, involve understanding the effects of firm type variation at market entry