Project suspensions and failures in new product development : returns for entrepreneurial firms in codevelopment alliances

Entrepreneurial biotech and large pharmaceutical firms often form alliances to co2develop new products. Yet new product development (NPD) is fraught with challenges that often result in project suspensions and failures. Considering this, how can firms increase the chances that their co2development alliances will create value? To answer this question, the authors build on insights from signaling theory to argue that prior project suspensions provide positive signals leading to an increase in value creation, while project failures have the opposite effect. In addition, drawing on insights from temporal construal theory, this research predicts that the strength of these effects is contingent on the stage along the exploration2exploitation continuum at which the alliance is formed. The authors undertook event study analyses of 248 alliances formed by 104 biotechnology firms from the US and Europe listed on eight stock exchanges over an eight2year period between 1996 and 2003. The results confirm that prior NPD project suspensions have a stronger value creation effect (or a weaker value destruction effect) in the case of exploration alliances in the upstream of NPD processes than in the case of moderate2scale exploitation alliances in the downstream of NPD. This study is among the first to examine how both prior NPD project suspensions and failures of firms affect the abnormal returns achieved from co2 development alliances. This research therefore contributes to the innovation literature by honing a better understanding of setbacks and failures in NPD. Moreover, the findings contribute to the literature on strategic alliances by identifying new conditions under which firms can create or preserve value. Third, this research contributes to signaling theory by providing evidence of the moderation effect caused by the signaling environment. Finally, this study contributes to the entrepreneurial literature on value creation for entrepreneurial firms in alliances following adverse events

Essays on firm growth and value creation

In an era of rapid technological progress and major political and economic transformations across the globe, changes in geographical and product portfolios of firms become more of a rule than an exception. Hence, prior research investigated which strategies and entry modes firms choose, and how they perform as a consequence. However, relatively little attention was paid to how organizational experience bases are developed and used as companies expand into a variety of countries and industries. In particular, the role of the novelty of an investment to be undertaken and the environmental conditions under which it is attempted, remained understudied. Studies presented in this thesis explicitly address these issues

Quality of Meat () from Male Fallow Deer () Packaged and Stored under Vacuum and Modified Atmosphere Conditions

This study evaluated the effect of vacuum and modified atmosphere (40% CO2+60% N2, MA) packaging on the chemical composition, physicochemical properties and sensory attributes of chill-stored meat from 10 fallow deer (Dama dama) bucks at 17 to 18 months of age. The animals were hunter-harvested in the forests of north-eastern Poland. During carcass dressing (48 to 54 h post mortem), both musculus longissimus muscles were cut out. Each muscle was divided into seven sections which were allocated to three groups: 0, A, and B. Samples 0 were immediately subjected to laboratory analyses. Samples A were vacuum-packaged, and samples B were packaged in MA. Packaged samples were stored for 7, 14, and 21 days at 2°C. The results of the present study showed that the evaluated packaging systems had no significant effect on the quality of fallow deer meat during chilled storage. However, vacuum-packaged meat samples were characterised by greater drip loss. Vacuum and MA packaging contributed to preserving the desired physicochemical properties and sensory attributes of meat during 21 days of storage. Regardless of the packaging method used, undesirable changes in the colour, water-holding capacity and juiciness of meat, accompanied by tenderness improvement, were observed during chilled storage