Location Preferences of Family Firms: Strategic Decision Making or “Home Sweet Home”?

Selecting a business location is among the most important strategic decisions for family firms. Yet the separate demands of the family and the business often prove difficult to balance. A comparison of location preferences in family and nonfamily firms provides insight into the family influence on strategic decision making.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67069/2/10_1111_j_1741-6248_1992_00271_x.pd

US technology policies and their regional effects

This paper contains an examination of the changes in US science and technology policies in response to the recently increasing international competition and worldwide economic restructuring. Although historically these policies have been the responsibility of the Federal Government, in recent years the states and local governments have emerged as important partners in a 'grass roots' movement to help bridge the gap between science and industry. The central focus is on overcoming technical, financial, labor market, and community locational barriers to high-technology expansion. The old practice of 'smoke-stack' chasing has given way to inward-looking policies that encourage business start-ups and expansions. Key objectives of state and local government policies are to increase the flow of new ideas into the innovation process, to shorten the time for its initial introduction into a new product or process technology, and for a more rapid assimilation of new technology through-out the regional industrial structure.

The Third Role of Australian Universities in Human Capital Formation

The roles of universities have evolved over the last twenty years. Universities were once regarded as focusing on two key roles -- teaching and research -- which were exogenous to, and independent from, specific economic and social development imperatives. Today, it is increasingly recognised that universities perform important roles as enablers, even leaders, of regional economic and social development and in regional innovation systems; which has been captured in the notion of a third role for universities. This paper explores the nature of the third role of universities in the Australian setting as it applies to human capital formation. The roles of universities in this regard is categorised as being either generative or developmental in nature, based on the triple helix model of university, industry, government relations and the emerging literature on university engagement. This categorisation is explored using three case studies of non core-metropolitan universities. The study explores the nature of the roles performed by the universities in human capital formation and considers possible explanations of variation in the roles performed