Lurdes Martins

This study examines the impact of several institutional factor conditions on entrepreneurship in difficult macroeconomic environments such as a systemic banking crisis. It uses data from the National Expert Survey (NES–GEM). A total of 1771 national entrepreneurship experts representing 44 countries were included in the analysis. Using Laeven and Valencia (2013)’s criteria, 20 countries were considered as most affected by the global economic crisis (group 1) and 24 as less affected (included in group 2) in order to test if opportunity perceptions are significantly affected in times of recovery. In terms of findings, the study confirms that institutional factor conditions strongly impact on the opportunity to create a new business regardless of how damaged the economy of countries hit by the crisis was. Among the six institutional factors studied, four are found to be statistically significant and two are partially significant. The interacting effects of systemic banking crisis and the exposure to international conditions kept the previous relationship relatively unchanged. In terms of contributions, the study first highlights the importance of the institutional view in explaining the opportunities to start-up in the aftermath of a crisis. Second, the study compares the proposed relationships between four sub-sample data sets based on trade openness and banking crisis severity. From a practical and government perspective, this study provides a useful picture of the yet limited understanding of the role that institutions and trade openness can play in entrepreneurs’ perceptions and thus in economic recovery dynamics.

In the last decade, a growing number of studies have addressed the ongoing debate about whether corruption “sands” or “greases” the wheels of business at the firm level. This study revisits this debate and proposes a comprehensive theoretical framework to test whether corruption harms or boosts firm performance, as well as the extent to which this relationship is mediated by the countries’ institutional settings, the size and strategic behaviour of the firms, and market competition. Based on a sample of 21,250 firms located in 117 emerging and developing countries, and resorting to instrumental variable (IV) estimations, three main results were found: (a) regardless of the proxy used for corruption and firm performance, the former clearly harms the latter; (b) corruption “greases the wheels” of business for African firms but it “sands the wheels” for firms in Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Southern Asia; and (c) the negative impact of corruption on performance is mitigated for larger and exporting firms.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether international readiness, including innovation, competition, technology-orientation and opportunity perception, impacts on internationalization of small businesses differently in Asian countries compared to the complete Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) sample. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses data from the Adult Population Survey – GEM carried out in 69 countries yielding a cross-country total of 198,339 entrepreneurs. A binomial logit regression model is used to examine the data. Findings: The results show that there are differences for Asian countries compared to the whole sample regarding innovation-related drivers. In Asian countries, for small businesses, internationalization is less sensitive to product innovation and to opportunities’ perception than for the rest of the countries. Practical implications: This study has practical relevance as it provides numerous clues regarding the question of how small business (or new ventures) might enhance chances to become successful exporters. Originality/value: This study addresses an area that is believed to be less studied. The study compares the proposed relationships between two data sub-samples that represent the Asian countries and the complete GEM sample. The paper concludes with a discussion of the main contributions and limitations and suggests future research avenues.

Purpose: This study aims to examine online service quality factors as main driving forces in the degree of intention of using the Taxation Department web site expressed by certified accountants.Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on a quantitative methodological approach, a survey was undertaken among a sample of 351 certified accountants to empirically test the proposed model. The paper used an ordered logit model to estimate the effects of several online service quality factors on the certified accountant's degree of intention of using the Portuguese government's tax services web site.Findings: The results identify a number of key aspects of online service quality that contribute to the increase of the use of the taxation web site by certified accountants. This is particularly evident for web site characteristics such as convenience, research facilities, privacy and security, speed and ease of access.Practical implications: This study offers the opportunity to rethink existing policies and to set forth specific measures that can be implemented to establish rigorous quality standards.Originality/value: The paper provides an empirical analysis regarding the online service quality factors that determine the degree of use of a taxation web site. The methodological framework followed in this study has not, as far as is known, been used previously within the literature in this context.

The telecommunications industry is usually characterized by low marginal costs and significant fixed costs which are the conditions for the inefficiency of marginal cost pricing. In such cases theory postulates that optimal pricing is obtained by maximizing welfare subject to a restriction of viability of the firm: the second-best pricing scheme. The possible welfare losses due to second-best pricing varies according to the values of marginal costs, prices and demand elasticities. This paper analyses to what extent the second-best pricing has been achieved in the Portuguese telecommunications firm CTT, over the period 1950#150;1984 as well as the magnitude of the price-cost margins and welfare losses created. We obtained empirical evidence of the presence of economies of scale, a welfare loss estimate of 1% of the telecommunications receipts and a result that price was 40% greater than marginal cost. We concluded that price regulation and public ownership of the firm did not seriously affect social welfare over the sample period (it should be noted that it is the non-digital and fixedwire infrastructure period). Therefore, it is important to study the impact of new digital and non-wire technologies and new services provided in the old regulatory scenery.