For software development firms to be competitive they must assure the quality of the software product. This has led many firms to adopt software process improvement (SPI) programs such as the capability maturity model integration (CMMI). However, for small software firms, especially those in...

This paper explores the effects of government policies on the development of Small and Medium Enterprises in developing countries through the examination of the case of Nigeria. Many research studies reported that SMEs in Nigeria have not benefited from the policies formulated by the government....

Stock option grants to top managers have largely contributed to the dramatic increase in US executive pay in recent years. In this paper it is argued that stock options, compared to other forms of compensation, have created strong incentives for managers to engage in lobbyingactivities for...

We construct and estimate a unified model combining three of the main sources of cross-country income disparities:[...]

The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of corporate R&D activities onfirms’ performance, measured by labour productivity. To this end, the stochastic frontiertechnique is applied, basing the analysis on a unique unbalanced longitudinal datasetconsisting of 532 top...

In this paper, we investigate how changes in the skill mix of local labor supply are absorbedby the economy. We distinguish between three adjustment mechanisms: through factorprices, through an expansion in the size of those production units that use the moreabundant skill group more...

This study explicitly takes into account that the decision to enter into an external R&D relationship is related to an antecedent decision to carry out R&D. This calls for a methodological approach that, at the same time, permits the joint analysis of the determinants of the two decisions and...