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The purpose of this paper is to examine and verify the competitive intelligence tools Alexa and SimilarWeb, which are broadly used for website traffic data estimation. Tested tools belong to the state of the art in this area.

The authors use quantitative approach. Research was conducted on a sample of Czech websites for which there are accurate traffic data values, against which the other data sets (less accurate) provided by Alexa and SimilarWeb will be compared.

The results show that neither tool can accurately determine the ranking of websites on the internet. However, it is possible to approximately determine the significance of a particular website. These results are useful for another research studies which use data from Alexa or SimilarWeb. Moreover, the results show that it is still not possible to accurately estimate website traffic of any website in the world.

The limitation of the research lies in the fact that it was conducted solely in the Czech market.

Significant amount of research studies use data sets provided by Alexa and SimilarWeb. However, none of these research studies focus on the quality of the website traffic data acquired by Alexa or SimilarWeb, nor do any of them refer to other studies that would deal with this issue. Furthermore, authors describe approaches to measuring website traffic and based on the analysis, the possible usability of these methods is discussed.

This chapter applies the five drivers of productivity framework to regional microdata for Egypt and extends it by introducing an index of industrial clusters as an explanatory factor of the productivity performance of local private sector firms. Applying structural equation models, the geographic concentration of sectoral economic activity is found to have a positive and statistically significant effect on labor productivity. The transmission mechanism is conjectured to be the positive spillovers that are created, which local firms can tap into. In contrast, a higher concentration of skilled workers in an industrial sector in a region is associated with lower levels of labor productivity – a finding that suggests there may be structural deficiencies in the allocation of skilled workers. Regional policy should focus on net investments in gross capital formation throughout the country, for which the national and regional governments should improve how public investments are managed and the institutional framework – including the rule of law, bureaucracy and red tape, conflict of interest, transparency, and governance – so that private investment (both local and foreign) may substantially increase.

Academic dialogue related to ‘organizational performance’ in strategic management has primarily centred around the industrial organization theory (IO) and resource-based view (RBV). Both perspectives, though conceptually dialectic, have served as primary competing theories governing research studies in the domain of strategic management. However, the confluence of these theoretical perspectives has not been adequately explored to advance a shared view of competitive advantage. This study aims to explore the likelihood of embedded commonalities between RBV and IO.

A bibliometric analysis was conducted to visualize the intellectual map of studies and knowledge development encompassing these theories. This was followed by a comprehensive literature review to understand how the business environment (BE) and organizational capabilities have contributed towards attaining competitive advantage.

This study established that connecting the intellectual boundaries of these theoretical perspectives would facilitate better comprehension of the processes and outcomes in organizations. Integrating the knowledge emerging out of this methodological blend, a convergence framework connecting the intellectual boundaries of both theories was presented.

The framework that emerged from this study would help in better understanding of organizational behaviour from a dual theoretical lens. It would also motivate future studies to consider RBV and IO as complementary theories rather than the current narrative of competing theories.

This study added to the efforts to achieve equilibrium between the BE and internal capabilities of organizations so as to maximize positive social externalities.

This study contributed to the limited attempts to leverage shared knowledge from a dual perspective using a comprehensive literature review in sequential combination with bibliometric analysis.

It is undoubtedly the case that advertising plays a significant part in modern economic life in most societies and many view it as an essential part of the operation of a free market system. Yet it is also the case that our knowledge of how exactly it works and whether the vast amounts spent on it are justified is still uncertain. Lord Leverhulme, the founder of Lever Brothers, is credited with the famous aphorism — ‘one half of advertising does not work but nobody knows which half’ and that perhaps sums up the situation very well. One thing that is generally accepted is that some protection must be provided both to consumers and trade competitors from false or misleading advertising which can lead to market distortions and economic loss to purchasers. Increasingly controversial, however, is the scope and extent of legal and voluntary controls on advertising. In the advertising industry fears are rising about the volume of both national and EEC proposals to restrict or limit advertising and as we move from the '80s, a decade of conspicuous consumption in which advertising flourished, to the caring '90s where environmental issues are to the fore, the advertising industry faces major challenges. Advertising as a whole is facing severe economic and legal challenges after the massive expansion of the 1980's — it is estimated that there was a 4% fall in real terms in UK advertising expenditure in the first quarter of 1990 and an estimated 5% fall in the second quarter. Clients are becoming more demanding and the cosy cartel arrangement whereby advertising agencies made a 15% standard commission on a client's expenditure has gone — commissions are down to 12%‐13% or being replaced by fixed fees. It has been estimated by the Advertising Association that proposed legal restrictions could lead to a loss of £1 bn in revenue for the industry. Multi‐farious pressure groups are campaigning against drink advertising, cigarette advertising and sexism in adverts. The advertising industry's concerns are reflected in a recent report by the Advertising Association — ‘A Freedom Under Threat — Advertising in the EC’. The report indicates a number of areas where legislative controls have been introduced or are proposed to be introduced over the next few years and expresses the fear that controls may be going too far in limiting freedom of ‘commercial speech’. Martin Boase, chairman of the Advertising Association writes in his introduction to the report:

The purpose of this study is to analyze how occupational licensing costs within a state affect the performance of self-employed firms, as measured through annual sales.

This study utilizes an empirical approach to determine if there are additional effects on the annual sales for firms that are self-employed in high-cost states that are not explained through the individual estimations. Since the choice of self-employment is plausibly nonrandom, this study also uses a propensity score matching method to develop a matched subsample of self-employed and employee-maintaining firms. This selection methodology ensures that the set of self-employed and employee-maintaining firm observations are similar in all measurable attributes besides their regulatory environment and firm structure. Using this representative subsample, the empirical framework is repeated to reevaluate the effects of high occupational licensing fees on the sales of self-employed firms.

In both the unmatched and matched samples, there are significant, large, negative interactions representing a reduction in annual sales per employee within self-employed firms relative to employee-maintaining firms when located in states with above-average occupational licensing costs. The results using the matched subsamples are noticeably smaller in magnitude, which indicates that future policy assessments would benefit from ensuring that the sample pool, when dealing with self-employment, is limited only to firms under a common convex hull in order to not skew the size of results.

This study contributes new understanding of the financial relationship of self-employed firms and occupational licensing costs using firm-level observations of sales and firm structure. This has important policy implications for the development and evaluation of occupational licensing policies when considering effects on the self-employed.

Entrepreneurship is an activity of recognised economic and social interest, leading scholars to examine contextual factors that justify variations between economies and governments to configure more favourable conditions to entrepreneurial activity. In this sequence, this study aims to analyse the effect of reforms produced in the business environment on entrepreneurial rates of a set of 18 high-income economies.

A panel data (2010–2019) methodology was adopted using 10 Doing Business indicators from World Bank and Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).

In the light of institutional theory, the study shows that improving the business environment for entrepreneurs does not ensure an increase in TEA. Specifically, only the indicators Dealing with Construction, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts positively impacted the TEA.

This is the first study that monitors and provides evidence regarding the effectiveness of business environment reforms towards entrepreneurship. The authors provide considerable theoretical-practical implications for scholars, entrepreneurs and policymakers to restructure public policies to support entrepreneurial activity.

Economic growth is one the most relevant economic objectives for policy makers. In order to determine the variables that enhance such an objective it is important to consider different types of entrepreneurial activity. It is also necessary to consider the level of development and growth of a country to design the proper economic policy measures, given that entrepreneurship motivations and circumstances vary from country to country. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth, including the role played by institutions and innovation considering two types of entrepreneurship (necessity and opportunity) and countries.

Data analysis of 31 countries with varying levels of growth and development yielded two large groups – either innovation-driven economies or efficiency-driven economies – following GEM classification based on the phases set out by the World Economic Forum. In order to test the hypotheses, a partial least squares analysis is carried out to show the existing relationships between the different variables, specifically: innovation, institutions, entrepreneurship and economic growth.

The empirical analysis used demonstrates that innovation positively affects economic growth and entrepreneurship. In addition, adequate functioning of institutions is shown to enhance economic growth and opportunity entrepreneurship. Finally, there is a positive relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth.

Unlike other studies, different types of entrepreneurship (by necessity and opportunity) are essential to this analysis of the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth. The country sample was divided considering some country-specific structural circumstances. Neither aspect is considered in the literature and should be considered relevant for designing measures to enhance economic activity.

This study explores the link between the level of importance managers assign to competitive pressures from domestic competition, foreign competition and customers as factors in the key business decisions related to innovation and the outcome of firms' product innovation efforts.

The research sample is taken from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey by World Bank (2005). The relevant questions for the study were extracted from the survey. Logistic regression models were used for analysis using the ISLR library from R statistical software.

Managers' consideration of customer pressure for innovation as important in key business decisions related to innovation has a positive and sustainable effect, distinct from that of R&D and other innovative activities, on firms' success of product innovation efforts.

The research acknowledges the need to verify the findings in a multicountry setting.

This research can help mediate the managers' assignment of importance to certain types of competition for innovation decisions in multicompetitive environment for improved success of product innovation efforts.

Simultaneous consideration of multiple competitive pressures by managers helps to identify the most suitable innovation activities for their respective firms and improve the chances of success of firms' innovation efforts.

As an economic development strategy, entrepreneurship policies should target innovative activities – those which Schumpeter described as leading to new goods, production methods, markets, input sources, or new industries. However, popular entrepreneurship proxies, such as firm births (<500 employees) and sole proprietorships, capture multiple types of entrepreneurship which may have conflicting qualities. To address the need for more accurate measures of Schumpeterian activity, indices are constructed to specifically measure the relative amount of Schumpeterian activity among US states. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Four composite indices of Schumpeterian activity are constructed using different methods to combine variables related to innovative activity into single indicator, since there is uncertainty about the weighting of dimensions: principal component analysis (PCA), factor analysis (FA), data envelopment analysis and equal weights. Robustness checks were used to compare state rankings across indices. These indices were also compared to common entrepreneurship proxies and real GDP to demonstrate and justify their measurement of Schumpeterian activity.

The results show that the Schumpeterian Activity Indices (SAIs) similarly rank states and measure phenomena different from the common proxies of entrepreneurship. Furthermore, these indices better predict GDP than the common proxies. Lastly, state rankings based upon the SAIs support previous research suggesting that innovation and agglomeration economies are interrelated.

The paper demonstrates a methodology for constructing a measure of innovative activity, which is necessary to develop and evaluate entrepreneurship policy for economic development.