Abstract
In this paper, we study the relation between parenting events and the performance of firms. Using data from the Italian motorcycle industry (1893–1993), we find that parents have higher survival chances after generating a spinoff (i.e. parenting event), confirming results from previous studies about other manufacturing industries. We also show that the survival patterns of parent firms differ across space, and we link them to cluster characteristics: parenting events are associated to survival advantages in the clusters of Milan and the Motorvalley, and to survival disadvantages in the cluster of Turin. The paper contributes to the literature on spinoffs and employee mobility and adds to the debate on the role of clusters and their institutions in evolutionary economic geography, by highlighting the importance of contextual factors for the performance of parent firms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1133-1159 |
| Journal | Industry and Innovation |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| Early online date | 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2020 |
Funding
We would like to thank the editor Bram Timmermans and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions. We also thank Roberto Gabriele, Piero Manfredi, and participants to the iBegin Conference 2017, the AISRE Conference 2018, the Rethinking Cluster Workshop 2019, the Geography of Innovation Conference 2020, and the Economics and Management Department Seminar at University of Pisa. AM acknowledges financial support from the Dutch Scientific Council (NWO-VIDI grant number 452-11-013).
Keywords
- Spinoffs
- employee entrepreneurship
- parents
- clusters
- evolutionary economic geography