Does firm origin affect post-entry performance? New insights from the laser industry

The aim of the thesis is to investigate if different firm origin can reflect on post-entry performance; different firms origin means not only the difference existing between diversifiers and spinouts but also those ones among diversifiers with different origin industries. The performance is calculated on the base of a survival analysis considering survived firms as the successful ones of the industry. The industry analysed is the laser industry starting from the first entry in the 1948 up to the still alive firms. The dataset contains 1422 observation divided in 1209 diversifiers and 213 spinouts. Firms come mainly from the US: 1035 diversifiers are from the US and the totality of spinouts. Another important classification of firms is based on the different application markets where firms decide to compete; in the dataset are present 11 application markets with of two of these accounting for the half of the choices where competing. The results found clearly affirm better performance of diversifiers with respect to spinouts. The findings referring to the impact of different origin industries for diversifiers show an important role of pre-entry experience in the post-entry performance; from the results however a clear source of advantage from an industry does not prevail because the advantages taken from the pre-entry experience are application markets specific.