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Empirical studies show low pecuniary returns as a result of switching from wage employment to entrepreneurship. We reconsider the pecuniary gains attributable to this switching by using an event study design and a variety of identifying assumptions aimed at obtaining robust estimates of causal effects. An earnings equation is estimated on data covering the whole Norwegian population of individuals matched to the entire population of firms established in the period 2002–2013. We find unambiguous evidence that the average returns to entrepreneurship are negative for individuals entering entrepreneurship through self-employment and positive, but modest for incorporated startups. The positive returns to incorporated entrepreneurship comes at the cost of much higher income risk: incorporated entrepreneurs experience an increase in the standard deviation of log earnings growth of almost 75% compared to remaining in wage employment. While there is a huge gender gap in entrepreneurship rates, we find no significant difference between men and women in the average returns to entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to show that for some key topics on labour economics such as the effect of seniority and job mobility in wages, it is important to explicitly consider firm fixed effects. The author also wants to test whether the importance of firm in explaining wage dispersion is higher or lower in Spain than in other European countries.

The author estimates an individual wage equation where firm and workers effects are considered and the estimation process control for censored wages. This exercise is performed for the Spanish economy over the course of a whole business cycle, i.e., 2000-2015.

The author demonstrates that Spanish firms contribute to explain around 27 per cent of the individual wage heterogeneity but more importantly around 74 per cent of inter-industry wage differentials. In both cases, this contribution is mainly related to large dispersion in firm’s wage policies. The process of positive sorting of workers across firms or industries does not play an important role. Interestingly, the importance of firm’s wage policies in explaining individual wage dispersion has increased over the current Big Recession.

The results confirm that firms set wages and, henceforth, are partially responsible for individual wage heterogeneity but more importantly for inter-industrial wage dispersion.

The exercise is performed under optimal conditions because the author uses a longitudinal matched employer-employee data set, observed wages are at a monthly frequency, and implements an estimation method suitable for censored models with two high-dimensional fixed effects. This is the first study that looks deeply into the role of firms in explaining wage heterogeneity at the individual and industry level in Spain and along the current Big Recession.

Using an extensive data set on Finnish workers during the years 1990–2002, we analyze the relation between dispersion of wages within plants and labor productivity. We find a positive and significant relation between dispersion of wages within plant and average sales per worker. This relation is quadratic when dispersion is conditioned on workers’ observable characteristics. We also find positive and significant relation between unconditional dispersion of wages within plant and value added per hours worked, while we find a non-significant relation between conditional wage dispersion and valued added per hours worked. Results indicate that the incentive effect of wage dispersion dominates fairness or sabotage considerations.

The “Mathews Committee” (Mathews, 1990) concluded that the research performance of the accounting discipline in Australia was weak. This paper is motivated by the need to improve the quality of accounting research in Australia and probably some other countries as well. It discusses three issues of crucial importance to research quality ‐ internal, external, and construct validity with the discussion illustrated with examples from existing accounting research. Internal validity is concerned with the ability to make causal statements from a piece of research. External validity is concerned with the ability to generalize from the research and construct validity is interested in the validity of the variables measured. Internal and external validity are discussed within the context of five common research designs. No one design is strong in both types of validity and tradeoffs between internal and external validity are necessary. When designing a new research project, the particular tradeoffs made should depend on the research objectives. The paper discusses how these choices might be made and how, if internal validity problems exist, they might be minimized. With construct validity, no tradeoffs are appropriate ‐ the researcher should attempt to eliminate this type of invalidity. The paper discusses how this might be done.

This chapter is about the reorganisation of the auditing firms in the Post-Sarbanes Oxley Era, in the light of quality concern. The chapter opens up with definitions of related concepts. The importance of audit quality is emphasised in the second section. Discussion on the factors associated with audit quality is the following part. The need for reorganisation of the audit firms follows and the chapter concludes with proposals section. The audit firms seem to be squeezed to catch up with both the national and international regulations. One of the ascertainments is that the audit firms all over the world need to cope with the standards; another is their obligation to provide high-quality audits. Globally speaking, the unwillingness of the profession to alter its habits and to sacrifice the profits historically earned is another obstacle to overcome. In the aftermath of the establishment of the Public Oversight Board in the late 2012, Turkish case follows with an almost 10-year gap.

This paper aims to report an empirically grounded theoretical framework within which to understand the role of entrepreneurial identity development in the discovery, development and exploitation of opportunity, and to elaborate on how these identity transitions both mobilise and constrain female entrepreneurs.

A qualitative case study-based research design was used in this study. Primary and secondary data were collected from eight female participants (all of whom can be categorised as “mumpreneurs”) and analysed to inform the theoretical framework that is the foundation of the paper.

The authors describe how identity conflict, role congruence and reciprocal identity creation play a critical role in venture creation as a form of entrepreneurship. Drawing on the constructs of identification, self-verification and identity enactment, the authors build a theoretical framework for understanding entrepreneurial identity transitions in relation to opportunity-seeking behaviours.

The work is theoretical in character and based on a sample that, whilst rich in the provision of theoretical insight, is small in scope. Additionally, the sample is located in one geographical context (New Zealand) which likely has implications for the way in which the key constructs are perceived and enacted.

This paper is an attempt to integrate conceptualisations of entrepreneurial identity development with opportunity-related processes in the context of venture creation. A holistic focus on identity transitions and their relevance to perception and action in relation to opportunity (the root of entrepreneurial behaviour) is novel; at this point, it is exploratory in intention and tentative in reach.

Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to detect the combination of factors associated with the provision of job‐related training provided by employers located throughout the United Kingdom. The efficacy of broad brush policy initiatives to encourage the provision of training in all very small firms is questioned. A case for targeting training provision assistance is presented.

We empirically study gender segregation in privately owned Swedish establishments, and the correlation between gender segregation, survival and growth of establishments. We find that the overall inter-establishment gender segregation in Sweden has been constant between 1987 and 1995 and at the same level as that found in US manufacturing. Our results show that establishments dominated by males or females have a higher probability of exiting the market than more integrated establishments and that establishments dominated by females grow more slowly than other establishments. An important additional finding is that establishments with a skewed workforce in terms of educational background have lower survival probabilities. Furthermore, establishments with skewed age distributions have both lower survival probabilities and grow less compared with other establishments. These findings are consistent with theories suggesting that workers with different demographic characteristics contribute to a creative working environment as a result of their different experiences, a greater variety of information sources and different ‘thinking’.