UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item ESSAYS ON INNOVATION, HUMAN CAPITAL, AND SMALL BUSINESSES(2023) Xue, Jing; Maksimovic, Vojislav; Yang, Liu; Business and Management: Finance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation comprises three essays that explore how human and social capital influence innovation and promote firm dynamism, particularly for small businesses. It studies how firms' uptake of projects is shaped by the local environments, such as superstar firms, talent clusters, and local social capital. In the first essay, I study the labor channel underlying the agglomeration of innovation activity. It identifies the reallocation of human capital as a key channel of agglomeration spillovers for innovative firms. To measure agglomeration spillovers, I study how R&D labs in different local labor markets respond differently to scientific breakthroughs, which create large and unexpected shocks to innovation productivity in certain technology categories. I document four main findings. i), following scientific breakthroughs, affected labs in thicker local labor markets (i.e., commuting zones with more inventors innovating in a certain field) produce more patents and higher-quality patents, consistent with positive agglomeration spillovers. ii), the increase in patenting is mostly attributed to new hires rather than incumbent inventors. iii), the thick labor market effect is concentrated in states and industries where there is lower enforceability of non-compete agreements and labor is more mobile. iv), using textual analysis to identify lab-level exposure to scientific breakthroughs, I find that inventors are reallocated to labs that are more favorably affected by shocks, which helps labs in thicker labor markets to more easily bring in inventors working in the same niche fields and having a diverse knowledge base. Taken together, these results point to labor mobility as a key force in explaining why innovative firms cluster and suggest that the clustering of firms in thick labor markets can foster corporate innovation by facilitating the productivity-enhancing reallocation of human capital following scientific breakthroughs. In the second essay, I identify the entry effects of top innovative firms on incumbent innovation. I exploit the inter-temporal variation in patenting activities of local inventors in chosen commuting zones that attracted the firm headquarters and in runner-up commuting zones that were finalists of location choice. Treated and control groups have similar trends prior to the entry, while the local inventors in the chosen zones apply 6.7% more patents, gain 16.8% more top patents, and receive 11.6% more citations. Entry effects are stronger among local inventors who are technologically or socially closer to the entering firm, after controlling for innovation incentives and labor mobility. Social closeness, isolated from technological proximity, consistently explains the innovation gains, which suggests knowledge diffusion is the important channel for local innovation productivity spillovers. In the third essay, we investigate why small businesses exploit business opportunities better in some areas than others. In a sample of 1.2 million consumer-facing establishments, social capital predicts the uptake of risk-free loans controlling for close-by bank branches, income, and education. One standard deviation increase in the social capital metric accounts for 20 percent of the variation in uptake across zip codes, surpassing the impact of a bank branch within 1000 yards. Strong social capital benefits large, low-growth stores in less-dynamic areas, whereas bank branches benefit small, high-growth stores in more-dynamic areas. Virtual connections have the greatest effect on uptake in already advantaged locations.Item THE CONTRASTING EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE: EVIDENCE FROM PERU(2020) CORONADO-CASTELLANOS, PAVEL; Birnir, Johanna; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation develops a model to understand the joint role of social capital and nonviolent resistance campaigns to obtain concessions and changes in public goods provision in new democracies and in democracies with weak party systems. The factors that explain variation in effectiveness among nonviolent campaigns have been understudied. By adding social capital to the analysis, this dissertation contributes to filling this theoretical and empirical void. I use data from Perú to provide empirical support to my theory. In Chapter 2, a micro-level theory of nonviolent campaigns is developed. This theory argues that by making cooperation easier, social capital increases the levels of participation in nonviolent campaigns, thereby making concessions more likely. A novel result of this theory is that it shows that social capital is a key feature of social life that can help to generate disruptive collective actions but also to prevent the use of such disruptive means. Thus, under some circumstances, social capital can help to reduce the observed disruptive actions. Chapters 3 and 4 test the theoretical propositions derived in Chapter 2 using Peruvian data. Chapter 3 finds that social capital has a negative statistically significant effect on some types of nonviolent campaigns but positive effects on other types of nonviolent campaigns. Chapter 3 also provides evidence that peasant communities’ organizations in the first half of the 20th century were product of persistence effects of early colonial extractive institutions (i.e. the mining mita) with colonial revolts as important channels of persistence. Chapter 4 shows that nonviolent campaigns and social capital form a positive interactive relationship to affect the provision of public goods at the local level. Social capital makes more likely nonviolent campaign’s success. Chapter 5 summarizes the main conclusions of this dissertation.Item Post-Hurricane Recovery in the United States: A Multi-Scale Approach(2019) Kerr, Siobhan Elizabeth; Patwardhan, Anand; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As we increasingly consider resilience as a central strategy for addressing climate change, recovery emerges as an important dimension that is often the focus of public policy. The progression of global climate change will cause an increase in the scale and magnitude of disasters, so it is more important than ever to understand how we can not only prevent impacts, but also recover from them. This research was carried out with the primary goal of examining recovery at multiple scales, while simultaneously considering the social and economic forces and community behaviors that influence recovery outcomes. This dissertation proposes new ways of conceptualizing and quantifying recovery and analyzes the way that neighborhood characteristics and community engagement influence the recovery process. The findings emphasize the importance of assessing recovery progress on multiple timescales and highlight the opportunities that emerge as a result of community engagement with local government throughout the recovery process. The first analytical chapter considers the interaction between vulnerability and recovery by studying power outages and restoration following Hurricane Isaac in Louisiana. This approach uses power restoration as a metric by which to better understand short-term recovery of a specific infrastructure system, building a model for recovery that takes into account antecedent conditions, impact, hazard and prioritization. The next chapter considers 311 requests in Houston TX as a potential proxy measure for civic engagement and social capital. This chapter analyzes 311 contact volumes across the City of Houston and identifies the neighborhood characteristics that influence proclivity to call. Finally, the 311 data is used to better understand system-level recovery and community engagement in the recovery process in Houston TX following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The chapter compares neighborhood-level use of 311 services prior to Hurricane Harvey to the way it was used for storm-related concerns in the weeks directly following the storm.Item MI LUGAR ES AQUÍ (MY PLACE IS HERE): LATINO MALE VOICES AND THE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THEIR SUCCESS IN COLLEGE(2015) Rivera, Jason; MacDonald, Victoria M.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this collective case study, the voices of 10 academically successful Latino males were privileged to uncover the factors they believe contribute to their success in college. The participants in this study range in age from 18 to 24 and are from diverse Latino backgrounds including Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, and Peru. Each Latino male participant maintained a grade point average of 3.0 or greater and began his higher education experience at the local community college. Using extant literature on various forms of capital, care, and patterns of transition, a conceptual model created to explore how participants' describe and understand academic achievement. Through individual interviews, focus groups, a survey, and participant selected artifacts, the power of care and the importance of social capital and community cultural wealth emerge as salient factors in academically successful Latino male experiences. In this study, care was redefined by drawing on the scholarship of Noddings (2005), Gay, (2010), and scholars who articulate critical conceptions of care. Other salient factors that contributed to participants' collegiate academic achievement included Latino cultural traditions (i.e., familismo, consejos, and bien educado), caring teachers and professors, coaches and mentors, and the role of the community college and community-based organizations. This study also found that because of care, and the values inhered in caring relationships (i.e., trust, support, and care), participants were able to gain access to a variety of capital as well as other important resources (i.e., transition strategies such as code switching and discerning expectations) that they were able to leverage toward their academic achievement in college. Implications for theory, research, and practice are presented with an emphasis placed on creating caring spaces that cultivate and nurture the academic achievement of Latino males in higher education environments.Item Individual and School Characteristics as Predictors of Parental Involvement(2014) Grossman, Julie Adina; Strein, William O; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Parental involvement in children's education is of critical importance in the U.S. educational system. Therefore, it is useful to identify effective predictors of parental involvement. The present study used multi-level analyses to examine how individual and school-level characteristics impact two forms of parental involvement (school-based and home-based parental involvement) in first grade and eighth grade. Several child/parent level characteristics significantly predicted parental involvement. Parent interaction/social capital demonstrated medium to large effects across both forms of parental involvement in both first and eighth grades. Many of the other child/parent level characteristics produced small effect sizes. Across both forms of parental involvement there were few school-level effects that were statistically significant. Those that were statistically significant were very small in magnitude. The results of the present study may serve to inform school practices and research in the field of parental involvement.Item Parental involvement of Asian American immigrant mothers: Investigating social capital, English proficiency, length of U.S. residency, and social class(2009) Shin, HaeJin; Holcomb-McCoy, Cheryl; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The major purpose of the present study was to examine how the parent social and cultural contexts are related to Asian American immigrant mothers' educational involvement. This study investigated four parents' socio-cultural background variables: a) parent's social capital, b) parent's self-perceived English proficiency, c) parent's length of residence in the United States, and d) parent's social class status. In addition, the current study sought to determine the underlying dimensions of Asian American immigrant mothers' parental involvement in order to examine how parent social and cultural background factors influence each of the dimensions differently. The subjects for the current study were 597 nationally representative Asian American immigrant mothers who completed the parent questionnaire of the base-year Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002). Five dimensions of parental involvement were identified in the current study sample of Asian American immigrant mothers. These include parent's engagement in social activities with her child, parent's positive school contact, parent's monitoring, parent's school contact for problems, and parent's participation at school functions. A series of multiple regression and logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationships between parent's social and cultural backgrounds and each of five dimensions of the Asian American parental involvement. The results showed that Asian American immigrant mothers' social capital, English proficiency, and social class were significantly related to parent's engagement in social activities with her child. Further, mother's social capital, English proficiency, and social class status were significantly positively related to parent's monitoring. Of the various parent's social and cultural background variables, only parent's social capital significantly predicted Asian American immigrant mothers' positive school contact and participation at school functions. No relationship was found between parent social and cultural background variables and Asian American immigrant mothers' school contact for problems.Item Addressing the Hispanic Dropout Crisis: Predicting the Educational Persistence of Mexican-Descent Students Using Demographic and Process Variables(2008-12-18) DiPaula, John Joseph; Lucas, Margaretha S; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT While there has been a concerted effort to close the achievement gap and decrease school dropout rates for more than 30 years, Hispanic students are still dropping out of school at two and a half times the rate of black students, four times the rate of white students and almost eight times the rate of Asian students (Kaufman, Alt & Chapman, 2002). The Hispanic dropout crisis has been recognized as a national problem and was addressed by the federal government through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, through its focus on closing the racial gap in graduation rates. Regrettably, data continues to suggest that this situation is not improving (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). A more thorough understanding of the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational persistence is necessary to help create policies and practices to increase Hispanic graduation rates and close the graduation gap. Investigating deeper into this issue of Hispanics drop out, census data disaggregated by national origin, reveal that there are strong differences between nationalities and that Mexicans have the lowest rate of educational attainment among all Hispanic groups (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). Due to the disparity in performance within the larger Hispanic population, this study will focus on the sub-group with the lowest educational attainment and highest drop out rate, Mexican youth. The purpose of this study is to investigate those input and process variables that may be influenced by school personnel in order to help increase Mexican-descent students' ability to persist in school toward graduation. The current study, in essence, will contribute to a better understanding of students' social support from adults at school (social capital) and the effect this has on students' educational expectations, attendance and persistence. The current study utilizes the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002/2004 (ELS:2002/2004) dataset sponsored by NCES.Item Strategic IT Partnerships in Transformational Outsourcing as a Distinctive Source of IT Value: A Social Capital Perspective(2005-09-07) Ye, Fei; Agarwal, Ritu; Decision and Information Technologies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Firms increasingly acquire needed information technology (IT) products and services from external sources through the formation of partnerships. In spite of the ubiquity of IT outsourcing practice in today's organizations however, theoretical understanding of IT partnerships in outsourcing is limited. Extant research has largely focused on the economic or strategic aspects of IT outsourcing, using transaction cost economics (TCE) and the resource-based view (RBV) as dominant theoretical frameworks. This dissertation adopts a social perspective to examine the IT outsourcing phenomenon. It focuses on IT partnerships in transformational outsourcing relationships that are interorganizational engagements formed to rapidly and substantially improve performance at the organizational level. By synthesizing the knowledge based view of the firm with the concept of social capital, I attempt to explain how IT outsourcing relationships generate value for organizations. I argue that IT outsourcing partnerships constitute a form of social capital for the firm that chooses to outsource, that facilitates knowledge exchange and transfer. The increased knowledge stock as a result of knowledge exchange and transfer, in turn, forms the foundation for IT value, which is manifested as success in business operations and IT-enabled innovation. To empirically test the theoretical model, I surveyed 151 client firms and 79 outsourcing service providers in China. Results suggest that both social capital and knowledge acquisition are crucial to the success of IT outsourcing. Evidence from the survey responses also indicates that different aspects of social capital play different roles in the process of IT value creation. Specifically, the structural dimension (partner resource endowment) and the cognitive dimension of social capital (shared vision and shared cognition) have a strong impact on knowledge acquisition; whereas the relational dimensions of social capital (social interaction and trust) has strong direct effects on successful outcomes of IT outsourcing. This study presented evidence that helps further our understanding of the IT outsourcing phenomenon through an alternative theoretical lens, and emphasizes the value other than immediate cost-related benefits that organizations may garner through IT outsourcing partnerships.