Public promotion of new technology ventures: an agency perspective

Abstract: Understanding the proper role of government in the promotion of small technology-oriented firms is a priority given the potential benefits to society as a whole and the inability of traditional market mechanisms to adequately nurture such firms. Further, designing the appropriate public policies to sufficiently satisfy the involved stakeholders has typically proven to be an elusive pursuit. With these issues in mind, this paper applies the concept of agency theory to evaluate government programs seeking to promote technology start-ups. A new program associated with the Innovation Ontario Corporation, which utilizes equity joint ventures between government and small technology-oriented firms, is described and evaluated using the agency perspective. Suggestions are made for further inquiry and analysis. Sommaire: Il importe de cerner le rôle adéquat du gouvernement dans la promotion des petites entreprises technologiques, étant donné, d'une part, les avantages potentiels pour la société dans son ensemble, et d'autre part, l'incapacité des mécanismes classiques du marchéà favoriser comme il le faut l'évolution de ces entreprises. De plus, en régle générale, les efforts visant àélaborer des politiques publiques appropriées et satisfaisantes pour les intervenants en question se sont révélés aléatoires. Compte tenu de tout cela, le présent article applique la théorie des agences pour évaluer les programmes gouvemementaux qui visent à faciliter le démarrage d'entreprises technologiques. Nous décrivons et nous évaluons ici, dans la perspective des agences, un nouveau programme associéà la Société Innovation Ontario, qui fait appel aux co-entreprises avec participation au capital pour le gouvernement et les petites entreprises technologiques. Nous proposons aussi des suggestions pour des enquêtes et analyses plus poussées.     

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Differentiating specialists and generalists within college students' social support networks

In order to examine the relationships among social network structure, types of social support, and determinants of support satisfaction, an alternative method was used to score the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ). Factor analysis procedures suggested that college students' (N=198) social networks consisted of four groups: nuclear family, other family, friends, and others. Satisfaction with support was positively related to the proportion of the network occupied by nuclear family and negatively related to the proportion of friends in the network. Evidence was found for the presence of both support specialists and support generalists in the networks of the college students. These results are discussed from a developmental perspective with attention to the implications for interventions.