The present paper provides further evidence on the importance of sunk costs as determinant of the turnover, entry, and exit of firms by studying the Austrian manufacturing industry using a 14-year panel. This study explicitly considers sunk costs related to investment in dedicated intangible assets such as investment relating to organizational and goodwill capital. The empirical results confirm the relevance of sunk costs as mobility barriers, their symmetry in respect to entry and exit and suggest that the influence of sunk costs is robust to aggregation. Sunk costs relating to capital expenditure and to organizational capital are found to be symmetric. Sunk costs relating to advertising expenditures seem to be only barriers to entry but not mobility barriers. Industry growth and profitability growth are found to be asymmetric, having a positive influence on entry and a negative on exit. Export growth is found to reduce the turnover of firms and to have a negative effect on exit suggesting that the decision to export may be associated with substantial sunk costs. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

[pt] No atual ambiente competitivo globalizado, as empresas são cada vez mais levadas a estabelecer alianças estratégicas e redes de relacionamentos estratégicos para complementar seus recursos. A pesquisa avaliou como as implicações estratégicas das alianças e outros relacionamentos estratégicos, no caso de empresas situadas em um grupo estratégico, complementam a análise tradicional das implicações estratégicas dos fatores organizacionais e macroambientais. Sofisticou-se este estudo introduzindo-se o conceito de blocos estratégicos, complementar ao estudo dos grupos estratégicos, e cuja maior especificidade facilita o estudo do desempenho estratégico organizacional de empresas que estejam situadas em grupos e envolvidas em redes de relacionamento estratégicas. A investigação envolveu quatro empresas, incluindo um grupo estratégico que é, simultaneamente, um bloco estratégico, observado dentro de um escopo específico do sub-setor brasileiro de suco de laranja pronto para beber industrializado até fins do ano de 2001. Tratou-se de pesquisa descritiva e exploratória, com enfoque metodológico predominantemente positivista. Caracterizou-se como um múltiplo estudo de caso por envolver várias empresas, havendo complementado, com a abordagem relacional, a abordagem tradicional de ameaças e oportunidades ao rompimento das barreiras de mobilidade na migração inter-grupal das empresas. Para responder à pergunta central, foi realizada primeiramente uma pesquisa secundária, baseada em revisão bibliográfica e documental. Apontaram-se os construtos para análise das implicações estratégicas de redes e blocos para grupos estratégicos, aplicaram-se estes construtos para a análise dos grupos estratégicos pela perspectiva relacional, e indicaram-se as implicações relacionais às ameaças enfrentadas pelas empresas do grupo focal pela ótica tradicional. Em seguida, realizou-se a pesquisa primária, a qual: 1) retificou, de dois para três, o número de grupos estratégicos no setor analisado apontado na pesquisa secundária; 2) mostrou que as alianças estratégicas e redes de relacionamento dão margem a ameaças e oportunidades ao desempenho estratégico empresarial dificilmente identificadas pela ótica tradicional de análise do desempenho; 3) mostrou que as redes de alianças de uma empresa situada em um grupo estratégico podem capacitá-la a ultrapassar as barreiras inter- grupais, na medida em que complementam capacidades, provêm acesso a informações relevantes, proporcionam economias de escala, ajudam a gerenciar riscos e incertezas, reduzem os custos de entrada em novos mercados, e facultam o compartilhamento de recursos e competências complementares; 4) mostrou que, no caso das alianças estratégicas com clientes-chave - muito relevante no caso do segmento econômico pesquisado - esta capacitação à ultrapassagem das barreiras pode ser modulada pela forma como a empresa se posiciona no relacionamento, sendo menos intensa quando a empresa se vê como uma mera prestadora de serviços. Quatro recomendações a futuras pesquisas são destacadas. / [en] In the present globalized competitive environment, companies are continuoulsy pushed to establish strategic alliances and strategic relationship networks to complement their resources. The research studied how the strategic implications of alliances and other strategic relationships, in the case of companies in a strategic group, complement the traditional analysis about the strategic implications of the organizational and macroenvironmental factors.The study was sophisticated through the introduction of the strategic block concept created by Nohria & Garcia-Pont (1991), that complements the strategic groups study, and whose deeper specificity improves the study of the organizational strategic performance of companies located in groups and envolved in strategic relationship networks. The investigation envolved four companies,including a strategic group that simultaneously is a strategic block, observed in a specific scope of the Brazilian ready-to-drink industrialized orange juice subsector up to the end of 2001. The research was descriptive and exploratory, with a mainly positivist methodological vision. It is a multiple case study since it envolves several companies, and it complemented, through the relational approach, the traditional approach of opportunities and threats to the surpassing of the mobility barriers for the inter-group migration of companies. In order to answer the main question, first a secondary reasearch was made, based on bilbiographical and documental research. The constructs for the analysis of the strategic implications of networks and blocks for strategic groups were indicated, and were used in the analysis of strategic groups through the relational perspective. The relational implications to the threats faced by the companies of the focal group in the traditional perspective were indicated. In the following stage, the primary research was accomplished, and its results were: 1) it rectified, from two to three, the number of strategic groups in the sector analysed in the secondary research; 2) it showed that strategic alliances and relationship networks give birth to threats and opportunities to the strategic performance of the company that are hardly identified through the traditional approach of the performance analysis; 3) the alliance networks of a company located in a strategic group may enable it to surpass the intergroupal barriers, since they provide the company with capacities foreign to its core business; 4) in the case of strategic alliances with key clients - very relevant in the case of the analysed economic sector - this capacity of surpassing barriers may be modulated by the way the company positions itself in the relationship. Four recommendations for future research are proposed.

Rehabilitation clinics remain until this day a greatly unexplored topic from the perspective of architectural design. Stroke is the most common condition that is treated in neurological rehabilitation clinics in Germany and it is a disease that causes the most complex disability. Since stroke numbers are expected to constantly grow in the future, there is a definite need for understanding the stroke survivors’ spatial needs and for accommodating them in the built environment in a way that supports their recovery process and their life after rehabilitation. This PhD thesis aims at contributing to this wide knowledge gap and at introducing new research directions focusing on the relationship between stroke patients’ and the rehabilitation built environments. Rehabilitation clinics were chosen as the research setting for this study as the environments that stroke survivors encounter after the hospital stay and where they undergo a challenging rehabilitation process with the goal of returning home to their normal lives. This rehabilitation process involves living in rehabilitation clinics for a certain period and attending various types of therapies led by a multidisciplinary team, with multiple therapies per day, every day of the week. This type of intensive therapy is important for stroke patients since the greatest amount of functional recovery can be expected in the first 3 to 6 months after the stroke onset. German neurological rehabilitation clinics are commonly transformed from other functions or newly built without evidence-based knowledge about the spatial needs of their patients. This practice creates barriers in the built environment for patients, likely hindering their recovery process and negatively influencing their psychological well-being. These barriers can most directly influence and hinder patients’ mobility within the clinic. Mobility, as the main goal of stroke rehabilitation, is often not well-supported in the built environment of rehabilitation clinics. This study, therefore, focuses on identifying barriers and facilitators to mobility in rehabilitation clinics and their architectural properties and the different experiences of patients with different mobility levels. Three empirical research methods were used to investigate the relationship between the stroke inpatients’ mobility and the built environment of rehabilitation clinics: patient shadowing, patient questionnaire and staff questionnaire. These three methods were the elements of Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) applied in seven German neurological rehabilitation clinics over the period between September 2016 and May 2018. The results show that the built environment of rehabilitation clinics hinders patients’ mobility in five main aspects: challenging wayfinding, long distances, insufficient dimensions of corridors, floor surfaces and physical obstacles. It was also found that mobility facilitators are greatly lacking. Stroke patients with the lower levels of mobility, and especially patients using a wheelchair, were found the most vulnerable to the identified barriers. Patients were also greatly inactive during their time in the clinic since 50% of the day was spent in patient rooms. They also expressed a wish for a greater variety of common spaces within the clinic. The absence of motivating spaces was likely to be another important reason for patients’ inactivity, besides the avoidance of various barriers. The architectural properties of the identified barriers and facilitators were used to develop a catalogue of architectural design guidelines that present a new model for rehabilitation buildings: the transitional model. The given recommendations are based on the obtained study results and the experience of living in rehabilitation clinics and observing their daily life for 14 weeks. The catalogue of guidelines is intended for architects, medical professionals and others included in the process of planning a rehabilitation clinic. The main goal is to provide directly applicable evidence-based recommendations for mobility supporting clinics and to facilitate the dialogue between different professions involved in the planning process. / Rehabilitationskliniken sind bis heute ein aus architektonischer Sicht wenig erforschtes Thema. Schlaganfall ist die häufigste Erkrankung, die in neurologischen Rehabilitationskliniken in Deutschland behandelt wird und die die komplexeste Beeinträchtigung verursacht. Da zu erwarten ist, dass die Anzahl der Schlaganfälle in Zukunft stetig zunimmt, müssen die räumlichen Bedürfnisse der Schlaganfallpatienten unbedingt begriffen und in der gebauten Umgebung so untergebracht werden, dass ihr Genesungsprozess und ihr Leben nach der Rehabilitation unterstützt werden. Diese Dissertation zielt darauf ab, zu dieser breiten Wissenslücke beizutragen und neue Forschungsrichtungen einzuführen, die sich auf die Beziehung zwischen Schlaganfallpatienten und der rehabilitierten Umgebung konzentrieren. Rehabilitationskliniken wurden als Forschungsumgebung für diese Studie ausgewählt, da sie nach dem Krankenhausaufenthalt von Schlaganfallpatienten heimgesucht werden und sich dort einem herausfordernden Rehabilitationsprozess unterziehen, um zu ihrem normalen Leben zurückzukehren. Dieser Behandlungsprozess beinhaltet das Leben in Rehabilitationskliniken für einen bestimmten Zeitraum und die Teilnahme an verschiedenen Arten von Therapien, die von einem multidisziplinären Team mit mehreren Therapien pro Tag an jedem Tag der Woche durchgeführt werden. Diese intensive Therapieform ist wichtig für Schlaganfallpatienten, da in den ersten 3 bis 6 Monaten nach dem Schlaganfall mit der größten Wiederherstellung der Funktion gerechnet werden kann. Deutsche neurologische Rehabilitationskliniken werden häufig von anderen Funktionen umgestaltet oder ohne evidenzbasiertes Wissen über die räumlichen Bedürfnisse ihrer Patienten neu errichtet. Dieses Vorgehen schafft Barrieren in der gebauten Umgebung für Patienten, die wahrscheinlich ihren Genesungsprozess behindern und ihr psychisches Wohlbefinden negativ beeinflussen. Diese Barrieren behindern auch die Mobilität der Patienten in der Klinik. Mobilität als Hauptziel der Schlaganfallrehabilitation wird in der bebauten Umgebung von Rehabilitationskliniken häufig nicht gut unterstützt. Diese Studie konzentriert sich daher auf die Identifizierung von Barrieren, die Erleichterungen für die Mobilität in Rehabilitationskliniken und deren architektonischen Eigenschaften, sowie auf die unterschiedlichen Erfahrungen von Patienten mit unterschiedlichen Mobilitätsniveaus. Drei empirische Forschungsmethoden wurden verwendet, um den Zusammenhang zwischen der Mobilität von Schlaganfallpatienten und der gebauten Umgebung von Rehabilitationskliniken zu untersuchen: Patienten-Shadowing, Patientenfragebogen und Mitarbeiterfragebogen. Diese drei Methoden waren die Elemente der Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE), die in sieben deutschen neurologischen Rehabilitationskliniken im Zeitraum von September 2016 bis Mai 2018 angewendet wurden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die bebaute Umgebung von Rehabilitationskliniken die Mobilität der Patienten in fünf Hauptaspekten behindert: Herausfordernde Orientierung, große Entfernungen, unzureichende Abmessungen der Korridore, Bodenflächen und physische Hindernisse, sowie ein Mangel an Unterstützungselemente der Mobilität. Schlaganfallpatienten mit eingeschränkter Mobilität und insbesondere Patienten, die einen Rollstuhl benutzen, waren am anfälligsten für die festgestellten Hindernisse. Die Patienten waren auch während ihrer Zeit in der Klinik sehr inaktiv, da 50% des Tages in Patientenzimmern verbracht wurden. Die Patienten wünschten sich mehr Abwechslung in den Gemeinschaftsräumen der Klinik. Das Fehlen von motivationsfördernde Bereiche ist wahrscheinlich ein weiterer wichtiger Grund für die Inaktivität der Patienten, neben der Vermeidung verschiedener Hindernisse. Die architektonischen Eigenschaften der identifizierten Barrieren und Unterstützungselemente wurden verwendet, um einen Katalog von Empfehlungen für die architektonische Gestaltung zu entwickeln, in dem ein neues Modell für Rehabilitationseinrichtungen vorgestellt wird: das Übergangsmodell. Die gegebenen Empfehlungen basieren auf den erhaltenen Studienergebnissen und der Erfahrung der Beobachtung der Abläufe in Rehabilitationskliniken für 14 Wochen. Der Empefehlungskatalog richtet sich an Architekten, Mediziner und andere Personen, die an der Planung einer Rehabilitationsklinik beteiligt sind. Hauptziel ist es, direkt anwendbare evidenzbasierte Empfehlungen für mobilitätsunterstützende Kliniken bereitzustellen und den Dialog zwischen verschiedenen am Planungsprozess beteiligten Berufen zu erleichtern.