The Role of Personal Factors in the Location Decision of Software Services Start-up Firms

This paper explores the factors which influence the business location decisions of start-ups, focusing in particular on the role of personal factors. Established explanations of industry location emphasize proximity to firms in the same or related industries and proximity to a wider set of business services, though recent research suggests that personal factors may play an important role in explanations of industry location—particularly in technology-enabled sectors. A survey of 97 new firms, founded between 2008 and 2012, in the Irish software services sector, shows that the business location decision is influenced by the personal motivation of entrepreneurs to attain a desired quality of life, and that this outweighs economic factors such as proximity to firms within the same or related industries, proximity to a broader set of supporting business services, infrastructure or the availability of government support schemes. Personal factors are particularly important to firms located outside the Dublin metropolitan area and to home-based businesses. This has important policy implications for national and regional governments seeking to encourage entrepreneurship in technology-enabled service sectors.     

Inherited competence and spin-off performance

In this paper we extend the hereditary theory of spin-off formation, developed by Klepper, by relating the concept of inherited competence to two different types of spin-offs—university and private sector spin-offs—and two different types of inherited competence—R&D competence and innovation competence. We then utilize this extension of Klepper's framework to study the evolution of a science-based industry—the biotech industry. Using the Irish biotech industry as a case-study, we find that differences in pre-entry experience manifest themselves most markedly in terms of the firm's capacity to attract venture capital, with private sector spin-offs considerably outperforming university spin-offs. We argue that the superior performance of the private sector spin-offs is explained by the nature of their inherited competence in that they are characterized by higher levels of innovation competence.     

The I.H.S. Monogram as a Symbol of Catholic Resistance in Seventeenth-Century Ireland

It has been suggested that the presence of religious images and scenes in secular buildings of sixteenth-century date can be viewed as an expression of resistance by the native Irish to English colonial activity in the aftermath of the Munster Plantation (J. A. Delle, 1999, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3: 11–35). Such images, however, may merely represent a continuation into the early modern period of a Medieval tradition of adorning secular houses with devotional images. If a religious symbol of native Catholic resistance to English colonization and Protestantism in Munster is to be sought then perhaps a more appropriate image would be the I.H.S. monogram—a symbol associated with the Counter Reformation and the Jesuits. The paper presents an example of the monogram located within a tower house at Gortnetubbrid in County Limerick, Ireland.     

Masshouses and Meetinghouses: The Archaeology of the Penal Laws in Early Modern Ireland

Archaeology has demonstrated that it can provide added insight into the study of early modern Ireland, although there has been a notable tendency for research to concentrate on secular aspects of society. Investigations into the period, however, would benefit from a greater awareness of contemporary religion, since this was a factor that played a major role in political, social, and economic life. An example of this is the introduction of Penal legislation by the Protestant-dominated Irish parliament in the early eighteenth century, directed at those whose religious outlook did not correspond to that of the Established Church.     

Tracing resident antagonisms in urban development: agonistic pluralism and participatory planning

This article draws on research with resident action groups and other alliances in Sydney. It investigates the ways in which citizens work beyond the formal planning system to approach and achieve their urban development goals. The post‐political treatment of community voices in planning relies on the centrality of consensus politics in current participatory planning regimes. By providing a democratic outlet that is far removed from the actual development outcome, powerful urban actors can silence through inclusion. Planning theorists have posited that one pathway beyond this post‐political moment in urban planning is provided by Chantal Mouffe's critique of Habermasian communicative theory and consensus politics, which she bases on her theory of agonistic pluralism. Following Mouffe, to achieve a productive agonistic politics, any rigid antagonisms between “enemies” need to be moderated to more mutable “adversarial” positions. However, we have little knowledge of the conditions that might precipitate such a change in praxis. To address this gap between theory and praxis, we use focus group data to show how local resident action groups and urban alliances work through three modalities of antagonism to achieve their urban development goals. We add empirical weight to the idea that citizens can shift from rigid and fundamental antagonisms to the potentially more productive adversarial politics of agonistic pluralism but therein expose some limitations with how Mouffe's ideas are being applied to urban planning.