Search results for: levers of innovation

Authors: Emmanuel Benjamin, Matthias Blum

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Purpose – We address smallholder farmers’ restricted possibilities to adopt sustainable technologies which have direct and indirect benefits. Smallholders often face little asset endowment due to small farm size und insecure property rights, therefore experiencing constraints in adopting agricultural innovation. A program involving payments for ecosystem services (PES) benefits poor smallholder farmers in developing countries in many ways and has been suggested as a means of easing smallholder farmers’ financial constraints. PES may also provide additional mainstay which can eventually result in more favorable credit contract terms due to the availability of collateral substitute. Results of this study may help to understand the barriers, motives and incentives for smallholders’ participation in PES and help in designing a strategy to foster participation in beneficial programs. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a random utility model and a logistic regression approach to investigate factors that influence agroforestry adoption. We investigate non-monetary factors, such as information spillover, that influence the decision to adopt such conservation strategies. We collected original data from non-government-run agroforestry mitigation programs with PES that have been implemented in the Mount Kenya region. Preliminary Findings – We find that spread of information, existing networks and peer involvement in such programs drive participation. Conversely, participation by smallholders does not seem to be influenced by education, land or asset endowment. Contrary to some existing literature, we found weak evidence for a positive correlation between the adoption of agroforestry with PES and age of smallholder, e.g., one increases with the other, in the Mount Kenyan region. Research implications – Poverty alleviation policies for developing countries should target social capital to increase the adoption rate of modern technologies amongst smallholders.

Keywords: agriculture innovation, agroforestry adoption, smallholders, payment for ecosystem services, Sub-Saharan Africa

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Authors: Shanorfizah Mohd Safar, Shaizatulaqma Kamalul Ariffin

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Internationalization of halal small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is necessary for SMEs to become more involved in regional trade and business cooperation. By internationalization, SMEs' profit can increase, and market expansion of SMEs is basic for rising economies of countries to contend all around in the halal industry globally. There are several modes of internationalization; exporting is one of the first steps for internationalization with less capital needed. The study examines the influential factors of export performance amongst halal SMEs in Malaysia. Specifically, this study examines the positive and significant relationships amongst human capital, managerial capability, Halal Assurance Management System (HAMS), digital transformation, government support, and networking capability on halal SMEs' export performance toward SMEs' competitive advantage. In addition, this study will examine innovation capabilities as a moderator in the relationship between independence variables and competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is the most compelling perspective that drives the export performance of halal SMEs in Malaysia. A quantitative method will be used: an online questionnaire survey distributed through emails and face-to-face toward selected halal-certificated SMEs registered in JAKIM, MATRADE website and SME Corp Malaysia website. Nevertheless, whether the halal SMEs practice global business, they will still be the potential respondents. The data were examined and obtained using the statistical software Smart PLS. The analysis used is reliability, correlation, and regression analysis to meet the research objectives. This study contributes significantly to the theory by integrating Resource Based View (RBV) theory, Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework and Networking theory. In addition, this research extends the RBV by extending a variable, the Halal Assurance Management System. This study also examines a moderating role of innovation capabilities in the framework and competitive advantage as a mediator. This research aims to analyze the factors that will impact the internationalization of halal SMEs.

Keywords: internationalization, halal SMEs, competitive advantage, export performance

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Authors: Laura Piedra-Muñoz, Ángeles Godoy-Durán, Emilio Galdeano-Gómez, Juan C. Pérez-Mesa

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The current agricultural system in some arid and semi-arid areas is not sustainable in the long term. In southeast Spain, groundwater is the main water source and is overexploited, while alternatives like desalination are still limited. The Water Plan for the Mediterranean Basins 2015-2020 indicates a global deficit of 73.42 hm3 and an overexploitation of the aquifers of 205.58hm3. In order to solve this serious problem, two major actions can be taken: increasing available water, and/or improving the efficiency of its use. This study focuses on the latter. The main aim of this study is to present the major factors related to water usage efficiency in farming. It focuses on Almería province, southeast Spain, one of the most arid areas of the country, and in particular on family farms as the main direct managers of water use in this zone. Many of these farms are among the most water efficient in Spanish agriculture, but this efficiency is not generalized throughout the sector. This work conducts a comprehensive assessment of water performance in this area, using on-farm water-use, structural, socio-economic and environmental information. Two statistical techniques are used: descriptive analysis and cluster analysis. Thus, two groups are identified: the least and the most efficient farms regarding water usage. By analyzing both the common characteristics within each group and the differences between the groups with a one-way ANOVA analysis, several conclusions can be reached. The main differences between the two clusters center on the extent to which innovation and new technologies are used in irrigation. The most water efficient farms are characterized by more educated farmers, a greater degree of innovation, new irrigation technology, specialized production and awareness of water issues and environmental sustainability. The research shows that better practices and policies can have a substantial impact on achieving a more sustainable and efficient use of water. The findings of this study can be extended to farms in similar arid and semi-arid areas and contribute to foster appropriate policies to improve the efficiency of water usage in the agricultural sector.

Keywords: cluster analysis, family farms, Spain, water-use efficiency

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Authors: John Goodhue, Xiaonan Wei

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Current legal decisions and policies regarding the naming as artificial intelligence as inventor are reviewed with emphasis on the recent decisions by the European Patent Office regarding the DABUS inventions holding that an artificial intelligence machine cannot be an inventor. Next, a set of hypotheticals is introduced and examined to better understand how artificial intelligence might be used to create or assist in creating new inventions and how application of existing or proposed changes in the law would affect the ability to protect these inventions including due to restrictions on artificial intelligence for being named as inventors, ownership of inventions made by artificial intelligence, and the effects on legal standards for inventiveness or obviousness.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, innovation, invention, patent

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Authors: Sarah Müller-Sägebrecht

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Today’s volatile environment challenges executives to make the right strategic decisions to gain sustainable success. Entrepreneurship scholars postulate mainly positive effects of environmental changes on entrepreneurship behavior, such as developing new business opportunities, promoting ingenuity, and the satisfaction of resource voids. A strategic solution approach to overcome threatening environmental changes and catch new business opportunities is business model innovation (BMI). Although this research stream has gained further importance in the last decade, BMI research is still insufficient. Especially BMI barriers, such as inefficient strategic decision-making processes, need to be identified. Strategic decisions strongly impact organizational future and are, therefore, usually made in groups. Although groups draw on a more extensive information base than single individuals, group-interaction effects can influence the decision-making process - in a favorable but also unfavorable way. Decisions are characterized by uncertainty and risk, whereby their intensity is perceived individually differently. The individual risk-willingness influences which option humans choose. The special nature of strategic decisions, such as in BMI processes, is that these decisions are not made individually but in groups due to their high organizational scope. These groups consist of different personalities whose individual risk-willingness can vary considerably. It is known from group decision theory that these individuals influence each other, observable in different group-interaction effects. The following research questions arise: i) How does group interaction shape BMI decision-making from managers’ perspective? ii) What are the potential interrelations among managers’ risk-willingness, group biases, and BMI decision-making? After conducting 26 in-depth interviews with executives from the manufacturing industry, applied Gioia methodology reveals the following results: i) Risk-averse decision-makers have an increased need to be guided by facts. The more information available to them, the lower they perceive uncertainty and the more willing they are to pursue a specific decision option. However, the results also show that social interaction does not change the individual risk-willingness in the decision-making process. ii) Generally, it could be observed that during BMI decisions, group interaction is primarily beneficial to increase the group’s information base for making good decisions, less than for social interaction. Further, decision-makers mainly focus on information available to all decision-makers in the team but less on personal knowledge. This work contributes to strategic decision-making literature twofold. First, it gives insights into how group-interaction effects influence an organization’s strategic BMI decision-making. Second, it enriches risk-management research by highlighting how individual risk-willingness impacts organizational strategic decision-making. To date, it was known in BMI research that risk aversion would be an internal BMI barrier. However, with this study, it becomes clear that it is not risk aversion that inhibits BMI. Instead, the lack of information prevents risk-averse decision-makers from choosing a riskier option. Simultaneously, results show that risk-averse decision-makers are not easily carried away by the higher risk-willingness of their team members. Instead, they use social interaction to gather missing information. Therefore, executives need to provide sufficient information to all decision-makers to catch promising business opportunities.

Keywords: business model innovation, cognitive biases, group-interaction effects, strategic decision-making, risk-willingness

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Authors: Radin Siti Aishah Radin A Rahman, Norasmah Othman, Zaidatol Akmaliah Lope Pihie, Hariyaty Ab. Wahid

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The recent instability in economy was found to be influencing the situation in Malaysia whether directly or indirectly. Taking that into consideration, the government needs to find the best approach to balance its citizen’s socio-economic strata level urgently. Through education platform is among the efforts planned and acted upon for the purpose of balancing the effects of the influence, through the exposure of social entrepreneurial activity towards youth especially those in higher institution level. Armed with knowledge and skills that they gained, with the support by entrepreneurial culture and environment while in campus; indirectly, the students will lean more on making social entrepreneurship as a career option when they graduate. Following the issues of marketability and workability of current graduates that are becoming dire, research involving how far the willingness of student to create social innovation that contribute to the society without focusing solely on personal gain is relevant enough to be conducted. With that, this research is conducted with the purpose of identifying the level of entrepreneurial intention and social entrepreneurship among higher institution students in Malaysia. Stratified random sampling involves 355 undergraduate students from five public universities had been made as research respondents and data were collected through surveys. The data was then analyzed descriptively using min score and standard deviation. The study found that the entrepreneurial intention of higher education students are on moderate level, however it is the contrary for social entrepreneurship activities, where it was shown on a high level. This means that while the students only have moderate level of willingness to be a social entrepreneur, they are very committed to created social innovation through the social entrepreneurship activities conducted. The implication from this study can be contributed towards the higher institution authorities in prediction the tendency of student in becoming social entrepreneurs. Thus, the opportunities and facilities for realizing the courses related to social entrepreneurship must be created expansively so that the vision of creating as many social entrepreneurs as possible can be achieved.

Keywords: entrepreneurial intention, higher education institutions (HEIs), social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurial activity, gender

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Authors: Jessica To

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Feedback is one of the powerful levers for enhancing students’ performance. However, some students are under-engaged with feedback because they lack responsibility for feedback uptake. To resolve this conundrum, recent literature proposes feedback partnerships in which students and teachers share the power and responsibilities to co-construct feedback. During feedback co-construction, students express feedback needs to teachers, and teachers respond to individuals’ needs in return. Though this approach can increase students’ feedback ownership, its application is lagging as the field lacks conceptual clarity and implementation guide. This presentation aims to discuss the conceptual framework of feedback partnerships and feedback co-construction strategies. It identifies the components of feedback partnerships and strategies which could facilitate feedback co-construction. A systematic literature review was conducted to answer the questions. The literature search was performed using ERIC, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar with the keywords “assessment partnership”, “student as partner,” and “feedback engagement”. No time limit was set for the search. The inclusion criteria encompassed (i) student-teacher partnerships in feedback, (ii) feedback engagement in higher education, (iii) peer-reviewed publications, and (iv) English as the language of publication. Those without addressing conceptual understanding and implementation strategies were excluded. Finally, 65 publications were identified and analysed using thematic analysis. For the procedure, the texts relating to the questions were first extracted. Then, codes were assigned to summarise the ideas of the texts. Upon subsuming similar codes into themes, four themes emerged: students’ responsibilities, teachers’ responsibilities, conditions for partnerships development, and strategies. Their interrelationships were examined iteratively for framework development. Establishing feedback partnerships required different responsibilities of students and teachers during feedback co-construction. Students needed to self-evaluate performance against task criteria, identify inadequacies and communicate their needs to teachers. During feedback exchanges, they interpreted teachers’ comments, generated self-feedback through reflection, and co-developed improvement plans with teachers. Teachers had to increase students’ understanding of criteria and evaluation skills and create opportunities for students’ expression of feedback needs. In feedback dialogue, teachers responded to students’ needs and advised on the improvement plans. Feedback partnerships would be best grounded in an environment with trust and psychological safety. Four strategies could facilitate feedback co-construction. First, students’ understanding of task criteria could be increased by rubrics explanation and exemplar analysis. Second, students could sharpen evaluation skills if they participated in peer review and received teacher feedback on the quality of peer feedback. Third, provision of self-evaluation checklists and prompts and teacher modeling of self-assessment process could aid students in articulating feedback needs. Fourth, the trust could be fostered when teachers explained the benefits of feedback co-construction, showed empathy, and provided personalised comments in dialogue. Some strategies were applied in interactive cover sheets in which students performed self-evaluation and made feedback requests on a cover sheet during assignment submission, followed by teachers’ response to individuals’ requests. The significance of this presentation lies in unpacking the conceptual framework of feedback partnerships and outlining feedback co-construction strategies. With a solid foundation in theory and practice, researchers and teachers could better enhance students’ engagement with feedback.

Keywords: conceptual framework, feedback co-construction, feedback partnerships, implementation strategies

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Authors: Zhou Ziyi, Chen Qiuxiao, Wu Shuang

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Population diversification is very common in villages located in the developed coastal areas of China. Based on the analyses of the characteristics of the traditional rural society and its landscape, also in consideration of the diversified landscape demand due to the population diversification of the village, with the dual ideas of heritage and innovation, the ideas and methods of rural landscape design were explored by taking Duxuao Village in Zhejiang Province of China as an example.

Keywords: rural landscape, population diversification, landscape design, architecture

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Authors: Betül sönmez, Fatma Azizoğlu, S. Bilge Hapçıoğlu, Aytolan Yıldırım

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Background: Social innovativeness contains the procurement of a sustainable benefit for a number of problems from working conditions to education, social development, health, and from environmental control to climate change, as well as the development of new social productions and services. Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the correlation between the social innovation tendency of nursing and medical faculty students and value types. Methods and participants: The population of this correlational study consisted of third-year students studying at a medical faculty and a nursing faculty in a public university in Istanbul. Ethics committee approval and permission from the school administrations were obtained in order to conduct the study and voluntary participation of the students in the study was ensured. 524 questionnaires were obtained with a total return rate of 57.1% (65.0% in nurse student and 52.1% in physic students). The data of the study were collected by using the Portrait Values Questionnaire and a questionnaire containing the Social Innovativeness Scale. Results: The effect of the subscale scores of Portrait Values Questionnaire on the total score of Social Innovativeness Scale was 26.6%. In the model where a significance was determined (F=37.566; p<0.01), the highest effect was observed in the subscale of universalism. The effect of subscale scores obtained from the Portrait Values Questionnaire, as well as age, gender and number of siblings was 25% on the Social Innovativeness in nursing students and 30.8% in medical faculty students. In both models where a significance was determined (p<0.01), the nursing students had the values of power, universalism and kindness, whereas the medical faculty students had the values of self-direction, stimulation, hedonism and universalism showed the highest effect in both models. Conclusions: Universalism is the value with the highest effect upon the social innovativeness in both groups, which is an expected result by the nature of professions. The effect of the values of independent thinking and self-direction, as well as openness to change involving quest for innovation (stimulation), which are observed in medical faculty students, also supports the literature of innovative behavior. These results are thought to guide educators and administrators in terms of developing socially innovative behaviors.

Keywords: social innovativeness, portrait values questionnaire, nursing students, medical faculty students

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Authors: Behzad Moeini Sam, Sara Mohammadi Avandi

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One of the reasons for the success of the Achaemenids was the innovation and precise organization used in the administrative and military fields. Of course, these organizations had their roots in the previous governments that had changed in these borrowings. The units of the Achaemenid army are also among the cases that have their origins in the ancient East. In this article, the attempt is to find the sources of the Immortal Army based on the writings of old and current authors and archaeological documents, and the name mentioned by Herodotus and rejected by some authors. Of course, linguistic sources have also been used for better conclusions than the indicated sources. It emphasizes linguistic data to lead to a better deduction. Thus, it was included that ‘anauša’ is more probable than anušiya.

Keywords: army, immortal, ten thousand, Anauša, Anušiya

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Authors: Subrata Sarkar

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The aerospace industry is experiencing a profound product development transformation driven by the powerful integration of digitalization and 3D printing technologies. This paper delves into the significant impact of this convergence on aerospace innovation, specifically focusing on developing jet pumps for fuel systems. This case study is a compelling example of the immense potential of these technologies. In response to the industry's increasing demand for lighter, more efficient, and customized components, the combined capabilities of digitalization and 3D printing are reshaping how we envision, design, and manufacture critical aircraft parts, offering a distinct paradigm in aerospace engineering. Consider the development of a jet pump for a fuel system, a task that presents unique and complex challenges. Despite its seemingly simple design, the jet pump's development is hindered by many demanding operating conditions. The qualification process for these pumps involves many analyses and tests, leading to substantial delays and increased costs in fuel system development. However, by harnessing the power of automated simulations and integrating legacy design, manufacturing, and test data through digitalization, we can optimize the jet pump's design and performance, thereby revolutionizing product development. Furthermore, 3D printing's ability to create intricate structures using various materials, from lightweight polymers to high-strength alloys, holds the promise of highly efficient and durable jet pumps. The combined impact of digitalization and 3D printing extends beyond design, as it also reduces material waste and advances sustainability goals, aligning with the industry's increasing commitment to environmental responsibility. In conclusion, the convergence of digitalization and 3D printing is not just a technological advancement but a gateway to a new era in aerospace product development, particularly in the design of jet pumps. This revolution promises to redefine how we create aerospace components, making them safer, more efficient, and environmentally responsible. As we stand at the forefront of this technological revolution, aerospace companies must embrace these technologies as a choice and a strategic imperative for those striving to lead in innovation and sustainability in the 21st century.

Keywords: jet pump, digitalization, 3D printing, aircraft fuel system.

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Authors: Alondra Balbuena Medina, Carlos Diaz Delgado, Aleida Yadira Vilchis Fránces

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In Mexico, each year news is disseminated about the ravages of floods, such as the total loss of housing, damage to the fields; the increase of the costs of the food, derived from the losses of the harvests, coupled with health problems such as skin infection, etc. In addition to social problems such as delinquency, damage in education institutions and the population in general. The flooding is a consequence of heavy rains, tropical storms and or hurricanes that generate excess water in drainage systems that exceed its capacity. In urban areas, heavy rains can be one of the main factors in causing flooding, in addition to excessive precipitation, dam breakage, and human activities, for example, excessive garbage in the strainers. In agricultural areas, these can hardly achieve large areas of cultivation. It should be mentioned that for both areas, one of the significant impacts of floods is that they can permanently affect the livelihoods of many families, cause damage, for example in their workplaces such as farmlands, commercial or industry areas and where services are provided. In recent years, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have had an accelerated development, being reflected in the growth and the exponential evolution of the innovation giving; as a result, the daily generation of new technologies, updates, and applications. Innovation in the development of Information Technology applications has impacted on all areas of human activity. They influence all the orders of life of individuals, reconfiguring the way of perceiving and analyzing the world such as, for instance, interrelating with people as individuals and as a society, in the economic, political, social, cultural, educational, environmental, etc. Therefore the present work describes the creation of a system of calculation of flood costs for housing areas, retail establishments and agricultural areas from the Mexican Republic, based on the use and application of geotechnical tools being able to be useful for the benefit of the sectors of public, education and private. To generate analysis of hydrometereologic affections and with the obtained results to realize the Geoinformatics tool was constructed from two different points of view: the geoinformatic (design and development of GIS software) and the methodology of flood damage validation in order to integrate a tool that provides the user the monetary estimate of the effects caused by the floods. With information from the period 2000-2014, the functionality of the application was corroborated. For the years 2000 to 2009 only the analysis of the agricultural and housing areas was carried out, incorporating for the commercial establishment's information of the period 2010 - 2014. The method proposed for the resolution of this research project is a fundamental contribution to society, in addition to the tool itself. Therefore, it can be summarized that the problems that are in the physical-geographical environment, conceiving them from the point of view of the spatial analysis, allow to offer different alternatives of solution and also to open up slopes towards academia and research.

Keywords: floods, technological innovation, monetary estimation, spatial analysis

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Authors: Peter Balco, Miriam Filipova

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The university education is generally concentrated on acquiring theoretical as well as professional knowledge. The right mix of these knowledges is key in creating innovative as well as inventive solutions. Despite the understanding of their importance by the professional community, these are promoted with problems and misunderstanding. The reason for the failure of many non-traditional, innovative approaches is the ignorance of Leadership in the process of their implementation, ie decision-making. In our paper, we focused on the role of Leadership in the educational process and how this knowledge can support decision-making, the selection of a suitable, optimal solution for practice.

Keywords: leadership, soft skills, innovation, invention, knowledge

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Authors: Martha E. Ikome, John M. Ikome

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Intellectual property should be a day-to-day business decision due to its value, but increasingly, a number of institution are still not aware of the importance. Intellectual Property (IP) and its value are often not adequately appreciated. In the increasingly knowledge-driven economy, IP is a key consideration in day-to-day business decisions because new ideas and products appear almost daily in the market, which results in continuous innovation and research. Therefore, this paper will focus on the importance of IP for universities of technology and also further demonstrates how IP can become an economic tool and the challenges faced by these universities in implementing an IP system.

Keywords: intellectual property, institutions, challenges, protection

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Authors: Antonio Lopez-Villegas, Rafael Bautista-Mesa, Emilio Robles-Musso, Daniel Catalan-Matamoros, Cesar Leal-Costa

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Objectives: The purpose of this trial was to evaluate the burden borne by and the costs to informal caregivers of users with telemonitoring of pacemakers. Methods: This is a controlled, non-randomised clinical trial, with data collected from informal caregivers, five years after implantation of pacemakers. The Spanish version of the Survey on Disabilities, Personal Autonomy, and Dependency Situations was used to get information on clinical and social characteristics, levels of professionalism, duration and types of care, difficulties in providing care, health status, economic and job aspects, impact on the family or leisure due to informal caregiving for patients with pacemakers. Results: After five years of follow-up, 55 users with pacemakers finished the study. Of which, 50 were helped by a caregiver, 18 were included in the telemonitoring group (TM) and 32 in the conventional follow-up group (HM). Overall, females represented 96.0% of the informal caregivers (88.89% in TM and 100.0% in HM group). The mean ages were 63.17 ± 15.92 and 63.13 ± 14.56 years, respectively (p = 0.83) in the groups. The majority (88.0%) of the caregivers declared that they had to provide their services between 6 and 7 days per week (83.33% in TM group versus 90.63% in HM group), without significant differences between both groups. The costs related to care provided by the informal caregivers were 47.04% higher in the conventional follow-up group than in the TM group. Conclusions: The results of this trial confirm that there were no significant differences between the informal caregivers regarding to baseline characteristics, workload and time worked in both groups of follow-up. The costs incurred by the informal caregivers providing care for users with pacemakers included in telemonitoring group are significantly lower than those in the conventional follow-up group. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02234245. Funding: The PONIENTE study, has been funded by the General Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation, Regional Government of Andalusia (Spain), project reference number PI/0256/2017, under the research call 'Development and Innovation Projects in the Field of Biomedicine and Health Sciences', 2017.

Keywords: costs, disease burden, informal caregiving, pacemaker follow-up, remote monitoring, telemedicine

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Authors: Masimuddin Mohd Khaled

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From the past couple of years, focus has been done on the quality management theories and has been pertained to various firms. The core quality management theories are Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma where a number of documents have already been presented regarding these theories. The purpose of this paper is to study in detail about these theories and how the theories are applied in the aerospace industry. A methodical literature review, comparison of TQM and Six Sigma as well as a case study of each has been carried out in this paper thus providing a clear understanding of the theories.

Keywords: total quality management, six sigma, aerospace, research, innovation

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Authors: Bhargavi G. Iyer, Ojaswi Bhagat

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It is often noted that the value of a novel idea lies in its successful implementation. However, successful implementation requires the nurturing and encouragement of innovation. Nascent competitors are a true representation of innovation in any given industry. A nascent competitor is an entity whose prospective innovation poses a future threat to an incumbent dominant competitor. While a nascent competitor benefits in several ways, it is also exposed significantly and is at greater risk of facing the brunt of exclusionary practises and abusive conduct by dominant incumbent competitors in the industry. This research paper aims to explore the risks and threats faced by nascent competitors and analyse the benefits they accrue as well as the advantages they proffer to the economy; through an analytical, critical study. In such competitive market environments, a rise of the acquisitions of nascent competitors by the incumbent dominants is observed. Therefore, this paper will examine the dynamics of nascent acquisition. Further, this paper hopes to specifically delve into the role of antitrust bodies in regulating nascent acquisition. This paper also aspires to deal with the question how to distinguish harmful from harmless acquisitions in order to facilitate ideal enforcement practice. This paper proposes mechanisms of scrutiny in order to ensure healthy market practises and efficient merger control in the context of nascent acquisitions. Taking into account the scope and nature of the topic, as well as the resources available and accessible, a combination of the methods of doctrinal research and analytical research were employed, utilising secondary sources in order to assess and analyse the subject of research. While legally evaluating the Killer Acquisition theory and the Nascent Potential Acquisition theory, this paper seeks to critically survey the precedents and instances of nascent acquisitions. In addition to affording a compendious account of the legislative framework and regulatory mechanisms in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union; it hopes to suggest an internationally practicable legal foundation for domestic legislation and enforcement to adopt. This paper hopes to appreciate the complexities and uncertainties with respect to nascent acquisitions and attempts to suggest viable and plausible policy measures in antitrust law. It additionally attempts to examine the effects of such nascent acquisitions upon the consumer and the market economy. This paper weighs the argument of shifting the evidentiary burden on to the merging parties in order to improve merger control and regulation and expounds on its discovery of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach. It is posited that an effective combination of factual, legal, and economic analysis of both the acquired and acquiring companies possesses the potential to improve ex post and ex ante merger review outcomes involving nascent companies; thus, preventing anti-competitive practises. This paper concludes with an analysis of the possibility and feasibility of industry-specific identification of anti-competitive nascent acquisitions and implementation of measures accordingly.

Keywords: acquisition, antitrust law, exclusionary practises merger control, nascent competitor

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Authors: Christopher Meyer, Laima Gerlitz

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European ports are facing high political pressure through the implementation of initiatives such as the European Green Deal or IMO's 2030 targets (Fit for 55). However, small and medium-sized ports face even higher challenges compared to bigger ones due to lower capacities in various fields such as investments, infra-structure, Human Resources, and funding opportunities. Small and Medium-Sized Ports (SMPs) roles in economic systems are various depending on their specific functionality in maritime ecosystems. Depending on their different situations, being an actor in multiport gateways, aligned to core ports, regional nodes in peripheries for the hinterland, specialized cluster members, or logistical nodes, different strategic business models may be applied to increase SMPs' competitiveness among other bigger ports. Additionally, SMPs are facing more challenges for future development in terms of digital and green transition of their operations. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the own strategical position and apply management strategies alongside the regional growth and innovation strategies for diversification or specialisation of own port businesses. The research uses inductive perspectives to set up a transferable framework based on case studies to be analysed. In line with particular research and document analysis, qualitative approaches were considered. The research is based on a deep literature review on SMPs as well as theories on diversification and specialisation. Existing theories from different fields are evaluated on their application for the port sector and these specific maritime actors, paying respect to enabling innovation incorporation to enhance digital and environmental transition with fu-ture perspectives for SMPs. The paper aims to provide a decision-making matrix for the strategic positioning of SMPs in Europe, including opportunities to get access to particular EU funds for future development alongside the Regional In-novation Strategies on Smart Specialisation.

Keywords: strategic planning, sustainability transition, competitiveness portfolio, EU green deal

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Authors: Sabine A. Zauchner-Studnicka

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As the term indicates, reverse-mentoring flips the classical roles of mentoring: In school, students take over the role of mentors for adults, i.e. teachers or parents. Originally reverse-mentoring stems from US enterprises, which implemented this innovative method in order to benefit from the resources of skilled younger employees for the enhancement of IT competences of senior colleagues. However, reverse-mentoring in schools worldwide is rare. Based on empirical studies and theoretical approaches, in this article an implementation model for reverse-mentoring is developed in order to bring the significant potential reverse-mentoring has for education into practice.

Keywords: reverse-mentoring, innovation in education, implementation model, school education

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Authors: Jarrod Haar, David Brougham

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The present study explores the links between supporting employee well-being and the potential benefits to employee performance. We focus on employee innovative work behaviors (IWBs), which have three stages: (1) development, (2) adoption, and (3) implementation of new ideas and work methods. We explore the role of organizational support focusing on employee well-being via High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS). HPWS are HR practices that are designed to enhance employees’ skills, commitment, and ultimately, productivity. HPWS influence employee performance through building their skills, knowledge, and abilities and there is meta-analytic support for firm-level HPWS influencing firm performance, but less attention towards employee outcomes, especially innovation. We explore HPWS-wellbeing being offered (e.g., EAPs, well-being App, etc.) to capture organizational commitment to employee well-being. Under social exchange theory, workers should reciprocate their firm's offering of HPWS-wellbeing with greater efforts towards IWBs. Further, we explore playful work design as a mediator, which represents employees proactively creating work conditions that foster enjoyment/challenge but don’t require any design change to the job itself. We suggest HPWS-wellbeing can encourage employees to become more playful, and ultimately more innovative. Finally, beyond direct effects, we examine whether these relations are similar by gender and ultimately test a moderated mediation model. Using N=1135 New Zealand employees, we established measures with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and all measures had good psychometric properties (α>.80). We controlled for age, tenure, education, and hours worked and analyzed data using the PROCESS macro (version 4.2) specifically model 8 (moderated mediation). We analyzed overall IWB, and then again across the three stages. Overall, we find HPWS-wellbeing is significantly related to overall IWBs and the three stages (development, adoption, and implementation) individually. Similarly, HPWS-wellbeing shapes playful work design and playful work design predicts overall IWBs and the three stages individually. It only partially mediates the effects of HPWS-wellbeing, which retains a significant indirect effect. Moderation effects are supported, with males reporting a more significant effect from HPWS-wellbeing on playful work design but not IWB (or any of the three stages) than females. Females report higher playful work design when HPWS-wellbeing is low, but the effects are reversed when HPWS-wellbeing is high (males higher). Thus, males respond stronger under social exchange theory from HPWS-wellbeing, at least towards expressing playful work design. Finally, evidence of moderated mediation effects is found on overall IWBs and the three stages. Males report a significant indirect effect from HPWS-wellbeing on IWB (through playful work design), while female employees report no significant indirect effect. The benefits of playful work design fully account for their IWBs. The models account for small amounts of variance towards playful work design (12%) but larger for IWBs (26%). The study highlights a gap in the literature on HPWS-wellbeing and provides empirical evidence of their importance towards worker innovation. Further, gendered effects suggest these benefits might not be equal. The findings provide useful insights for organizations around how providing HR practices that support employee well-being are important, although how they work for different genders needs further exploration.

Keywords: human resource practices, wellbeing, innovation, playful work design

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Authors: Kelly S. Parkinson, Katherine Y. Teh-White

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Futureye has a bespoke social licence to operate methodology which has successfully secured community approval and commercial return for fisheries which have faced regulatory and financial risk. This unique approach to fisheries management focuses on delivering improved social and environmental outcomes to support the fishing industry make steps towards achieving the United Nations SDGs. An SLO is the community’s implicit consent for a business or project to exist. An SLO must be earned and maintained alongside regulatory licences. In current and new operations, it helps you to anticipate and measure community concerns around your operations – leading to more predictable and sensible policy outcomes that will not jeopardise your commercial returns. Rising societal expectations and increasing activist sophistication mean the international fishing industry needs to resolve community concerns at each stage their supply chain. Futureye applied our tested social licence to operate (SLO) methodology to help Austral Fisheries who was being attacked by activists concerned about the sustainability of Patagonian Toothfish. Austral was Marine Stewardship Council certified, but pirates were making the overall catch unsustainable. Austral wanted to be carbon neutral. SLO provides a lens on the risk that helps industries and companies act before regulatory and political risk escalates. To do this assessment, we have a methodology that assesses the risk that we can then translate into a process to create a strategy. 1) Audience: we understand the drivers of change and the transmission of those drivers across all audience segments. 2) Expectation: we understand the level of social norming of changing expectations. 3) Outrage: we understand the technical and perceptual aspects of risk and the opportunities to mitigate these. 4) Inter-relationships: we understand the political, regulatory, and reputation system so that we can understand the levers of change. 5) Strategy: we understand whether the strategy will achieve a social licence through bringing the internal and external stakeholders on the journey. Futureye’s SLO methodologies helped Austral to understand risks and opportunities to enhance its resilience. Futureye reviewed the issues, assessed outrage and materiality and mapped SLO threats to the company. Austral was introduced to a new way that it could manage activism, climate action, and responsible consumption. As a result of Futureye’s work, Austral worked closely with Sea Shepherd who was campaigning against pirates illegally fishing Patagonian Toothfish as well as international governments. In 2016 Austral launched the world’s first carbon neutral fish which won Austral a thirteen percent premium for tender on the open market. In 2017, Austral received the prestigious Banksia Foundation Sustainability Leadership Award for seafood that is sustainable, healthy and carbon neutral. Austral’s position as a leader in sustainable development has opened doors for retailers all over the world. Futureye’s SLO methodology can identify the societal, political and regulatory risks facing fisheries and position them to proactively address the issues and become an industry leader in sustainability.

Keywords: carbon neutral, fisheries management, risk communication, social licence to operate, sustainable development

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Authors: Samer Abu Ghazaleh, Jawdat Gousous

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E-learning in general started in Jordan around ten years ago in universities and at different departments and colleges. This paper will investigate the possibility to apply e-learning in architecture department at University of Jordan. As known architecture departments in general depend greatly in its syllabus upon design courses and studios, which consists nearly one third of its total credit hours. A survey has been conducted for architectural students at the University of Jordan and several conclusions have been reached irrespective of age, gender and nationality of the students, where the main problem was the way of the communication between the tutor and the student.

Keywords: cellular telephone, design courses, e-learning, internet

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Authors: Hani Malik

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Background: Clinician burnout is a growing phenomenon in current health systems worldwide. Increasing emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment threaten the effective delivery of healthcare. This can potentially be mitigated by mindfulness practice, which has shown promising results in reducing burnout, restoring compassion, and preventing moral injury in clinicians. Objectives: To conduct a scoping review and identify high-quality studies on mindfulness practice in clinician burnout, synthesize themes that emerge from these studies, and discuss the implications of the results to healthcare leadership and innovation. Methodology: A focused scoping review was carried out to investigate the effects of mindfulness practice on clinician burnout. High-ranking journals were targeted to analyse high-quality studies and synthesize common themes in the literature. Studies conducted on current, practicing physicians were included. Mindfulness practice of varying forms was the main intervention studied. Grey literature and studies conducted only on allied health personnel were excluded from this review. Analysis:31 studies were included in this scoping review. Mindfulness practice was found to decrease emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation while improving mood, responses to stress, and vigour. Self-awareness, compassion, and empathy were also increased in study participants. From this review, four themes emerged which include: innovations in mindfulness practice, mindfulness and positive psychology, the impact of mindfulness on work and patient care, and barriers and facilitators to clinician mindfulness practice. Conclusion: Mindfulness had widely been reported to benefit mental health and well-being, but the studies reviewed seemed to adopt a mono focus and omitted key considerations to healthcare leadership, systems-level culture, and practices. Mindfulness practice is a quintessential component of positive psychology and is inherently linked to effective leadership. A mindful and compassionate clinician leader will play a crucial role in addressing gaps in current practice, prioritise staff mental health, and provide a supportive platform for innovation.

Keywords: mindfulness practice, clinician burnout, healthcare leadership, COVID-19

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Authors: Kumiko Inagaki

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Japanese society is experiencing an aging population and declining birth rate along with the popularization of higher education, spread of economic globalization, rapid progress in technical innovation, changes in employment conditions, and emergence of a knowledge-based society. Against this background, interest in career education at Japanese universities has increased in recent years. This paper describes how the government has implemented career education policies in Japan, and introduces the cases of two universities that have successfully linked career education to university education in Japan.

Keywords: career education, employability, higher education, japanese university, university education

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Authors: Chante Van Tonder, Bart Bossink, Chris Schachtebeck, Cecile Nieuwenhuizen

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Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in national economies around the world, being contributors to economic and social well-being. Due to this, the success, growth and competitiveness of SMEs are critical. However, there are many factors that undermine this, such as resource constraints, poor information communication infrastructure (ICT), skills shortages and poor management. The Fourth Industrial Revolution offers new tools and opportunities such as digital transformation and business model innovation (BMI) to the SME sector to enhance its competitiveness. Adopting and leveraging digital technologies such as cloud, mobile technologies, big data and analytics can significantly improve business efficiencies, value proposition and customer experiences. Digital transformation can contribute to the growth and competitiveness of SMEs. However, SMEs are lagging behind in the participation of digital transformation. Extant research lacks conceptual and empirical research on how digital transformation drives BMI and the impact it has on the growth and competitiveness of SMEs. The purpose of the study is, therefore, to close this gap by developing and empirically validating a conceptual model to determine if SMEs are achieving BMI through digital transformation and how this is impacting the growth, competitiveness and overall business performance. An empirical study is being conducted on 300 SMEs, consisting of 150 South-African and 150 Dutch SMEs, to achieve this purpose. Structural equation modeling is used, since it is a multivariate statistical analysis technique that is used to analyse structural relationships and is a suitable research method to test the hypotheses in the model. Empirical research is needed to gather more insight into how and if SMEs are digitally transformed and how BMI can be driven through digital transformation. The findings of this study can be used by SME business owners, managers and employees at all levels. The findings will indicate if digital transformation can indeed impact the growth, competitiveness and overall performance of an SME, reiterating the importance and potential benefits of adopting digital technologies. In addition, the findings will also exhibit how BMI can be achieved in light of digital transformation. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in a highly relevant and important topic in management studies by analysing the impact of digital transformation on BMI on a large number of SMEs that are distinctly different in economic and cultural factors

Keywords: business models, business model innovation, digital transformation, SMEs

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Authors: Francisco Julio Batle Lorente

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The present paper aims at presenting a new category of role for academia: proactive creator/promoter of communities of practice in emerging areas of innovation. It is based in research among practitioners in three different areas: social entrepreneurship, alumni engaged in entrepreneurship and innovation, and digital nomads. The concept of CoP is related to an intentionally created space to share experiences and collectively reflect on the cases arising from practice. Such an endeavour is not contemplated in the literature on academic roles in an explicit way. The goal of the paper is providing a framework for this function and throw some light on the perception and priorities of members of emerging communities (78 alumni, 154 social entrepreneurs, and 231 digital nomads) regarding community, learning, engagement, and networking, areas in which the university can help and, by doing so, contributing to signal the emerging area and creating new opportunities for the academia. The research methodology was based in Survey research. It is a specific type of field study that involves the collection of data from a sample of elements drawn from a well-defined population through the use of a questionnaire. It was considered that survey research might be valuable to the present project and help outline the utility of various study designs and future projects with the emerging communities that are the object of the investigation. Open questions were used for different topics, as well as critical incident technique. It was used a standard technique for survey sampling and questionnaire design. Finally, it was defined a procedure for pretesting questionnaires and for data collection. The questionnaire was channelled by means of google forms. The results indicate that the members of emerging, innovative CoPs and learning such the ones that were selected for this investigation lack cohesion, inspiration, networking, opportunities for creation of social capital, opportunities for collaboration beyond their existing and close network. The opportunity that arises for the academia from proactively helping articulate CoP (and Communities of learning) are related to key elements of any CoP/ CoL: community construction approaches, technological infrastructure, benefits, participation issues and urgent challenges, trust, networking, technical ability/training/development and collaboration. Beyond training, other three areas (networking, collaboration and urgent challenges) were the ones in which the contribution of universities to the communities were considered more interesting and workable to practitioners. The analysis of the responses for the open questions related to perception of the universities offer options for terra incognita to be explored for universities (signalling new areas, establishing broader collaborations with research, government, media and corporations, attracting investment). Based on the findings from this research, there is some evidence that CoPs can offer a formal and informal method of professional and interprofessional development for member of any emerging and innovative community and can decrease social and professional isolation. The opportunity that it offers to academia can increase the entrepreneurial and engaged university identity. It also moves to academia into a realm of civic confrontation of present and future challenges in a more proactive way.

Keywords: social innovation, new roles of academia, community of learning, community of practice

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Authors: Min Fang, Jiaxi Yang

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Monetary policy could be less effective at stimulating investment during periods of elevated volatility than during normal times. In this paper, we argue that elevated volatility leads to a decrease in extensive margin investment incentive so that nominal stimulus generates less aggregate investment. To do this, we first empirically document that high volatility weakens firms’ investment responses to monetary stimulus. Such effects depend on the lumpiness nature of the firm-level investment. The findings are that the channel exists for all of the physical investment, innovation investment, and organization investment.

Keywords: investment, irreversibility, volatility, uncertainty, firm heterogeneity, monetary policy

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Authors: Pieter C. M. Cornelis

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European theme parks invest approximately 10 percent of their yearly turnover into new rides and park improvements. Without these investments these parks assume not to be a very competitive and appealing daytrip for their target audiences. However, the impact of investments in attracting new visitors is not well-known and seems to differ dramatically between parks. This paper presents a case study from the Netherlands in which a small amusement park applied a suggested, not yet proven, investment method. The results of the investment are discussed in (a) the form of return on investment and (b) the success of the predictions with regard to this investment. Suggestions for future research are presented.

Keywords: entertainment industry, innovation, investments, theme parks

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Authors: Jinghui Wang, Minjie Xing

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The increasing number of international students for doctoral education has brought vitality and diversity to the educational environment in China, and at the same time constituted a new challenge to the English teaching in the higher education as the majority of international students come from developing countries where English is not their first language. To make their contribution to knowledge development and technical innovation, these international doctoral students need to present their research work in English, locally and globally. This study reports an exploratory study with an emphasis on the cognition and construction of academic discourse in the multicultural context. The present study aims to explore ways to better prepare them for international academic exchange in English. Voluntarily, all international doctoral students (n = 81) from 35 countries enrolled in the English Course: Speaking and Writing as a New Scientist, participated in the study. Two research questions were raised: 1) What did these doctoral students say about their cognition and construction of English academic discourses? 2) How did they manage to develop their productive skills in a multicultural context? To answer the research questions, data were collected from self-reports, in-depth interviews, and video-recorded class observations. The major findings of the study suggest that the participants to varying degrees benefitted from the cognition and construction of English academic discourse in the multicultural context. Specifically, 1) The cognition and construction of meta-discourse allowed them to construct their own academic discourses in English; 2) In the light of Swales’ CARS Model, they became sensitive to the “moves” involved in the published papers closely related to their study, and learned to use them in their English academic discourses; 3) Multimodality-driven presentation (multimedia modes) enabled these doctoral student to have their voice heard for technical innovation purposes; 4) Speaking as a new scientist, every doctoral student felt happy and able to serve as an intercultural mediator in the multicultural context, bridging the gap between their home culture and the global culture; and most importantly, 5) most of the participants reported developing an English discourse community among international doctoral students, becoming resourceful and productive in the multicultural context. It is concluded that the cognition and construction of academic discourse in the multicultural context proves to be conducive to the productivity and intercultural citizenship education of international doctoral students.

Keywords: academic discourse, international doctoral students, meta-discourse, multicultural context

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Authors: Kimberly Samaha

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The Bio-Hub Ecosystem model was developed to address a critical area of concern within the global energy market regarding biomass as a feedstock for power plants. Yet the lack of an economically-viable business model for bioenergy facilities has resulted in the continuation of idled and decommissioned plants. This study analyzed data and submittals to the Born Global Maine Innovation Challenge. The Innovation Challenge was a global innovation challenge to identify process innovations that could address a ‘whole-tree’ approach of maximizing the products, byproducts, energy value and process slip-streams into a circular zero-waste design. Participating companies were at various stages of developing bioproducts and included biofuels, lignin-based products, carbon capture platforms and biochar used as both a filtration medium and as a soil amendment product. This case study shows the QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) methodology of the prequalification process and the resulting techno-economic model that was developed for the maximizing profitability of the Bio-Hub Ecosystem through continuous expansion of system waste streams into valuable process inputs for co-hosts. A full site plan for the integration of co-hosts (biorefinery, land-based shrimp and salmon aquaculture farms, a tomato green-house and a hops farm) at an operating forestry-based biomass to energy plant in West Enfield, Maine USA. This model and process for evaluating the profitability not only proposes models for integration of forestry, aquaculture and agriculture in cradle-to-cradle linkages of what have typically been linear systems, but the proposal also allows for the early measurement of the circularity and impact of resource use and investment risk mitigation, for these systems. In this particular study, profitability is assessed at two levels CAPEX (Capital Expenditures) and in OPEX (Operating Expenditures). Given that these projects start with repurposing facilities where the industrial level infrastructure is already built, permitted and interconnected to the grid, the addition of co-hosts first realizes a dramatic reduction in permitting, development times and costs. In addition, using the biomass energy plant’s waste streams such as heat, hot water, CO₂ and fly ash as valuable inputs to their operations and a significant decrease in the OPEX costs, increasing overall profitability to each of the co-hosts bottom line. This case study utilizes a proprietary techno-economic model to demonstrate how utilizing waste streams of a biomass energy plant and/or biorefinery, results in significant reduction in OPEX for both the biomass plants and the agriculture and aquaculture co-hosts. Economically viable Bio-Hubs with favorable environmental and community impacts may prove critical in garnering local and federal government support for pilot programs and more wide-scale adoption, especially for those living in severely economically depressed rural areas where aging industrial sites have been shuttered and local economies devastated.

Keywords: bio-economy, biomass energy, financing, zero-waste

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