Search results for: entrepreneurial innovation

Authors: Razia Sultana

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The chapter investigates the roles of local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in climate change adaptation through grassroots innovation in urban slums in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The section highlights green infrastructure as an innovative process to mitigate the challenges emanating from climate change at the bottom of the pyramid. The research draws on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 11 NGOs and 2 CBOs working in various slums in Dhaka. The study explores the activities of local agencies relating to urban green infrastructure (UGI) and its possible mitigation of a range of climate change impacts: thermal discomfort, heat stress, flooding and the urban heat island. The main argument of the chapter is unlike the Global North stakeholders’ activities relating to UGI in cities of the Global South have not been expanded on a large scale. Moreover, UGI as a risk management strategy is underutilised in the developing countries. The study finds that, in the context of Bangladesh, climate change adaptation through green infrastructure in cities is still nascent for local NGOs and CBOs. Mostly their activities are limited to addressing the basic needs of slum communities such as water and sanitation. Hence urban slum dwellers have been one of the most vulnerable groups in that they are deprived of the city’s basic ecological services. NGOs are utilizing UGI in an innovative way despite various problems in slums. For instance, land scarcity and land insecurity in slums are two key areas where UGI faces resistance. There are limited instances of NGOs using local and indigenous techniques to encourage slum dwellers to adopt UGI for creating sustainable environments. It is in this context that the paper is an attempt to showcase some of the grassroots innovation that NGOs are currently adopting in slums. Also, some challenges and opportunities are discussed to address UGI as a strategy for climate change adaptation in slums.

Keywords: climate change adaptation, green infrastructure, Dhaka, slums, NGOs

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Authors: Prasansha Kumari

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This paper intends to identify and analyze customer adoption and attitudes towards mobile banking facilities. The study uses six perceived characteristics of innovation that can be used to form a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward an innovation, namely: Relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trailability, risk, and observability. Collected data were analyzed using Pearson Chi-Square test. The results showed that mobile bank users were predominantly males. There is a growing trend among young, educated customers towards converting to mobile banking in Sri Lanka. The research outcomes suggested that all the six factors are statistically highly significant in influencing mobile banking adoption and attitude formation towards mobile banking in Sri Lanka. The major reasons for adopting mobile banking services are the accessibility and availability of services regardless of time and place. Over the 75 percent of the respondents mentioned that savings in time and effort and low financial costs of conducting mobile banking were advantageous. Issue of security was found to be the most important factor that motivated consumer adoption and attitude formation towards mobile banking. Main barriers to mobile banking were the lack of technological skills, the traditional cash‐carry banking culture, and the lack of awareness and insufficient guidance to using mobile banking.

Keywords: compatibility, complexity, mobile banking, observability, risk

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Authors: Vishal D. Pandya

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A great deal of perceptible change has been taking place in the way our institutions of higher learning are being managed in India today. It is believed that managers, whose intuition proves to be accurate, often tend to be the most successful, and this is what makes them almost like entrepreneurs. A certain entrepreneurial spirit is what is expected and requires a degree of insight of the manager to be successful depending upon the situational and more importantly, the heterogeneity as well as the socio-cultural aspect. Teachers in Higher Education have to play multiple roles to make sure that the Learning-Teaching process becomes effective in the real sense of the term. This paper makes an effort to take a close look at that, especially in the context of the management of English language teaching in Higher Education and, therefore, focuses on the management of English language teaching in higher education by understanding target situation analyses at the socio-cultural level.

Keywords: management, language teaching, English language teaching, higher education

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Authors: Nunziata Ivana Guarneri, Arcangelo Bruna, Giuseppe Spampinato, Antonio Buemi

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In the last decade, automotive companies have invested a lot in terms of innovation about many aspects regarding the automatic driver assistance systems. One innovation regards the usage of a smart camera placed on the car’s side mirror for monitoring the back and lateral road situation. A common road scenario is the overtaking of the preceding car and, in this case, a brief distraction or a loss of concentration can lead the driver to undertake this action, even if there is an already overtaking vehicle, leading to serious accidents. A valid support for a secure drive can be a smart camera system, which is able to automatically analyze the road scenario and consequentially to warn the driver when another vehicle is overtaking. This paper describes a method for monitoring the side view of a vehicle by using camera optical flow motion vectors. The proposed solution detects the presence of incoming vehicles, assesses their distance from the host car, and warns the driver through different levels of alert according to the estimated distance. Due to the low complexity and computational cost, the proposed system ensures real time performances.

Keywords: camera calibration, ego-motion, Kalman filters, object tracking, real time systems

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Authors: O. Esmen, A. Beduk, K. Eryesil, F. Karacelebi

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Entrepreneurship is crucial for the economy of countries in development of economy, creating new jobs and increasing employment; therefore improving welfare and a modern point of view in the society. In the development of a country encouragement of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial qualities also play a paramount role. The increase in the world population results in more production, which brings excessive use of resources and inevitably shortage of them. In addition to this; development in technology, mismanagement in production and deficiency of waste system cause negative effects on the environmental ecological balance. Nowadays, with the societies getting awareness of environment while buying products and services, they prefer companies which are careful about environment. And as a result of this, ecoentrepreneurship gains importance. In this study; ecoentrepreneurship, which we think will gain more importance in the world and Turkey, is presented with the examples from the world and Turkey.

Keywords: ecoentrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, environmental awareness, development of economy

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Authors: Tahira Iram, Ahmad Raza Bilal

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In 2016, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) initiated Saudi Vision 2030, an ambitious plan to lessen the country's dependency on fossil fuels and increase economic diversification. The Vision 2030 framework strives to establish a thriving economy, a vibrant society, and an ambitious nation. This study aims to investigate the role of green service innovation (SI) and green work engagement (WE) in mediating the nexus between green HRM and green creativity (GC) under the conditional role of spiritual leadership (SL). A survey was done of 300 female intrepreneurs working in the organization within Saudi Arabia. This study has collected data via a stratified random sampling technique. The framework was tested using PLS-SEM software. The findings reveal that WE fully intervenes in the nexus between green HRM and GC. Moreover, SL positively moderates the nexus between green HRM and SI. Thus based on findings, it is recommended that female intrapreneurs prioritize environmentally responsible operations to gain and sustain a competitive edge over rivals in the Saudi competitive market.

Keywords: green HRM, spiritual leadership, Vision 2030, women intrapreneurs, green service innovation behavior, green creativity

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Authors: Wen Zhang

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The smartphone plays a significant role in media convergence, and smartphone photography is reconstructing the way we communicate and think. This article aims to explore the smartphone photography practices of urban Chinese smartphone users and images produced by smartphones from a techno-cultural perspective. The analysis consists of two types of data: One is a semi-structured interview of 21 participants, and the other consists of the images created by the participants. The findings are organised in two parts. The first part summarises the current tendencies of capturing, editing, sharing and archiving digital images via smartphones. The second part shows that food and selfie/anti-selfie are the preferred subjects of smartphone photographic images from a technical and multi-purpose perspective and demonstrates that screenshots and image texts are new genres of non-photographic images that are frequently made by smartphones, which contributes to improving operational efficiency, disseminating information and sharing knowledge. The analyses illustrate the positive impacts between smartphones and photography enthusiasm and practices based on the diffusion of innovation theory, which also makes us rethink the value of photographs and the practice of ‘photographic seeing’ from the screen itself.

Keywords: digital photography, image-text, media convergence, photographic- seeing, selfie/anti-selfie, smartphone, technological innovation

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Authors: Thorsten Herrmann, Alexander Laukemann, Hansgeorg Binz, Daniel Roth

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For the analysis of already identified and existing problems, the pertinent literature provides a comprehensive collection of approaches as well as methods in order to analyze the problems in detail. But coming up with problems, which are assets worth pursuing further, is often challenging. However, the importance of well-formulated problem ideas and their influence of subsequent creative processes are incontestable and proven. In order to meet the covered challenges, the Institute for Engineering Design and Industrial Design (IKTD) developed the Emoji Method. This paper presents the Emoji Method, which support designers to generate problem ideas in a structured way. Considering research findings from knowledge management and innovation management, research into emojis and emoticons reveal insights by means of identifying and formulating problem ideas within the early design phase. The simple application and the huge supporting potential of the Emoji Method within the early design phase are only few of the many successful results of the conducted evaluation. The Emoji Method encourages designers to identify problem ideas and describe them in a structured way in order to start focused with generating solution ideas for the revealed problem ideas.

Keywords: emojis, problem ideas, innovation management, knowledge management

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Authors: Ahmet Diken, Meral Erdirençelebi

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Similar to economies in many countries; family-owned enterprises have a significant role in the development of Turkish economy. Although they have a large share in economic terms, their lifetime is limited to working life of their founders. Failure in achieving their sustainability deeply affects not only these businesses but also the economy. Therefore, two basic elements of family owned enterprises, family and organizational culture and especially entrepreneurship culture, should be examined closely. The degree of effectiveness of parents in instilling their children with entrepreneurship culture and their effects on children's profession choices are examined through face-to-face surveys with the managers owning family businesses randomly chosen among family-owned enterprises registered in Konya Chamber of Industry, which are active in specific sectors and which had different generations in their management.

Keywords: family businesses, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial culture, family culture

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Authors: Pratap Sriram Sundar, Chandan Chowdhury, Sagar Kamarthi

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Nature has perfected her designs over 3.5 billion years of evolution. Research fields such as biomimicry, biomimetics, bionics, bio-inspired computing, and nature-inspired designs have explored nature-made artifacts and systems to understand nature’s mechanisms and intelligence. Learning from nature, the researchers have generated sustainable designs and innovation in a variety of fields such as energy, architecture, agriculture, transportation, communication, and medicine. Axiomatic design offers a method to judge if a design is good. This paper analyzes design aspects of one of the nature’s amazing object: chicken egg. The functional requirements (FRs) of components of the object are tabulated and mapped on to nature-chosen design parameters (DPs). The ‘independence axiom’ of the axiomatic design methodology is applied to analyze couplings and to evaluate if eggs’ design is good (i.e., uncoupled design) or bad (i.e., coupled design). The analysis revealed that eggs design is a good design, i.e., uncoupled design. This approach can be applied to any nature’s artifacts to judge whether their design is a good or a bad. This methodology is valuable for biomimicry studies. This approach can also be a very useful teaching design consideration of biology and bio-inspired innovation.

Keywords: uncoupled design, axiomatic design, nature design, design evaluation

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah, Jianing Mi, Feng Cheng

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This research paper seeks to investigate the factors determining the continuance usage of online mobile payment applications among WECHAT users in China. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory would both be applied as the theoretical foundation for this study. A developed instrument would be administered to the targeted sample of 1000 WECHAT Users in the City of Harbin, China, through an online questionnaire administration platform. Factors such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived service quality, social influence, trust in the internet, internet self-efficacy, relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity would be explored to determine its significant impact on the continuance intention to use mobile payment apps. This study is at the development and implementation stage. The successful completion of this research article would not only provide an insightful understanding of the factors influencing the decision of WECHAT users in China to use mobile payment applications but also enrich the e-commerce adoption literature.

Keywords: diffusion of innovation (DOI), e-commerce, mobile payment, technology acceptance model (TAM), WECHAT

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Authors: Arash Sepehri Bonab

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Techniques to switch cells between development and differentiation, which tend to be commonly exclusive, are utilized in arrange to supply an expansive cell mass that can perform particular separated capacities required for the tissue to develop. Approaches to tissue engineering center on the have to give signals to cell populaces to advance cell multiplication and separation. Current tissue regenerative procedures depend primarily on tissue repair by transplantation of synthetic/natural inserts. In any case, restrictions on the existing procedures have expanded the request for tissue designing approaches. Tissue engineering innovation and stem cell investigation based on tissue building have made awesome advances in overcoming the issues of tissue and organ damage, useful loss, and surgical complications. Bone tissue has the capability to recover itself; in any case, surrenders of a basic estimate anticipate the bone from recovering and require extra support. The advancement of bone tissue building has been utilized to form useful options to recover the bone. This paper primarily portrays current advances in tissue engineering in different fields of bone and talks about the long-term trend of tissue designing innovation in the treatment of complex diseases.

Keywords: tissue engineering, bone, technologies, treatment

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Authors: Petra Gruber, Ariana Rupp, Peter Niewiarowski

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This paper presents a concept for a biomimetic fablab as a physical space for education, research and development of innovation inspired by nature. Biomimetics as a discipline finds increasing recognition in academia and has started to be institutionalized at universities in programs and centers. The Biomimicry Research and Innovation Center was founded in 2012 at the University of Akron as an interdisciplinary venture for the advancement of innovation inspired by nature and is part of a larger community fostering the approach of bioimimicry in the Great Lakes region of the US. With 30 faculty members the center has representatives from Colleges of Arts and Sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, geoscience, and philosophy) Engineering (e.g., mechanical, civil, and biomedical), Polymer Science, and Myers School of Arts. A platform for training PhDs in Biomimicry (17 students currently enrolled) is co-funded by educational institutions and industry partners. Research at the center touches on many areas but is also currently biased towards materials and structures, with highlights being materials based on principles found in spider silk and gecko attachment mechanisms. As biomimetics is also a novel scientific discipline, there is little standardisation in programming and the equipment of research facilities. As a field targeting innovation, design and prototyping processes are fundamental parts of the developments. For experimental design and prototyping, MIT's maker space concept seems to fit well to the requirements, but facilities need to be more specialised in terms of accessing biological systems and knowledge, specific research, production or conservation requirements. For the education and research facility BRIC we conceptualize the concept of a biomimicry fablab, that ties into the existing maker space concept and creates the setting for interdisciplinary research and development carried out in the program. The concept takes on the process of biomimetics as a guideline to define core activities that shall be enhanced by the allocation of specific spaces and tools. The limitations of such a facility and the intersections to further specialised labs housed in the classical departments are of special interest. As a preliminary proof of concept two biomimetic design courses carried out in 2016 are investigated in terms of needed tools and infrastructure. The spring course was a problem based biomimetic design challenge in collaboration with an innovation company interested in product design for assisted living and medical devices. The fall course was a solution based biomimetic design course focusing on order and hierarchy in nature with the goal of finding meaningful translations into art and technology. The paper describes the background of the BRIC center, identifies and discusses the process of biomimetics, evaluates the classical maker space concept and explores how these elements can shape the proposed research facility of a biomimetic fablab by examining two examples of design courses held in 2016.

Keywords: biomimetics, biomimicry, design, biomimetic fablab

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Authors: Lailial Muhtifah, Sirtul Marhamah

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This article forwards the conceptual framework of continuous academic lecturer model in Islamic higher education (IHE). It is intended to make a contribution to the broader issue of how the concept of excellence can promote adherence to standards in higher education and drive quality enhancement. This model reveals a process and steps to increase performance and achievement of excellence regular lecturer gradually. Studies in this model are very significant to realize excellence academic culture in IHE. Several steps were identified from previous studies through literature study and empirical findings. A qualitative study was conducted at institute. Administrators and lecturers were interviewed, and lecturers learning communities observed to explore institute culture policies, and procedures. The original in this study presents and called Continuous Academic Lecturer Model (CALM) with its components, namely Standard, Quality, and Excellent as the basis for this framework (SQE). Innovation Excellence Framework requires Leaders to Support (LS) lecturers to achieve a excellence culture. So, the model named CALM-SQE+LS. Several components of performance and achievement of CALM-SQE+LS Model should be disseminated and cultivated to all lecturers in university excellence in terms of innovation. The purpose of this article is to define the concept of “CALM-SQE+LS”. Originally, there were three components in the Continuous Academic Lecturer Model i.e. standard, quality, and excellence plus leader support. This study is important to the community as specific cases that may inform educational leaders on mechanisms that may be leveraged to ensure successful implementation of policies and procedures outline of CALM with its components (SQE+LS) in institutional culture and professional leader literature. The findings of this study learn how continuous academic lecturer is part of a group's culture, how it benefits in university. This article blends the available criteria into several sub-component to give new insights towards empowering lecturer the innovation excellence at the IHE. The proposed conceptual framework is also presented.

Keywords: continuous academic lecturer model, excellence, quality, standard

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Authors: A. Lefebre, M. Willekens, K. Debackere

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Since the 1990s, patent applications have been booming, especially in the field of telecommunications. However, this increase in patent filings has been associated with an (alleged) decrease in patent quality. The plethora of low-quality patents devalues the high-quality ones, thus weakening the incentives for inventors to patent inventions. Despite the rich literature on strategic patenting, previous research has neglected to emphasize the importance of patent portfolio management and its impact on patent quality. In this paper, we compare related patent portfolios vs. nonrelated patents and investigate whether the patent quality and innovativeness differ between the two types. In the analyses, patent quality is proxied by five individual proxies (number of inventors, claims, renewal years, designated states, and grant lag), and these proxies are then aggregated into a quality index. Innovativeness is proxied by two measures: the originality and radicalness index. Results suggest that related patent portfolios have, on average, a lower patent quality compared to nonrelated patents, thus suggesting that firms use them for strategic purposes rather than for the extended protection they could offer. Even upon testing the individual proxies as a dependent variable, we find evidence that related patent portfolios are of lower quality compared to nonrelated patents, although not all results show significant coefficients. Furthermore, these proxies provide evidence of the importance of adding fixed effects to the model. Since prior research has found that these proxies are inherently flawed and never fully capture the concept of patent quality, we have chosen to run the analyses with individual proxies as supplementary analyses; however, we stick with the comprehensive index as our main model. This ensures that the results are not dependent upon one certain proxy but allows for multiple views of the concept. The presence of divisional applications might be linked to the level of innovativeness of the underlying invention. It could be the case that the parent application is so important that firms are going through the administrative burden of filing for divisional applications to ensure the protection of the invention and the preemption of competition. However, it could also be the case that the preempting is a result of divisional applications being used strategically as a backup plan and prolonging strategy, thus negatively impacting the innovation in the portfolio. Upon testing the level of novelty and innovation in the related patent portfolios by means of the originality and radicalness index, we find evidence for a significant negative association with related patent portfolios. The minimum innovation that has been brought on by the patents in the related patent portfolio is lower compared to the minimum innovation that can be found in nonrelated portfolios, providing evidence for the second argument.

Keywords: patent portfolio management, patent quality, related patent portfolios, strategic patenting

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Authors: Carl-Philipp Valentin Beichert, Marcel Seger

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Digital transformation and climate change require small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to rethink their way of doing business. Inter-firm collaboration is recognized as helpful means of promoting innovation and competitiveness. In this context, collaborations with start-ups offer valuable opportunities through their innovative products, services, and business models. SMEs, and in particular German craft enterprises, play an important role in the country’s society and economy. Companies in this heterogeneous economic sector have unique characteristics and are limited in their ability to innovate due to their small size and lack of resources. Collaborating with start-ups could help to overcome these shortcomings. To investigate how collaborations emerge and what factors are decisive to successfully drive collaboration, we apply an explorative, qualitative research design. A sample of ten case studies was selected, with the collaboration between a start-up and a craft enterprise forming the unit of analysis. Semi-structured interviews with 20 company representatives allow for a two-sided perspective on the respective collaboration. The interview data is enriched by publicly available data and three expert interviews. As a result, objectives, initiation practices, applied collaboration types, barriers, as well as key success factors could be identified. The results indicate a three-phase collaboration process comprising an initiation, concept, and partner phase (ICP). The ICP framework proposed accordingly highlights the success factors (personal fit, communication, expertise, structure, network) for craft enterprises and start-ups for each collaboration phase. The role of a mediator in the start-up company, with strong expertise in the respective craft sector, is considered an important lever for overcoming barriers such as cultural and communication differences. The ICP framework thus provides promising directions for further research and can help practitioners establish successful collaborations.

Keywords: open innovation, SME, craft businesses, startup collaboration, qualitative research

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Authors: Mark Omu

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Education has remained the greatest fulcrum on which the developmental aspirations of societies and the world over is Anchored. This has been the case from the antiquity. As a result of recognition of this fact, education occupies a crucial and centripetal position at different epochs of societal formation and transformation. This paper recognized the all-embracing role of education to society and it utilized the literary research and review of literature to espouse on the role of alternative sources of financing education. This position was borne out of the dwindling resources available to education. Especially to finance teaching, learning, research and retraining of staffers. This paper found among other things that alternative funding of education is possible and it can be achieved through selling of its research products like entrepreneurial skills, collaborative ventures in public private partnership, philanthropic of endowments, etc. These are capable of bridging the financial gap currently bedevilling the educational sectors.

Keywords: alternative sources, funding, tertiary, education, society, partnership, Nigeria

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Authors: Mohd Adib Abd Muin

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Social entrepreneurship has become a new phenomenon in a country in order to reduce social problems and eradicate poverty communities. However, the study based on Islamic social entrepreneurship from the social entrepreneurial activity is still new especially in the Islamic perspective. In addition, this research found that is lacking of model on social entrepreneurship that focus on Islamic perspective. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to identify the issues and research gap based on Islamic perspective from existing models and to develop a concept of Islamic social entrepreneurship according to Islamic perspective and Maqasid Shari’ah. The research method used in this study is literature review and comparative analysis from 11 existing models of social entrepreneurship. The research finding shows that 11 existing models on social entrepreneurship has been analyzed and it shows that the existing models on social entrepreneurship do not emphasize on Islamic perspective.

Keywords: component, social entrepreneurship, Islamic perspective, research gap

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Authors: Samuel Oye Bandele

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A policy is a system of principles to guide activities and strategic decisions of an organisation in order to achieve stated objectives and meeting expected outcomes. A Computer Based Test (CBT) policy is therefore a statement of intent to drive the CBT programmes, and should be implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are hence generally adopted by an organization or a nation. The concern here, in this paper, is the consideration and analysis of issues that are significant to evolving the acceptable policy that will drive the new CBT innovation in Nigeria. Public examinations and internal examinations in higher educational institutions in Nigeria are gradually making a radical shift from Paper Based or Paper-Pencil to Computer-Based Testing. The need to make an objective and empirical analysis of Policy issues relating to CBT became expedient. The following are some of the issues on CBT evolution in Nigeria that were identified as requiring policy backing. Prominent among them are requirements for establishing CBT centres, purpose of CBT, types and acquisition of CBT equipment, qualifications of staff: professional, technical and regular, security plans and curbing of cheating during examinations, among others. The descriptive research design was employed based on a population consisting of Principal Officers (Policymakers), Staff (Teaching and non-Teaching-Policy implementors), and CBT staff ( Technical and Professional- Policy supports) and candidates (internal and external). A fifty-item researcher-constructed questionnaire on policy issues was employed to collect data from 600 subjects drawn from higher institutions in South West Nigeria, using the purposive and stratified random sampling techniques. Data collected were analysed using descriptive (frequency counts, means and standard deviation) and inferential (t-test, ANOVA, regression and Factor analysis) techniques. Findings from this study showed, among others, that the factor loadings had significantly weights on the organizational and National policy issues on CBT innovation in Nigeria.

Keywords: computer-based testing, examination, innovation, paper-based testing, paper pencil based testing, policy issues

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Authors: Bin Li

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In the era of the digital economy, digital transformation has gradually become a strategic choice for enterprise development, but there is a relative lack of systematic research from the perspective of enterprise growth. Based on the sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2021, this paper constructs A digital transformation index system and an enterprise growth composite index to empirically test the impact of enterprise digital transformation on enterprise growth and its mechanism. The results show that digital transformation can significantly promote corporate growth. The mechanism analysis finds that reducing operating costs, optimizing human capital structure, promoting R&D output and improving digital innovation capability play an important intermediary role in the process of digital transformation promoting corporate growth. At the same time, the level of external digital infrastructure and the strength of organizational resilience play a positive moderating role in the process of corporate digital transformation promoting corporate growth. In addition, while further analyzing the heterogeneity of enterprises, this paper further deepens the analysis of the driving factors and digital technology support of digital transformation, as well as the three dimensions of enterprise growth, thus deepening the research depth of enterprise digital transformation.

Keywords: digital transformation, enterprise growth, digital technology, digital infrastructure, organization resilience, digital innovation

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Authors: Kwok Tak Kit

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The construction industry plays an important role in environmental and carbon emissions as it consumes a huge amount of natural resources and energy. Sustainable engineering involves the process of planning, design, procurement, construction and delivery in which the whole building and construction process resulting from building and construction can be effectively and sustainability managed to achieve the use of natural resources. Implementation of sustainable technology development and innovation, adoption of the advanced construction process and facilitate the facilities management to implement the energy and waste control more accurately and effectively. Study and research in the relationship of BIM and environment assessment tools lack a clear discussion. In this paper, we will focus on the synergy of BIM technology and sustainable engineering in the AEC industry and outline the key factors which enhance the use of advanced innovation, technology and method and define the role of stakeholders to achieve zero-carbon emission toward the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2ᵒC above pre-industrial levels. A case study of the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and environmental assessment tools in Hong Kong will be discussed in this paper.

Keywords: sustainability, sustainable engineering, BIM, LEED

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Authors: Nofiu A. Musa, Olubola Babalola

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The study explored the effect of ICT on the accuracy of Preliminary Cost Estimates (PCEs) prepared by quantity surveying consulting firms in Nigeria for building projects, with a view to determining the desirability of the adoption and use of the technological innovation for preliminary estimating. Thus, data pertinent to the study were obtained through questionnaire survey conducted on a sample of one hundred and eight (108) quantity surveying firms selected from the list of registered firms compiled by the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Lagos State Chapter through systematic random sampling. The data obtained were analyzed with SPSS version 17 using student’s t-tests at 5% significance level. The results obtained revealed that the mean bias and co-efficient of variation of the PCEs of the firms are significantly less at post ICT adoption period than the pre ICT adoption period, F < 0.05 in each case. The paper concluded that the adoption and use of the Technological Innovation (ICT) has significantly improved the accuracy of the Preliminary Cost Estimates (PCEs) of building projects, hence, it is desirable.

Keywords: accepted tender price, accuracy, bias, building projects, consistency, information and communications technology, preliminary cost estimates

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Authors: Markus Heck, Hans Vettiger

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Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are the backbone of central Europe’s economies and have a significant contribution to the gross domestic product. Production planning and scheduling (PPS) is still a crucial element in manufacturing industries of the 21st century even though this area of research is more than a century old. The topic of PPS is well researched especially in the context of large enterprises in the manufacturing industry. However, the implementation of PPS methodologies within SME is mostly unobserved. This work analyzes how PPS is implemented in SME with the geographical focus on Switzerland and its vicinity. Based on restricted resources compared to large enterprises, SME have to face different challenges. The real problem areas of selected enterprises in regards of PPS are identified and evaluated. For the identified real-life problem areas of SME clear and detailed recommendations are created, covering concepts and best practices and the efficient usage of PPS. Furthermore, the economic and entrepreneurial value for companies is lined out and why the implementation of the introduced recommendations is advised.

Keywords: central Europe, PPS, production planning, SME

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Authors: Jessica Ordoñez, Francisco Ochoa, Pascual García

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The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between return migration in Ecuador and economic growth. The improvement of macroeconomic conditions in Latin America, starting in 2012, makes the region a new migratory destination, in both senses in north-south and south-south flows. Current studies highlight only the role of the entrepreneurial migrant in generating employment and economic growth in the region. Nevertheless, it has not been considered that not all migrants are entrepreneurs and that not all entrepreneurs contribute to economic growth. This research compares the socioeconomic and labor characteristics of migrant returnees working as freelancers in Ecuador. The principal aim is to demystify the role of migrant entrepreneurs in regional growth and to identify socioeconomic characteristics that can enhance growth. A panel econometric model was used, which is part of the information from labor and macroeconomic surveys.

Keywords: economic growth, entrepreneur, migration, returned migration

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Authors: Mohammad-Ali Latifi, Harry Bouwman

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Changes in the business environment accelerated dramatically over the last decades as a result of changes in technology, regulation, market, and competitors’ behavior. Firms need to change the way they do business in order to survive or maintain their growth. Innovating business model (BM) can create competitive advantages and enhance firm performance. However, many companies fail to achieve expected outcomes in practice, mostly due to irreversible fundamental changes in key components of the company’s BM. This leads to more ambiguity, uncertainty, and risks associated with business performance. However, the relationship among BM Innovation, moderating factors, and the firm’s overall performance is by and large ignored in the current literature. In this study, we identified twenty moderating factors from our comprehensive literature review. We categorized these factors based on two criteria regarding the extent to which: the moderating factors can be controlled and managed by firms, and they are generic or specific changes to the firms. This leads to four moderation groups. The first group is BM implementation, which includes management support, employees’ commitment, employees’ skills, communication, detailed plan. The second group is called BM practices, which consists of BM tooling, BM experimentation, the scope of change, speed of change, degree of novelty. The third group is Firm characteristics, including firm size, age, and ownership. The last group is called Industry characteristics, which considers the industry sector, competitive intensity, industry life cycle, environmental dynamism, high-tech vs. low-tech industry. Through collecting data from 508 European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and using the structural equation modeling technique, the developed moderation model was examined. Results revealed that all factors highlighted through these four groups moderate the relation between BMI and firm performance significantly. Particularly, factors related to BM-Implementation and BM-Practices are more manageable and would potentially improve firm overall performance. We believe that this result is more important for researchers and practitioners since the possibility of working on factors in Firm characteristics and Industry characteristics groups are limited, and the firm can hardly control and manage them to improve the performance of BMI efforts.

Keywords: business model innovation, firm performance, implementation, moderation

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Authors: Susie Pryor, Palak Sadhwani

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The purpose of this research is to provide the foundations for a broad research agenda examining the role loneliness plays in entrepreneurship. While qualitative research in entrepreneurship incidentally captures the existence of loneliness as a part of the lived reality of entrepreneurs, to the authors’ knowledge, no academic work has to date explored this construct in this context. Moreover, many individuals reporting high levels of loneliness (women, ethnic minorities, immigrants, low income, low education) reflect those who are currently driving small business growth in the United States. Loneliness is a persistent state of emotional distress which results from feelings of estrangement and rejection or develops in the absence of social relationships and interactions. Empirical work finds links between loneliness and depression, suicide and suicide ideation, anxiety, hostility and passiveness, lack of communication and adaptability, shyness, poor social skills and unrealistic social perceptions, self-doubts, fear of rejection, and negative self-evaluation. Lonely individuals have been found to exhibit lower levels of self-esteem, higher levels of introversion, lower affiliative tendencies, less assertiveness, higher sensitivity to rejection, a heightened external locus of control, intensified feelings of regret and guilt over past events and rigid and overly idealistic goals concerning the future. These characteristics are likely to impact entrepreneurs and their work. Research identifies some key dangers of loneliness. Loneliness damages human love and intimacy, can disturb and distract individuals from channeling creative and effective energies in a meaningful way, may result in the formation of premature, poorly thought out and at times even irresponsible decisions, and produce hard and desensitized individuals, with compromised health and quality of life concerns. The current study utilizes meta-analysis and text analytics to distinguish loneliness from other related constructs (e.g., social isolation) and categorize antecedents and effects of loneliness across subpopulations. This work has the potential to materially contribute to the field of entrepreneurship by cleanly defining constructs and providing foundational background for future research. It offers a richer understanding of the evolution of loneliness and related constructs over the life cycle of entrepreneurial start-up and development. Further, it suggests preliminary avenues for exploration and methods of discovery that will result in knowledge useful to the field of entrepreneurship. It is useful to both entrepreneurs and those work with them as well as academics interested in the topics of loneliness and entrepreneurship. It adopts a grounded theory approach.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, grounded theory, loneliness, meta-analysis

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Authors: Vitor Carneiro, Augusto Barata Da Rocha, Barbara Rangel, Jorge Lino Alves

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In the European Union countries, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME’s) have an important contribution to economic activity and to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The implementation of design practices in SME’s is often a difficult task due to resources limitations. Unlike large companies, their product development and innovation processes frequentlylack adequate planning and systematic procedures. Design management interest has grown exponentially in recent years, but as it is a recent topic there is an absence of systematic methodologies to implement design management in SME’s with little or no design experience. This work presents a contribution to improve and optimize the process of design integration and management in SME’s. A review analysis is presented to select relevant articles on the subject, review and classify the main published contributions. Based on the selected articles content it was possible to identify five main themes related to the subject under analysis: Design Function Organization, Design Management Integration, Design Management Capabilities, Managing Design Projects, and Tools and Methods. Design management is discussed from different perspectives depending on the focus on which it is placed, whether in a design or management perspective, leading to different visions and definitions: from a more upstream strand at the intersection of design and the organization's strategic management (strategic design management) to a more downstream strand related to project management and design process (design management operational). The review analysis of the selected articles allowed the identification of a high level of complexity of connections and parameters in the design management during the product development process in the context of SME’s. Within each group of the five main themes, several sub-themes, directly or indirectly related, should be considered.Sub-connections also occur between sub-themes of different themes creating a complex and intricate web of connections. This complexity of connections is often the main obstacle to conduct design management and product development efficiently. This work proposes a formulation of a systematic methodological approach to optimize the integrated project and the management and control of the product development process among SME's. The implementation of this formulation will improve the integration of design management in the product development and innovation process in SME’s.

Keywords: design management, product development, product innovation, SME’s.

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Authors: Yuna Lee

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In the current policy process, there has been a growing interest in more open approaches that incorporate creativity and innovation based on the forecasting groups composed by the public and experts together into scientific data-driven foresight methods to implement more effective policymaking. Especially, citizen participation as collective intelligence in policymaking with design and deep scale of innovation at the global level has been developed and human-centred design thinking is considered as one of the most promising methods for strategic foresight. Yet, there is a lack of a common theoretical foundation for a comprehensive approach for the current situation of and post-COVID-19 era, and substantial changes in policymaking practice are insignificant and ongoing with trial and error. This project hypothesized that rigorously developed policy systems and tools that support strategic foresight by considering the public understanding could maximize ways to create new possibilities for a preferable future, however, it must involve a better understating of Behavioural Insights, including individual and cultural values, profit motives and needs, and psychological motivations, for implementing holistic and multilateral foresight and creating more positive possibilities. To what extent is the policymaking system theoretically possible that incorporates the holistic and comprehensive foresight and policy process implementation, assuming that theory and practice, in reality, are different and not connected? What components and environmental conditions should be included in the strategic foresight system to enhance the capacity of decision from policymakers to predict alternative futures, or detect uncertainties of the future more accurately? And, compared to the required environmental condition, what are the environmental vulnerabilities of the current policymaking system? In this light, this research contemplates the question of how effectively policymaking practices have been implemented through the synthesis of scientific, technology-oriented innovation with the strategic design for tackling complex societal challenges and devising more significant insights to make society greener and more liveable. Here, this study conceptualizes the notions of a new collaborative way of strategic foresight that aims to maximize mutual benefits between policy actors and citizens through the cooperation stemming from evolutionary game theory. This study applies mixed methodology, including interviews of policy experts, with the case in which digital transformation and strategic design provided future-oriented solutions or directions to cities’ sustainable development goals and society-wide urgent challenges such as COVID-19. As a result, artistic and sensual interpreting capabilities through strategic design promote a concrete form of ideas toward a stable connection from the present to the future and enhance the understanding and active cooperation among decision-makers, stakeholders, and citizens. Ultimately, an improved theoretical foundation proposed in this study is expected to help strategically respond to the highly interconnected future changes of the post-COVID-19 world.

Keywords: policymaking, strategic design, sustainable innovation, evolution of cooperation

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Authors: Pulkeria Pascoe, Hawa P. Tundui, Marcia Dutra de Barcellos, Hans de Steur, Xavier Gellynck

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A majority of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) experience low or no growth. Understanding their performance remains unfinished and disjointed as there is no consensus on the factors influencing it, especially in developing countries. Using a Resource-Based View (RBV) as the theoretical background, this cross-sectional study employed four regression models to examine the influence of firm-level factors (firm-specific characteristics, firm resources, manager socio-demographic characteristics, and selected management practices) on the overall performance variations among 442 Tanzanian micro and small agri-food processing firms. Study results confirmed the RBV argument that intangible resources make a larger contribution to overall performance variations among firms than that tangible resources. Firms' tangible and intangible resources explained 34.5% of overall performance variations (intangible resources explained the overall performance variability by 19.4% compared to tangible resources, which accounted for 15.1%), ranking first in explaining the overall performance variance. Firm-specific characteristics ranked second by influencing variations in overall performance by 29.0%. Selected management practices ranked third (6.3%), while the manager's socio-demographic factors were last on the list, as they influenced the overall performance variability among firms by only 5.1%. The study also found that firms that focus on proper utilization of tangible resources (financial and physical), set targets, and undertake better working capital management practices performed higher than their counterparts (low and average performers). Furthermore, accumulation and proper utilization of intangible resources (relational, organizational, and reputational), undertaking performance monitoring practices, age of the manager, and the choice of the firm location and activity were the dominant significant factors influencing the variations among average and high performers, relative to low performers. The entrepreneurial background was a significant factor influencing variations in average and low-performing firms, indicating that entrepreneurial skills are crucial to achieving average levels of performance. Firm age, size, legal status, source of start-up capital, gender, education level, and total business experience of the manager were not statistically significant variables influencing the overall performance variations among the agri-food processors under the study. The study has identified both significant and non-significant factors influencing performance variations among low, average, and high-performing micro and small agri-food processing firms in Tanzania. Therefore, results from this study will help managers, policymakers and researchers to identify areas where more attention should be placed in order to improve overall performance of MSEs in agri-food industry.

Keywords: firm-level factors, micro and small enterprises, performance, regression analysis, resource-based-view

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Authors: Daniela Pellin, Wilson Engelmann

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Brazil has sought to accelerate your development through technology and innovation as a response to the global influences, which has received in internal management practices. For this, it had edited the Brazilian Law of Innovation 13.243/2016. However observing the Law overestimated economic aspects the respective application will not consider the stakeholders and the technological risks because there is no legal treatment. The economic exploitation and the technological risks must be controlled by limits of democratic system to find better social development to contribute with the economics agents for making decision to conform with global directions. The research understands this is a problem to face given the social particularities of the country because there has been the literal import of the North American Triple Helix Theory consolidated in developed countries and the negative consequences when applied in developing countries. Because of this symptomatic scenario, it is necessary to create adjustment to conduct the management of the law besides social democratic interests to increase the country development. For this, therefore, the Government will have to adopt some conducts promoting side by side with universities, civil society and companies, informational transparency, catch of partnerships, create a Confort Letter document for preparation to ensure the operation, joint elaboration of a Manual of Good Practices, make accountability and data dissemination. Also the Universities must promote informational transparency, drawing up partnership contracts and generating revenue, development of information. In addition, the civil society must do data analysis about proposals received for discussing to give opinion related. At the end, companies have to give public and transparent information about investments and economic benefits, risks and innovation manufactured. The research intends as a general objective to demonstrate that the efficiency of the propeller deployment will be possible if the innovative decision-making process goes through the institutional logic. As specific objectives, the American influence must undergo some modifications to better suit the economic-legal incentives to potentiate the development of the social system. The hypothesis points to institutional model for application to the legal system can be elaborated based on emerging characteristics of the country, in such a way that technological risks can be foreseen and there will be global conformity with attention to the full development of society as proposed by the researchers.The method of approach will be the systemic-constructivist with bibliographical review, data collection and analysis with the construction of the institutional and democratic model for the management of the Law.

Keywords: development, governance of law, institutionalization, triple helix

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