A European research agenda for lifelong learning

It is a generally accepted truth that without a proper educational system no country will prosper, nor will its inhabitants. With the arrival of the post-industrial society, in Europe and elsewhere, it has become increasingly clear that people should continue learning over their entire life-spans lest they or their society suffer the dire consequences. But what does this future lifelong learning society exactly look like? And how then should education prepare for it? What should people learn and how should they do so? How can we afford to pay for all this, what are the socio-economic constraints of the move towards a lifelong-learning society? And, of course, what role can and should the educational establishment of schools and universities play? This are questions that demand serious research efforts, which is what this paper argues for

Do business administration studies offer better preparation for supervisory jobs than traditional economics studies?

The question whether graduates of business administration (BA) are better prepared for supervisory jobs and have a greater chance of acquiring supervisory jobs than non-BA economics graduates, forms the central theme of the paper. In addition, special attention is given to the question whether having a supervisory job pays off, particularly with an educational background in BA. In order to answer these questions, we have used a data set that relates to the labour market position of graduates from Dutch universities at the early stages of their careers.We have found that BA graduates, despite their multidisciplinary education and the fact that they have fewer deficiencies in their education with respect to the ability for teamwork than non-BA graduates, do not have a greater chance of acquiring supervisory jobs than graduates from non-BA economics courses. We have also found that having a supervisory job pays off, regardless of the education (BA versus non-BA). Lastly, we have found that most of the skills required for managerial leadership are acquired through work and not in education. This suggests that a combination of working and learning may be more effective for developing managerial skills than a purely educational setting.Key words: business administration and non-business administration graduates, supervisory jobs, required competences, job chances, earnings.JEL classification: J 24, J 31, J 44.labour market entry and occupational careers;

Stakeholder engagement as a facilitator of organizational learning

This paper examines the relationship between stakeholder engagement and competence building. Following the dual perspective of the firm, which indicated that managers deal with both transactions and competences concurrently, we argue that stakeholder interactions also concern both transaction cost reduction and value creation. Based on a review of the extant literature, we incorporated a micro-macro connection between organizational learning and competence building. Further to this, we developed a conceptual framework by linking stakeholder engagement and organizational learning. This framework demonstrates that stakeholder relations may have significant effects on organizational learning and thus stakeholder engagement can play the role of facilitator in building firm competences

Competencies of Polish Scientists as a Contribution to the Success of Innovation Research and Development Projects

The states which top the list of the number of conducted research and development activities put substantial emphasis on a scientist’s competencies. Today, experts are able to determine the competencies that will decide on the success of projects in the next decade. They include, among others, leadership skills, team work, entrepreneurship as well as international and cross-sector mobility. What is the place of Polish scientists in relation to these competencies? What are their strongest and weakest points? How do the competencies of Polish scientists translate into the success of projects conducted in our country? These questions were to find their answers thanks to the research conducted in 2011 commissioned by the National Information Processing Institute. This article presents some of the results. It includes, amongst others, the differences between scientists from science departments and companies as well as between project managers and members of research teams.Preparation and printing funded by the National Agency for Research and Development under project “Kreator Innowacyjności – wparcie dla Przedsiębiorczości akademickiej

Upbeat and quirky with a bit of a build: Interpretive repertories in creative music search

Pre-existing commercial music is widely used to accom-pany moving images in films, TV commercials and com-puter games. This process is known as music synchronisa-tion. Professionals are employed by rights holders and film makers to perform creative music searches on large catalogues to find appropriate pieces of music for syn-chronisation. This paper discusses a Discourse Analysis of thirty interview texts related to the process. Coded ex-amples are presented and discussed. Four interpretive repertoires are identified: the Musical Repertoire, the Soundtrack Repertoire, the Business Repertoire and the Cultural Repertoire. These ways of talking about music are adopted by all of the community regardless of their interest as Music Owner or Music User. Music is shown to have multi-variate and sometimes conflicting meanings within this community which are dynamic and negotiated. This is related to a theoretical feedback model of communication and meaning making which proposes that Owners and Users employ their own and shared ways of talking and thinking about music and its context to determine musical meaning. The value to the music information retrieval community is to inform system design from a user information needs perspective

Development of a Methodology for the Economic Assessment of Managerial Decisions as a Factor of Increased Economic Security

The article notes that the emergence of such a phenomenon as the interdependence of security and development, the so-called security-development nexus, becomes a determinant during the development of strategic documents at all hierarchical levels. It gives relevance to the search for methodological solutions that would on a strategic level take into account any potential threats to economic security, and on a tactical level provide for pragmatic actions that are not in conflict with the strategic development vector of business entities. The authors identify the instability factors that pose a real threat to economic security. They substantiate the expediency of forming a new model of the national economy development with a focal point on new industrialization. The article factors in the most important trends in the development of the global economy that determine the strategic vector of enhancing the economic security in Russia. It is ascertained that in the conditions of new industrialization, the intellectual core of the high-tech economy sector is formed by convergent technologies (NBICS technologies). The authors offer a methodological approach to the economic assessment of managerial decisions in the context of uncertainty. They also identify methodological principles that must be taken into account in developing a modern methodology for the economic assessment of business decisions. The principles include forming a preferred reality, or the so-called “vision of the future,” the priority of network solutions as the basis for the formation of new markets; mass customization and individualization of demands, principal changes in the profile of competences that ensure competitiveness on the labor market, use of the ideology of inclusive development and impact investment that creates common values. The proposed methodology is based on the optimum combination of traditional methods used for the economic assessment of managerial decisions with the method of real options and reflexive assessments with regard to entropy as a measure of uncertainty. The proposed methodological approach has been tested in respect of the Ural mining and metallurgical complex.The article has been prepared with the support of the grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research № 16–06–00403 "Modelling the Motivational Potentials of the Multi-subject Industrial Policy in the Context of New Industrialization"

Competitive Priorities and Competitive Advantage in Jordanian Manufacturing

The purpose of this research was to explore and predict the relationship between the competitive priorities (quality, cost, flexibility and delivery) and the competitive advantage of firms in the Jordanian Industrial Sector. A population of 88 Jordanian manufacturing firms, registered on the Amman Stock Exchange, was targeted using a cross-sectional survey employing a questionnaire method of data collection. The results of the data analysis indicate a significant relationship between competitive priorities and competitive advantage. The research suggests that recognising and nurturing this relationship provides the master key for a firm to survive in a turbulent environment. Therefore, operational and marketing strategies should place emphasis on competitive priorities such as quality, cost, flexibility and delivery to achieve, develop and maintain competitive advantage. This study is one of the first to examine the relationship between the competitive priorities of Jordanian manufacturing firms and their competitive advantage

An integrated core competence evaluation framework for portfolio management in the oil industry

Drawing upon resource-based theory, this paper presents a core competence evaluation framework for managing the competence portfolio of an oil company. It introduces a network typology to illustrate how to form different types of strategic alliance relations with partnering firms to manage and grow the competence portfolio. A framework is tested using a case study approach involving face-to-face structured interviews. We identified purchasing, refining and sales and marketing as strong candidates to be the core competencies. However, despite the company's core business of refining oil, the core competencies were identified to be their research and development and performance management (PM) capabilities. We further provide a procedure to determine different kinds of physical, intellectual and cultural resources making a dominant impact on company's competence portfolio. In addition, we provide a comprehensive set of guidelines on how to develop core competence further by forging a partnership alliance choosing an appropriate network topology

Exploring the impact of technological competence development on speed and NPD program performance

With growing levels of competition across industries, technological competence is increasingly viewed as crucial for businesses to maintain their long-term competitive advantage. Although there are many theoretical arguments about how firms' competences can yield competitive advantage and performance improvement, we have a limited understanding of where the capabilities originate in the context of NPD or what kind of product portfolios, internal climate and strategic alignment are required to build them. Moreover, empirical evidence for technological competence development is limited and comes primarily from case studies, anecdotal evidence, and management impressions. Accordingly, this research addresses these gaps by presenting and testing a conceptual model of technological competence development in NPD. This study makes advances in applying a dynamic capability approach to technological competence development in NPD, and investigates the impact of innovative climate, technological alignment, and project portfolio management on technological competence development as well as NPD speed. Moreover, the factors that might influence NPD program performance are also investigated. The analysis, based on data collected from 164 firms, shows that a firm's innovative climate, technological alignment and portfolio management are positively associated with technological competence development. While technological alignment was found to be negatively related to NPD speed, portfolio management and technological competence development were found to have positive effects on speed. However, innovative climate had no significant impact on speed. Moreover, technological competence development and portfolio management were found to be positively related to NPD program performance. Finally, the authors found no support for the relationship between speed and NPD program performance