That’s Mine! Employee Side Projects, Intellectual Property Ownership, and Innovation

Working on side projects outside their work hours is a growing trend for IT professionals. While employees might believe that everything they create in their spare time belongs to themselves, it is not always the case. In the legal case of Alcatel v. Brown, the court ruled that the employer owned rights to employees’ intellectual property including ideas of their side projects. Relatively little is known about how innovation activities are affected when employees are not allowed to retain the ownership of their intellectual property. We leverage the Alcatel v. Brown case as an exogenous shock and apply a difference-in-difference model to examine how the legal case affects innovation activities in different counties. We find that following Alcatel v. Brown, both patent counts and entrepreneurial activities decrease in counties where employees’ ownership of their intellectual property is not legally protected. We also find that the dampening effect is more pronounced in IT-related industries. Our work contributes to the literature on innovation management while providing practical implications for policy makers on intellectual property law

Can Starving Start-ups Beat Fat Labs? A Bandit Model of Innovation with Endogenous Financing Constraint

Is there any such thing as too much capital when it comes to the financing of innovative projects? We study a principal–agent model in which the principal chooses the scale of the experiment, and the agent privately observes the outcome realizations and can privately choose the novelty of the project. When the agent has private access to a safe but non-innovative project, the principal starves the agent of funds to incentivize risk-taking. The principal quickly scales up after early successes, and can tolerate early failures. If the principal is equally informed about the outcome, then the agent is well-resourced, resembling a large research and development department

Can starving start-ups beat fat labs? A bandit model of innovation with endogenous financing constraint

First published: 03 October 2018This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Is there any such thing as too much capital when it comes to the financing of innovative projects? We study a principal-agent model in which the principal chooses the scale of the experiment, and the agent privately observes the outcome realizations and can privately choose the novelty of the project. When the agent has private access to a safe but non-innovative project, the principal starves the agent of funds to incentivise risk-taking. The principal quickly scales up after early successes, and may tolerate early failures. If the principal is equally informed about the outcome, the agent is well-resourced, resembling a large R&D department

Teacher Leadership in State Education Policy

There is a national call for teacher leadership, which has occurred after many education reforms have struggled due to a perceived lack of teacher involvement. The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers felt that their involvement in education policy had impact and whether there is ample teacher expertise in education policy. The overarching research question was to appraise educator perceptions of teacher impact on state education policy. The study revealed a perceived lack of teacher impact and education expertise. The conceptual framework was based on theories of adult learning and the development of expertise and supported the necessity of teacher expertise in policy discussions\u27 because teachers are the ones who have developed classroom expertise and the potential impact of policy on classrooms. A case study methodology was applied with 5 state teachers of the year participants. The participants were from 4 states, recognized from 2012-2015, and had local, state, and national policy experience. Interviews were conducted to collect data, with direct interpretation and categorical aggregation through coding applied to analyze data during collection. After identifying a perceived lack of teacher impact, themes were identified that could create more effective impact. Themes were grouped into skills, knowledge, and dispositions that could be taught in a series of learning experiences, serving as curriculum for teachers to build expertise in policy. This project has the potential to assist educators in developing the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed to become more effectively involved in policy. It also has the potential to create social change in the United States by assisting teachers in getting meaningfully involved in policy, thereby positively impacting public education for their students in their classrooms, schools, districts, and beyond

Essays on climate change, innovation, and inequality

This thesis consists of three essays on the interface of applied microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, with the common theme of studying the role of financing constraints in various economic issues. The first chapter tackles the problem of deriving optimal climate policies in a world characterised by credit constraints. Credible implementation of climate change policy requires a large proportion of current fossil fuel reserves to remain unused. This issue, named the Carbon Bubble, is usually presented as a required asset write-off, with implications for investors. For the first time, we discuss its implications for macroeconomic policy and for climate policy itself. We embed the Carbon Bubble in a macroeconomic model exhibiting a financial accelerator: if investors are leveraged, the Carbon Bubble may precipitate a fire-sale of assets across the economy, and generate a large and persistent fall in output and investment. We find a role for policy in mitigating the Carbon Bubble. In the second chapter, we analyse the role of financing constraints in motivating innovation. Is there a thing as too much capital when it comes to the financing of innovative projects? We study a principal-agent model in which the principal chooses the scale of the experiment, and the agent privately observes the outcome realizations and may privately choose the novelty of the project. When the agent has private access to a safe but non-innovative project, the principal starves the agent of funds to incentivise risk-taking. The principal quickly scales up after early successes, and may tolerate early failures. If the principal is equally informed about the outcome, the agent is well-resourced, resembling a large R&D department. In the third chapter, we investigate if inequality hinders or fosters innovation. We study an occupational choice model in which agents differ in observable wealth and unobservable innovative talent. Investors deposit their wealth in banks, whereas entrepreneurs contract with banks to obtain credit to set up risky firms and can privately choose the novelty of the technology used and the effort exerted. Since financial contracts can be made contingent only on wealth, up to five wealth classes form endogenously and, in general equilibrium, the interest rate adjusts to clear the credit market. In a quantitative illustration, we show that increased inequality can lead to a decrease in both the average quality of the innovators and the number of successful innovations, and to an increase in the number of non-innovative entrepreneurs

Elevating the perception of the strategic use of design for an airline through the design management conceptual framework (DMCF)

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.This dissertation evaluates and elevates the perception of the strategic use of design for airlines, especially a Silent Design airline like Saudia Airlines. Saudia Airlines is an international airline located in the Gulf region in the Middle East. In comparison to some other Gulf state airlines, Saudia Airlines benefits from its large geographical coverage, and is considered to be one of the richest and longest established carriers in the industry. However, the rapid growth during the past few years of other Gulf carriers (e.g. Emirates Airlines, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways) highlights the necessity for improvements to be made by Saudia Airlines so that it can sustain its position in the global market. These three mega Gulf airlines have shown major developments in their strategic use of design in delivering innovative and differentiated design touch points in their customer journeys. The purpose of this research is to ‘create a design management conceptual framework (DMCF) to assist Saudia Airlines in evaluating and elevating the perception of the strategic value of design.’ To date, airlines adopting a Silent Design approach have rarely been addressed in empirical studies. To achieve this, secondary research investigated several topics, mainly the perception of the strategic use of design, the operational use of design and how design was managed based on design management evolution. Furthermore, design outcomes are presented after implementing the strategic use of design, to deliver innovative and differentiated results. Moreover, the case studies of several companies are presented that use design at a strategic level, especially in the airline industry. The primary research investigated key stakeholders’ views (customers, design experts and Saudia Airlines’ employees and design consultants). The findings from these investigations, and emergent key themes and sub-themes created the prototypes that led to the formulation of the DMCF, which is the main contribution of this study. The DMCF was developed and tested with experts in the field. The proposed framework is considered a significant starting point for airlines that want to evaluate and elevate their perception of the strategic use of design. The DMCF addresses the significant results of this study and key points are made, as follows: 1) Four key dimensions are identified: a) organisational mind-set, b) structure and design capabilities, c) design process and communication, and d) customer experience, which could evaluate and elevate the strategic use of design. 2) The Silent Design culture is identified as pertaining to Saudia Airlines in this study. This culture emphasises the moderate ambition of the strategic use of design by using it at an operational level. It also includes an ill-defined structure for managing design and a lack of design capabilities. In addition, it has an unclear design process and ad hoc cross-departmental collaboration. The overall result is that the Silent Design organisations’ customer experiences are characterised by undifferentiated products and services. 3) The Strategic Design culture is identified and addresses the airlines that make good use of design. This culture emphasises the strong ambition of the strategic use of design by using it at a strategic level. It also includes a systematic and clear structure for managing design. It has a clear design process and clear cross-departmental collaboration. The overall result is that Strategic Design organisations maintain their position as innovators and differentiators within the airline industry. 4) Some recommendations are made that target how to bridge the gap between these two cultures, including appointing a design leader within a Silent Design culture airline. This would elevate the airlines’ perceptions of the strategic use of design.King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Sau