What a Difference a DV Makes ... The Impact of Conceptualizing the Dependent Variable in Innovation Success Factor Studies

The quest for the "success factors" that drive a company's innovation performance has attracted a great deal of attention among both practitioners and academics. The underlying assumption is that certain critical activities impact the innovation performance of the company or the project. However, the findings of success factor studies lack convergence. It has been speculated that this may be due to the fact that extant studies have used many different measures of the dependent variable "innovation performance". Our study is the first to analyze this issue systematically and empirically: we analyze the extent to which different conceptualizations of the dependent variable (a firm's innovation performance) lead to different innovation success factor patterns. In order to do so, we collected data from 234 German firms, including well-established success factors and six alternative measures of innovation performance. This allowed us to calculate whether or not success factors are robust to changes in the measurement of the dependent variable. We find that this is not the case: rather, the choice of the dependent variable makes a huge difference. From this, we draw important conclusions for future studies aiming to identify the success factors in companies' innovation performance

Unleashing the potential of a heterogeneous society Migrant-run companies as drivers of inclusive growth. Bertelsmann Stiftung Growth for Germany 2015/02 Inclusive Growth for Germany 2015/02

As compared with many of its European partners, Germany is currently in a good economic position. But looking solely at economic growth is deceptive. Growth in recent years has not been inclusive, as participation opportunities have become increasingly unequally distributed. This puts social cohesion at risk. But what might policies that achieve both goals —realizing growth potential and expanding participation opportunities—look like? As a part of its “Strategies and Investments for Inclusive Growth” project, the Bertelsmann Stiftung develops and discusses concrete recommendations for an inclusive growth model. Using current research as a basis, this discussion paper discusses the degree to which the entrepreneurial activity of immigrants and people with a migrant background are today already serving to drive inclusive growth in Germany, and how potential of this kind can be identified. The conditions rendering it possible to engage in entrepre neurial activity in a country have a direct effect even beyond that country’s national economic performance. Who founds companies and who does not, and the degree of sustainability displayed by the companies founded, says much about how participation opportunities are distributed within a society. Are conditions such that groups that still lack full equality of opportunity within economic processes, such as women, young people, and people with an experience of immigration or a migrant background, are able as business people to become pace‑setters for a successful economy? Or is their potential overlooked and unused? What specific obstacles are in place

Influence of bioturbation by the polychaete Nereis diversicolor on the structure of bacterial communities in oil contaminated coastal sediments

Patterns of change in the structure of bacterial communities monitored by ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (RISA) in oil contaminated sediments inhabited or not by the marine polychaete Nereis diversicolor were studied during 45 days under laboratory conditions. Results supported by principal component analysis showed a marked response of the bacterial communities to the oil contamination and to the presence of N. diversicolor. Phylogenetic affiliation of specific RISA bands showed that, in the contaminated sediments, the presence of the marine polychaetes favoured the development of bacteria which may play an active role in natural bioremediation processes of oil polluted environments

Productivity, Growth, and Internationalisation: The Case of German and British High Techs

International engagement is often expected to improve firm performance. Especially for small technology-oriented firms, export activities may be important, being regarded as one way to amortise these firms? high product research and development costs. This paper examines the relationship between international business activities and firm performance using a sample of about 200 young high-tech firms in Germany and the UK that were contacted by two surveys in 1997 and 2003. I find out that the performance enhancing effects of internationalisation that were still observed in 1997 are in fact restricted to an early stage of the firms? life cycles and disappear when technology-oriented firms become mature. The results are in line with many other studies: Firms exhibiting superior performance are or will become exporters. --High technology industries,internationalisation,firm growth,productivity,switching

Expression of Neurotrophins and Their Receptors Tropomyosin-related kinases (Trk) under Tension-stress during Distraction Osteogenesis

The localization and expression of neurotrophins and their receptors during distraction osteogenesis was investigated in 72 male rat femurs (11 weeks old) to further clarify the concurrence of cellular and molecular events of new bone formation. After osteotomy, a 7-day lag phase was followed by distraction at the rate of 0.25 mm/12 h for 21 days (distraction phase), and a 7-day consolidation phase. The localization of neurotrophins (NGF, BDNF and NT-3) and their receptors tropomyosinrelated kinases (TRKA, TRKB and TRKC) by immunostaining showed positive staining in bone forming cells in each stage, although the presence and staining intensity varied by cell type and phase. The expressions of NGF, BDNF and NT-3 by real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR) showed that the peak of the mRNA expression of NGF occurred 10 days after distraction. NT-3 increased during bone extension, but decreased when distraction stopped. In contrast, BDNF continued to increase gradually throughout the distraction and consolidation phases. These findings suggest that neurotrophins and their receptors may play different roles in endochondral and intramembranous ossification in distraction osteogenesis. The tension stress caused by distraction may stimulate the expression of neurotrophins and their receptors, and promote osteogenesis

Variation of learning intensity in late adolescence and the impact on noncognitive skills

Despite the interdependence between cognitive and noncognitive skills, empirical studies have shown a longer period of acquisition in life-time for the latter besides relevance for educational and labor market success. Analyzing returns of investments during different periods of life is therefore economically meaningful. We evaluate the effects of a substantial increase in the amount of curriculum per unit of time (learning intensity) at the end of higher secondary schooling on nine types of these skills. The results show no influence on the acquisition of noncognitive skills, indicating that personality does rather not depend on schooling investments in late adolescence. --Noncognitive skills,human capital formation,learning intensity,natural experiment,Big Five,Locus of Control,Reciprocity,Self-Control

Innovation in services : overview of data sources and analytical structures

This paper has a twofold aim. Firstly, it presents an overview of sources of data on service innovation. We distinguish two levels of data, namely data at the macro-level and data at the micro level. Data at the macro-level are mainly obtained from primary and secondary statistical sources produced by national and international (statistical) agencies. Most macro-data do not measure the service innovation process itself, but mainly represent inputs in or output originating from the innovation process. Data at the micro-level are derived from specific innovation surveys of firms and enterprises, which have been carried out over the past decade, and cover - although to a limited extent - service sectors as well. Section 2 provides an overview of macro and micro indicators on service innovation, and it discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the various measures. The second aim of the paper is to provide analytical structures that can assist in analysing the data on service innovation. The main characteristic of the analytical structures vis-à-vis the raw data, is that analytical structures require constructs and assumptions on the relation between the various indicators in the database. At the macro-level we propose two structures, namely a productivity accounting system, which allows to analyse the contribution of the inputs in the production process, including skilled and unskilled labour, different vintages of physical equipment and technology inputs, to the output produced. Secondly, we discuss an input-output accounting framework to analyse backward linkages of intermediate input use in service industries. The input-output structure may also serve a more detailed analysis of innovation relations between industries, using R&D data. At the micro level we compare the statistical computer package, LISREL (Linear Structural Relations), as a means to analyse the data from micro-based innovation surveys with regular regression analysis, which is mostly used in analysing micro-based innovation data. Section 3 describes these analytical structures in more detail. This paper is part of the project on Structual Information Provision in Services (SIID) carried out by the University of Groningen and DIALOGIC (Utrecht) for the Minisity of Economic Affairs in The Hague (The Netherlands).; Together with an accompanying thematic paper on the conceptualisation of service innovation, it concludes the first phase of the SIID project.

A Multithreaded Java Framework for Information Extraction in the Context of Enterprise Application Integration

In this paper, we present a new multithreaded framework for information extraction with Java in heterogeneous enterprise application environments, which frees the developer from having to deal with the error-prone task of low-level thread programming. The power of this framework is demonstrated by an example of extracting product prices from web sites, but the framework is useful for numerous other purposes, too. Strong points of the framework are its performance, continuous feedback, and adherence to maximum response times. The description of the framework uses UML modeling techniques for visualizing multithreading. Moreover, we tackle Java problems of stopping running threads.