Learning from Business Failure – Does Restarting Affect the Business Model Design?

Business failure is an existent and severe threat for entrepreneurs, but also offers an opportunity for learning. According to literature, failed entrepreneurs are facing a tremendous learning experience. However, only very few studies focus on the long-term entrepreneur-related consequences of failure and even less work is available on entrepreneurs who decide to restart (Ucbasaran et al. (2013)). The goal of the thesis is to enhance business failure literature by focusing on behavioral outcomes of failure-based learning in the context of entrepreneurs who decide to restart after experiencing business failure. Hence, it will be possible to analyze whether cognitive learning processes result in changes of the entrepreneur’s behaviors and actions with respect to the subsequent business. Thus, the aim is to answer the following research questions: (1) How do business models of an entrepreneur’s failed business and the subsequent business differ? (2) What explains possible business model differences? The business model concept is employed as a unit of analysis to identify learning outcomes of entrepreneurs by comparing the business models of the initial, failed business and the subsequent business by conducting an in-depth multiple-case study. Particularly, five semistructured interviews with entrepreneurs who failed and restarted were conducted to allow for the theory building approach according to Eisenhardt (1989). In addition, to triangulate data and enrich the findigns objectively two interviews were held with bankruptcy trustees, experts in the field of business failure. Especially the information provided by the experts enhanced the cross-case analysis. By employing the business model concept as a unit of analysis in the context of restart entrepreneurship, I am able to provide in-depth, empirically-based insights into behavioral outcomes of failure-based entrepreneurial learning. The multiple-case study provides evidence that an entrepreneur rather improves the business model of the failed business than creating a completely novel business model design for a subsequent, new business. Findings also show that learning from failure is affected by situation-specific, entrepreneur-related conditions, which becomes obvious in the business model design of the subsequent businesses. Particularly, the time span between failure and restart, external support and outside options have an impact. Thus, learning from business failure does not automatically take place but is affected by the entrepreneur’s willingness and ability to reflect on past experiences and further conditions that are beyond the entrepreneur’s scope of influence. Therefore, the thesis enhances existing literature on failure-based learning as it highlights that failure-based learning does not happen automatically, but requires certain cognitive capabilities that depict a precondition for successful transfer of learning outcomes to an operational level. Overall, the thesis emphasizes a difference between business closure and serial entrepreneurship on the one hand and business failure and restart entrepreneurship on the other hand. This distinction is of particular importance for entrepreneurship research, as the behavior of serial entrepreneurs seems to follow a different logic compared to restart entrepreneurs. This important finding calls for future research that may rely on the thesis as groundwork and contributes to a deeper understanding of restart entrepreneurship. Managers or entrepreneur on the other hand shall use the findings as a guide. The thesis highlights the importance of the business model and its benefits for the real-world as a tool to objectively consider value creation and capture. In particular, the entrepreneur or manager shall check and critically analyze his or her business in terms of the internal and external fit the business model design. Furthermore, in the case of an approaching or already existent business failure, entrepreneurs should take time for reflection and learning; consider external advice and accept responsibilities and deal with costs of failure openly.Keywords: Business Failure, Learning, Restart Entrepreneurship, Business Mode

Shape analysis on homogeneous spaces: a generalised SRVT framework

Shape analysis is ubiquitous in problems of pattern and object recognition and has developed considerably in the last decade. The use of shapes is natural in applications where one wants to compare curves independently of their parametrisation. One computationally efficient approach to shape analysis is based on the Square Root Velocity Transform (SRVT). In this paper we propose a generalised SRVT framework for shapes on homogeneous manifolds. The method opens up for a variety of possibilities based on different choices of Lie group action and giving rise to different Riemannian metrics.Comment: 28 pages; 4 figures, 30 subfigures; notes for proceedings of the Abel Symposium 2016: "Computation and Combinatorics in Dynamics, Stochastics and Control". v3: amended the text to improve readability and clarify some points; updated and added some references; added pseudocode for the dynamic programming algorithm used. The main results remain unchange

Soziale Phobie und Internet

Theoretischer Hintergrund: Das Internet stellt eine Möglichkeit dar, sozial ängstliche Menschen zu erreichen, ohne dass sich diese in eine angstauslösende soziale Situation begeben müssen. Ein internetbasiertes Selbsthilfeprogramm ermöglicht es, soziale Fähigkeiten zu trainieren und in einem nächsten Schritt in reale soziale Interaktionen umzusetzen. Im Rahmen des Projekts „SKY: Selbstsicher, Kompetent – For the Youth!“ wurde mit Hilfe der Unterstützung vom Verein Komm-Mit-Ment und von Sparkling Science des Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung ein Online-Selbstsicherheitstraining, basierend auf kognitiv-lerntheoretischen Konzepten, entwickelt. Zielsetzung: Ziel der Untersuchung ist es die Wirksamkeit des Online-Selbstsicherheitstrainings bei schüchternen und sozial ängstlichen Personen zu überprüfen. Weiters soll das Online-Selbstsicherheitstraining mit dem Offline-Selbstsicherheitstraining hinsichtlich ihrer Auswirkungen verglichen werden. Methode: Die Auswirkungen des Online-Selbstsicherheitstrainings in der Onlineversuchsgruppe (n = 45) wurde mit den Auswirkungen des Offline-Selbstsicherheitstrainings in der Offlineversuchsgruppe (n = 153) und der Offlinekontrollgruppe (n = 177) verglichen. Die Daten wurden mit verschiedenen Fragebögen zur sozialen Phobie, sozialen Kompetenz, emotionalem Erleben und „life effectiveness“ erhoben. Resultate: Verglichen mit der Kontrollgruppe führte das Online-Selbstsicherheitstraining zu einer Verminderung der sozial ängstlichen Symptomatik bei den TeilnehmerInnen des Trainings. Weiters konnte eine Verbesserung der Problemlösefähigkeit und des Umgangs mit sozialen Situationen und Kompetenzen erreicht werden. Die TeilnehmerInnen konnten nach dem Training ihre eigenen Gefühle bewusster wahrnehmen und besser kontrollieren und somit ihre Selbstwirksamkeit steigern. Die Wirksamkeit des Offline-Selbstsicherheitstrainings konnte in ähnlichen Bereichen nachgewiesen werden, sodass sowohl das Online- als auch Offline-Selbstsicherheitstraining positive Auswirkungen auf die sozial ängstliche Symptomatik zeigten. Konklusion: Die vorliegenden Ergebnisse unterstützen die Entwicklung von internetbasierten Selbsthilfeprogrammen zur sozialen Phobie und stellen somit eine Ergänzung zu den herkömmlichen Behandlungsmethoden für schüchterne und sozial ängstliche Menschen dar.Background: The Internet provides the possibility to achieve people, they are anxious of face-to-face contact and interaction. An internet-based self-help treatment allows someone to improve one´s social abilities and use them in real social interactions. The current internet-based cognitive-behavioral self-assurance training was developed in the context of the project „SKY: Selbstsicher, Kompetent – For the Youth!“ with support from the association Komm-Mit-Ment and Sparkling Science of Federal Ministry of Science and Research. Objective: The aims of this study are to evaluate the efficacy of a internet-based assurance self-training for shy and social anxiety people and to compare the effects of the offline and online self-assurance training. Methods: The effects of the internet-based self-assurance training in the online treatment group (n = 45) were compared with the effects of the self-assurance training in the offline treatment group (n = 153) and with the offline control group (n = 177). Data of several instruments for social phobia, social competence, emotion, and life effectiveness were collected for analysis. Results: Compared with the control group the treated participants in the online group experienced a reduction of social anxiety symptoms. Further they increase their problem solving abilities and social interaction abilities. After the online self-assurance training the participants were able to realize and control their emotions in a more effective way and increase their self-efficacy. The effect of the offline self-assurance training was comparable to the online training effects. This means, that both treatment conditions (online and offline) had positive impacts on social anxiety symptoms. Conclusion: The current results support the development of internet-based self-help programs for social anxiety people and they are a complementary treatment for people, who are shy and socially fearful

Mindset, Virtue Signaling and Volunteering

Virtue signaling, or publicly showing off one’s good character or actions to others, has been studied in many contexts. This research expands on previous work and focuses on investigating the impact of fixed vs. growth mindsets on virtue signaling in a volunteering context. Mindsets, in the context of this research, are the beliefs people hold about the consistency of human’s personality as well as their moral characteristics. We hypothesize that given the different goal orientations of people with growth vs. fixed mindsets, the impact of obligatory virtue signaling on volunteer behavior will be stronger among people with a growth (vs. fixed) mindset since obligatory (vs. voluntary) signaling reduces the “showing off” concern. We additionally explore potential mitigating and augmenting factors of this moderation, including the perceived relevance of the audience for any virtue signaling and the likelihood that virtue signaling would yield a favorable judgment. To investigate the validity of our hypothesized relationships, 62 Pepperdine students participated in a pretest during the Fall 2023 semester. Results show that people with a growth mindset were more interested in volunteering, were more OK with receiving recognition from volunteering, and were more OK with receiving obligatory recognition from volunteering than were people with a fixed mindset. This work underscores the importance of understanding mindsets and recognitions as nonprofits devise marketing programs to target volunteers. Future work includes implementing an online survey at Cedars-Sinai with 100 current volunteers and looking at perceived efficacy as a mediating variable to the relationship between mindset and volunteering

An introduction to semiparametric function-on-scalar regression

Function-on-scalar regression models feature a function over some domain as the response while the regressors are scalars. Collections of time series as well as 2D or 3D images can be considered as functional responses. We provide a hands-on introduction for a flexible semiparametric approach for function-on-scalar regression, using spatially referenced time series of ground velocity measurements from large-scale simulated earthquake data as a running example. We discuss important practical considerations and challenges in the modelling process and outline best practices. The outline of our approach is complemented by comprehensive R code, freely available in the online appendix. This text is aimed at analysts with a working knowledge of generalized regression models and penalized splines

Star Formation in a Stellar Mass Selected Sample of Galaxies to z=3 from the GOODS NICMOS Survey (GNS)

We present a study of the star-forming properties of a stellar mass-selected sample of galaxies in the GOODS NICMOS Survey (GNS), based on deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the GOODS North and South fields. Using a stellar mass selected sample, combined with HST/ACS and Spitzer data to measure both UV and infrared derived star formation rates (SFR), we investigate the star forming properties of a complete sample of ~1300 galaxies down to log M*=9.5 at redshifts 1.5<z<3. Eight percent of the sample is made up of massive galaxies with M*>10^11 Msun. We derive optical colours, dust extinctions, and ultraviolet and infrared SFR to determine how the star formation rate changes as a function of both stellar mass and time. Our results show that SFR increases at higher stellar mass such that massive galaxies nearly double their stellar mass from star formation alone over the redshift range studied, but the average value of SFR for a given stellar mass remains constant over this 2 Gyr period. Furthermore, we find no strong evolution in the SFR for our sample as a function of mass over our redshift range of interest, in particular we do not find a decline in the SFR among massive galaxies, as is seen at z < 1. The most massive galaxies in our sample (log M*>11) have high average SFRs with values, SFR(UV,corr) = 103+/-75 Msun/yr, yet exhibit red rest-frame (U-B) colours at all redshifts. We conclude that the majority of these red high-redshift massive galaxies are red due to dust extinction. We find that A(2800) increases with stellar mass, and show that between 45% and 85% of massive galaxies harbour dusty star formation. These results show that even just a few Gyr after the first galaxies appear, there are strong relations between the global physical properties of galaxies, driven by stellar mass or another underlying feature of galaxies strongly related to the stellar mass.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

The LpL^p-Fisher-Rao metric and Amari-Cencov α\alpha-connections

We introduce a family of Finsler metrics, called the $L^p$-Fisher-Rao metrics $F_p$, for $p\in (1,\infty)$, which generalizes the classical Fisher-Rao metric $F_2$, both on the space of densities Dens$_+(M)$ and probability densities Prob$(M)$. We then study their relations to the Amari-\u{C}encov $\alpha$-connections $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$ from information geometry: on Dens$_+(M)$, the geodesic equations of $F_p$ and $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$ coincide, for $p = 2/(1-\alpha)$. Both are pullbacks of canonical constructions on $L^p(M)$, in which geodesics are simply straight lines. In particular, this gives a new variational interpretation of $\alpha$-geodesics as being energy minimizing curves. On Prob$(M)$, the $F_p$ and $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$ geodesics can still be thought as pullbacks of natural operations on the unit sphere in $L^p(M)$, but in this case they no longer coincide unless $p=2$. Using this transformation, we solve the geodesic equation of the $\alpha$-connection by showing that the geodesic are pullbacks of projections of straight lines onto the unit sphere, and they always cease to exists after finite time when they leave the positive part of the sphere. This unveils the geometric structure of solutions to the generalized Proudman-Johnson equations, and generalizes them to higher dimensions. In addition, we calculate the associate tensors of $F_p$, and study their relation to $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$

Historia de la evolucion de la calidad hospitalar: de los padrones a acreditacion

This work contemplates the literature revision of Quality Standardization and the evaluation process by means of Hospital Accreditation literature. A historic resume have been worked out, about the beginnings of quality evaluation within the health services, from the Hospital Standardization Program, elaborated by the American Surgeons College, in the middle of 1924, to the creation of ONA - National Accreditation Organization, who has as main goals the installation and implementation of a health assistance permanent improvement process, thus stimulating the services to reach higher quality standards. After a reflection exercise, it was considered that, in the evaluation of services, it's necessary to seek a higher value of the assistentials results, as well as the elaboration of more equanimous patterns in the structure, processes and results of the assistential quality.Trata-se de una revisión de la literatura sobre padronización de Calidad y el procedimiento de evaluación por la Acreditación Hospitalar. Fue realizado un breve histórico sobre el inicio de la evaluación de calidad en los servicios de salud, con el Programa de Padronización Hospitalar creado por el Colegio Americano de Cirujanos, a medios de 1924, hasta la creación de la Organización Nacional de Acreditación - ONA, que tiene como objetivos la implementación de un proceso permanente de mejoría de la asistencia a la salud, haciendo que los servicios lleguen a los mejores niveles de cualidad. Después de un auto-análisis, se hizo necesaria que en las evaluaciones de servicios, se buscara la valorización de los resultados asistenciales bien como la elaboración de padrones cuali - cuantitativamente más uniformes en aspectos de estructura, procesos e resultados de calidad asistencial.Trata-se da revisão da literatura sobre a padronização da Qualidade e o processo de avaliação pela Acreditação Hospitalar. Foi realizado um apanhado histórico sobre o início da avaliação da qualidade nos serviços de saúde, com o Programa de Padronização Hospitalar elaborado pelo Colégio Americano de Cirurgiões, em meados de 1924, até a criação da Organização Nacional de Acreditação - ONA, que tem como objetivos a implantação e implementação de um processo permanente de melhoria da assistência à saúde estimulando os serviços a atingirem padrões mais elevados de qualidade. Após reflexão, considerou-se que nas avaliações dos serviços faz-se necessário buscar a valorização dos resultados assistenciais bem como a elaboração de padrões quali - quantitativamente mais equânimes nos aspectos estrutura, processos e resultados da qualidade assistencial.Consultoria Saúde Brasil Responsabilidade Profissional/ Hospitalar e Gerenciamento de RiscosUNG Curso de Pós-graduaçãoUNIFESP Depto EnfermagemUNIFESP, Depto EnfermagemSciEL