The Lived Experience of Academic Entrepreneurship: The interplay between practice, identity, and context

This thesis explores how academic entrepreneurs experience and practically manage the combination of research and business, with special emphasis on the interplay between practice and identity and the effects of institutional context. Empirical focus is on university researchers who co-found companies while remaining in academia. Despite being the topic of intense scholarly attention, research on academic entrepreneurship is lacking a richer understanding of the actor at the center of it all: the university scientist engaging in entrepreneurship. The overwhelming dominance of macrolevel research (e.g. organizational and institutional determinants, and economic outcomes) has led to calls for more research into the microlevel processes that underpin this phenomenon.\ua0 However, scholars taking such a microlevel approach have primarily focused on how characteristics of individual scientists, such as age, gender, academic seniority and scientific productivity, relate to their propensity to engage in research commercialization. While useful, a preoccupation with individuals’ characteristics not only neglects the agency and introspection of scientists engaging in entrepreneurship, it also misses a great opportunity to enrich and deepen our understanding of institutions, norms and university policies by not examining them through the lens of academic entrepreneurs\u27 lived experiences and identity work.\ua0To enrich and complement our understanding of academic entrepreneurship, this thesis takes as point of departure the lived experience of university scientists engaged in venture creation. The transitions between the distinct roles of academic and entrepreneur can lead to unforeseen and irregular experiences that disrupt the sense of normality and place new, sometimes conflicting, demands on work identity. By exploring the work practices academic entrepreneurs engage in as they combine their two distinct roles, the aim is to understand how these individuals make sense and hybridize their identities as scientists and academics. To do so, this thesis relies primarily on qualitative studies that explore the contextualized lived experiences of academic entrepreneurs with special emphasis on the confluence, complementarities and potential tensions between their roles. The primary method is semi-structured phenomenological interviews.\ua0Findings indicate that academic entrepreneurs are not simply adopting a ready-made identity that lies implicit in institutional norms or can be taken over from exemplary foregoers. Instead, they engage reflexively in subtle transformations and revisions of their own existing work identity, which is typically that of an academic. The thesis shows how practice can be an occasion for nuancing work identity. It contributes to the academic entrepreneurship literature by highlighting how clarity and coherence in work identity is achieved through cultivating a reinforcing dialectic between opposing roles, instead of only separating them through defensive boundaries

A Study on the Influencing Factors of International Investments between China and Europe

China and Europe are two big economies in the world, and there is much investment between them. As we know China has been investing almost in all around the world, Chinese investments in Europe have begun in recent years, and have become a symbol of Europe-China relations. According to data by the Rhodium Group, the amount of Chinese FDI in the EU has increased approximately 37 billion Euros in the first half of 2016, comparing with only 1.6 billion Euros in 2010.A big part of Chinese direct investment is mainly concentrated in the major economies in southern Europe or we can call it the BIG 3, as the UK, France and Germany all together. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/13-6-04 Publication date:March 31st 2021

EFL Distance Learning and Foreign Language Anxiety Management: Exploring FL Anxiety Within Distance Learning

Foreign Language anxiety is a specific type of anxiety that accompanies the process of foreign language learning that can change according to a variety of variables such as the teacher- students relationship language attitudes and learning environment The purpose of this study was to examine the potential relation between students foreign language anxiety levels and learning environments traditional or distance learning in a university setting Faculty of arts and letters Fes Sais Morocco Students showed higher levels of anxiety within the distance learning setting compared to traditional education A survey using a 5 point Likert scale was employed Semi-structured interviews were also adapted The results indicated a significant increase in Communication apprehension test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation in distance learning compared to face to face setting The factors behind this have been questioned and analyzed The current study concludes with the current study s limitations as well as suggestions for further future researc

Negotiating Multiple Identities at Work: The Case of Academic Entrepreneurship

This thesis explores how individuals negotiate multiple work-related identities with special emphasis on the combination of entrepreneurship and another occupational role. A growing share of the modern workforce is made up by individuals who do not settle for a single-occupation career but instead opt for more flexible and diverse working arrangements, often combining entrepreneurship with an existing work role. When establishing identity, transition points are central since novel situations and experiences challenge the sense of normality by placing new and sometimes conflicting demands on identity. However, while a lot is known about permanent transitions from one occupational role into another, less is known about how individuals make sense of having multiple work-related identities where transitions between the two are frequent. The current thesis explores this under-researched and increasingly common phenomenon through a qualitative empirical study and two systematic reviews of relevant literatures. The empirical work is conducted within the context of academic entrepreneurship, which is arguably a case where the challenges of holding multiple work-related positions is especially salient. Some of the key findings in this thesis show that, counter to existing studies that highlight role segregation as the way to reduce work identity ambiguity, academic entrepreneurs purposefully, and sometimes strategically, enact their two identities of entrepreneur and academic at the same time. Moreover, by selectively identifying with concrete practices and work activities across traditional role boundaries they shift the level of identification from the role, as a unitary entity, to its constitutive parts

L’exil, matrice d’une littérature franco-libanaise

Plusieurs écrits d’auteurs franco-libanais, teintés d’amertume de l’exil, invitent le lecteur à méditer sur des sujets qui prennent une importance particulière avec notre actualité de guerres, de problèmes économiques, de maladies et de conflits. Les mêmes tragédies continuent en effet de contraindre l’être à s’éloigner de sa terre natale. La question qui s’impose est celle de voir en quoi l’exil influence l’écriture pour dire qu’il forme la matrice de toute une littérature. Cet article vise à montrer la crise identitaire engendrée par cette condition à partir des structures narratives des récits pour assigner alors une identité narrative. L’exil se lit dans les formes textuelles et donne lieu ensuite à des thèmes qui sont le produit d’un réel historique marqué par les drames qui ont obligé des écrivains libanais, comme Amin Maalouf et Andrée Chedid, à s’expatrier. Cela nous renvoie à souligner l’importance de ces conditions cruciales qui imposent à la fois le changement de la patrie et de la langue d’expression, point central qui définit l’identité littéraire de l’écrivain voyageur