Finding Community, Support, and the Importance of Detours

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience. In the early weeks of my undergraduate experience, I sat down with the Director of the Honors Program and told him I wanted to go to Oxford for graduate school, or an Ivy at the very least; then asked what I’d need on my résumé to get there. I was an ambitious but naïve 18-year-old. Fortunately, I found my way to the Honors Program at Texas A&M University, where I was supported, mentored, and shaped into a more well-rounded, open-minded individual. My advisor did take me seriously during that first meeting, exemplifying the first value I gained at Honors: the value of listening to people and responding thoughtfully. He laid out a comprehensive list of accomplishments that a competitive résumé would have. But he also asked how I was acclimating to the Honors Living Community and encouraged me to explore all the extracurricular opportunities the Honors Program had available. After living in the community for a year, I applied to be a live-in peer mentor and Teaching Assistant for incoming freshmen. I discovered the importance of contributing to my community and a joy in mentoring. My relationships with my students and the other mentors were enriching and lasting. When my students knocked on my door at all hours needing help with classes, an advocate, or a shoulder to cry on, I learned more about empathy and crisis management at 20 years old than many people learn in a lifetime. I found incredible support in the other mentors; we leaned on each other emotionally, academically, and socially. I learned the necessity and beauty of community building. An activity that was initially just a great addition to my résumé became an integral part of my life and a support system to this day

Regenerative failure and attribution

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to focus on the processes that occur between entrepreneurs’ primary attribution for failure and the emergent learning dimensions from failure, in the context of regenerative failures. Design/methodology/approach - The study focusses on 21 entrepreneurs operating in the producing services sector, a major subsector of the Irish Information and Communication Technology industry. All the entrepreneurs experienced business failure and subsequently re-entered the entrepreneurial sphere at a later date. A qualitative approach examines their attributions for failure, responses to failure, and learning dimensions from failure. Findings - Regenerative entrepreneurs’ primary attributions for business failure are examined in detail; four types of failure attributions are uncovered – internal individual level; external firm level; external market level; and hybrid attributions. Entrepreneurs’ attributions impact their responses to the failure; this in turn affects entrepreneurial learning. When failure is primarily attributed to internal factors, the entrepreneur’s response is affective, leading to deep, personal learning about oneself. External attributions (both firm level and market level) result in a primarily behavioural response, with learning focussed on the venture, and networks and relationships. Those primarily attributing failure to hybrid factors have a largely cognitive response and they learn about venture management. Research limitations/implications - This study is a retrospective analysis of business failure. Originality/value - The study contributes to the growing literature on entrepreneurs’ attributions for business failure by focussing on regenerative failure; it links attributions to – responses to, and learning from, failure. The key contribution to knowledge emerges from the development of a model of the underlying processes affecting learning from failure for regenerative entrepreneurs. The research also establishes and identifies clear links between attributions, responses, and lessons learned in the context of regenerative failure

Business Failure and Entrepreneurship: Emergence, Evolution and Future Research

Business failure research has been the focus of renewed interest in the entrepreneurship field. It is complex, being both a sign of economic vibrancy and the source of great individual trauma. An understanding of these complexities is important to academics, practitioners and regulators. This monograph provides a review of the literature to date. It charts the emergence of business failure research in the finance literature through to its recent development within the contemporary entrepreneurship field. The multidisciplinary nature of business failure research is explored through incorporation of studies from accountancy, information systems, social psychology, general management, economics and entrepreneurship. Research on the topic is diverse; the lack of a universally accepted definition of failure coupled with the absence of an underpinning theory has resulted in an expansive range of studies. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive and critical review of business failure research, bridge the gap between the various perspectives, and develop a cohesive understanding of the phenomena, upon which future studies can be based

Palliative Care in the ICU

Death and dying is an evident part of being admitted to the intensive care unit. However, too many times, the end-of-life conversations and palliative care team introduction are done when it is too late. The PICOT question is “In ICU patients (P), how does early palliative care involvement in the death and dying process (I) compared to later palliative care involvement in the death and dying process (C) affect positive patient outcomes (O) within the ICU hospital stay (T)?” The objective of this change project is to instill a sense of urgency in providing palliative consults upon admission as this is vital to each patient’s well-being

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 56, No. 02

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1165/thumbnail.jp

Disciplinary Perspectives on Innovation: Management

Management scholars are focusing greater research attention on innovation within firms. Innovation is now viewed as critical for firms to maintain their competitiveness. In this paper our focus is to provide a management disciplinary perspective on innovation. In doing so we consider the purpose of innovation, some definitions of innovation and review some contemporary issues including management innovation, business model innovation, sources of innovation and open innovation. We then consider leadership, organizational culture and underground innovation before we conclude with some future research avenues. We suggest that management scholars should focus future research on innovation on managerial power dynamics, managerial support for underground innovation, managerial characteristics, experiences, leadership styles and behaviors of R&D managers and innovation failure

Environmental limits of Rift Valley fever revealed using ecoepidemiological mechanistic models.

Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) of humans and domestic animals are a significant component of the global burden of disease and a key driver of poverty. The transmission cycles of VBDs are often strongly mediated by the ecological requirements of the vectors, resulting in complex transmission dynamics, including intermittent epidemics and an unclear link between environmental conditions and disease persistence. An important broader concern is the extent to which theoretical models are reliable at forecasting VBDs; infection dynamics can be complex, and the resulting systems are highly unstable. Here, we examine these problems in detail using a case study of Rift Valley fever (RVF), a high-burden disease endemic to Africa. We develop an ecoepidemiological, compartmental, mathematical model coupled to the dynamics of ambient temperature and water availability and apply it to a realistic setting using empirical environmental data from Kenya. Importantly, we identify the range of seasonally varying ambient temperatures and water-body availability that leads to either the extinction of mosquito populations and/or RVF (nonpersistent regimens) or the establishment of long-term mosquito populations and consequently, the endemicity of the RVF infection (persistent regimens). Instabilities arise when the range of the environmental variables overlaps with the threshold of persistence. The model captures the intermittent nature of RVF occurrence, which is explained as low-level circulation under the threshold of detection, with intermittent emergence sometimes after long periods. Using the approach developed here opens up the ability to improve predictions of the emergence and behaviors of epidemics of many other important VBDs.The work was partially supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Environmental Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) and in collaboration with the University of Exeter, University College London, and the Met Office. European Union FP7 Project ANTIGONE (Contract 278976). Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. The Alborada Trust