300 research outputs found
The Barometer
(Lt. Comdr. B.D. Cole, USN, comments on Lt. N. Clark Williams\u27 article, Decision Analysis: Toward Better Naval Management Decisions, July-August 1974.), (Lt. Comdr. Peter H. Cressy amplifies on his article, Developing an Alternative Approach to Race Relations Education: Identifying Military Middle Management Resistance, July-August 1974), and (Comdr. Warren H. Winchester, USN, comments on Lt. Comdr, Peter H. Cressy\u27s and Dr. Louis R. Desfosses\u27 article Developing an Alternative Approach to Race Relations Education, July-August 1974.
MicroRNA-276a Functions in Ellipsoid Body and Mushroom Body Neurons for Naive and Conditioned Olfactory Avoidance in Drosophila
MicroRNA (miRNA)-mediated gene regulation plays a key role in brain development and function. But there are few cases in which the roles of individual miRNAs have been elucidated in behaving animals. We report a miR-276a::DopR regulatory module in Drosophila that functions in distinct circuits for naive odor responses and conditioned odor memory. Drosophila olfactory aversive memory involves convergence of the odors (conditioned stimulus) and the electric shock (unconditioned stimulus) in mushroom body (MB) neurons. Dopamine receptor DopR mediates the unconditioned stimulus inputs onto MB. Distinct dopaminergic neurons also innervate ellipsoid body (EB), where DopR function modulates arousal to external stimuli. We demonstrate that miR-276a is required in MB neurons for memory formation and in EB for naive responses to odors. Both roles of miR-276a are mediated by tuning DopR expression. The dual role of this miR-276a::DopR genetic module in these two neural circuits highlights the importance of miRNA-mediated gene regulation within distinct circuits underlying both naive behavioral responses and memory
What do We Know About Entrepreneurial Finance and its Relationship with Growth?
This article explores what we do (and do not) know about entrepreneurial finance and its relationship with growth. Broadly, there is a need for research to go beyond traditional supply side/market failure issues to better understand the role of entrepreneurial cognition, objectives, ownership types and firm life-cycle stages in financing/investment decisions. We show that little is known about the pivotal relationship between access to external finance and growth due to limitations in current approaches to testing financial constraints. Instead, we propose that the relationship between funding gaps and business performance as a direct and nuanced approach to identifying financial constraints in different entrepreneurial finance markets requires scrutiny. There is also a necessity for research to disentangle cognitive from financial constraints and to better understand the role of financiers in enabling growth. In particular, there is a need to explore the relationship between non-bank sources of finance and growth, shorn of inherent survival and selection bias. We outline an agenda for future research to address gaps in our understanding
Banks' risk assessment of Swedish SMEs
Building on the literatures on asymmetric information and risk taking, this paper applies conjoint experiments to investigate lending officers' probabilities of supporting credit to established or existing SMEs. Using a sample of 114 Swedish lending officers, we test hypotheses concerning how information on the borrower's ability to repay the loan; alignment of risk preferences; and risk sharing affect their willingness to grant credit. Results suggest that features that reduce the risk to the bank and shift the risk to the borrower have the largest impact. The paper highlights the interaction between factors that influence the credit decision. Implications for SMEs, banks and research are discussed
The Internet as a Small Business E-Commerce Ecosystem.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how the ecosystem concept can be applied to small businesses and how the Internet and e-commerce can help SMEs harness the required resources to enhance their competitive performance in
the marketplace. The chapter will investigate the wide variety of e-commerce applications that are available to small businesses to help address the issue of limited resources. It will provide an ecosystem map illustrating how each functional area of a small business can utilise Internet e-commerce applications to enhance their resource base. The chapter also explores the opportunities and
threats that the e-commerce ecosystem model poses for small, medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is based upon empirical research consisting of three focus group interviews undertaken with small and medium-sized retail service firms located in the Herefordshire and Worcestershire regions of the United Kingdom in JanuaryâFebruary 2014
Franchising as a Strategy for Combining Small and Large Group Advantages (Logics) in Social Entrepreneurship:A Hayekian Perspective
This article develops a Hayekian perspective on social franchising that distinguishes between the end-connected logic of the small group and the rule-connected logic of the big group. Our key claim is that mission-driven social entrepreneurs often draw on the small-group logic when starting their social ventures and then face difficulties when the process of scaling shifts their operations toward a big-group logic. In this situation, social franchising offers a strategy to replicate the small group despite systemwide scaling, to mobilize decentrally accessible social capital, and to reduce agency costs through mechanisms of self-selection and self-monitoring. By employing a Hayekian perspective, we are thus able to offer an explanation as to why social franchising is a suitable scaling strategy for some social entrepreneurship organizations and not for others. We illustrate our work using the Ashoka Fellow Wellcome
Bad faith in Allâs Well That Ends Well
Allâs Well That Ends Well is a complicated and disturbing play that has a comic ending, but which seems anything but a comedy with a forced marriage based on bed-trickery
between the reluctant Bertram and the feisty and witty Helena. Unsurprisingly, audiences have tended to side with Helena and the play has been classified as a âproblem comedyâ ever since William Lawrence identified this particular group of Shakespeare plays nearly a century
ago. I want to argue in this essay that the play might better be classified as an âequivocationâ play alongside Macbeth, Othello, and Troilus and Cressida and that the anxieties about fidelity, honesty and truthfulness in marriage need to be read in terms of the fear of religious
tolerance/intolerance which dominated religious politics in the early years of Jamesâs reign before the passing of the Oath of Allegiance (1606). The play is notable for its interest in chop logic, which the clown in particular displays throughout the play, a counterpoint to the
arguments of Bertram and Helena who want very different things, but who are bound together as future husband and wife. Although the language of treason and treachery is used
throughout, the play is less interested in answering the question of how far one can trust a stranger within than the issue of how far one can accommodate the needs of others. This article is published as part of a collection to commemorate the 400th anniversary of William
Shakespeareâs death
Inspired or foolhardy: sensemaking, confidence and entrepreneurs' decision-making.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of confidence in how both new and experienced entrepreneurs interpret and make sense of their business environment to inform decision-making. We illustrate our conceptual arguments with descriptive results from a large-scale (n = 6289) survey on entrepreneurs' perception of business performance and their decisions taken at a time of uncertainty in an economic downturn. Quantitative findings are stratified along experiential lines to explore heterogeneity in entrepreneurial decision-making and directly inform our conceptual arguments, while qualitative data from open questions are used to explain the role of confidence. Newer entrepreneurs are found to be more optimistic in the face of environmental risk, which impacts on their decision-making and innovative capabilities. However, the more experienced entrepreneurs warily maintain margin and restructure to adapt to environmental changes. Instead of looking directly at the confidence of individuals, we show how confidence impacts sensemaking, and ultimately, decision-making. These insights inform research on the behaviour of novice and experienced entrepreneurs in relation to innovative business activities. Specifically, blanket assumptions on the role of confidence may be misplaced as its impact changes with experience to alter how entrepreneurs make sense of their environment
Pecking order theory versus trade-off theory : are service SMEsâ capital structure decisions different?
This paper seeks to analyse if the capital structure decisions of service
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are different from those of other types of firm. To do so, we consider four research samples: (i) 610 service SMEs; (ii) 126
service large firms; (iii) 679 manufacturing and construction SMEs; and (iv) 132
manufacturing and construction large firms. Using the two-step estimation method,
the empirical evidence obtained in this study shows that the capital structure
decisions of service SMEs are different from those of other types of firm. Service
SMEsâ capital structure decisions are closer to the assumptions of Pecking Order
Theory and further removed from those of Trade-Off Theory compared with the
case of other types of firm
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