Integrating Entrepreneurship into the Design Classroom: Case Studies from the Developing World

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. Developing countries are more and more committed to building a knowledge-based economy as a means to diversify from their current resource-based economy. The current focus of many governments is on technology with real insights on creative economy and arts. In this context, universities are seen as a key partner of the government. This article presents the results of two innovative case studies of professors working in the College of Art and Design collaborating with a professor in the College of Business to integrate the concepts of entrepreneurship into their interior design courses. This was done through designing space for entrepreneurial projects and by the students acting as entrepreneurs themselves with an external client. This dual model of training combines (1) learning processes about the habits and the needs of entrepreneurs and (2) learning by acting as an entrepreneur. Such methods demonstrate the role of universities to provide a proper theoretical background for students and to foster entrepreneurial behaviors through arts entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the central role of professors to introduce innovative teaching methods to combine entrepreneurship and the creative economy into non-business courses is an important finding in these case studies

ACTION LINES OF MUNICIPALITIES TO IMPROVE THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED CITIES IN THE EU

More and more knowledge, economic and social resources and activities are concentrated in small and medium-sized cities as development centres; this applies in full to the EU countries. This poses huge sustainability challenges and responsibilities for cities municipalities. The UN has defined the comprehensive vision of the sustainable development (SD) in three dimensions: economic, social and environmental. The present study is devoted to the most objective mathematical identification of the priority action lines for the cities municipalities, which correspond to the functionality of the municipality and ensure optimization of the data-driven SD of the city in accordance with the globally accepted UN SD vision. To achieve the goal, the adapted data mining methods are used, which are well suited to discover and generate the knowledge about the existing regularities in data sets, similar to those describing SD. Recommendations for practical activities within the action lines are provided

Integrated assessment of competitive-strategy selection with an analytical network process

[[abstract]]The present study explores efforts to identify the most appropriate competitive strategy relative to multinational biotech pharmaceutical enterprises’ strategy selection. The research uses the analytic network process (ANP) technique combining both qualitative and quantitative information to construct a hierarchical model involving interactions among various criteria for competitive-strategy selection. The most important finding shows that the most suitable competitive strategy for multinational enterprises (MNEs) is differentiation strategy. The weighted calculations reveal important criteria: an external environment analysis reveals that the three most important criteria affecting FDI competitive strategy are population size, per capita income, and healthcare and medical insurance systems; a core competency analysis reveals that the three most important criteria affecting competitive-strategy selection of FDI to China are capability in collaborating with local partners, possession of high-quality research personnel with R&D capability, and possession of a strong brand.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SSCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子