The Impact of Environmental Risk Exposure on the Determinants of Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Does the increasing awareness of environmental risk exposure also affect intentions to create enterprises which address these social and environmental failures? Besides economic explanations that social and environmental needs and market failure create opportunities for sustainable entrepreneurship, it is less clear how cognitive processes and motivations related to sustainable entrepreneurship are shaped by its context. This research integrates environmental risk exposure as a contextual variable into the theory of planned behavior and uses data gathered in the course of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. We provide empirical evidence for the impact of environmental risk exposure on the determinants of sustainable entrepreneurial intention and contribute to a deeper understanding of the formation of sustainable entrepreneurial intention.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

The founding angels investment model:case studies from the field of nanotechnology

The gap between academic research and the commerzcialization of research result can be overcome with the founding angels investment model where very early stage investors found start-up companies together with appropriate research partners to conduct research and later, alone or together with industrial partners, commercialize the results. The engagement of founding angels is compensated not monetarily but through an equity share of the new company. This business model is already being implemented in the United States with some interesting examples in the area of nanotechnology. This article analyses approach and investment strategy as well as defines a best practice process of founding angels as early stage technology investment model applying an exploratory multiple case analysis. The empirical data are based on literature research with a focus on document analysis and interviews with 35 nanotechnology experts.<br

Show me the money: the impact of funding on entrepreneurship education at German universities

This article examines the current characteristics of Entrepreneurship Education (EE) at German universities. We first assess the degree of alignment between course objectives and corresponding contents on an individual course level. As a result, we find a low degree of alignment. In the second part of our analysis we show that the German universities in our sample predominantly use internal funds for their EE courses (75%), followed by external state funding (12%) which mostly stems from German federal sources. Moreover, a third of the sample shows a funding mix, with the majority attracting half of their budget from one or two external sources. In the final part of our analysis we assess the implication of the funding type on the design of EE and are able to show characteristic course profiles for two funding types. Overall, this article demonstrates that types of funding are key drivers for EE design, a fact that hitherto has not been accounted for

Contingency factors on university spin-off formation: an empirical study in Germany

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate contingency factors on the emergence of university spin-off firms. The institutional and organisational factors the paper explores comprise the transfer potential of the university, the strategy and characteristics of the University Technology Transfer Organisations and specific support for spin-off formation. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a unique data set, this cross-sectional study analyses the population of 54 higher education institutions in Germany. At this, 31.4 per cent of the German universities with technology transfer activities participated in this study. Findings – The research identifies a high degree of heterogeneity in the qualification of University Technology Transfer Offices (UTTO) staff and the existence of an entrepreneurship support programme as important antecedents of spin-off formation. In addition, the results reveal that pursuing different or multiple transfer strategies will not be detrimental to the establishment of spin-offs. Practical implications – It seems that there is still a lack of consensus with respect to the importance of spin-offs as an effective channel to transform research results into economic value. Furthermore, universities aiming at the promotion of spin-offs need appropriate regulations which do not jeopardise the usage of research outcomes for entrepreneurial purposes. Originality/value – This study contributes to enhance the knowledge on what promotes and inhibits the formation of university spin-off firms, as it first analyses a considerable population of UTTOs in Germany and explicitly considers underexplored and new contingency factors

Applying lead user theory to young adults

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify lead users within social networks of young adults between 14 and 17 years of age. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire and the SAGS-method were used to collect data within seven high schools in the north of The Netherlands. These data were used to empirically test five hypotheses using the variables which could enable the identification of lead users. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the predictive value of the variables. The analysis was complemented with a qualitative analysis of the collected data. Findings – The main characteristics which identify lead users among adults can also be used with young adults. Those young adults who are more likely to be a lead user, are more ahead of a trend and have a higher amount of expected benefit. They also display more expertise than other young adults. Research limitations/implications – The variable of perceived information benefits could complement the variables used for identifying lead users among young adults, but further research is necessary. Because the focus is on only one specific product, the generalizability of the results from this research is limited. Further research should include different products or services in different domains of interest. The variables of perceived information benefits and efficiency did not have a significant positive relation with lead userness, but further research is needed. Practical implications – The identification of lead users could be valuable to organizations that focus on young adults in the age range 14 to 17 years and could lead to significant commercial benefits. Young adults are a large potential market and the identification of lead users within this target group could help organizations Originality/value – Research on lead user theory ismainly focused on adults or organizations. This article tries to fill this research gap by focusing on young adults. It is an extension of the research of Kratzer and Lettl, Kunst and Kratzer and Molenmaker et al. who focused on children from 8 to 12 years old

Preconcentration of Hydride Forming Elements in Quartz Atomizers for Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

UNIVERZITA KARLOVA V PRAZE PŘÍRODOVĚDECKÁ FAKULTA Katedra analytické chemie PREKONCENTRACE HYDRIDOTVORNÝCH PRVKŮ V KŘEMENNÝCH ATOMIZÁTORECH PRO ATOMOVOU ABSORPČNÍ SPEKTROMETRII Autoreferát disertační práce Praha 2008 RNDr. Jan Kratzer 2 OBSAH OBSAH ............................................................................................................. 2 ODBORNÝ ŽIVOTOPIS ................................................................................ 4 SEZNAM PUBLIKACÍ ................................................................................... 6 ABSTRAKT ..................................................................................................... 9 1 ULTRASTOPOVÁ ANALÝZA HYDRIDOTVORNÝCH PRVKŮ .... 11 2 CÍLE DISERTAČNÍ PRÁCE................................................................. 13 3 EXPERIMENTÁLNÍ ČÁST................................................................... 15 3.1 Aparatura............................................................................................ 15 3.2 Procedura............................................................................................ 16 3.3 Detekce atomovou absorpční spektrometrií ........................................ 18 3.4 Radiometrická měření......................................................................... 19 4...CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE FACULTY OF SCIENCE Department of Analytical Chemistry PRECONCENTRATION OF HYDRIDE FORMING ELEMENTS IN QUARTZ ATOMIZERS FOR ATOMIC ABSORPTION SPECTROMETRY Synopsis of the PhD Thesis Prague 2008 RNDr. Jan Kratzer 2 CONTENTS CONTENTS................................................................................................................... 2 CURRICULUM VITAE............................................................................................... 4 LIST OF PUBLICATIONS ......................................................................................... 6 ABSTRACT................................................................................................................... 9 1 ULTRATRACE ANALYSIS OF HYDRIDE FORMING ELEMENTS ....... 11 2 OBJECTIVES OF THE THESIS ...................................................................... 13 3 EXPERIMENTAL .............................................................................................. 15 3.1 Apparatus ....................................................................................................... 15 3.2 Procedure........................................................................................................ 16 3.3 Detection by atomic absorption spectrometry...Department of Analytical ChemistryKatedra analytické chemieFaculty of SciencePřírodovědecká fakult

The Social Network Position of Lead Users

The field of lead user research has seen a great deal of attention from academics and practitioners alike. However, we still lack a full understanding of the nature of users with high potential for innovation. In this paper, we employ a social network perspective on lead users. Increasing the realism of our research in three empirical studies with different empirical settings and methods, we provide robust evidence that lead users have a distinctive social network position: They exhibit an unusually high level of "betweenness centrality", meaning that they are positioned as bridges between different social groups. This finding has two major implications for lead user theory. First, it consolidates seminal conceptual work on lead users and their embeddedness in social networks. And second, the findings extend and validate prior work on the social network perspective of lead users by combining theoretical insights from cognitive psychology, research on creativity, and network theory. As the social network positions of individuals can be mapped quickly and at low cost with modern Web mining tools, our findings may point to a new and readily applicable approach for the efficient and effective identification of lead users in real-life projects, an aspect that is usually emphasized as the most crucial activity in lead user projects. (authors' abstract

The dead end of classical innovation management and unsustainable innovation

• Sustainable innovation management via radical de-growth logic or incrementally.• Sustainable innovation management via pressure or voluntary ecosystem orientation. • Sustainable innovation management via formal processes.• Sustainable innovation management as a multilevel phenomenon

Social Entrepreneurship: Dissection of a Phenomenon through a German Lens

The occurrence and scientific investigation of the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship are rather new. The term is very popular among politicians and is reflected in a lot of the political demands and willingness that they express. However, a review of the literature about it shows that there is no common ground or frame, and the historical developments are different in different countries and economies. Based on a study of the literature, a two-phase survey following the ‘Policy Delphi’ approach was conducted in Germany in order to enlighten this frameless picture of social entrepreneurship. Our results indicate five dimensions that extend the core term: ‘social’, namely ‘Societal–Visionary’, ‘Ecological’, ‘Societal–Entrepreneurial’, ‘Economic’, and ‘Innovative–Entrepreneurial’. The degree of intercorrelation among the five dimensions shows that four factors, namely ‘Societal–Visionary’, ‘Societal–Entrepreneurial’, ‘Economic’, and ‘Innovative–Entrepreneurial’, have low to medium-high correlations. The fifth factor, ‘Ecological’, has the weakest correlation with all other factors

Benchmarking deutscher Transferstellen: Transferpotenzial, Transferkapazitäten, Transferaktivitäten im deutschlandweiten Vergleich ; Bericht 2009/2010

Gegenstand der vorliegenden Studie ist die Analyse des Wissens- und Technologietransfergeschehens an deutschen Hochschulen. Folgende Aspekte stehen im Zentrum der Betrachtung: das Transferpotenzial der betrachteten Hochschulen, die Transferkapazitäten und -aktivitäten der befragten Transferstellen und die Vernetzung dieser Stellen untereinander. Unter Berücksichtigung dieser Aspekte zielt der Bericht darauf, einen empirisch fundierten Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Rahmenbedingungen und der Effizienz der Transferprozesse an deutschen Hochschulen zu leisten