Individual attitudes, organizational reward system and patenting performance of R&D scientists and engineers

The interactive process perspective of innovation suggests that the innovation performance of individual R&D scientist or engineers (RSEs) is influenced by a nexus of interaction between individual attributes and organizational characteristics. While numerous empirical studies have investigated the effects of various sets of individual and organizational antecedents on the innovation performance of individuals, few have examined the interaction effects between the two. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence on the interactive effects of the attitudes of individual RSEs and the organizational reward system on the patenting performance of these RSEs.Innovative performance; individual attitudes; organizational reward system

Firms’ Innovative Performance: The Mediating Role of Innovative Collaborations

While existing studies have provided many insightful discussions on the antecedents to innovative collaborations and the benefits of collaborative behavior, few studies have focused on the mediating role of innovative collaborations in enhancing the firm’s technological innovative performance. In this paper, we investigate the mediating role of the firm’s innovative collaborations in the relation between government innovation support and the firm’s product and process innovation intensities. As a mediating factor in the innovation process, innovative collaborations form part of the innovative inputs that contribute to the firm’s product and process innovation intensities. Using arguments derived from the resource-based theory, we found that while receipts of government innovation support help increase the firm’s level of innovative inputs as observed in its collaboration intensity, it is equally important for firms to internalize management practices that encourage maximum leverage of government innovation support for pursuits of innovative collaborations. In a similar vein, while innovative collaborations are necessary for realizing innovative outputs including product and process innovations, it is not a sufficient condition for achieving strong innovative performance. The firm’s internal capabilities as observed in its learning, R&D, resource allocation, manufacturing, marketing, organizing, and strategic planning abilities have a positive influence on the relationship between innovative collaborations and innovative outputs.Innovative Performance; Innovative Collaboration; Firm’s Contextual Factors

Entrepreneurship by circumstances and abilities: the mediating role of job satisfaction and moderating role of self-efficacy

Prior studies have found that job dissatisfaction and self-efficacy are significant factors influencing individuals’ entrepreneurial propensity. Existing literature on entrepreneurship often regards job dissatisfaction as an entrepreneurial push factor and self-efficacy as an entrepreneurial pull factor. The argument is that individuals who are dissatisfied with their jobs are more likely to seek alternative mode of employment such as self-employment. In other words, poor job circumstances may push individuals to leave their paid employment to start their own businesses. On the other hand, personal abilities such as self-efficacy may pull individuals toward starting their own businesses in areas where they are confident and competent in. Despite the importance of job dissatisfaction and self-efficacy for new venture creation, few if any studies have examined the entrepreneurial phenomena from a holistic perspective. Utilizing concepts from the P-E fit and self-efficacy literatures, this paper argues that the path to entrepreneurship is a multi-faceted interactive process between individuals’ personal attributes and their work environment. We specifically examined how IT professional’s personal attributes such as innovation orientation and self-efficacy condition individuals for an entrepreneurial career in unsatisfactory work environments.

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION ACTIVITIES IN FIRMS AND PROPENSITY OF INDIVIDUALS STARTING NEW BUSINESSES

Prior studies have found that knowledge gained from work experience is a way to gather insights for business opportunity recognition. However, little is known about the specific types of knowledge that lead to business founding. Utilizing concepts from knowledge spillovers and from the opportunity recognition literatures, this paper argues that through an organization’s technological innovation activities, employees develop specialized knowledge that provides them with the entrepreneurial opportunities to found new businesses. Besides highlighting the positive relationship between technological innovation activities in organizations and the propensity of individuals leaving the organizations to start new businesses, this paper also provides a more fine-grained explanation of the types of technological innovation activities that can lead to business founding. We argue that knowledge acquired through product innovations is more easily appropriated by individuals for commercial uses, while knowledge acquired through process innovations must be integrated with other parts of the organization to be valuable. This study proposes that product innovation activities in an organization more so than process innovation activities in an organization are related to new business founding. Implications for opportunity exploitation and ways to appropriate knowledge spillovers are discussed.

A fully integrated paperfluidic molecular diagnostic chip for the extraction, amplification, and detection of nucleic acids from clinical samples

Paper diagnostics have successfully been employed to detect the presence of antigens or small molecules in clinical samples through immunoassays; however, the detection of many disease targets relies on the much higher sensitivity and specificity achieved via nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT). The steps involved in NAAT have recently begun to be explored in paper matrices, and our group, among others, has reported on paper-based extraction, amplification, and detection of DNA and RNA targets. Here, we integrate these paper-based NAAT steps into a single paperfluidic chip in a modular, foldable system that allows for fully integrated fluidic handling from sample to result. We showcase the functionality of the chip by combining nucleic acid isolation, isothermal amplification, and lateral flow detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 DNA directly from crude cervical specimens in less than 1 hour for rapid, early detection of cervical cancer. The chip is made entirely of paper and adhesive sheets, making it low-cost, portable, and disposable, and offering the potential for a point-of-care molecular diagnostic platform even in remote and resource-limited settings.U54 EB015403 - NIBIB NIH HHS; U54 EB015408 - NIBIB NIH HHS; U54-EB015403-S1 - NIBIB NIH HH

Entrepreneurial intentions: The influence of organizational and individual factors

An individual's intent to pursue an entrepreneurial career can result from the work environment and from personal factors. Drawing on the entrepreneurial intentions and the person–environment (P–E) fit literatures, and applying a multilevel perspective, we examine why individuals intend to leave their jobs to start business ventures. Findings, using a sample of 4192 IT professionals in Singapore, suggest that work environments with an unfavorable innovation climate and/or lack of technical excellence incentives influence entrepreneurial intentions, through low job satisfaction. Moderating effects suggest that an individual's innovation orientation strengthens the work-environment to job-satisfaction relationship; selfefficacy strengthens the job-satisfaction to entrepreneurial intentions relationship.Entrepreneurial intentions Job satisfaction Self-efficacy

Foreign and International Law in Gay Rights Litigation: Separated and Unequal

United States immigration law unfairly impacts the lives of lesbian and gay couples in committed bi-national relationships and is a glaring exception to a growing trend in western democracies towards recognition of immigration rights for same-sex bi-national couples. Under federal immigration law, U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents do not have the right to sponsor their same-sex partners for immigration benefits, a right afforded U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents in opposite-sex bi-national marriages. As a result, many bi-national same-sex couples in this country face separation or forced exile, having to find a country that will recognize their relationship while satisfying its immigration requirements. While some foreign nationals qualify for U.S. visas and residency independent of their relationship to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, the majority have no alternative means to immigrate to this country. U.S. immigration law and policy towards lesbians and gay men has a long, ugly history. Over time, however, as social, political and governmental attitudes changed to be more tolerant of gay people, so too did immigration laws. Gay and lesbian foreign nationals are no longer excluded from entering the United States and are no longer barred from adjusting their status to lawful permanent residents as a result of their sexual orientation. Immigration law must again be modified to reflect contemporary social, political, governmental, and legal acceptance of alternative family arrangements, specifically the relationships of same-sex couples

How does An Entrepreneur’s Ability Influence the Propensity to Exploit Novel Opportunities? The Moderating Role of Personality and Environment

While prior research has examined the influence of entrepreneurs’ ability and personality on entrepreneurial behavior separately, our study’s contribution is to confirm their joint effects, as well as their interaction effects with the dynamism of the environment on entrepreneurs’ opportunity exploitation behavior. Our study’s findings are consistent with the emerging opportunity-exploiter nexus framework of Shane and Venkataraman, which posits that the rate and nature of entrepreneurial exploitation activities are jointly determined by the nexus of environmental factors that shape the emergence of opportunities and the supply of opportunity-seekers with the right entrepreneurial personalities and abilities to exploit such opportunities. Specifically, we found that highly critical entrepreneurs who are high in extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, independence, and emotional stability have higher propensity to exploit novel opportunities in uncertain environments

Individual attitudes, organizational reward system and patenting performance of R&D scientists and engineers

The interactive process perspective of innovation suggests that the innovation performance of individual R&D scientist or engineers (RSEs) is influenced by a nexus of interaction between individual attributes and organizational characteristics. While numerous empirical studies have investigated the effects of various sets of individual and organizational antecedents on the innovation performance of individuals, few have examined the interaction effects between the two. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence on the interactive effects of the attitudes of individual RSEs and the organizational reward system on the patenting performance of these RSEs

Individual attitudes, organizational reward system and patenting performance of R&D scientists and engineers

The interactive process perspective of innovation suggests that the innovation performance of individual R&D scientist or engineers (RSEs) is influenced by a nexus of interaction between individual attributes and organizational characteristics. While numerous empirical studies have investigated the effects of various sets of individual and organizational antecedents on the innovation performance of individuals, few have examined the interaction effects between the two. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence on the interactive effects of the attitudes of individual RSEs and the organizational reward system on the patenting performance of these RSEs