A Micro-Level View on Knowledge Co-Creation Through University-Industry Collaboration in a Multi-National Corporation

Purpose: Technology transfer (TT) in industry to university collaboration (UIC) literature focuses primarily on a macro view within an SME environment. While these discussions are important to establish the significance of encouraging UIC’s as the value is important to both parties, there is a need for further research at a micro level to help understand key approaches to ensuring the success of the TT. By looking at how value created from TT for a multi-national corporation (MNC) with a project based within a single subsidiary, this research effectively looks at the issue from both a SME level (the subsidiary independently) and a MNC level. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research uses a longitudinal knowledge transfer partnership and action research to form a case study of Parker Hannifin’s Gas Separation and Filtration Europe, Middle East and Africa (GSFE) division. Findings: The research highlights the key areas to focus on in ensuring a successful TT within an UIC such as: once identifying the gap that a UIC is filling in the company, identifying internal barriers before the project starts; education of why change is necessary and then using knowledge experts to educate on the new processes being introduced and finally; incorporation of a full range of personnel, not just those directly involved in the day-to-day of the UIC. Research limitations/implications: As a case study, further research is required to make the results more generalisable. One way to do this would be to evaluate previous successful and unsuccessful UIC's and determine if the success criteria identified were present in these programmes. Practical implications: There are three critical points that can be taken away from this research and applied to any company looking to use UIC for TT and value co-creation. Education, external knowledge experts and business wide inclusion were highlighted in the findings as being potentially critical turning points and need to be addressed for successful TT. Social implications: Successful UIC’s further encourage investment in such programmes which has greater societal benefits. Not only can we see greater leaps in industry through better, more specific knowledge being transferred from the university, the industry knowledge fed into universities helps to guide research and teachings. Originality/value: The micro level view created by action research based from the industry partner perspective adds another level of importance as the ‘how’ for overcoming barriers is clearly addressed. Furthermore, the research looks at how a multi-national corporation can have value added through UIC's within subsidiaries which often is not addressed in the literature

Quality of schooling and inequality of opportunity in health

This paper explores the role of quality of schooling as a source of inequality of opportunity in health. Substantiating earlier literature that links differences in education to health disparities, the paper uses variation in quality of schooling to test for inequality of opportunity in health. Analysis of the 1958 NCDS cohort exploits the variation in type and quality of schools generated by the comprehensive schooling reforms in England and Wales. The analysis provides evidence of a statistically significant and economically sizable association between some dimensions of quality of education and a range of health and health-related outcomes. For some outcomes the association persists, over and above the effects of measured ability, social development, academic qualifications and adult socioeconomic status and lifestyle

Long-term effects of school quality on health and lifestyle: evidence from comprehensive schooling reforms in England

Members of the National Child Development Study cohort attended very different types of secondary schools, as their schooling lay within the transition period of the comprehensive education reform in England and Wales. This provides a natural setting to explore the impact of educational attainment and of school quality on health and health-related behavior later in life. We use a combination of matching methods and parametric regressions to deal with selection effects and to evaluate differences in adult health outcomes and health-related behavior for cohort members exposed to the old selective and to the new comprehensive educational systems

Simulation-based Inference in Dynamic Panel Probit Models: an Application to Health

This paper considers the determinants of a binary indicator for the existence of functional limitations using seven waves (1991-1997) of the British Household Panel Survey(BHPS). The focal point of our analysis is a consideration of the relative contributions of state dependence, heterogeneity and serial correlation in expanding the dynamics of health. To investigate these issues we apply static and dynamic panel probit models with flexible error structures. To estimate the models we show strong positive state dependence, with the effect for men around 150% of the effect for women.

Early Retirement and Inequality in Britain and Germany: How Important Is Health?

Both health and income inequalities have been shown to be much greater in Britain than in Germany. One of the main reasons seems to be the difference in the relative position of the retired, who, in Britain, are much more concentrated in the lower income groups. Inequality analysis reveals that while the distribution of health shocks is more concentrated among those on low incomes in Britain, early retirement is more concentrated among those on high incomes. In contrast, in Germany, both health shocks and early retirement are more concentrated among those with low incomes. We use comparable longitudinal data sets from Britain and Germany to estimate hazard models of the effect of health on early retirement. The hazard models show that health is a key determinant of the retirement hazard for both men and women in Britain and Germany. The size of the health effect appears large compared to the other variables. Designing financial incentives to encourage people to work for longer may not be sufficient as a policy tool if people are leaving the labour market involuntarily due to health problems.health, early retirement, hazard models

Occupational stress, a cross-sectional and logitudinal analysis

This study investigated the presence of occupational stress among teachers. It did not set out to identify and explain variables associated with stress among teachers, rather the study focussed on the multitude of variables identified in the literature and sought to include these in a more extensive causal model. The study was conducted in two main stages. Firstly, a cross-sectional survey investigated the presence of stress among 230 teachers, as measured by Psychological Stress, Physical Health, Job Satisfaction and & desire to Leave their Job. The survey obtained information on stress outcome variables (Psychological Stress, Physical Health, Job Satisfaction and Wanting to Leave), biographical information, personality (Hardiness, Type A Behaviour, Locus of Control, Extraversion and Neuroticism), psycho-social variables, (Social Support, Problem Solving, Emotional Coping mechanisms and Self Esteem) and work and life stressors (Role Conflict, Role Ambiguity, Job Responsibility, Job Future Ambiguity, Underutilization of Skill, Inequity of Pay, participation in Decision Making, Administrative Support, Relationships with Peers, Extra Work, Wanted Extra Work, Workload, Work Hours and major Life Events). Causal models using path analysis were then generated to account for the relationships found within the data. Secondly a longitudinal study over six months was conducted on 242 teachers. The causal models generated in the first study were re-tested on this second group of teachers, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Furthermore the importance of existing levels of stress in the prediction of future stress was assessed. Finally a three year follow up was conducted on the survey\u27s participants. The results of the investigations revealed that:-(i) the utility of demographic information in the stress process was inconsistent. (ii) that among measures of work stressors there are replication and redundancies. (iii) that the different stress outcome measures had different predictors. (iv) that the best fitting causal models for the stress process were direct effect models. (v) that existing stress levels am an important factor in the prediction of future stress levels. (vi) that those teachers who indicated a desire to leave teaching and/or were experiencing psychological stress, were more likely to leave teaching three years later. (vii) that there is a need to standardize both the outcome and predictor variables used in stress research. The implications of these results were then discussed as were areas for future research

A Controlled Natural Language Interface for Semantic Media Wiki

Despite their potential value as collaborative knowledge editing systems, semantic wikis present a number of usability challenges for human end users. In particular, there are several mismatches between the simple user interaction mechanisms of wikis (which are the key to the success of wikis) and the need for users to create, edit and understand structured knowledge content (e.g., in the form of RDF or OWL ontologies). In this paper, we present a Controlled Natural Language (CNL) approach to collaborative ontology development using Semantic MediaWiki (SMW). In order to support the expressivity required for OWL ontology development, we extended the representational substructure of the SMW system with an OWL meta model using a template-based mechanism. To improve usability, we provided a form-based guided input interface and implemented several CNL verbalizers (CNL text generation components). In particular, we developed verbalizers for the English and Chinese variants of the Rabbit CNL, as well as the Attempto Controlled English (ACE) CNL. The combination of semantic wiki systems and CNL editing interfaces may provide an effective mechanism for promoting the large-scale collaborative creation of semantically-enriched online content

Across the first frontier: The behavioural ecology of the Sydney region aborigines

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Influence and interference in foreign elections

The use of influence or interference activities by one country to change the tide of elections in another has recently gained prominence due to alleged Russian influence in the 2016 US presidential election and the 2017 French presidential election. In this article, Paul Baines and Nigel Jones chart the evolution of influence and interference in foreign elections. With the rise of its modern digital form, they consider whether it is acceptable as a norm in international relations, or a violation