Exploring the Interplay of an Entrepreneur’s Thinking, Knowledge, and Firm-Level Innovation

The purpose of this study is to investigate entrepreneur’s individual characteristics in terms of knowledge and thinking skills to better understand their role towards innovation. We used interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to attain deeper insights about entrepreneurs’ cognitive processes and innovation. We learn that knowledge breadth plays an enhancing role in the relationship between entrepreneur’s knowledge depth and firm innovation. In return, innovation at a firm level is largely affected by entrepreneur’s integrative thinking ability. Implications for practice and future research are discussed

Rosiglitazone modulates insulin-induced plasma membrane area changes in single 3T3-L1 adipocytes

In this study we hypothesized that rosiglitazone, an antidiabetic high-affinity agonist for the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, affects the plasma membrane (PM) turnover in single 3T3-L1 adipocytes. To study the PM turnover, the patch-clamp electrophysiological method was used to measure changes in membrane capacitance (C-m), a parameter linearly related to the PM area. Microscopy results show that the presence of rosiglitazone in the differentiating medium significantly increased the differentiation of 3T3-L1 adipocytes in cell culture, based on oil red O-stained area (11.4 +/- 1.2%) vs. controls (3.1 +/- 0.5%). Moreover, rosiglitazone treatment significantly reduced the size of single 3T3-L1 adipocytes; their average radius of 21.1 +/- 1.1 mu m in controls was reduced to 17.5 +/- 0.5 mu m in rosiglitazone-treated cells. Consistent with this, insulin application increased the rate of C-m increase to 2.34 +/- 0.10%/min, which was significantly different from controls (0.12 +/- 0.08%/min). However, pretreatment of cells with rosiglitazone prior to the treatment with insulin resulted in an attenuated rate of C (m) increase. These data support the involvement of insulin in the modulation of membrane area and show that treatment by rosiglitazone reduced the insulin-mediated membrane area increase in 3T3-L1 adipocytes