Automated legal sensemaking: the centrality of relevance and intentionality

Introduction: In a perfect world, discovery would ideally be conducted by the senior litigator who is responsible for developing and fully understanding all nuances of their client’s legal strategy. Of course today we must deal with the explosion of electronically stored information (ESI) that never is less than tens-of-thousands of documents in small cases and now increasingly involves multi-million-document populations for internal corporate investigations and litigations. Therefore scalable processes and technologies are required as a substitute for the authority’s judgment. The approaches taken have typically either substituted large teams of surrogate human reviewers using vastly simplified issue coding reference materials or employed increasingly sophisticated computational resources with little focus on quality metrics to insure retrieval consistent with the legal goal. What is required is a system (people, process, and technology) that replicates and automates the senior litigator’s human judgment. In this paper we utilize 15 years of sensemaking research to establish the minimum acceptable basis for conducting a document review that meets the needs of a legal proceeding. There is no substitute for a rigorous characterization of the explicit and tacit goals of the senior litigator. Once a process has been established for capturing the authority’s relevance criteria, we argue that literal translation of requirements into technical specifications does not properly account for the activities or states-of-affairs of interest. Having only a data warehouse of written records, it is also necessary to discover the intentions of actors involved in textual communications. We present quantitative results for a process and technology approach that automates effective legal sensemaking

‘A jack of all trades’ - The role of PIs in the establishment and management of collaborative networks in scientific knowledge commercialisation

The commercialisation of scientific knowledge has become a primary objective for universities worldwide. Collaborative research projects are viewed as the key to achieving this objective, however, the role of Principal Investigators (PIs) within these complex multi-stakeholder research projects remains under researched. This paper explores how networks in the scientific knowledge collaboration process are initiated and maintained from a multi-stakeholder perspective. It is based on case study evidence from 82 stakeholders in 17 research collaboration projects in Irish and German universities, which provides for a holistic view of the process, as opposed to prior research which has tended to report findings based on the analysis of one or two stakeholders. It finds that PIs play a lead role in establishing and managing stakeholder networks. This finding is unanimous for all stakeholders, irrespective of research centre size, type and geographical location. Not unlike the entrepreneur, the PI has to be ‘a jack of all trades', taking on the roles of project manager, negotiator, resource acquirer as well as, the traditional academic role of Ph.D. supervision and mentoring. The findings suggest that PIs are better placed than Technology Transfer Office (TTO) managers to act as boundary spanners in bridging the gap between science and industry

The New Library – Facilitating Flexible Learning

NUI Maynooth Teaching and Learning Showcase 2012/1

Fast growth firms in Ireland - performance and financial structure

Recent research indicates that only a few new small firms grow to become large employers. This thesis examines the performance of the Enterprise Development Programme [EDP] which was set up to grant assist high growth potential start-ups in Ireland. Of the 239 start-ups grant-assisted under the programme between 1978 and 1992, 129 or 54 per cent were no longer trading in 1994. 4670 jobs were created in surviving firms and the vast majority were created in a small number of fast growth firms. 62 per cent of all jobs were created in 9.2 per cent of EDP start-ups. The financial structure of the fast growth EDP start-ups is compared with a match group of surviving EDP firms which demonstrated slower growth patterns. Fast growth firms were less likely than match firms to be predominantly owned by the owners and their families. Consistent with this finding new share issues were found to be a relatively more important source of finance for fast growth than for match firms. Fast growth firms also financed a relatively higher proportion of total assets from share premiums, whilst match firms financed a relatively higher proportion of total assets from ordinary shares. As found in previous studies, fast growth firms were also more dependent on government grants than their match counterparts

The Role of the university in eco-entrepreneurship: evidence from the eurobarometer survey on attitudes of European entrepreneurs towards eco-innovation

There is an increasing social and political awareness of the importance of sustainable innovations. Strategic partnerships between policy makers, businesses, researchers and citizens are key to developing, implementing and applying eco-innovation, essential for the transition to a competitive green economy. Within this innovation ecosystem, universities can play a central role in creating viable alternative models that are driven by environmental sustainability. Based on evidence from the first survey on Eco-innovation in Europe- ‘The Eurobarometer 315 Survey on Attitudes of European Entrepreneurs towards Eco-Innovation’, the present paper examines the impact of university collaboration on eco-innovating small firms. It also considers how technology push, demand side factors and the regulatory framework, drive eco-innovation in European SMEs. This paper has several implications for managers, as well as for policy makers. For managers, it should be stressed that collaboration with universities is essential to drive all types of eco-innovations. Our findings also suggest that national government should foster cooperation with universities following EU example (eg. European Innovation Partnership in EcoAP), as national policies based on subsidies and fiscal incentives appear to be ineffective

Conceptualising collaborative processes in university research centres

In the context of a knowledge-based agenda understanding the dynamics of the collaborative process between universities and industry becomes critical. This paper develops an analytical framework for examining the processes underpinning the collaborative capabilities of University Research Centres (URCs). Drawing on the lens of collaborative communities, this multi-level framework provides a useful basis for understanding in more detail the unique motives, relational dynamics and negotiated orders informing and shaping the formation and sustenance of research collaboration in URCs. Implications for the management of scientific and technical (S&T) human capital are discussed

University research scientists as knowledge workers: contract status and employment opportunities

University research scientists epitomise knowledge workers who are positioned to avail of the employment conditions associated with ‘boundaryless careers’. Yet while employment flexibility has been hailed as a positive feature of knowledge work, relatively little is known about the forms such flexibility may take or its impact. This article considers the factors shaping the employment conditions of 40 research scientists working in five university research centres in Ireland. The findings suggest that, for knowledge workers such as research scientists, contract employment can deny them access to many of the employment conditions and opportunities that govern their long-term success as researchers

Doctoral competencies and graduate research education: focus and fit with the knowledge economy?

The paper considers the evidence on the types of skills and abilities that are needed by doctoral students. In particular, it examines whether doctoral competencies can be differentiated from general undergraduate/postgraduate-level competencies and whether employers value the skills and abilities that doctoral graduates bring to work organisations. Surprisingly, given the cost of fourth level education, there is a dearth of existing work regarding graduate and doctoral students’ experiences (Cryer, 1997). In addition, where lists of doctoral competencies are proposed, there is little evidence of a theoretical or empirical basis for the choice of these competencies, and the lists appear to have emerged through a process of speculation, or the prior experience of students and faculty, rather than through any coherent analysis. Many commentators (Allen, 2002; Park, 2005; Mitchell, 2007) consider that PhD and other doctoral programmes must adapt and become more flexible, as students’ requirements and preferences change and that the personal skills and attributes that a doctoral student possesses are as important as any specialist knowledge or skills. The paper suggests that current conceptualisations of doctoral competencies are inadequate and puts forward a model to reframe the way in which these competencies are understood and labelled. The paper has implications for the education and training of doctoral students and for the graduate research education programmes (GREPS) that are emerging as part of the reconceptualisation of graduate education

Tying the Knot – Linking Bootstrapping and Working Capital Management in Established Enterprises

Purpose – Bootstrapping is a practitioner-based term adopted in entrepreneurship to describe the techniques employed in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to minimise the need for external funding by securing resources at little or no cost and applying strategies to effectively use resources. Working capital management (WCM) is a term used in financial management to define a set of practices used to manage business resources, including cash management. This paper explores the overlap and divergence between these two disciplinary distinct concepts. Design/methodology/approach – A dual methodology is employed. First, the usage of the two terms in prior literature is analysed and synthesised. Second, the study uses factor analysis to explore how bootstrapping practices described by owners of 167 established MSMEs relate to the components of WCM in financial management. Findings – The factor analysis identifies two main bootstrapping practices employed by MSMEs: (1) delaying payments and owner-related bootstrapping and (2) customer-related bootstrapping. Delaying payments is an integral practice in trade payables management and customer-related bootstrapping includes practices that are integral to trade receivables management. Therefore, links between bootstrapping practices and WCM practices are firmly established. Research limitations/implications – The study is not without limitations. Based on cross-sectional evidence for established firms in Ireland only, future studies could explore cross-country longitudinal panel data to fully examine life cycle and sectoral effects, as well as other external shocks (for example, COVID-19) on bootstrapping and WCM practices. This study does not explain why some factors (for example, joint utilisation and inventory management) are present in some bootstrapping studies and not in others; further case study research might help explain this. Finally, changes in the business environment facing start-ups and established enterprise, including increased digitalisation, online trading, self-employment, remote hub working and sustainability, offer new avenues for bootstrapping research. Originality/value – This is the first study to comprehensively explore the conceptual and empirical links between bootstrapping and WCM. This study will enable researchers and practitioners in these two distinct disciplines to learn from each other. Accounting researchers and practitioners can broaden their understanding of how WCM “works”in MSME settings. Similarly, entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners can deepen their understanding of how bootstrapping can be adopted by businesses to manage resources effectively