Geographical distance of innovation collaborations

This paper explores the geographical distance of innovation collaborations in high tech small firms. We test if absorptive capacity is a key determinant. Drawing on survey data from a sample of 316 Dutch high-tech small firms, engaging in 1.245 collaborations, we find most partners to be ‘local’. However, controlling for a variety of potential influences, higher R&D expenditure is positively related to collaboration with more distant organisations.  

On the Determinants of the Reach of Innovation-related Collaboration in Small Firms

This paper takes as its starting point an item of relatively recent academic orthodoxy: the insistence that ‘…interactive learning and collective entrepreneurship are fundamental to the process of innovation’ (Lundvall, 1992, p. 9). From this, academics have frequently taken “interactive” to imply “inter-organisational” and, whilst one might be concerned by this too casual conflation, there is a growing consensus that firms’ embeddedness in collaborative networks matters for their innovative performance (Gilsing et al., 2008).

Housing: An Analysis of Ownership and Investment Based on the Household Savings Survey

In 2001, Statistics New Zealand conducted a major survey of the assets and liabilities of New Zealanders called the Household Savings Survey (HSS). This paper presents the results of an analysis of ownership and investment in housing based on the results of that survey. International comparisons suggest that the rates of home ownership, investment in property and housing debt levels in New Zealand are broadly comparable with those in Australia and the United States and with a wider set of countries. An exception is that younger age groups in New Zealand hold more investment property than their counterparts in the USA and Australia. In New Zealand almost one in ten couples owned rental property in 2001, while one in five owned some form of investment property. We examine the factors that govern tenure choice and gearing. Of note is the fact that 44% of couples and 56% of individual home owners have debt free residential properties. Households' balance sheets reflect the importance of housing for both assets and liabilities. We complement the analysis of the cross-sectional unit record data from the HSS with an analysis of housing taken from the households' aggregate balance sheets from 1978 to 2004 from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. We use these data to form a measure of household saving based on the stock of net equity. We then adjust this measure of savings for changes in house prices, and find that this adjustment explains almost two thirds of the difference between the stock and flow measure of household savings, the latter taken from the Household Income and Outlay Accounts. Furthermore we find that from 1980 to 2005 the annual average rate of household saving based on these estimates from household balance sheets was 12.4% of personal disposable income, after removing the effect of changes in house price. Arguably this is a preferable measure of household saving to the widely cited negative rates of household saving based on national income accounts. We further use the balance sheet data to estimate the extent to which households have apparently withdrawn equity from their housing assets for investment in other forms or consumption. We find that on average a rise of one dollar in housing net equity is associated with 10 cents of apparent equity withdrawal.Housing; New Zealand; Portfolio; Wealth; Ownership; Equity; Gearing; Equity withdrawal; Measures of saving

The effects of screen captures in manuals: A textual and two visual manuals compared.

The study examines the use of screen captures in manuals. Three designs of manuals were compared, one textual and two visual manuals. The two visual manuals differed in the type of screen capture that was used. One had screen captures that showed only the relevant part of the screen, whereas the other consisted of captures of the full screen. All manuals contained exactly the same textual information. We examined the time used on carrying out procedures (manual used as a job aid) and the results on retention tests (manual used for learning). We expected to find a trade-off between gain in time and learning effects. That is, we expected that higher scores on the retention tests involved an increase in time used and, vice versa, that gains in time would lead to lower retention test scores. We also explored the influence of manual design on user motivation. For job-aid purposes, there were no differences between manuals. For learning, the full-screen captures manual and the textual manual were significantly better than the partial-screen captures manual. There was no proof for the expected trade-off. More learning was not caused by an increase in time used. We found no effects on user motivation. This study does not yield convincing evidence to support the presence of screen captures in manuals. However, if one wants to include screen captures, this study gives clarity for the type of screen capture to choose. The use of full-screen captures is preferable to partial ones. Finally, we conclude that documentation designed to expedite the execution of tasks does not necessarily hamper the learning that may resul

"Do screen captures in manuals make a difference?": a comparison between textual and visual manuals

Examines the use of screen captures in manuals. Three types of manuals were compared: one textual and two visual. The two visual manuals differed in the type of screen capture that was used. One had screen captures that showed only the relevant part of the screen, whereas the other consisted of captures of the full screen. All manuals contained exactly the same textual information. We examined immediate use on time (use as a job aid) and on learning (use as a teacher). For job-aid purposes, there was no difference between the manuals. The visual manual with full-screen captures and the textual manual were both better for learning than the visual manual with partial screen captures. We found no effect on user motivation. The tentative conclusion of this study is that screen captures seem not to be vital for learning or immediate use. If one opts for including screen captures, then the conclusion is that full-screen captures are better than partial one

Arousal and Valence Prediction in Spontaneous Emotional Speech: Felt versus Perceived Emotion

In this paper, we describe emotion recognition experiments carried out for spontaneous affective speech with the aim to compare the added value of annotation of felt emotion versus annotation of perceived emotion. Using speech material available in the TNO-GAMING corpus (a corpus containing audiovisual recordings of people playing videogames), speech-based affect recognizers were developed that can predict Arousal and Valence scalar values. Two types of recognizers were developed in parallel: one trained with felt emotion annotations (generated by the gamers themselves) and one trained with perceived/observed emotion annotations (generated by a group of observers). The experiments showed that, in speech, with the methods and features currently used, observed emotions are easier to predict than felt emotions. The results suggest that recognition performance strongly depends on how and by whom the emotion annotations are carried out. \u

How Does It Fit? Exploring the Congruence Between Organizations and Their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Activities

Several studies have focused on the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) fit on external stakeholders’ evaluations of CSR activities, attitudes towards companies or brands, and behaviors. The results so far have been contradictory. A possible reason may be that the concept of CSR fit is more complicated than previously assumed. Researchers suggest that there may be different types of CSR fit, but so far no empirical research has focused on a typology of CSR fit. This study fills this gap, describing a qualitative content analysis of the congruence between six organizations and their various CSR activities. Ten annual reports and CSR reports were analyzed, and 102 specific CSR activities were identified. The results show that two levels of fit must be distinguished: based on the means for and the intended ends of the CSR activity. Furthermore, six different types of fit were found, focusing on (1) products and services, (2) production processes, (3) environmental impact, (4) employees, (5) suppliers, and (6) geographical location. Considering the above variety of fit possibilities, the findings emphasize the role of CSR communication as a means of creating fit perception