Motivation and User Engagement in Fitness Tracking: Heuristics for Mobile Healthcare Wearables

Wearable fitness trackers have gained a new level of popularity due to their ambient data gathering and analysis. This has signalled a trend toward self-efficacy and increased motivation among users of these devices. For consumers looking to improve their health, fitness trackers offer a way to more readily gain motivation via the personal data-based insights the devices offer. However, the user experience (UX) that accompanies wearables is critical to helping users interpret, understand, gain motivation and act on their data. Despite this, there is little evidence as to specific aspects of fitness tracker user engagement and long-term motivation. We report on a 4-week situated diary study and Healthcare Technology Self-efficacy (HTSE) questionnaire assessment of 34 users of two popular American fitness trackers: JawBone and FitBit. The study results illustrate design implications and requirements for fitness trackers and other self-efficacy mobile healthcare applications.We would like to thank all users who participated in this research as well as Experience Dynamics, Inc. for providing the necessary resources and coordinating the user diary study. This study has been supported by financial aid from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the project ECO2012-36160; Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the Fondo Europeo de Desarollo Regional (FEDER) under the project ECO2015-67296-R and, Communidad de Madrid and Fondo Social Europeo under the project INNCOMCON-CM S2015/HUM-3417

Entrepreneurial intention of engineering students: the role of social norms and entrepreneurial self-efficacy

This article belongs to the Special Issue Business, Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Sustainable Development.This paper examines the impact of entrepreneurial education on intention to undertake entrepreneurial activity in the future. The study is based on a sample of 208 engineering students. Specifically, we explore the contingent effect of social norms on the relationship between entrepreneurial education and intention to undertake entrepreneurial activity, as well as the role ofsocial norms on the association between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. We utilize a comprehensive questionnaire distributed among engineering students. Our findings indicate that entrepreneurial education is positively associated with the intention to undertake entrepreneurial activity, in addition to demonstrating a positive moderation effect role of social norms on the relationship between entrepreneurial self-effcacy and entrepreneurial intention. The study provides empirical support to devise new educational initiatives that can further support students and young entrepreneurs in their current or future entrepreneurial projects.This study has been partially supported by financial aid from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant# ECO2015-67296-R, MINECO/FEDER) and from the Community of Madrid and European Social Fund (Grant# CM S2015/HUM-3417-INNCOMCON). The APC was founded by University Carlos III of Madrid

International R&D sourcing, innovation and firm age: The advantage of 'born-international sourcers'

We study how international knowledge sourcing affects the innovation performance of firms of different ages (from inception to mature). Specifically, we analyze (i) the contribution of international R&D sourcing to product innovations having a high degree of novelty- i.e. products that are new to the market; and (ii) the moderating role of firm age in this relationship. In doing so, we contrast two arguments that have created a debate in the literature: One is that experience plays a key role in successfully managing the inherent complexity of offshoring; another is that firms internationalizing at an early stage enjoy the learning advantages of newness. Based on a panel of over 9000 firms based in Spain spanning from 2008 to 2016, our findings indicate that international R&D sourcing is positively related to product innovations having a high degree of novelty, and that firm age exerts a negative moderating effect on the international R&D sourcing-innovation relationship. These results allow us to conclude that the innovation benefits of internationalizing the acquisition of knowledge are greater for younger firms. We identify the advantage of firms performing international R&D sourcing during their early stages and introduce the concept of "born-international sourcers" to identify firms that engage in international sourcing strategies from an early stage.This project was funded by the Government Research Agency of Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-106874GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). This work is developed with the support of Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) with the project Excellence of University Professors (EPUC3M20) in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation). Funding for APC: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Read & Publish Agreement CRUE-CSIC 2022

Emprendiendo en el aula! La gamificación como herramienta de aprendizaje en estudiantes universitario

Ponencia presentada en la Jornada de Innovación Docente 2019: metodologías activas en el aula, celebrada el 17 de junio de 2019 en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Intrafollicular and Circulating Concentrations of Leptin Do Not Predict the Outcome in IVF-ICSI Cycles

Leptin is involved not only in the regulation of food intake but also in other functions including reproduction. Because leptin has been demonstrated to influence ovarian steroidogenesis directly and leptin levels vary during the menstrual cycle and in stimulated cycles, we tested the hypothesis that serum or intrafollicular concentrations of leptin would correlate with reproductive outcomes in intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles. Serum and follicular fluid samples were collected from 77 women undergoing ovarian stimulation, intracytoplasmic sperm injection and embryo transfer due to male factor infertility. The concentrations of total leptin, both in serum and in pooled follicular fluid samples, did not correlate with the number of oocytes, the fertilization rate or the embryo quality. Additionally, leptin concentrations did not differ between cycles that resulted in pregnancy and those that failed. These results raise objections to the prognostic value of leptin for the outcome of in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles

Market leadership, technological progress and relative performance in the mobile telecommunications industry

In network industries a large installed customer base is considered a key strategic asset that leads to a sustainable competitive advantage. This paper argues that market leaders should be able to demonstrate relative performance advantages vis-à-vis their competitors. Furthermore, we examine the moderating role of technological progress as a significant environmental factor that could alter the market leadership-relative performance relationship. The two-stage procedure proposed by Simar and Wilson (2007) is used to estimate relative performance determinants in the European mobile telecommunication industry. In the first stage, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique is used to measure performance, and in the second stage we empirically test our hypotheses by bootstrapping the DEA estimates with a truncated regression. Our results provide evidence that leaders enjoy performance advantages. The findings also reveal that the leader's relative performance is compromised in the event of technological progress

Ρύθμιση, ανταγωνισμός, παραγωγικότητα και απόδοση των επιχειρήσεων στις βιομηχανίες δικτύου: η περίπτωση της κινητής τηλεφωνίας στην Ευρώπη

This thesis is guided by two basic objectives. The first one is to understand how the regulatory measures governments have taken have affected competition in network industries. In particular, special attention is paid to differences in the switching cost regulation implemented by different governments in the European Union. The second objective is to gain a better understanding of how the customer base affects the competitive advantage of companies in network industries and,therefore, the ability to generate improvements in firm productivity and financial performance. Indeed, the aim is to study how factors external to the company, in particular, regulatory and technological matters, have an influence on the competitive advantages of both leaders and competitors in a network industry. In both cases, the empirical model involves a major network industry, namely, European mobile telephony, which has undergone significant technological and regulatory changes in recent years.The mobile telecommunications industry has played a decisive role in the development and growth of the European economy. Overall telecommunications expenditure within EU-27 accounted for more than 2.8% of gross domestic product(GDP) in 2009, with turnover from mobile services exceeding that of fixed network services. Moreover, growth has been concentrated in mobile telephony markets and other data services, and the penetration rate - the average number of mobile phone subscriptions - exceeds 100% in almost every EU member state (Eurostat, 2011). In network industries such as mobile telecommunications, the academic literature has widely explored pioneering advantages. Among others, pioneering companies with market share advantages have been shown to enjoy certain benefits originated from isolating mechanisms like technological leadership, pre-emption of scarce resources and the creation of buyer-switching costs (Lieberman and Montgomery, 1988). First, technological leadership is gained by scope economies in R&D and superior technological skills. The technology in the mobile telecommunications industry is available to all firms, and it is easy to identify and copy the innovations introduced by competitors. Although this situation should lead to pioneering operators rapidly losing their first-mover advantage, these first-movers have maintained their market share advantage (Fernández and Usero, 2007). Second, pioneers can pre-empt the scarce resources (e.g., favorable physical locations, inputs, plants and equipment or distribution and service systems)needed to develop the business. As mobile telecommunications is an equipment based service, the advantages for pre-emption are significant (Bharadwaj et al.,1993). For example, the location of base stations poses problems for firms that enter the market later, as fewer sites are available and local residents usually oppose their deployment in towns and cities. Pioneers can also take advantage due to their experience in the industry, even though all operators–regardless of when they enter the market–have the same technology. Pioneers could then sustain their market share advantages over their competitors. In network industries, an installed customer base is a key strategic asset because it could afford a sustainable competitive advantage over time that is difficult to imitate (Shankar and Bayus, 2003). Finally, buyer-switching costs serve to lock in customers. Switching costs -the costs realized when consumers’ change from one product to another - are mainly derived through compatibility, transaction, learning, psychological and uncertainty costs, as well as through loyalty schemes that lock in consumers (Klemperer, 1995). A direct implication of switching costs is that they convert homogeneous products before the purchase to heterogeneous ones afterwards due to the additional costs consumers face when switching (Klemperer, 1987; Grzybowski, 2005), which in turn could enhance firms’ market power over existing consumers who face such costs.The mobile telephony industry has significant consumer switching costs, thus providing greater market power to firms with a higher market share (Fuentelsaz,Garrido and Maicas, 2012). The non-portability of numbers, price discrimination and subsidized phones are the main switching costs in the mobile telecommunications industry. Non-portability keeps the customer captive due to the inconvenience of having to change telephone numbers when switching to another operator. A similar effect occurs with the high price operators charge clients who wish to terminate their contract but maintain their telephone number. In some cases, some operators use price discrimination inside and outside their network. Lastly, operators offer customers discounts on new phones at the end of their contracts.Some of these advantages allow market share leaders to exercise market power over their suppliers and customers and restrict competition in the industry.Indeed, all these advantages make it more difficult for competitors to compete on a level playing field. In general, government and regulatory agencies have introduced considerable changes in the mobile telephony industry to reduce leading companies’ market share advantages (Gómez-Barroso and Feijóo, 2009). The first step was the liberalization of the industry, followed by several regulatory interventions designed to improve competition, with significant benefits for end consumers in terms of greater choice, lower prices, improved quality and more innovation (BEREC, 2010). The academic literature presupposes that market share leaders enjoy first mover advantages, and so advantages are to be expected in their financial performance. However, to our knowledge there are no studies that empirically test this. Furthermore, it is to be expected that changes in the environment, especially in regulatory measures and the industry’s technological progress, will have a bearing on the competitiveness of network industries and on the competitive advantages of firms with a larger customer portfolio, as well as on competitors.Figure 1 shows the structure and organization of the thesis. The first chapter analyses how switching cost regulation affects competition at industry level.The second and third chapters focus on efficiency and financial performance at firm level. Specifically, these two chapters seek to answer the question of how the installed customer base allows firms to improve productivity and performance and,additionally, within this context it sheds more light on the impact of environmental factors, such as regulatory and/or technological ones.Regarding the first chapter, and according to Klemperer (1995),compatibility, size of discount and transaction costs are the three main sources of switching costs in the context of mobile communications. One of the main measures taken to reduce the magnitude of switching costs in the mobile industry was the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) (Shy, 2002; Lee, Kim, Lee, and Park, 2006; Grzybowski, 2008; Maicas, Polo, and Sese, 2009). Without MNP,customers would lose their current mobile number when they switch operators, being forced to inform all their current contacts of their new number. MNP is available throughout the European Union, but there are significant differences in how MNP has been implemented over the past decade regarding issues such as switching fees and periods. Although there are several descriptive studies on MNP implementation,the existing empirical literature does not provide clear evidence regarding the impact on competition of introducing MNP, possibly because there is no consideration for the rules and requirements put into place by NRAs during the implementation phase.This chapter aims to explain the differences in switching cost regulation and the implication it has on the level of industry competition in the mobile telecommunications sector.The second chapter examines productivity and the impact of specific factors on the productivity differences among leading mobile operators in the mobile industry. One of the most important issues after introducing competition in network industries is how to achieve efficiency and increased productivity, which could offer a competitive advantage over the other players in the industry. Improving productivity is becoming crucially important, particularly in mobile telecommunications, which have seen increased competition and market saturation in recent years. Moreover, improving the efficiency of the leading operators is becoming increasingly important due to the characteristics of the industry, where by leading players own the infrastructure in many countries, and the access of other players is dependent on the access prices the leading operators charge. Based on the above reasoning, the productivity improvements of the leading mobile operators in Europe are measured using a novel methodological approach, as suggested by Simar and Wilson (1999), which allows drawing valid productivity estimates following a bootstrap procedure. Moreover, a unique dataset of mobile operators from Western and Eastern Europe is used, whereby a study can be made of certain determinants related to the differences among the groups of countries to which mobile operators belong. The third chapter examines the financial performance change of both leaders and competitors in the mobile telephony industry. Leading market firms are those with the highest market share in an industry, and this could presumably lead to the creation of competitive advantages that can be translated into greater performance improvements over competitors. The competitive advantages associated with market leadership could be explained theoretically as emerging from positive network externalities, first-mover advantages and superior resources and capabilities.However, evidence is ambiguous as to whether leading players, by virtue of having a greater installed customer base, would be able to increase their financial performance any more than their competitors. Furthermore, the competitive landscape in which the majority of firms operate has become highly complex and significantly uncertain,and that can affect their competitive advantages (Sirmon, Hitt, Ireland, and Gilbert,2011). In most networks industries, such as telecommunications, video game consoles or operating system software, technological progress and government regulation are two of the main environmental factors that can alter the relationship between market share leadership and financial performance change. Technological progress can alter the position of leading companies and destroy the potential rents leading firms enjoy in the face of rapid technological changes (Suárez and Lanzolla,2007). On the other hand, firms with a large market share can exercise their market power and, in turn, governments may introduce regulatory measures to promote competition and avoid the distortive behavior of leading firms. Therefore, the third chapter additionally evaluates the impact that two environmental variables, namely,technological progress and switching cost regulation, have on the improvement of a firm’s financial performance.Finally, the general conclusions of the thesis are presented. This final section summarizes the key findings of the research carried out. We discuss the work’s contributions and the study’s limitations, ending with directions for future research.Η παρούσα διατριβή καθοδηγείται από δύο βασικούς στόχους. Ο πρώτος είναι να καταλάβουμε πώς τα ρυθμιστικά μέτρα που έλαβαν οι κυβερνήσεις επηρέασαν τον ανταγωνισμό στις βιομηχανίες δικτύου. Ειδικότερα, δίνεται ιδιαίτερη προσοχή στις διαφορές στην ρύθμιση του κόστους αλλαγής που εφαρμόζεται από διαφορετικές κυβερνήσεις στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση. Ο δεύτερος στόχος είναι η καλύτερη κατανόηση του τρόπου με τον οποίο η πελατειακή βάση επηρεάζει το ανταγωνιστικό πλεονέκτημα των εταιρειών σε βιομηχανίες δικτύου και ως εκ τούτου, η ικανότητα να βελτιώσει την παραγωγικότητα και τα οικονομικά της επιχείρησης. Ο στόχος είναι να μελετηθεί ο τρόπος με τον οποίο παράγοντες εξωτερικοί της εταιρείας, κανονιστικά και τεχνολογικά θέματα, επηρεάζουν τον ανταγωνιστικό πλεονεκτήματα τόσο των ηγετών στην αγορά όσο και των υπολοίπων ανταγωνιστών σε μια βιομηχανία δικτύου