Students’ entrepreneurial behavior: international and gender differences

Due to a high level of uncertainty, entrepreneurship is generally considered a risky endeavor. This paper explores the factors impacting entrepreneurial behavior in order to identify new educational opportunities for its development. The paper explores perceived feasibility and desirability for students in 10 countries. The entrepreneurship role is gender tested against desirability and feasibility. The requirements for developing this skill set are also studied. A survey instrument was developed, and data was collected from 4281 students. The results indicate that gender impacts entrepreneurship intention and the way it impacts is influenced by which country the students are from

Technology foresight: a bibliometric analysis to identify leading and emerging methods

Foresight studies provide essential information used by the government, industry and academia for technology planning and knowledge expansion. They are complicated, resource-intensive, and quite expensive. The approach, methods, and techniques must be carefully identified and selected. Despite the global importance of foresight activities, there are no frameworks to help one develop and plan a proper foresight study. This paper begins to close this gap by analyzing and comparing different schools of thought and updating the literature with the most current tools and methods. Data mining techniques are used to identify articles through an extensive literature review. Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques are used to identify and analyze leading journals, articles, and researchers. A framework is developed here to provide a guide to help in the selection of methods and tools for different approaches

Developing an integrated technology roadmapping process to meet regional technology planning needs: the e-bike pilot study

Smart grid is a promising class of new technologies offering many potential benefits for electric utility systems, including possibilities for smart appliances which can communicate with power systems and help to better match supply and demand. Additional services include the ability to\ud better integrate growing supplies of renewable energy and perform a variety of value-added services on the grid. However, a number of challenges exist in order to achieving these benefits.\ud Many utility systems have substantial regulatory structures that make business processes and technology innovation substantially different than in other industries. Due to complex histories regarding regulatory and deregulatory efforts, and due to what some economists consider natural monopoly characteristics in the industry, such regulatory structures are unlikely to change in the immediate future. Therefore, innovation within these industries, including the development of\ud smart grid, will require an understanding of such regulatory and policy frameworks, development of appropriate business models, and adaptation of technologies to fit these emerging requirements. Technology Roadmapping may be a useful method of planning this type of future development within the smart grid sector, but such technology roadmaps would require a high level of integrated thinking regarding technology, business, and regulatory and policy considerations. This research provides an initial examination of the process for creating such a type of integrated technology roadmapping and assessment process. This research proposes to build upon previous research in the Pacific Northwest and create a more robust technology planning process that will allow key variables to be tested and different pathways to be explored

The impact of open-border organization culture and employees' knowledge, attitudes, and rewards with regards to open innovation: an empirical study

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to fill a significant research gap in academic literature pertaining to Open Innovation. In order to do so, this paper empirically tests the impact of organizational culture, employees' knowledge, attitudes, and rewards as antecedents and mediators of Open Innovation adoption in organizations, facilitating a more thorough understanding by utilizing an empirical multi-level approach. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyses the results of the "Identification of Industrial Needs for Open Innovation Education in Europe" survey through a quantitative analysis using logistic regression models. This survey includes 528 employees working in 28 different industrial sectors in 37 countries, most of which are in Europe. Findings: The results suggest a positive impact of organizational characteristics on the adoption of Open Innovation (i.e. including the adoption of outside-in and inside-out open innovation activities in participating organizations), showing that the openness of an organization's culture increases its likelihood of adopting an Open Innovation paradigm. More importantly, the results highlight the positive mediating effect of employees' knowledge and rewards on this relationship. Practical implications: The proposed multi-level approach offers new insight into organizational knowledge. It enables the improvement of Open Innovation and Knowledge Management practices in organizations by assisting practitioners and academics in recognizing the relationship between organizational culture; employees' knowledge, attitudes, and rewards; and the adoption of the Open Innovation paradigm. Social implications: This paper offers a possible explanation on why open-border cultures are more likely to have a successful open innovation adoption, by relating it to factors that advance in the presence of an open-border culture, such as active participation of OI relative departments in knowledge sourcing and knowledge exchange, and rewarding employees for open innovation activities. Originality/value: This paper presents a new framework which links organizational culture to Open Innovation, moving on from merely examining culture in terms of its positive or negative impact on Open Innovation adoption. It contributes to research on the Open Innovation paradigm and Knowledge Management by highlighting the significance of antecedents and mediators from a multi-level perspective using multiple units of analysis. Most previous studies focus on a single unit of analysis

Exploring gender differences in attitudes of university students towards entrepreneurship

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to understand gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions as measured by perceived feasibility and perceived desirability, and to explore gender differences in perceptions of entrepreneurship education needs - in terms of programmes, activities or projects - to succeed in an entrepreneurial career from the university students’ point of view. Design/Methodology/Approach - Using data gathered from 3420 university students in more than 10 countries, and applying the Mann-Whitney non-parametric test, differences between genders and different intention groups were examined. To reduce the items regarding educational needs, factor analysis was used. Gender differences in educational needs were also examined via Mann-Whitney Test. Findings - The results confirm that compared to males, female students are less willing to start their own businesses. There are significant gender differences in terms of perceived feasibility and perceived desirability such that although they feel more supported by their families, females are less self-confident, more tense, reluctant and concerned about entrepreneurship. In terms of entrepreneurial intention, there are fewer gender differences among students; however, differences relating to self-confidence and family support still exist. Furthermore, students cited establishing entrepreneurial mentoring and an appropriate tutoring structure as the most needed entrepreneurial educational activity/program/project at an academic institution; this was rated higher by females compared to males. Practical implications – The findings of this paper could help guide educators and policy makers in designing effective entrepreneurship programmes that are customized to respond to gender specific needs to increase entrepreneurial participation. Originality/Value - This study reveals the gender differences in perceived desirability and perceived feasibility which impact entrepreneurial intentions. Gender differences in the entrepreneurial programmes/activities/projects required at an academic institution to promote entrepreneurial participation among university students is also explored

Entrepreneurship education from a Croatian medical student's perspective

There has been an ongoing interest in establishing efficient methods of entrepreneurial education (EE). Within our knowledge, there is no academic research that interrogates entrepreneurship and EE for medical students. This research seeks to explore the perceived feasibility and desirability of entrepreneurship for medical students and investigate their expectations in EE. Firstly, perceptional differences in feasibility and desirability were investigated through cluster analysis. In the following step, ANOVA tests were used to examine differences in EE expectations. The data was collected using a survey questionnaire, which was developed and funded by the Tempus FoSentHE Project Consortium. Findings show that students can be clustered into four groups by taking perceived feasibility and desirability into consideration. Statistical differences were recorded for only seven of the twenty educational and entrepreneurial activities. In conclusion, students value networking activities, real experience, and prefer lecturers who are experienced entrepreneurs

Forecasting of emerging therapeutic monoclonal antibodies patents based on a decision model

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) market is strongly contributing to the rising growth of the biotechnology industry. Despite the increasing number of inventions over time, a few therapeutic mAbs are currently marketed. This paper focuses on developing an emerging score to select/rank promising therapeutic mAbs patents, based on a hierarchical decision model using expert's opinion. Six attributes related to each factor concerning patent status, patent owner's profile and mAbs medical relevance were analyzed. The desirability levels of each attribute were also assessed. Our data shows the medical relevance factor as the most important, contributing 50% of the emerging score. Among the attributes, the most important under patent status was proper geographic coverage and wider patent scope; for organization's profile was the preexistence of approved drugs; and for medical relevance, the clinical phase performance. A group of 1053 patents related to therapeutic mAb were scored, and the most promising were concerning combination therapy using immune checkpoint inhibitors. The study has managerial implications related to patent portfolio management and patent valuation, and provides instructions to rank mAbs patents according to the emerging score defined by attribute's importance in order to improve the identification of future innovations pathways

The role of management support for the implementation of open innovation practices in firms

Open innovation (OI) has gained a lot of popularity in the last decade, as sharing research and innovation efforts offer several benefits for firms and industries. However, implementing a successful OI environment within firms has several internal and external challenges. Therefore, researchers are investigating the factors that might contribute to achieving a successful OI adoption. This paper investigates the effect of management support on the successful adoption of OI. The paper uses regression techniques with data from an OI survey that was conducted in Europe in 2014. Respondents, from several countries and industries, were asked to evaluate their firm's current OI adoption level, as well as, several internal competencies. The dataset analysis results showed that there is a positive correlation between management support of OI and the possibility of successful adoption of OI. Moreover, the results offered insight on some of the dynamics of how management support affect OI adoption

Evaluation of Metaverse integration of freight fluidity measurement alternatives using fuzzy Dombi EDAS model

Developments in transportation systems, changes in consumerism trends, and conditions such as COVID-19 have increased both the demand and the load on freight transportation. Since various companies are transporting goods all over the world to evaluate the sustainability, speed, and resiliency of freight transportation systems, data and freight fluidity measurement systems are needed. In this study, an integrated decision-making model is proposed to advantage prioritize the freight fluidity measurement alternatives. The proposed model is composed of two main stages. In the first stage, the Dombi norms based Logarithmic Methodology of Additive Weights (LMAW) is used to find the weights of criteria. In the second phase, an extended Evaluation based on the Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) method with Dombi unction for aggregation is presented to determine the final ranking results of alternatives. Three freight fluidity measurement alternatives are proposed, namely doing nothing, integrating freight activities into Metaverse for measuring fluidity, and forming global governance of freight activities for measuring fluidity through available data. Thirteen criteria, which are grouped under four main aspects namely technology, governance, efficiency, and environmental sustainability, and a case study at which a ground framework is formed for the experts to evaluate the alternatives considering the criteria are used in the multi-criteria decision-making process. The results of the study indicate that integrating freight activities into Metaverse for measuring fluidity is the most advantageous alternative, whereas doing nothing is the least advantageous one