Investigating the impact of individual user differences and environmental factors on spatial knowledge acquisition from virtual environments

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Trying to ‘learn’ the spatial layout of an environment is a common problem in certain application domains, such as military and emergency personnel training. Until recently this training was accomplished solely by providing maps and briefings of an environment. These methods, however, only provide topological (survey) knowledge of the environment, which pays little attention to the details of routes and landmarks that can only be acquired through the acquisition of procedural knowledge via navigation. Unlike previous experiments concerning spatial knowledge acquisition this work does not attempt to determine whether spatial knowledge acquisition is feasible. Such investigations have yielded a variety of results, yet all agree that spatial knowledge acquisition from a virtual environment is feasible if given enough exposure time. Accordingly, the aim of this thesis is to contribute towards a better understanding of how various individual differences and environmental factors impact the exposure time requirements needed for a person to acquire spatial knowledge from a virtual environment. Although the results of our investigation should be used with caution, we show that a one-size-fits-all situation is not possible when estimating the required exposure time that a user needs to acquire spatial knowledge. Moreover we provide a guide that allows a trainer to predict the required exposure time a person will require, by using the person's personal profile, and the environment's particular factors. In addition, we found that one of the tests we used during our investigation caused unnecessary frustration and confusion to our participants. This test is a standard way of finding a participant's orientation skill, and is commonly used in the area of spatial knowledge acquisition. Therefore, by recreating a new electronic version of the test and comparing the scores from both the new test and the old one our investigation showed that the scores on the new test were significantly higher for all participants. The training time was also lowered significantly. Our updated electronic version will be useful in future research. This test is available online at: www.newgztest.com

Small and medium-sized enterprises’ exporting: Home and host country motivators effect on first and successive export venture decisions

The aim of the paper is to investigate the internationalization (particularly exporting) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) taking a sample of United Kingdom (UK) SMEs for the use in economic policy, academia and management. It focuses on the critical first and less risky step towards internationalization and separates the motivators into home country and host country. The paper investigates 44 specific, high impact, pre-selected exporting motivators from the literature and tests their effect on the firm’s initial export decision and latest (or sequential) export decision. Results show that the first exporting choice affects later exporting choices and both are mostly affected by home country-specific, internal, motivators as opposed to host country-specific reactive motivators. In addition regionalization shows an association as European Union membership of the UK showed a relationship to subsequent entry mode choice. The paper’s results are of use to policy-makers and management

Quotient algorithm: a simple heuristic for the travelling salesperson problem inspired by human solutions

The Travelling Salesperson Problem (TSP) is a classic example of a non-polynomial (NP) hard problem, which cannot be practically solved using exhaustive algorithmic approaches. This study explores the human approach, and presents a Quotient Algorithm (Quot) - a modification to the nearest neighbor algorithm - inspired by human path crossing avoidance behavior when solving ETSP graphs. We compared the developed Quot results against standard heuristic algorithms and found that this simple modification outperforms the NN, as well as other existing heuristic approache

Individual entrepreneurial orientation in higher education and unsettling emerging market conditions: The cases of Malaysia and Thailand

The triggers that guide university students individual entrepreneurial orientation towards new venture creation are an emerging theme. The novel settings of entrepreneurship education the developing country context of South East Asia Malaysia and Thailand are used, while comparing them to key assumptions on general business in Asia and the west. A total of 332 participants were recruited. The items were reduced to five components using principal component analysis, and, using binomial logistic regression, shown to predict some of the variance in perceptions on individual entrepreneurial orientation in Malaysia and Thailand. The study shows that individual entrepreneurial orientation motivators can be separated into the distinct dimensions of which innovation, proactiveness, risk taking, and culture correlate with the the decision to become an entrepreneur in Southeast Asia. In addition, assumptions on business and education in the west and in Asia hold partially in Southeast Asia and entrepreneurial new venture creation particularly regarding risk and autonomy

Sense of direction and conscientiousness as predictors of performance in the Euclidean travelling salesman problem

A salesperson wishes to visit a number of cities before returning home using the shortest possible route, whilst only visiting each city once. This optimization problem, called the Travelling Salesman Problem, is difficult to solve using exhaustive algorithms due to the exponential growth in the number of possible solutions. Interestingly, when presented in Euclidean space (ETSP), humans quickly find good solutions. Past studies, however, are in disagreement whether human solutions are impacted by the participant’s ability to process figural effects in the graph geometry. In this study, we used principal component analysis to combine two correlated[r = 0.37, p < 0.01] self-assessed personality measures, i.e., a participant’s sense of direction and a participant’s level of conscientiousness, onto a single impulsiveness/cautiousness dimension. We then showed, using simple linear regression, that this new dimension is a significant predictor [R2 = 0.12, p < 0.01] of the number of edge crossings that occur in human ETSP solutions, a key metric of graph optimality. Our study provides evidence to suggest that human solutions to the ETSP are significantly affected by individual differences, including personality and cognitive traits

A validation of web-based surveys for exploratory research in the areas of business and entrepreneurship

In this study, we demonstrate that web-based surveys are suitable for data collection in academic Business-related research. Using one of our datasets from an online study on entrepreneurial orientation, we investigated the construct validity and reliability of the instrument used to collect the data. Our analysis supports that for 28 Likert-scaled questionnaire items, a sample size of 332 people was adequate to conduct principle component analysis (PCA) and load the items into five components that are supported by literature. Cronbach’s alpha was consistently high (α = 0.92), with no evidence that the reliability would increase if any of the survey items were dropped. We therefore conclude that for short web-based surveys ( 300 is suitable for exploratory factor analysis

The effect of autonomy in sustaining social entrepreneurial intention through management education: the cases of Malaysia and Scotland

he study examines what is the role of autonomy on individual social entrepreneurial intention (EI) for students. Furthermore, it examines the differences between the emerging market setting and developed market to gather an understanding of context differences. Using principal component analysis the study finds that the motivators of EI can be divided into 5 components. Following from that the autonomy variable can be divided into 3 sub components. The results present differences in propensity towards EI in the two country settings along with differences in propensity towards social entrepreneurship. The results are unique as they test EI variables from the literature on social entrepreneurship and in an emerging market context. The role of autonomy as a bridge between education and attitude or intention is presented