The MNC as a Knowledge Structure The Roles of Knowledge Sources and Organizational Instruments in MNC Knowledge Management

Recent research on the differentiated MNC has concerned knowledge flows between MNC units. While linking up with this literature, we extend in two directions. First, we argue that conceptualizing the MNC as a knowledge structure furthers the understanding of intra-MNC knowledge flows. Thus, we see MNC knowledge elements as being structured along such dimensions as their type and degree of complementarity to other knowledge elements, and their sources, for example, whether they are mainly developed from external or internal knowledge sources. These dimensions matter in terms of knowledge flows, because they influence the costs and benefits of knowledge transfer and, hence, the actual level of knowledge transferred. Second, based on this conceptualization, we argue that MNC management can influence the development, characteristics and transfer of knowledge through choices regarding organizational instruments (control, motivation and context). We test six hypotheses derived from these arguments against a unique dataset on subsidiary knowledge development. The dataset includes information on organizational instruments, sources of subsidiary knowledge, and the extent of knowledge transfer to other MNC units. It covers more than 2,000 subsidiaries located in seven different European countries.Knowledge structure, complementarity, knowledge transfer, the MNC

Assessing the ability of Sentinel-2 derived vegetation indices to explain inter-field yield variation in the context of index insurance - A case study of paddy rice inHaryana and Odisha, India

Smallholder agriculture in the Global South is characterised by high degree of risk, which disincentivises investment in productivity gains and limits rural development. Index Insurance aims to overcome the limitations of traditional insurance to insurance farmers against exposure to climatic extremes. Based on two study sites in India, Haryana and Odisha, this study contributes to the technical aspect of improving the indices, more specifically on how field level yield can be estimated through Sentinel-2 derived VI variables and which design options are more suitable to create these variables. The study shows that the best variables alone can explain 20% of the inter-field grain yield variation and that the best combination of variables can explain 53%. Furthermore, the main findings of the study suggest that it is beneficial to test different triggering measures and that including variables from phenologically tailored phases and isolating the rice varieties significantly improves the results. Additional research is needed before the approach is suitable for individualised index insurance but compared to alternative data sources the method will likely pose an effective and scalable way to identify yield gaps and to specifically target policy interventions

Den stædige belgiers kamp - en artikel om 'Bosmandommmen' og konsekvenserne for professionel sportsudøvelse

Analyse af den belgiske fodboldspiller Jean-Marc Bosmans sejr over de store fodboldorganisationer ved EF-domstolen og afgørelsens betydning for professionel sportsudøvelse inden for fodboldens verden.The Case of the Stubborn Belgian – The Bosman CaseOne of the most important issues in recent times for professional soccer and professional sport as a whole has been the Bosman case and verdict. It is a case, which, when it came to a head on December 15th 1995, shook up the world of professional sports. The Belgian soccer-player, Jean-Marc Bosman, had successfully fought and won his case against all of the major soccer associations at the EU courts, and hereby destroyed the former player transfer system. With a description of the principles in the Bosman case, the article will throw light on the central and most important parts of the verdict. In this first part the entire situation that resulted in the lawsuit will be considered. The second part of the article is an analysis of the consequences of the verdict for professional sports, focusing mainly on soccer, where there also will be looked back on the four years that have passed since the verdict. Again the starting point is within the world of soccer, and from here the article will draw parallels to other professional sports

Den stædige belgiers kamp - en artikel om 'Bosmandommmen' og konsekvenserne for professionel sportsudøvelse

Analyse af den belgiske fodboldspiller Jean-Marc Bosmans sejr over de store fodboldorganisationer ved EF-domstolen og afgørelsens betydning for professionel sportsudøvelse inden for fodboldens verden.The Case of the Stubborn Belgian – The Bosman CaseOne of the most important issues in recent times for professional soccer and professional sport as a whole has been the Bosman case and verdict. It is a case, which, when it came to a head on December 15th 1995, shook up the world of professional sports. The Belgian soccer-player, Jean-Marc Bosman, had successfully fought and won his case against all of the major soccer associations at the EU courts, and hereby destroyed the former player transfer system. With a description of the principles in the Bosman case, the article will throw light on the central and most important parts of the verdict. In this first part the entire situation that resulted in the lawsuit will be considered. The second part of the article is an analysis of the consequences of the verdict for professional sports, focusing mainly on soccer, where there also will be looked back on the four years that have passed since the verdict. Again the starting point is within the world of soccer, and from here the article will draw parallels to other professional sports

EEG source imaging assists decoding in a face recognition task

EEG based brain state decoding has numerous applications. State of the art decoding is based on processing of the multivariate sensor space signal, however evidence is mounting that EEG source reconstruction can assist decoding. EEG source imaging leads to high-dimensional representations and rather strong a priori information must be invoked. Recent work by Edelman et al. (2016) has demonstrated that introduction of a spatially focal source space representation can improve decoding of motor imagery. In this work we explore the generality of Edelman et al. hypothesis by considering decoding of face recognition. This task concerns the differentiation of brain responses to images of faces and scrambled faces and poses a rather difficult decoding problem at the single trial level. We implement the pipeline using spatially focused features and show that this approach is challenged and source imaging does not lead to an improved decoding. We design a distributed pipeline in which the classifier has access to brain wide features which in turn does lead to a 15% reduction in the error rate using source space features. Hence, our work presents supporting evidence for the hypothesis that source imaging improves decoding

FMI for Co-Simulation of Embedded Control Software

Increased complexity of cyber-physical systems within the maritime industry demands closer cooperation be-tween engineering disciplines. The functional mockup interface (FMI) is an initiative aiding cross-discipline in-teraction by providing, a widely accepted, standard for model exchange and co-simulation. The standard is sup-ported by a number of modelling tools. However, to im-plement it on an existing platform requires adaptation. This paper investigates how to adapt the software of an embedded control system to comply with the FMI for co-simulation standard. In particular, we suggest a way of advancing the clock of a real time operating system (RTOS), by overwriting the idle thread and waiting for a signal to start execution until return to idle. This ap-proach ensures a deterministic and temporal execution of the simulation across multiple nodes. As proof of concept, a co-simulation is conducted, showing that the control system of an SCR (selective catalyst reduction) emission reduction system can be packed in a functional mockup unit (FMU) and co-simulated with a physical model, built in Ptolemy II. Results show that FMI can be used for co-simulation of an embedded SCR control soft-ware and for control software development