Investigating total entrepreneurial activity and entrepreneurial intention in Africa regions using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)

This study offers a novel evaluation of the conditions for Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) and Entrepreneurial Intention (EI) across 59 Sub-Saharan African regions. The analysis employs fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2013) survey data using five condition variables, measuring regional-level entrepreneurial attitudes and perceptions, including education level, considered against TEA and EI. This novel regional contribution identifies diversity between African countries and regions for entrepreneurial activities and its drivers, with several groups identified. This highlights a requirement for future research encompassing further countries and regions in African, and also multi-year studies that can track these issues longitudinally. The study informs knowledge and practice regarding entrepreneurial behaviour across African regions. Through examination of the different combinations of condition variables, across causal recipes, it provides understanding of variations in the socio-cultural drivers of entrepreneurial activity between regions, groups of regions, and countries, for TEA and EI

Do UK universities communicate their brands effectively through their websites?

This paper attempts to explore the effectiveness of UK universities’ websites. The area of branding in higher education has received increasing academic investigation, but little work has researched how universities demonstrate their brand promises through their websites. The quest to differentiate through branding can be challenging in the university context, however. It is argued that those institutions that have a strong distinctive image will be in a better position to face a changing future. Employing a multistage methodology, the web pages of twenty UK universities were investigated by using a combination of content and multivariable analysis. Results indicated ‘traditional values’ such as teaching and research were often well communicated in terms of online brand but ‘emotional values’ like social responsibility and the universities’ environments were less consistently communicated, despite their increased topicality. It is therefore suggested that emotional values may offer a basis for possible future online differentiation

Exploring the topology of the plausible: Fs/QCA counterfactual analysis and the plausible fit of unobserved organizational configurations

The main aim of this contribution is to expand the dominant rationale of organizational design research by including solutions and possibilities not observed in reality. We believe that the counterfactual approach to configurations responds to an open call in organization theory and strategy to move the modelling of fit towards a more robust and theory-based specification. With this new approach we propose to rediscover the roots of organization design as a distinct normative discipline that ‘should stand approximately in relation to the basic social sciences as engineering stands with respect to physical sciences or medicine to the biological’. At a more general level, our view implies an expansion of the dominant meaning of the concept of ‘relevance’ in management research. While we agree with Gulati (2007: 780) that we as scholars should probe ‘more deeply into the problems and other issues that managers care about’, we also believe that relevance does not necessarily mean that researchers have to use an ex-post rationality by studying only empirically frequent phenomena. In contrast, we think that any management esearcher should bring with her or himself a fragment of the spirit of the great Greek philosopher Anaximander (c. 610–c. 546 BC), who foresaw the concept of the infinite universe without the support of any empirical observation and against the predominant wisdom of the time. Not by chance, Karl Popper (1998) onsidered Anaximander’s intuitions among the most vivid demonstrations of the power of human thought and logic

Context and Implications Document for: School-based interventions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a systematic review with multiple synthesis methods

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record

Redefining Case Study

Abstract: In this paper the authors propose a more precise and encompass-ing definition of case study than is usually found. They support their defini-tion by clarifying that case study is neither a method nor a methodology nor a research design as suggested by others. They use a case study prototype of their own design to propose common properties of case study and demon-strate how these properties support their definition. Next, they present sev-eral living myths about case study and refute them in relation to their definition. Finally, they discuss the interplay between the terms case study and unit of analysis to further delineate their definition of case study. The target audiences for this paper include case study researchers, research de-sign and methods instructors, and graduate students interested in case study research

Success Factors of European Syndromic Surveillance Systems: A Worked Example of Applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Introduction: Syndromic surveillance aims at augmenting traditional public health surveillance with timely information. To gain a head start, it mainly analyses existing data such as from web searches or patient records. Despite the setup of many syndromic surveillance systems, there is still much doubt about the benefit of the approach. There are diverse interactions between performance indicators such as timeliness and various system characteristics. This makes the performance assessment of syndromic surveillance systems a complex endeavour. We assessed if the comparison of several syndromic surveillance systems through Qualitative Comparative Analysis helps to evaluate performance and identify key success factors. Materials and Methods: We compiled case-based, mixed data on performance and characteristics of 19 syndromic surveillance systems in Europe from scientific and grey literature and from site visits. We identified success factors by applying crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. We focused on two main areas of syndromic surveillance application: seasonal influenza surveillance and situational awareness during different types of potentially health threatening events. Results: We found that syndromic surveillance systems might detect the onset or peak of seasonal influenza earlier if they analyse non-clinical data sources. Timely situational awareness during different types of events is supported by an automated syndromic surveillance system capable of analysing multiple syndromes. To our surprise, the analysis of multiple data sources was no key success factor for situational awareness. Conclusions: We suggest to consider these key success factors when designing or further developing syndromic surveillance systems. Qualitative Comparative Analysis helped interpreting complex, mixed data on small-N cases and resulted in concrete and practically relevant findings

Additional Quantitative Trait Loci and Candidate Genes for Seed Isoflavone Content in Soybean

Seed isoflavone content of soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) is a trait of moderate heritablity and an ideal target for marker selection. To date over 20 QTL have been identified underlying this trait among seven populations. The objectives of this study were to identify additional QTL and candidate genes controlling isoflavone content in a set of recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations of soybean grown in two different seasons. Variations of isoflavones namely daidzein, glycitein and genistein contents over two growing seasons and locations suggests that isoflavones are influenced by both genes and environments. Six QTL were identified on five different chromosomes (Chr) or linkage groups (LG) that controlled daidzein (Chr_2/LG-M; Chr_17a/LG-D2), glycitein (Chr_2/LG-D1b; Chr_8/LG-A2) and genistein (Chr_8/LG-A2; Chr_12/LG-H) respectively in the seeds grown in season 2010. Two QTL were identified for daidzein (Chr_6/LG-C2; Chr_13b/LG-F), two QTLs for glycitein (Chr_1/LG-D1a; Chr_17c/LG-D2) and five QTLs for genistein (Chr_3/ LG-N; Chr_8/LG-A2; Chr_9/LG-K; Chr_18/LG-G) in the seeds of the 2011 growing season. Genes located within QTL confidence intervals were retrieved and gene ontology (GO) terms were used to identify those related to the flavonoid biosynthesis process. Twenty six candidate genes were identified that may be involved in isoflavones accumulation in soybean seeds

The comorbidity of depression and neurocognitive disorder in persons with HIV infection: call for investigation and treatment

Depression and neurocognitive disorder continue to be the major neuropsychiatric disorders affecting persons with HIV (PWH). The prevalence of major depressive disorder is two to fourfold higher among PWH than the general population (∼6.7%). Prevalence estimates of neurocognitive disorder among PWH range from 25 to over 47% – depending upon the definition used (which is currently evolving), the size of the test battery employed, and the demographic and HIV disease characteristics of the participants included, such as age range and sex distribution. Both major depressive disorder and neurocognitive disorder also result in substantial morbidity and premature mortality. However, though anticipated to be relatively common, the comorbidity of these two disorders in PWH has not been formally studied. This is partly due to the clinical overlap of the neurocognitive symptoms of these two disorders. Both also share neurobehavioral aspects — particularly apathy — as well as an increased risk for non-adherence to antiretroviral therapy. Shared pathophysiological mechanisms potentially explain these intersecting phenotypes, including neuroinflammatory, vascular, and microbiomic, as well as neuroendocrine/neurotransmitter dynamic mechanisms. Treatment of either disorder affects the other with respect to symptom reduction as well as medication toxicity. We present a unified model for the comorbidity based upon deficits in dopaminergic transmission that occur in both major depressive disorder and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder. Specific treatments for the comorbidity that decrease neuroinflammation and/or restore associated deficits in dopaminergic transmission may be indicated and merit study

Nature, prevalence and factors associated with depression among the elderly in a rural south Indian community

Background: Depression in old age is an important public health problem causing considerable morbidity and disability worldwide. There is a dearth of community studies from India investigating geriatric depression and its associated risk factors. This study aimed to establish the nature, prevalence and factors associated with geriatric depression in a rural south Indian community

But Not Both:The Exclusive Disjunction in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)

The application of Boolean logic using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is becoming more frequent in political science but is still in its relative infancy. Boolean ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ are used to express and simplify combinations of necessary and sufficient conditions. This paper draws out a distinction overlooked by the QCA literature: the difference between inclusive- and exclusive-or (OR and XOR). It demonstrates that many scholars who have used the Boolean OR in fact mean XOR, discusses the implications of this confusion and explains the applications of XOR to QCA. Although XOR can be expressed in terms of OR and AND, explicit use of XOR has several advantages: it mirrors natural language closely, extends our understanding of equifinality and deals with mutually exclusive clusters of sufficiency conditions. XOR deserves explicit treatment within QCA because it emphasizes precisely the values that make QCA attractive to political scientists: contextualization, confounding variables, and multiple and conjunctural causation