Perceived institutional support and small venture performance: The mediating role of entrepreneurial persistence

YesThis article examines the entrepreneurial persistence of opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs in Ghana. Specifically, it develops a theoretical model focusing on the relationships among perceived institutional support, entrepreneurial persistence and small venture performance, including how entrepreneurial networks condition the relationship between institutional support and entrepreneurial persistence. Using time-lagged data from 373 opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs leading small ventures in Ghana, we find broad support for our hypotheses. The insights from our study provide an integrative understanding of the relationships among perceived institutional support, entrepreneurial persistence and venture performance in an adverse environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Meiotic Transmission of Drosophila pseudoobscura Chromosomal Arrangements

Drosophila pseudoobscura harbors a rich gene arrangement polymorphism on the third chromosome generated by a series of overlapping paracentric inversions. The arrangements suppress recombination in heterokaryotypic individuals, which allows for the selective maintenance of coadapted gene complexes. Previous mapping experiments used to determine the degree to which recombination is suppressed in gene arrangement heterozygotes produced non-recombinant progeny in non-Mendelian ratios. The deviations from Mendelian expectations could be the result of viability differences between wild and mutant chromosomes, meiotic drive because of achiasmate pairing of homologues in heterokaryotypic females during meiosis, or a combination of both mechanisms. The possibility that the frequencies of the chromosomal arrangements in natural populations are affected by mechanisms other than adaptive selection led us to consider these hypotheses. We performed reciprocal crosses involving both heterozygous males and females to determine if the frequency of the non-recombinant progeny deviates significantly from Mendelian expectations and if the frequencies deviate between reciprocal crosses. We failed to observe non-Mendelian ratios in multiple crosses, and the frequency of the non-recombinant classes differed in only one of five pairs of reciprocal crosses despite sufficient power to detect these differences in all crosses. Our results indicate that deviations from Mendelian expectations in recombination experiments involving the D. pseudoobscura inversion system are most likely due to fitness differences of gene arrangement karyotypes in different environments

Evaluation of Rehabilitation of Memory in Neurological Disabilities (ReMiND): a randomized controlled trial

OBJECTIVE:The evidence for the effectiveness of memory rehabilitation is inconclusive. The aim was to compare the effectiveness of two group memory rehabilitation programmes with a self-help group control. DESIGN:Single-blind randomized controlled trial. PARTICIPANTS:Participants with memory problems following traumatic brain injury, stroke or multiple sclerosis were recruited from community settings. INTERVENTIONS:Participants were randomly allocated, in cohorts of four, to compensation or restitution group treatment programmes or a self-help group control. All programmes were manual-based and comprised two individual and ten weekly group sessions. MAIN MEASURES:Memory functions, mood, and activities of daily living were assessed at baseline and five and seven months after randomization. RESULTS:There were 72 participants (mean age 47.7, SD 10.2 years; 32 men). There was no significant effect of treatment on the Everyday Memory Questionnaire (P = 0.97). At seven months the mean scores were comparable (restitution 36.6, compensation 41.0, self-help 44.1). However, there was a significant difference between groups on the Internal Memory Aids Questionnaire (P = 0.002). The compensation and restitution groups each used significantly more internal memory aids than the self-help group (P 0.05). CONCLUSIONS:There results show few statistically significant effects of either compensation or restitution memory group treatment as compared with a self-help group control. Further randomized trials of memory rehabilitation are needed

Valtion aluehallintovirastot ja niiden ylijohtajat: Pohjoiseurooppalainen analogia Ranskan prefeikteille

This chapter examines the closest Finnish analogy to the French function of the prefect. In Finland, since 2010, this function has been vested in the institution of the State Regional Administrative Agency (SRAA, aluehallintovirasto, ‘AVI’). There are six SRAAs, each headed by a Chief Director (ylijohtaja) nominated by the government. The study had four main findings. First, despite ambiguity in institutional terminology, classifications, boundaries and identities concerning the SRAA, one can discern few true functional or structural deficiencies. Second, the SRAA is a hybrid between an institution of its own and a territorial representative of either government ministries or government agencies, to which is related the fact that each SRAA has both responsibilities concerning its territory and nationwide responsibilities. Third, tensions between performance and institutional legitimation prevail in the institution of the SRAA, but again without serious deficiencies. Fourth, the 2010 substitution of the SRAA for the former Province comprised a radical institutional change. The 2015–2019 Finnish government intended to abolish the SRAAs, but the subsequent government abandoned that reform, and ultimately by mid-2020 it became clear that the institution of the SRAA was here to stay after all.Peer reviewe

Institutional fields as linked arenas: Inter-field resource dependence, institutional work and institutional change

Theories of institutional change have paid limited attention to the ways in which relations between institutional fields might facilitate or hinder institutional change. I introduce inter-field resource dependence as an important condition explaining institutional change between fields. Building on resource dependence theory, I conceptualize two dimensions of inter-field resource dependence: mutual dependence and power imbalance. I argue that these two dimensions have opposite effects on the likelihood of institutional change between fields. Mutual dependence between two fields increases the chances of institutional change by inducing actors in both the fields to work at creating new shared institutions in order to regulate their mutual dependence. Power imbalance between two fields decreases the chances of institutional change by inducing actors in the dominant field to work at maintaining existing institutions in order to preserve their power. Thus, different types of inter-field resource dependence motivate actors to undertake different forms of institutional work, which in turn shape the likelihood of institutional change between fields. Developing this core argument, I theorize that whether the institutional change occurring between two fields is radical or incremental is a function of the type of resource dependence linking the two fields; for example, when power imbalance is high, institutional change is unlikely but when it occurs it tends to be radical

ResearchFlow: Understanding the Knowledge Flow between Academia and Industry

Understanding, monitoring, and predicting the flow of knowledge between academia and industry is of critical importance for a variety of stakeholders, including governments, funding bodies, researchers, investors, and companies. To this purpose, we introduce ResearchFlow, an approach that integrates semantic technologies and machine learning to quantifying the diachronic behaviour of research topics across academia and industry. ResearchFlow exploits the novel Academia/Industry DynAmics (AIDA) Knowledge Graph in order to characterize each topic according to the frequency in time of the related i) publications from academia, ii) publications from industry, iii) patents from academia, and iv) patents from industry. This representation is then used to produce several analytics regarding the academia/industry knowledge flow and to forecast the impact of research topics on industry. We applied ResearchFlow to a dataset of 3.5M papers and 2M patents in Computer Science and highlighted several interesting patterns. We found that 89.8% of the topics first emerge in academic publications, which typically precede industrial publications by about 5.6 years and industrial patents by about 6.6 years. However this does not mean that academia always dictates the research agenda. In fact, our analysis also shows that industrial trends tend to influence academia more than academic trends affect industry. We evaluated ResearchFlow on the task of forecasting the impact of research topics on the industrial sector and found that its granular characterization of topics improves significantly the performance with respect to alternative solutions