Digitaalisen opetuksen kasvuyritysten kansainvälistymiseen vaikuttavat tekijät

As well as many other industries, education is currently being disrupted by new emerging digital solutions. Teachers all around the world are adopting new digital materials to their everyday teaching including digital books and educational games. This recent trend engenders opportunity for new companies to emerge with cutting-edge digital educational solutions. Furthermore, with a digital solution expansion to international markets without heavy investments is possible. However, for example in Finland only few companies have been able to successfully enter new markets with educational technology. Internationalization strategies have been widely studied during the past few decades. The early studies already identified a set of different market entry modes including export, licensing, franchising, joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries. However, for small resource-limited companies, export is the most viable option. Export allows company to maintain the full control of the process and product without making heavy investments on the internationalization. The export performance framework shows that the export strategy is depending on both internal (company resources) and external factors (country and industry characteristics). More recent studies have also identified alternative entry modes such as cooperative strategies and innovative use of internet. However, the previous literature has not studied this topic purely in education industry and therefore does not provide detailed knowledge for startups planning international expansion in digital education industry. The aim of this study is to identify key determinants for market entry strategy selection for startups in digital education, and identify different strategies for addressing the major challenges in the digital education markets. To study this topic, 15 interviews were carried out to both experts of internationalization of digital education and companies that are pursuing international expansion with digital educational solutions. The data analysis followed Gioia methodology (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2012), in which 1st-order terms are identified first, and then the 2nd-order themes are established accordingly. The findings revealed several market-level factors that drive the market entry strategy selection. These factors were related to cultural and regulatory differences, trust and reliability, different customer types and customer needs. In addition, the findings showed several strategies how companies can address the challenges related to the above market-level factors. Therefore, this study provides managers of startups with insights of digital education markets as well as a toolkit for addressing the market-level challenges in digital education.Opetusala on kokemassa suuria muutoksia uusien digitaalisten ratkaisuiden myötä. Opettajat ympäri maailmaa ottavat opetuskäyttöön uusia digitaalisia ratkaisuja kuten digitaalisia oppikirjoja sekä oppimispelejä. Opetuksen digitalisaatio synnyttää uusia yrityksiä, jotka tuottavat innovatiivisia ja moderneja teknologiaratkaisuja opetuskäyttöön. Tämänlaisille digitaalisia ratkaisuja tuottaville yrityksille on mahdollista myös kasvaa kansainvälisesti ilman suuria alkuinvestointeja. Kuitenkin vain muutama suomalainen digitaalisia ratkaisuja tuottava yritys on kyennyt onnistuneesti laajentumaan uusille markkinoille. Kansainvälistymisstrategioita on tutkittu laajalti viimeisten vuosikymmenien aikana. Jo aikaiset tutkimukset määrittelivät erilaisia tapoja tunkeutua uusille markkinoille. Näitä tapoja ovat muun muassa vienti, lisensointi, franchise-periaate, yhteisyritys sekä tytäryhtiö. Useimmille pienille yrityksille suora vienti on kuitenkin parhaiten sopiva tapa kansainvälistyä. Suora vienti antaa yritykselle täyden kontrollin operaatiosta ja tuotteesta vaatimatta kuitenkaan suuria alkuinvestointeja. Viennin suorituskyky –malli osoittaa, että vientistrategia perustuu sekä sisäisiin (yrityksen resurssit) että ulkoisiin tekijöihin (markkina- ja toimiala kohtaisiin tekijöihin). Uudemmat tutkimukset ovat lisäksi esittäneet vaihtoehtoisia tapoja tunkeutua markkinoille kuten yhteistyöhön perustuvat strategiat ja internetin innovatiivinen hyödyntäminen. Kirjallisuus ei kuitenkaan ole tutkinut kansainvälistymistä pelkästään opetusalan näkökulmasta, eikä täten tarjoa yksityiskohtaista tietoa pienten digitaalisia ratkaisuja tuottavan yrityksen kansainvälistymisestä. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tunnistaa keskeisimmät tekijät, jotka vaikuttavat pienten kasvuyritysten tapaan tunkeutua markkinoille, sekä tunnistaa erilaisia strategioita markkinoiden keskeisimpien haasteiden ylittämiseen. Tutkimuksessa suoritettiin 15 haastattelua sekä opetuksen kansainvälistämisen eksperteille että pienille kasvuyrityksille, jotka ovat kansainvälistyneet digitaalisen opetuksen alalla. Haastatteludata analysoitiin käyttämällä Gioia-metodia (Gioia et al., 2012), jossa tunnistetaan ensin ensimmäisen tason aiheet, joiden perusteella voidaan luoda laajempia toisen tason teemoja. Tutkimuksen tulokset toivat ilmi useita markkina-tason tekijöitä, jotka vaikuttavat yrityksen tapaan tunkeutua markkinoille. Nämä tekijät liittyivät kulttuuriin ja sääntelyyn, luotettavuuteen, erilaisiin asiakastyyppeihin, sekä asiakkaiden tarpeisiin. Tulokset toivat esiin myös useita tapoja, joilla yritykset voivat ylittää keskeiset haasteet liittyen edellä mainittuihin markkina-tason tekijöihin. Tutkimuksen tulokset tuovat esiin markkinoiden keskeisiä piirteitä sekä erilaisia tapoja vastata markkinoiden erityispiirteistä syntyviin haasteisiin

Segmenting excessive alcohol consumers : implications for social marketing

While extant studies have mainly investigated differences between drinkers and non-drinkers, the literature on segmenting heavy drinkers and profiling them is surprisingly scarce. This study makes a significant contribution to the social marketing literature by illustrating a novel way of targeting heavy drinkers by utilizing their health management styles and provides useful insights into understanding how segmentation could be a valuable tool for developing effective social marketing programmes that are aimed at reducing excessive alcohol consumption. Analysis of data collected through the HINTS study reveals a two-cluster segmentation model. The two segments of heavy drinkers distinctly differ in terms of the extent of reliance and trust they place on health service professionals. Hence, the segmentation analysis provides interesting and novel insights into the level of dependence of heavy drinkers on the health care system and their health management styles. The study provides an actionable perspective for future research, public policy and social marketing

Geometric frustration and concerted migration in the superionic conductor barium hydride

Authors would like to thank the ISIS Facility Development Studentship for funding this work. Additionally, I would like to thank ISIS Neutron and Muon Source for providing the beam time to collect all the scattering data presented in this paper. Finally, I would like to thank the Crockett Scholarship for supporting my studies. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to any Accepted Author Manuscript version arising.Ionic conductivity is a phenomenon of great interest, not least because of its application in advanced electrochemical devices such as batteries and fuel cells. While lithium, sodium, and oxide fast ion conductors have been the subjects of much study, the advent of hydride (H–) ion fast conductors opens up new windows in the understanding of fast ion conduction due to the fundamental simplicity of the H– ion consisting of just two electrons and one proton. Here we probe the nature of fast ion conduction in the hydride ion conductor, barium hydride (BaH2). Unusually for a fast ion conductor, this material has a structure based upon a close-packed hexagonal lattice, with important analogues such as BaF2 and Li2S. We elucidate how the structure of the high temperature phase of BaH2 results in a disordered hydride sublattice. Furthermore, using novel combined quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) we show how the high energy ions interact to create a concerted migration that results in macroscopic superionic conductivity via an interstitialcy mechanism.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Non-invasive imaging reveals convergence in root and stem vulnerability to cavitation across five tree species

Root vulnerability to cavitation is challenging to measure and under-represented in current datasets. This gap limits the precision of models used to predict plant responses to drought because roots comprise the critical interface between plant and soil. In this study we measured vulnerability to drought induced cavitation in woody roots and stems of five tree species (Acacia aneura, Cedrus deodara, Eucalyptus crebra, Eucalytus saligna, and Quercus palustris) with a wide range of xylem anatomies. X-ray microtomography was used to visualize the accumulation of xylem embolism in stems and roots of intact plants that were naturally dehydrated to varying levels of water stress. Vulnerability to cavitation, defined as the water potential causing a 50% loss of hydraulic function (P50), varied broadly among the species (-4.51 to -11.93 MPa in stems and -3.13 to -9.64 MPa in roots). The P50 of roots and stems was significantly related across species, with species that had more vulnerable stems also having more vulnerable roots. While there was strong convergence in root and stem vulnerability to cavitation, the P50 of roots was significantly higher than the P50 of stems in three species. However, the difference in root and stem vulnerability for these species was small; between 1% to 31% of stem P50. Thus, while some differences existed between organs, roots were not dramatically more vulnerable to embolism than stems and the differences observed were less than those reported in previous studies. Further study is required to evaluate the vulnerability across root orders and to extend these conclusions to a greater number of species and xylem functional types

Social marketing and healthy eating : Findings from young people in Greece

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Linking Auxin with Photosynthetic Rate via Leaf Venation

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In-situ studies of high temperature thermal batteries : a perspective

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