Dynamic capabilities and high-tech entrepreneurial ventures’ performance in the aftermath of an environmental jolt

This paper contributes to studies on dynamic capabilities (DCs) by showing that a neglected environmental contingency – i.e. the occurrence of a jolt – shapes the DCs–performance relationship. We focus on high-tech entrepreneurial ventures because these are the firms that jolts affect most; in so doing, we also advance the understanding of DCs in the entrepreneurship field. We argue that, in the aftermath of an environmental jolt, the high-tech entrepreneurial ventures that use internationalization and new product development capabilities to modify their resource configuration and regain environmental fit enjoy better performance. Econometric estimates on a sample of 340 Italian high-tech entrepreneurial ventures confronting the consequences of the global economic crisis that began in 2008 confirm that separately using these two DCs has a positive performance effect. This effect is stronger for relatively smaller ventures. Interestingly, despite synergies should arise from the combined use of the two DCs, we do not detect any superadditive effects.     

Challenges of Dealing with Financial Concerns during Life-Threatening Illness: Perspectives of Health Care Practitioners

ABSTRACT

The costs of serious medical illness and end of life care are often a heavy burden for patients and families (Collins, Stepanczuk, Williams, & Rich, 2016 Collins, A., Stepanczuk, C., Williams, N., & Rich, E. (2016). Supporting better patient decisions at the point of care: What payers and delivery systems can do (Mathematica Policy Research Issue Brief). Retrieved from http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/mprmprres/6c6a86e28d7149c993713352eeceaa18.htm [Google Scholar]; Kim, 2007 Kim, P. (2007). Cost of cancer care: The patient perspective. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 25(2), 228–232. doi:10.1200/JCO.2006.07.9111[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; May et al., 2014 May, C. R., Eton, D. T., Boehmer, K., Gallacher, K., Hunt, K., MacDonald, S.,?… &?Rogers, A. E. (2014). Rethinking the patient: Using burden of treatment theory to understand the changing dynamics of illness. BMC health services research, 14(1), 1–11. doi:10.1186/1472-6963-14-281[Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]; Zarit, 2004 Zarit, S. H. (2004). Family care and burden at the end of life. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 170(12), 1811–1812. doi:10.1503/cmaj.1040196[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Twenty-six practitioners, including social workers, managers/administrators, supervisors, and case managers from five health care settings, participated in qualitative semistructured interviews about financial challenges patients encountered. Seven practitioners took part in a focus group. Practitioners were recruited from hospice (n?=?5), long-term care (n?=?5), intensive care (n?=?5), dialysis (n?=?6), and oncology (n?=?5). Interview and focus group questions focused on financial challenges patients encountered when facing life-threatening illness. Interview data were transcribed and thematically coded and trustworthiness of data was established with peer debriefing, member checking, and agreement on themes among the authors. Practitioners described interacting micro, meso, and macroinfluences on the financial well-being and challenges patients encountered. Microlevel influences involved patient characteristics, such as their demographic profile and/or health status that set them up for financial aptitude or challenges. Macrolevel influences involved the larger health care/safety net system, which provided valuable resources for some patients but not others. Practitioners also discussed the mesolevel of influence, the local setting where they worked to match available resources with patients’ individual needs given the constraints emerging from the micro and macrolevels. Practitioners described how they navigated the interplay of these three areas to meet patients’ needs and cope with financial challenges. Implications for practice point to directly addressing the kind of financial concerns that patients and families facing financial burden from serious medical illness have, and identifying ways to bridge knowledge and resource access gaps at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.     

Creatively prototyping the future high street

Abstract

This paper gives a voice to a range of community and individual stakeholders who would not generally be heard in the conventional town planning process. We present a methodological technique, described as creative prototyping, that has at its heart, the capability to enable full stakeholder inclusivity into the future imagining of the smart city. Actively involving these individuals and community representatives in the research process enables deeper understanding of how technology and people can interact productively to create smart cities that are socially inclusive while still being commercially relevant. The research data for this paper are drawn from the findings of a workshop conducted by the authors that utilised Science Fiction Prototyping and Lego Serious Play. This research activity was driven by questions focusing upon the current complex interplay and tensions of technology and the UK’s physical high street. We first explore these issues theoretically in previous literature and then drawn upon this review to analyse the outcomes of the workshop. Three themes emerge from this analysis that have operational and strategic relevance to the development of future high streets; the importance of ever present but invisible technology, the forefronting of people in the smart city and the need for wide-ranging stakeholder input and participation into planning. The findings also illustrate that not all future imaginings of the retail high street are immediately practical or realistically applicable. However, in examining the many issues facing the current high street and in negotiating the multiplicity of voices with their competing demands and expectations, we offer the conclusion that the future smart city must become a place of truly shared sociality – rather than just mere proximity, customised convenience or a concentration point for multiple forms of entertainment.     

From bodies as ‘meat’ to bodies as ‘flesh’: the expression of performance management as ‘sacrificial acts’ within professional rugby

ABSTRACT

In this article, we argue that to extend the research on performance management we need to examine further how organisational members interweave the technology of such management into their work. Using Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, we question the notion that technology acts on bodies in a linear manner as ‘meat’ to be manipulated. His reversible ontology suggests that these materials can be woven into the flesh of organising in a multitude of ways. Specifically, we refer to professional rugby, and the manner in which its players utilise the technology of performance management, to forge a localised expression of sacrifice. We suggest that this expression provides a means for players to define and evaluate themselves against ‘good rugby’. As forms of evaluation may vary in organisations, we recommend that researchers do not solely associate performance management with metrics but also look to other, more localised, expressions to inform their work.     

Increasing aging and advocacy competency: the intergenerational advocacy pilot project

The Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Strengthening Aging and Gerontology Education for Social Work (SAGE-SW) project, funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation partnered with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) to develop an Intergenerational Policy and Advocacy Project (IAP). This curriculum pilot project, based on a community organization model, was conducted with 13 baccalaureate social work (BSW) and master's social work (MSW) programs across the country and 122 students. The project was one method to pursue CSWE SAGE-SW's efforts to infuse aging content into social work foundation curricula, to support intergenerational teaching, to strengthen social work advocacy skills, and to provide social work students with positive experiences working with older adults. Pilot sites were asked to carry out the project as part of an existing course foundation or field practicum course. Project activities included collaboration with a variety of community agencies, holding issues or "town hall" forums in order to educate community members about critical policy issues affecting older adults; making contacts and establishing relationships with local, state and/or federal legislators; and conducting assessments of the service needs of older adults in the students' communities. Questionnaires, feedback, pre-post evaluations as well as brief accounts of each project are presented. Participants considered the IAP to be a successful project in terms of the objectives of increasing awareness and competency among social work students of aging issues and of promoting intergenerational linkages between older people and social work students.     

Voice quality as a marker of ethnicity in New Zealand: From acoustics to perception1

This study is the first acoustic analysis of voice quality in the two main ethnic dialects of New Zealand English. In a production experiment, narratives from 36 speakers were analyzed and H1‐H2 spectral tilt measures were calculated for each vowel. The results provide instrumental evidence for impressionistic claims about the differing voice quality features of the two main ethnic groups, showing that Maori English speakers are creakier than European New Zealanders. A perception experiment was also carried out to determine the perceptual salience of voice quality for the identification of speaker ethnicity. The results of regression analyses confirm that listeners are sensitive to the phonation differences, and are able to rely on phonation cues in an ethnic dialect identification task. The study demonstrates the role of voice quality as a critical sociolinguistic variable, and highlights the importance of listeners’ previous dialect exposure in terms of sensitivity to prosodic cues. Ko tēnei pūrongo te tirohanga tuatahi ki ētahi āhuatanga o te reo e puta ana i te korokoro o ngā kaikōrero o ngā reo ā‐iwi e rua o te Reo Pākehā i Aotearoa. I tētahi whakamātau i āta tirohia ngā oropuare o ētahi kōrero nō ngā kaikōrero 36, ā, kua tatauria ngā ine H1‐H2 e kīia ana ko te spectral tilt. Ko ngā putanga he taunakitanga mō ngā whakaaro o te tāngata e pā ana ki te rerekētanga o ngā reo o te hunga Pākehā me te hunga Māori, e whakaatu hoki ana he kekē atu te reo o ngā mea e kōrero ana i te ‘Māori English’ i te reo e kōrerohia ana e te iwi Pākehā. He whakamātau whakarongo i whakahaerehia kia kite mena he āwhina tēnei āhuatanga o te reo kia mōhio te kaiwhakarongo ko wai te iwi o te kaikōrero. Ko ngā whakaputanga o ngā tatauranga e kī ana kei te tino mārama tēnei āhuatanga o te reo e puta ana i te korokoro o te tāngata, ā, ka taea ēnei rerekētanga te whakamahi kia whakawehea te tangata Māori i te tangata Pākehā. Nā tēnei ka kitea he āhuatanga motuhake te reo o te korokoro, ā, he mea nui hoki mena kua tino wāia te kaiwhakarongo ki ngā reo ā‐iwi. [Māori]     

Perspectives of Youth in Care in Serbia

In the context of evaluating child protection reform in Serbia, we explored the concept of positive youth development as well as how they experienced and understood the experience of placement. We sought to understand how youth perceive their strengths, the role of the care system, their views on how life experiences affect their strengths and how they see their future. Our position is that the way in which children see their situation is equally valuable as any other point of view, and that their doubts, questions and views should be learned in the research process. We used the methodology of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 16 young people in care aged 13–18 years. Results indicate their limited involvement in the process of making decisions related to their life and future. There is a strong need for meaningful involvement of children and young people in order to ensure their positive development.     

The reform of the welfare services in Norway: one office – one way of thinking?

This paper discusses the professional role of social workers in the new Norwegian Nav system. The Nav reform merged the state social insurance office, the state employment office and components of municipal social services. The aim is to include clients in the work force by making the services more holistic and efficient. The paper presents a discussion of the introduction of the ‘Nav reform’, drawing on a qualitative multi-method study. The material sheds light on a social worker's role under pressure to work in a more standardised and ‘simplified’ way. Social workers at the Nav offices must adjust to expectations that require a general, basic and common competence for all employees, as one type of comprehensive, but simplified and non-specialised, approach. The study describes the dilemma of how to combine one-stop service and specialist principles. The paper attempts to criticise ‘the flexible system’ related to Whole of Government perspectives and one-stop service principles as a generalist ‘light’ approach, as opposed to the generalist approach in social work. The findings provide a basis for raising questions about the development of the social worker's role in light of the post-New Public Management (NPM) reforms and the potential threat to the professional basis of social work.