Incumbent capability enhancement in response to radical innovations

Schumpeterian market disequilibrium marked by entrepreneurial entry and incumbent exit has long held an important place in management literature. The extant literature has overwhelmingly championed the newcomer, despite incumbents' obvious advantages in resources, experience and market knowledge. The current research provides evidence for the effectiveness of the incumbent's strategy of capability enhancement (along an established technological trajectory) while responding to radical technological innovations. We develop a cognitive process model that integrates managerial cognition with capability development and deployment views, depicting the dynamics of the incumbent's capability enhancement process. We analyze the cognitive drivers of organizational actions in all stages (rigidity, triggering event, and capability renewal) and elucidate the role of top management cognition in the processes of detecting and correcting errors in a strategic course of action. We ground our model in the case of a cork-stopper industry veteran's decline as corks ceded ground to screw tops and other stoppers in the wine industry. How a major company fought back in response to the emergence of these, in the industry context, radical technological innovations, provides the basis for our narrative. The proposed theoretical model contributes to literature on technology management (with regard to incumbent strategies in response to radical innovation threats) as well as the role of cognition in strategy (providing an explanation of the cognitive underpinnings of capability development).     

Higher education outcomes, graduate employment and university performance indicators

Summary.  Official employment-related performance indicators in UK higher education are based on the population of students responding to the 'First destination supplement' (FDS). This generates potentially biased performance indicators as this population of students is not necessarily representative of the full population of leavers from each institution. University leavers who do not obtain qualifications and those who do not respond to the FDS are not included within the official analysis. We compare an employment-related performance indicator based on those students who responded to the FDS with alternative approaches which address the potential non-random nature of this subgroup of university leavers.     

The influence of religiosity on charitable behavior: A COPPS investigation

We examine the role of religion in charitable giving and find that the religious preference of both the donor and the recipient organization influence giving behavior. By exploiting a panel survey of charitable giving, we demonstrate that traditional empirical analysis on charitable giving masks important differences among donor groups. Religious giving by religious individuals is least responsive to changes in price and income, while secular giving by secular individuals has the greatest sensitivity.     

Ecosystem services provided by urban spontaneous vegetation

Spontaneous vegetation colonizes large areas in and around cities. These unmanaged areas are considered to have low economic value or indicate dereliction, but recent research suggests that these can contribute valuable ecosystem services. This study evaluates indicators of ecosystem services in three habitats: urban spontaneous vegetation (USV), managed lawns, and semi-natural urban forest, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. USV had higher indicator values for habitat provisioning (plant species diversity, invertebrate abundance and taxonomic diversity) than the other habitats. Indicators of climatic regulatory services (albedo and leaf area index) in USV were similar to those in lawn habitats. Organic carbon content of the soils, an indicator of carbon storage, was lowest in USV but only marginally lower than in lawns. Standing biomass, an indicator of production services, was lowest in USV but lawn production may have been overestimated. While USV sites are usually transitory components of the urban landscape, they deserve further consideration due to their provision of ecosystem services, in some cases to a greater extent than conventionally valued urban habitats.     

The demographic characteristics of populations living near oil and gas wells in the USA

Population and Environment - This study documents the prevalence of historically marginalized populations (across age, income, education, race-ethnicity, and language) living near active oil and...     

Anticipated Ethics and Regulatory Challenges in PCORnet: The National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network

PCORnet, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, seeks to establish a robust national health data network for patient-centered comparative effectiveness research. This article reports the results of a PCORnet survey designed to identify the ethics and regulatory challenges anticipated in network implementation. A 12-item online survey was developed by leadership of the PCORnet Ethics and Regulatory Task Force; responses were collected from the 29 PCORnet networks. The most pressing ethics issues identified related to informed consent, patient engagement, privacy and confidentiality, and data sharing. High priority regulatory issues included IRB coordination, privacy and confidentiality, informed consent, and data sharing. Over 150 IRBs and five different approaches to managing multisite IRB review were identified within PCORnet. Further empirical and scholarly work, as well as practical and policy guidance, is essential if important initiatives that rely on comparative effectiveness research are to move forward.     

Human Health Risk Assessment of Penicillin/Aminopenicillin Resistance in Enterococci Due to Penicillin Use in Food Animals

Penicillin and ampicillin drugs are approved for use in food animals in the United States to treat, control, and prevent diseases, and penicillin is approved for use to improve growth rates in pigs and poultry. This article considers the possibility that such uses might increase the incidence of ampicillin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (AREF) of animal origin in human infections, leading to increased hospitalization and mortality due to reduced response to ampicillin or penicillin. We assess the risks from continued use of penicillin-based drugs in food animals in the United States, using several assumptions to overcome current scientific uncertainties and data gaps. Multiplying the total at-risk population of intensive care unit (ICU) patients by a series of estimated factors suggests that not more than 0.04 excess mortalities per year (under conservative assumptions) to 0.14 excess mortalities per year (under very conservative assumptions) might be prevented in the whole U.S. population if current use of penicillin drugs in food animals were discontinued and if this successfully reduced the prevalence of AREF infections among ICU patients. These calculations suggest that current penicillin usage in food animals in the United States presents very low (possibly zero) human health risks.