The status of entrepreneurship education in Australian universities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical overview of the current state of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Australia; placing emphasis on programs, curricula and entrepreneurship ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach The authors performed a contextual review of the literature by delineating entrepreneurship education programs, the entrepreneurial ecosystem and EE learning and teaching. The review was enhanced by a systematic collection of data from higher education institutions web sites, depicting the prevailing situation of entrepreneurship programs, courses, subjects and their ecosystems. Findings A number of interesting findings emerged from this study. From a curricular perspective, Australian universities offer 584 subjects related to entrepreneurship. This includes dominance at undergraduate level, representing 24 minors/majors and specializations in entrepreneurship. In total, 135 entrepreneurship ecosystems were identified. Research limitations/implications This paper presents findings from university web sites and as such requires introspection to validate individual university offerings. Practical implications The study provides the status of EE in Australia, and may guide academic and policy decision makers to further develop entrepreneurship initiatives. Originality/value This paper provides the first analytical overview of EE in Australia and paves the way for further evaluation.

Tax compliance and psychic costs: Behavioral experimental evidence using a physiological marker

Although paying taxes is a key element of a well-functioning society, there is still limited understanding as to why people actually pay their taxes. Models emphasizing that taxpayers make strategic, financially motivated compliance decisions seemingly assume an overly restrictive view of human nature. Law abidance may be more accurately explained by social norms, a concept that has gained growing importance as research attempts to understand the tax compliance puzzle. This study analyzes the influence of psychic stress generated by the possibility of breaking social norms in the tax compliance context. We measure psychic stress using heart rate variability (HRV), which captures the psychobiological or neural equivalents of psychic stress that may arise from the contemplation of real or imagined actions, producing immediate physiologic discomfort. The results of our laboratory experiments provide empirical evidence of a positive correlation between psychic stress and tax compliance, thus underscoring the importance of moral sentiments for tax compliance. We also identify three distinct types of individuals who differ in their levels of psychic stress, tax morale, and tax compliance.

On the expressive power of behavioral profiles

Behavioral profiles have been proposed as a behavioral abstraction of dynamic systems, specifically in the context of business process modeling. A behavioral profile can be seen as a complete graph over a set of task labels, where each edge is annotated with one relation from a given set of binary behavioral relations. Since their introduction, behavioral profiles were argued to provide a convenient way for comparing pairs of process models with respect to their behavior or computing behavioral similarity between process models. Still, as of today, there is little understanding of the expressive power of behavioral profiles. Via counter-examples, several authors have shown that behavioral profiles over various sets of behavioral relations cannot distinguish certain systems up to trace equivalence, even for restricted classes of systems represented as safe workflow nets. This paper studies the expressive power of behavioral profiles from two angles. Firstly, the paper investigates the expressive power of behavioral profiles and systems captured as acyclic workflow nets. It is shown that for unlabeled acyclic workflow net systems, behavioral profiles over a simple set of behavioral relations are expressive up to configuration equivalence. When systems are labeled, this result does not hold for any of several previously proposed sets of behavioral relations. Secondly, the paper compares the expressive power of behavioral profiles and regular languages. It is shown that for any set of behavioral relations, behavioral profiles are strictly less expressive than regular languages, entailing that behavioral profiles cannot be used to decide trace equivalence of finite automata and thus Petri nets.

The present attitude of African youth towards entrepreneurship

It is widely known that entrepreneurship plays a crucial role within the economy. As the African economy needs rapid development and growth, this paper investigates the present attitude of African youth towards new business creation and entrepreneurship. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used, and 204 people participated in the study. The participants were accessed via social media such as Facebook (pages and groups), LinkedIn (groups), Twitter, and WhatsApp. The results reveal that African youth have positive attitudes and that they are entrepreneurially active and ready to take risks, provided that they can be self-dependent. Similarly, the results show that entrepreneurship education is much needed to improve innovative start-ups in Africa.

Negative experiences and donor return: An examination of the role of asking for something different

BACKGROUND Negative donation experiences, including vasovagal reactions, deter donor retention. However, whether this deterrence effect varies as a function of whole blood (WB) donation history and requests to donate the same or a different product remains unclear. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS The responses of 894 eligible WB donors who had been approached to convert to plasmapheresis and 954 eligible first-time plasmapheresis donors who had been surveyed on their last donation experience and their intention to donate plasma were considered. This information was matched with individual vasovagal reaction records, deferral category, WB donation history, and subsequent donation behavioral data obtained from the blood collection agency. RESULTS Path analysis indicated that the application of a deferral and an officially recorded vasovagal reaction decreased donors' intentions to continue plasmapheresis donation, but had no effect on WB donors' intentions to convert to plasmapheresis. Consistent with past findings, vasovagal reactions occurred more frequently with female and inexperienced donors. CONCLUSION Experiencing vasovagal reactions and deferrals may not universally deter donors from continuing to donate. Rather, the offer to convert to another form of donation—in this instance, plasmapheresis—after experiencing a negative donation event while donating WB may be sufficient to eliminate the deterrence effect on retention.

Measuring the expressed emotion in Chinese family caregivers of persons with dementia: Validation of a Chinese version of the Family Attitude Scale

- Background Expressed emotion (EE) captures the affective quality of the relationship between family caregivers and their care recipients and is known to increase the risk of poor health outcomes for caregiving dyads. Little is known about expressed emotion in the context of caregiving for persons with dementia, especially in non-Western cultures. The Family Attitude Scale (FAS) is a psychometrically sound self-reporting measure for EE. Its use in the examination of caregiving for patients with dementia has not yet been explored. - Objectives This study was performed to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the FAS (FAS-C) in Chinese caregivers of relatives with dementia, and its validity in predicting severe depressive symptoms among the caregivers. - Methods The FAS was translated into Chinese using Brislin's model. Two expert panels evaluated the semantic equivalence and content validity of this Chinese version (FAS-C), respectively. A total of 123 Chinese primary caregivers of relatives with dementia were recruited from three elderly community care centers in Hong Kong. The FAS-C was administered with the Chinese versions of the 5-item Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5), the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) and the Revised Memory and Behavioral Problem Checklist (RMBPC). - Results The FAS-C had excellent semantic equivalence with the original version and a content validity index of 0.92. Exploratory factor analysis identified a three-factor structure for the FAS-C (hostile acts, criticism and distancing). Cronbach's alpha of the FAS-C was 0.92. Pearson's correlation indicated that there were significant associations between a higher score on the FAS-C and greater caregiver burden (r = 0.66, p < 0.001), poorer mental health of the caregivers (r = −0.65, p < 0.001) and a higher level of dementia-related symptoms (frequency of symptoms: r = 0.45, p < 0.001; symptom disturbance: r = 0.51, p < 0.001), which serves to suggest its construct validity. For detecting severe depressive symptoms of the family caregivers, the receiving operating characteristics (ROC) curve had an area under curve of 0.78 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.69–0.87, p < 0.0001). The optimal cut-off score was >47 with a sensitivity of 0.720 (95% CI = 0.506–0.879) and specificity of 0.742 (95% CI = 0.643–0.826). - Conclusions The FAS-C is a reliable and valid measure to assess the affective quality of the relationship between Chinese caregivers and their relatives with dementia. It also has acceptable predictability in identifying family caregivers with severe depressive symptoms.

Improvising a future in the performing arts: The benefits of reframing performing arts entrepreneurship education in familiar terms

Improvisation is a central concept in any drama, theatre or performance studies degree. It is a critical skill, which helps performers learn to ‘make it up as they go along’, apply existing skills to new situations and environments, and, of course, adapt find the most effective or creative pathway towards a their aims. As such, the fact that improvisation is rarely listed as a core career competency — even for performing arts graduates, who can struggle to engage with entrepreneurial skill sets they will need to learn to manage their unpredictable portfolio careers when they are couched in business terms — is somewhat strange. This paper examines the benefits of reframing the administrative, management and entrepreneurial skills arts graduates need to navigate a complex, uncertain, constantly changing industrial landscape in terms of improvisation, play, and playful self - performance. It suggests that adding improvisation to our career training arsenal may be worthwhile, not just because it may assist graduates in navigating their way through a portfolio career, but because it may offer a more familiar, user- friendly terminology to assist graduates in understanding the need to develop administrative, management and entrepreneurial as well as artistic skills, and, in a sense, understand the similarities between the two sets of skills.

Craving mediates stress in predicting lapse during alcohol dependence treatment

Background Stress, craving, and depressed mood have all been implicated in alcohol use treatment lapses. Few studies have examined all 3 factors. Progress has been limited because of difficulties with craving assessment. The Alcohol Craving Experience Questionnaire (ACE) is a new measure of alcohol craving. It is both psychometrically sound and conceptually rigorous. This prospective study examines a stress–treatment response model that incorporates mediation by craving and moderation by depressed mood and pharmacotherapy. Methods Five hundred and thirty-nine consecutively treated alcohol-dependent patients voluntarily participated in an abstinence-based 12-week cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) program at a hospital alcohol and drug outpatient clinic. Measures of stress, craving, depressed mood, and alcohol dependence severity were administered prior to treatment. Treatment lapse and treatment dropout were assessed over the 12-week program duration. Results Patients reporting greater stress experienced stronger and more frequent cravings. Stronger alcohol craving predicted lapse, after controlling for dependence severity, stress, depression, and pharmacotherapy. Alcohol craving mediated stress to predict lapse. Depressed mood and anticraving medication were not significant moderators. Conclusions Among treatment seeking, alcohol-dependent patients, craving mediated the relationship between stress and lapse. The effect was not moderated by depressed mood or anticraving medication.

Young love: Romantic concerns and associated mental health issues among adolescent help-seekers

Over 50% of young people have dated by age 15. While romantic relationship concerns are a major reason for adolescent help-seeking from counselling services, we have a limited understanding of what types of relationship issues are most strongly related to mental health issues and suicide risk. This paper used records of 4019 counselling sessions with adolescents (10–18 years) seeking help from a national youth counselling service for a romantic relationship concern to: (i) explore what types and stage (pre, during, post) of romantic concerns adolescents seek help for; (ii) how they are associated with mental health problems, self-harm and suicide risk; and (iii) whether these associations differ by age and gender. In line with developmental-contextual theory, results suggest that concerns about the initiation of relationships are common in early adolescence, while concerns about maintaining and repairing relationships increase with age. Relationship breakups were the most common concern for both male and female adolescents and for all age groups (early, mid, late adolescence). Data relating to a range of mental health issues were available for approximately half of the sample. Post-relationship concerns (including breakups) were also more likely than pre- or during-relationship concerns to be associated with concurrent mental health issues (36.8%), self-harm (22.6%) and suicide (9.9%). Results draw on a staged developmental theory of adolescent romantic relationships to provide a comprehensive assessment of relationship stressors, highlighting post-relationship as a particularly vulnerable time for all stages of adolescence. These findings contribute to the development of targeted intervention and support programs.