How Entrepreneurs Become Skilled Cultural Operators

Cultural entrepreneurship and symbolic management perspectives portray entrepreneurs as skilled cultural operators and often assume them to be capable from the outset to purposefully use ‘cultural resources' in order to motivate resource-holding audiences to support their new ventures. We problematize this premise and develop a model of how entrepreneurs become skilful cultural operators and develop the cultural competences necessary for creating and growing their ventures. The model is grounded in a case study of an entrepreneur who set up shop and sought to acquire resources in a culturally unfamiliar setting. Our model proposes that two adaptive sensemaking processes - approval-driven sensemaking and autonomy-driven sensemaking - jointly facilitate the gradual development of cultural competences. These processes jointly enable entrepreneurs to gain cultural awareness and calibrate their symbolic enactments. Specifically, while approval-driven sensemaking facilitates recognizing cultural resources to symbolically couple a venture's identity claims more tightly with the cultural frames of targeted audiences and gain legitimate distinctiveness, autonomy-driven sensemaking enables recognizing cultural constraints and more effective symbolic decoupling to shield the venture from constraining cultural frames and defend the venture's autonomy and resources. We conclude the paper with a discussion of the theoretical implications of our study for cultural entrepreneurship and symbolic management research.

Skilled emigration and exchange rate : theory and empirics

In this paper we build a theoretical model on the wage effect of skilled emigration to the fluctuations in real exchange rate through the relative prices of nontradables. Our theoretical model predicts that skilled emigration is associated with an increase in the prices of nontradable, which in turn appreciates the exchange rate. We provide robust empirical support to a higher skilled emigration associated with higher prices in nontradables and appreciation of the real effective exchange rate. Based on two samples of countries with 51 and 67 observations, in 1990 and 2000 respectively, we find robust empirical support to a higher skilled emigration associated with higher prices in nontradables and appreciation of the REER. In addition, the support for the remittance-channel of the Dutch disease is also significant; overall, our findings corroborate the remittance-based Dutch disease phenomenon by providing an additional channel through which the labor mobility across borders affects the real exchange rate volatility.

Mapping species distributions : A comparison of skilled naturalist and lay citizen science recording

Acknowledgements We are grateful to Elaine O’Mahony, Imogen Pearce, Richard Comont, Anthony McCluskey and other BBCT staff for the many hours of BeeWatch species identification and for all people who submitted sightings to BeeWatch, OPAL, BWARS and the various local recording schemes and societies. We thank the NBN for allowing us to download the bumblebee records without strings attached, and the Essex, Greater London, Cumbria and Sussex based recording centres for providing records upon request. Finally, we are indebted to Tom August and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable critique on an earlier version of this work.

The acquisition of skilled motor performance: Fast and slow experience-driven changes in primary motor cortex

Behavioral and neurophysiological studies suggest that skill learning can be mediated by discrete, experience-driven changes within specific neural representations subserving the performance of the trained task. We have shown that a few minutes of daily practice on a sequential finger opposition task induced large, incremental performance gains over a few weeks of training. These gains did not generalize to the contralateral hand nor to a matched sequence of identical component movements, suggesting that a lateralized representation of the learned sequence of movements evolved through practice. This interpretation was supported by functional MRI data showing that a more extensive representation of the trained sequence emerged in primary motor cortex after 3 weeks of training. The imaging data, however, also indicated important changes occurring in primary motor cortex during the initial scanning sessions, which we proposed may reflect the setting up of a task-specific motor processing routine. Here we provide behavioral and functional MRI data on experience-dependent changes induced by a limited amount of repetitions within the first imaging session. We show that this limited training experience can be sufficient to trigger performance gains that require time to become evident. We propose that skilled motor performance is acquired in several stages: “fast” learning, an initial, within-session improvement phase, followed by a period of consolidation of several hours duration, and then “slow” learning, consisting of delayed, incremental gains in performance emerging after continued practice. This time course may reflect basic mechanisms of neuronal plasticity in the adult brain that subserve the acquisition and retention of many different skills.

The Opportunity Costs of STEM Degrees and the Unmet Needs of the Low-Skilled: Two labour market problems explained. CEPS Policy Brief No. 295, 26 June 2013

There is general consensus that to achieve employment growth, especially for vulnerable groups, it is not sufficient to simply kick-start economic growth: skills among both the high- and low-skilled population need to be improved. In particular, we argue that if the lack of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a true problem, it needs to be tackled via incentives and not simply via public campaigns: students are not enrolling in ‘hard-science’ subjects because the opportunity cost is very high. As far as the low-skilled population is concerned, we encourage EU and national policy-makers to invest in a more comprehensive view of this phenomenon. The ‘low-skilled’ label can hide a number of different scenarios: labour market detachment, migration, and obsolete skills that are the result of macroeconomic structural changes. For this reason lifelong learning is necessary to keep up with new technology and to shield workers from the risk of skills obsolescence and detachment from the labour market.

Satisfying Labour Demands in Mid- and Low-Skilled Occupations through Immigration

The purpose of this article is to explain the importance and necessity of satisfying labour demands through the migration of less-skilled workers. It will also argue that more work is needed to anticipate labour and skill shortages and will examine ways of better identifying the role of mid- and low-skilled migration in filling such shortages.

Many worlds of the ‘low-skilled’, but only one generic policy. CEPS Policy Brief No. 312, 10 January 2014

This paper, which draws on research findings from the NEUJOBS project, encourages EU and national policy-makers to invest in a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon of ‘low-skilledness’. The ‘low-skilled’ label can hide a number of different scenarios: labour market detachment, migration and obsolete skills that are the result of macroeconomic structural changes. For this reason, the authors argue that it is necessary to promote lifelong learning to allow workers to keep pace with new technologies and to shield workers from the risk of skills obsolescence and detachment from the labour market.

The skilled work force of the United States.

Mode of access: Internet.

The Peace Corps. Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Eighty-seventh Congress, first session, on S. 2000, a bill to provide for a Peace Corps to help the peoples of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for skilled manpower. June 22 and 23, 1961.

Mode of access: Internet.