Virtualization of seed research: perhaps a continuity model.

The research nurseries serve as a initiative designed for the purpose of contribute to the breakdown of seizure paradigms of knowledge, supported by a theoretical model of discernment that exceed the traditional method of learning in the classroom, to transcend critical insights into transforming the environment under an autonomous space to provide tools essentially scientific, but with ethical criterion and social commitment. Such a conception, however, could be perceived as talkative, and even metaphorical, at the contrast of reality purely versatile in which the neophyte not only tries to get enough of the fruit of knowledge, but also requires that appropriate strategies are put forward to achieve seizure. Then arises, from the formative entelechy the use of technological tools based on virtual learning environments, in order to enhance motivation as an alternative against the blurring of perspectives and the emerging business in some types of nurseries, stranded attitude, that sometimes not far from the master model.

Análisis del modelo de Internacionalización de e-Tech Simulation según la teoría de redes

La teoría de redes de Johanson y Mattson (1988) explica como las pequeñas empresas, también conocidas como PyMes, utilizan las redes de negocio para desarrollar sus procesos de internacionalización. Es así que a través de las redes pueden superar sus limitaciones de tamaño para encontrar cierto tipo de fluidez y dinamismo en su gestión, con el fin de aprovechar los beneficios de la internacionalización. A partir del desarrollo y fortalecimiento de las relaciones dentro de la red la organización puede posicionarse en una instancia competitiva cada vez más fuerte (Jarillo, 1988). Según Forsgren y Johanson (1992), para los gerentes es importante coordinar la interacción entre los diferentes actores de la red, ya que a través de estas su posición dentro de la red mejora y así mismo el flujo de recursos será mayor. El propósito de este trabajo es analizar el modelo de internacionalización según la teoría de redes, desde una perspectiva cultural, de e-Tech Simulation una PyME “Born to be global” norteamericana. Esta empresa ha minimizado su riesgo de internacionalización, a través del desarrollo de acuerdos entre los diferentes actores. Al mejorar su posición dentro de la red, es decir al fortalecer aún más los lazos existentes y crear nuevas relaciones, la empresa ha obtenido mayores beneficios de la misma y ha logrado ser aún más flexible con sus clientes. Es por esto que a partir de este análisis se planteó una serie de recomendaciones para mejorar los procesos de negociación dentro de la red, bajo un contexto cultural. De igual forma se evidencio la importancia del papel del emprendimiento del gerente en los procesos de internacionalización, así como su habilidad para mezclar los recursos obtenidos de diferentes mercados internacionales para satisfacer las necesidades de los clientes.

The role of serviced offices in the corporate real estate supply chain

The paper analyses the evolving corporate real estate supply chain and the interaction of this evolution with emerging business models in the serviced office sector. An enhanced model of the corporate real estate portfolio is first presented incorporating vacant, alienated and transitory space. It is argued that the serviced office sector has evolved in response to an increasingly diverse corporate real estate portfolio. For the peripheral corporate real estate portfolio, the core serviced workspace product provides the ability to rapidly acquire high-quality workspace and associated support services on very flexible bases. Whilst it is arguably a beta product, the core workspace offer is now being augmented by managed office or back-to-back leases which enables clients to complement the advantages of serviced offices with a wider choice of premises. Joint venture business models are aligned with solutions to problems of vacant space.

Do consumers want public or private bodies to monitor animal friendly production and marketing schemes? And does trust matter?

Producing according to enhanced farm animal welfare (FAW) standards increases costs along the livestock value chain, especially for monitoring certified animal friendly products. In the choice between public or private bodies for carrying out and monitoring certification, consumer preferences and trust play a role. We explore this issue by applying logit analysis involving socio-economic and psychometric variables to survey data from Italy. Results identify marked consumer preferences for public bodies and trust in stakeholders a key determinant.

A critical account of the relationship between institutional trust, risk perception, and technology acceptance with an application to genetically modified foods

This article critically reflects on the widely held view of a causal chain with trust in public authorities impacting technology acceptance via perceived risk. It first puts forward conceptual reason against this view, as the presence of risk is a precondition for trust playing a role in decision making. Second, results from consumer surveys in Italy and Germany are presented that support the associationist model as counter hypothesis. In that view, trust and risk judgments are driven by and thus simply indicators of higher order attitudes toward a certain technology which determine acceptance instead. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The Passionate Combining Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are portrayed as salient drivers of regional development and for a number of years nascent entrepreneurs have been studied in a large number of countries as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project and the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics. Scholars have devoted much effort to investigating factors that determine how individuals engage in entrepreneurial activities, with most of the discussion limited to business start-ups. However, since this type of project does not follow identical nascent entrepreneurs over time, limited knowledge exists about their development and whether they stay in this nascent phase for a long time. In practice, it is common for entrepreneurs to run a business and at the same time work in wage work, so-called combining entrepreneurs. In Sweden, almost half of all business owners combine wage work with a business. However, not all combining entrepreneurs will eventually decide to leave the wage work and invest fully in the business. Consequently, much research has focused on the first step of entering entrepreneurship full time, but less has focused on the second step, the transition from the combining phase to full-time self-employment. The aim of this thesis is therefore to contribute to the theory of entrepreneurship by gaining a deeper understanding of combining entrepreneurs and their motives and intentions.   In the context of combining entrepreneurs, the theory of identity, resources and choice overload has been used to examine how entrepreneurs’ age (when starting the business), entrepreneurial tenure (the length of engagement in the side-business), hours spent (weekly involvement in the side-business), involvement in entrepreneurial teams (leading the business with one or more partners) and involvement in networks (business networks) influence their passion for engaging in entrepreneurship while sustaining wage work. Different categories of combining entrepreneurs and their intentions have also been examined.   A survey was administered to 1457 entrepreneurs within the creative sector in two counties in Sweden (Gävleborgs County and Jämtlands County). Since there were no separate mailing lists to only combining entrepreneurs, the survey was sent to all entrepreneurs within the chosen industry and counties. The total response rate was 33.5 percent and of them 57.6 percent combined, yielding 262 combining entrepreneurs who answered the questionnaire. The survey was then followed up with eight focus group interviews and two single interviews to validate the answers from the questionnaire.   The results indicate three types of combining entrepreneurs: nascent – with the intention to leave the combining phase for a transition into full-time self-employment, lifestyle – with the intention to stay in the combining phase, and occasional – with the intention to leave the combining phase for full-time wage work and close down the business. Transitioning fully to self-employment increases with the individual’s age. Also, a positive interactive effect exists with involvement in entrepreneurial networks. The results also indicate that the ability to work with something one is passionate about is the top motive for combining wage work with a side-business. Passion is also more likely to be the main motive behind the combining form among individuals who are older at business start-up, but passion is less likely to be the main motive behind the combining form among individuals who spend more time on the business. The longer the individual has had the side-business, the less likely passion is the main motive behind the combining form, and passion is less likely to be the main motive among those who are part of an entrepreneurial team.

Redes estratégicas: a influência do capital social na formação do capital intelectual de empresas focais

O estudo descrito neste relato de pesquisa concentra-se na busca por compreender os mecanismos pelos quais o capital intelectual de empresas participantes em redes estratégicas empresariais é afetado pelo capital social desenvolvido no âmbito dessas redes. O autor procura demonstrar, com base em um estudo de caso com múltiplas unidades de análise, realizado na mineradora multinacional Yamana Gold Inc., que, como as redes representam comunidades pautadas por regras de conduta pré-acordadas, mútuo comprometimento entre os seus participantes e compartilhamentos de recursos físicos e conhecimento, não raro, as empresas participantes desenvolvem processos sinérgicos e processos de colaboração interempresarial, trazendo, para o ambiente de interação, elementos que constroem novas competências para os participantes. Esses processos colaborativos favorecem os processos cognitivos, com impacto direto sobre a formação de capital intelectual individual das empresas, em especial as empresas focais, aquelas que lideram os padrões ou concentram a dominância econômica sobre os processos da rede. O estudo resultou na elaboração de um modelo teórico capaz de demonstrar os elementos do capital social das redes que afetam positivamente o capital intelectual da empresas e, por meio de entrevistas e observações de campo, o modelo pode ser testado e operacionalizado para comprovar a tese defendida pelo autor. O estudo traz importantes esclarecimentos sobre como esses elementos propiciam o surgimento de capital intelectual, com implicações práticas e teóricas.

E-commerce and export promotion policies for small- and medium-sized enterprises: East Asian and Latin American experiences

Includes bibliography

Contribuição das redes de T.I. para formulação da estratégia e gestão das empresas

Pós-graduação em Engenharia de Produção - FEB

Congruências entre posicionamentos estratégicos e redes de negócios: estudo de caso de uma subsidiária brasileira

Na pesquisa exploratória aqui relatada, realizada em 2009 e guiada por uma extensa revisão bibliográfica e pelo emprego do método de estudo de caso, busca-se identificar congruências entre o posicionamento estratégico adotado pela subsidiária brasileira de uma corporação multinacional e o tipo de rede de negócios por ela integrada. Apoiando-se em dois modelos específicos da literatura acadêmica sobre os temas mencionados (posicionamento estratégico e redes), as conclusões dessa investigação sugerem que as Redes Verticais de Demanda e Fornecimento (MOLLER e RAJALA, 2007) são adequadas para operacionalizar o posicionamento definido como Melhor Produto no Modelo Delta (HAX e WILDE II, 1999; 2001).

Troca e criação de valor: possibilidades competitivas advindas da estratégia de redes

O compartilhamento de custos e de conhecimento, traduzidos neste trabalho por troca e criação de valor, foi objeto de estudo em duas redes empresariais do varejo alimentício, localizadas na região central do estado do Rio Grande do Sul. O objetivo foi investigar se essas possibilidades competitivas, advindas da estratégia de rede, estão sendo exploradas pelos gestores das empresas associadas. A pesquisa foi conduzida pelo método de estudo de caso, cuja coleta de dados processou-se por meio de visitas in loco acompanhadas de entrevistas com os principais executivos das redes e de questionários para os gestores das empresas associadas. Como resultado, pôde-se perceber que ambas exploram com maior ênfase as possibilidades de troca de valor, principalmente nas relações conjuntas de aquisição e relacionamento com clientes, em detrimento dos outros componentes da cadeia de valor. Por outro lado, em termos de criação de valor, verificou-se que existe um ambiente de intensa aprendizagem em ambas as redes, mas evidenciaram-se dificulda- des de efetivar a criação de valor com ações conscientes.

Labour, LGBT* rights, and Europe. Discourses in Italy and Serbia

At the time of writing, all three elements that are evoked in the title – emancipation and social inclusion of sexual minorities, labour and labour activism, and the idea and substance of “Europe” – are being invested by deep, long-term, and – to varied degrees – radical processes of social transformation. The meaning of words like “equality”, “rights”, “inclusion”, and even “democracy” is as precarious and uncertain as are the lives of those European citizens who are marginalised by intersecting conditions of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and class – in a constellation of precarities that is both unifying and fragmented (fragmenting). Conflicts are played, in hidden or explicit ways, over material processes of redistribution as well as discursive practices that revolve around these words. Against this backdrop, and roughly ten years after the European Union provided an input for institutional commitment to the protection of LGBT* workers' rights with the Council Directive 2000/78/EC, the dissertation contrasts discourses on workplace equality for LGBT* persons produced by a plurality of actors, seeking to identify values, semantics, and agendas framing and informing organisations’ views and showing how each actor has incorporated LGBT* rights into its own discourse, each time in a way that is functional to the construction and/or confirmation of its organisational identity: transnational union networks, by presenting LGBT* rights as a natural, neutral commitment within the framework of universal human rights protection; left-wing organisations, by collocating activism for LGBT* rights within a wider project of social emancipation that is for all the marginalised, yet is not neutral, but attached to specific values and opposed to specific political adversaries (the right-wing, the nationalists); business networks, by acknowledging diversity as a path to better performance and profits, thus encouraging inclusion and non-discrimination of “deserving” LGBT* workers.