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The purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of sharing knowledge processes aimed at promoting innovation in small businesses.

The empirical study was conducted in Israel on a sample of 202 businesses in face-to-face interviews.

The study demonstrated that small businesses in the industry sectors that seek to promote innovation must implement processes for sharing knowledge. Interestingly, these processes contribute mainly to product, marketing and organizational innovation and less to process innovation.

The study may contribute in a practical manner to assisting small businesses in the development and implementation of appropriate sharing knowledge processes for promoting innovation, and as a result, contribute to overall economic growth.

This study enriches the body of knowledge on managerial processes and on sharing knowledge processes for promoting innovation in this group of businesses, which has rarely been the focus of studies on innovation. The use of face-to-face interviews as a research tool facilitated obtaining knowledge that is generally not readily accessible.

The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of organizational culture processes aimed at promoting innovation in small businesses

The empirical study was conducted in Israel on a sample of 202 businesses in face-to-face interviews.

The study demonstrated that small businesses in the industry sectors that seek to promote innovation must implement processes for developing an innovation culture. Interestingly, these processes contribute mainly to product and process innovation and less to marketing and organizational innovation.

The study may contribute in a practical manner to assisting small businesses in the development and implementation of appropriate organizational culture processes for promoting innovation, and as a result, contribute to overall economic growth.

This research expands the body of knowledge on organizational culture processes for promoting innovation in this group of businesses, which has rarely been the focus of studies on innovation. The use of face-to-face interviews as a research tool facilitated obtaining knowledge that is generally not readily accessible.

The literature documents a shortage in the supply of external funding to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in general and to innovative SMEs in particular. This study separates cognitive from financial constraints on innovative SMEs’ growth opportunities. Using data gathered through in-depth interviews with the CEOs of 115 SMEs, we reveal that over and above a problem with supply, there exists a twofold problem on the demand side. Specifically, we document that there is a tendency for these companies to avoid approaching external funding sources, especially ones that gear their investments toward innovation. Our results reveal a cognitive bias (over-pessimism) affecting the entrepreneurs’ (lack of) demand for external financing over and above other firm-specific factors. CEO tenure — our proxy for human and social capital — is significantly lower (higher) in firms that did (did not) pursue external funding. This finding may provide some support for our hypothesis regarding the cognitive bias and over-pessimism of the more veteran CEOs who have had negative experiences regarding recruiting external resources. The impact of this entrepreneurial cognition is shown to be economically detrimental to the enterprise. Nevertheless, the negative effects are not limited to the micro level, but have implications at the macro level as well, due to under-realization of the potential for employment, productivity, and growth of the firms comprising the vast majority of the economy.

The purpose of this paper is to study the funding difficulties of innovative SMEs in traditional sectors (ISTS) and asks whether current conditions represent a financing market failure.

The study explores the financial tools available in Israel and their relevancy to ISTS by conducting in-depth interviews with different key figures in the financial industry. These include managers at venture capital (VC) funds, banks, private equity (PE) funds, mezzanine funds, as well as officials from the public sector.

In this study the authors identify the existence of a market failure relating to the funding of ISTS and suggest that the current VC, PE and mezzanine fund models cannot provide adequate financing solutions for ISTS in Israel.

In light of the importance of these firms to the economy, governmental intervention is required, if more innovative activity of ISTS is desired. To this end, the study proposes a funding scheme that addresses the special needs of these companies.

The study contributes to the literature by focussing specifically on the challenges of ISTS and by using a qualitative approach to analyzing the relevancy of different financial mechanisms to their needs.

The purpose of this paper is to propose the platform for effective transformation of points of interests (POIs) into augmented reality (AR), specifically into the three major software tools – Junaio, Layar and Wikitude. The objective is to facilitate the creation of POIs for common users of these programs and, thus, encourage the general public to participate in the formation of a new concept of applications using AR and location-based services.

The subject of this study was analysis of methods used for POI dynamisation under the context of location-based services. This paper suggests methodology based on database format transformation. It is focused on the creation of platform for automated geotagged POI transformation into AR.

The research results in prototype of online platform which is capable to automatically transform geotagged POI to three major AR applications. It discusses also the model implementation of this platform in Czech national tourist authority.

The paper presents a proof-of-concept of dynamisation and transformation of an unspecified number of POIs stored in a simple table database and their transformation into the AR.

Services of AR are brought for the masses to effectively dynamise tourist information.

Results could make the process of multimedialising data (POIs) more suitable for masses.

This paper presents a proof-of-concept of dynamisation and transformation of an unspecified number of POIs stored in a simple table database and their transfer into the three major AR applications.

Der Verstorbene darf als einer der Pioniere der Fremdenverkehrswissenschaft angesprochen werden. Seine Aufenthalte in Java und Japan, seine vielen Auslandreisen und seine Tätigkeit im wichtigen Fremdenverkehrszentrum Amsterdam verschafften ihm eine umfassende Kenntnis des nationalen und internationalen Tourismus. Als erfolgreicher Kaufmann und Ingenieur besass er zudem einen klaren Blick für die wesentlichen Zusammenhänge. Seine technisch‐mathematische Begabung und Ausbildung befähigten ihn dazu, diese präzis darzustellen. Damit erkannte er schon früh die Notwendigkeit, den Fremdenverkehr wissenschaftlich zu untersuchen und zu erfassen.

We examine the global warming temperature data sets of Jones et al. (1999) and Vinnikov et al. (1994) in the context of the multivariate deterministic trend-testing framework of Franses and Vogelsang (2002). We find that, across all seasons, global warming seems to be present for the globe and for the northern and southern hemispheres. Globally and within hemispheres, it appears that seasons are not warming equally fast. In particular, winters appear to be warming faster than summers. Across hemispheres, it appears that the winters in the northern and southern hemispheres are warming equally fast whereas the remaining seasons appear to have unequal warming rates. The results obtained here seem to coincide with the findings of Kaufmann and Stern (2002) who use cointegration analysis and find that the hemispheres are warming at different rates.

The main purpose of this essay is to reflect on the nature of justification. To this end, the analysis draws on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s De la justification. Les économies de la grandeur ¹ [On Justification: Economies of Worth ² ]. More specifically, the article aims to examine the extent to which Boltanski and Thévenot’s conceptual framework, widely known as ‘the sociology of critical capacity’, ³ permits us to demonstrate that processes of justification ⁴ are vital to the symbolically mediated construction – that is, to both the conceptual and the empirical organization ⁵ – of social life. In order to prove the validity of this contention, the inquiry explores the meaning of ‘justification’ in relation to the following dimensions: (1) existence, (2) ethics, (3) justice, (4) perspective, (5) presuppositions, (6) agreement, (7) common worlds, (8) critique, (9) practice and (10) justification itself. By way of conclusion, the article maintains that processes of justification constitute an essential ingredient of human reality.

Discussions about the dignity of human beings often focus on violations of a person’s dignity that are performed by other persons. However, human beings can also violate their own dignity or at least they can expose it to a violation by others thoughtlessly or intentionally. In his Metaphysics of Morals, Kant states that ‘[o]ne who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him’. Kant presupposes that persons can infringe or even forfeit their own dignity – for instance through servile behaviour – and that violating one’s own dignity is a violation of a duty towards oneself. Starting from the tension between dignity in terms of honour and worth in current debates and in Kant’s own thinking, as well as between understanding dignity as absolute or relational, I develop a comprehensive account of dignity as a duty to oneself. The author argues for a twofold obligation towards oneself to respect one’s own dignity: (i) a duty (as the necessity of an action done out of respect for the moral law) to respect one’s authority as an autonomous person in the Kantian sense; and (ii) beyond the Kantian framework – an obligation arising from the practical necessity that follows from one’s self-understanding as a self-determined, self-expressive individual personality in a socio-cultural context. Finally, the author outlines the consequences of the idea of ‘making oneself a worm’ for the concept of dignity in the realm of rights by discussing why, even though persons can behave like worms, others ought not to step on them.