Search results

The Triple Helix model of academia, government and industry posits that the university can play an important role, even an entrepreneurial one, in innovation in increasingly knowledge-based societies (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000). No longer the “ivory tower” universities are now moving toward an entrepreneurial paradigm. The purpose of this research effort is to examine how such a migration has been accomplished in Malta with a particular focus on the changing activities of its University.

This paper uses advanced bibliometric techniques to examine the scientific output of the University of Malta. Data were downloaded from Thomson Reuters Web of Science. These data were then processed using the software packages Bibexcel and VOSviewer to produce detailed maps of the scientific activity.

The results were that the University has greatly expanded its scientific footprint since its 2004 accession to the European Union (EU). International collaborations and highly cited papers have gone up significantly.

Only one country was examined in this effort, and further study should compare to Malta to other small EU countries. The findings suggest that while some might consider Malta’s progress modest in absolute terms, it has made significant strides from its prior-to-accession base.

The findings have been presented to the Malta Council for Science and Technology as evidence of the outcomes of their efforts.

Because Malta is the smallest member-state in the EU, little research has been done on its science base. However, the authors believe their findings could inform research efforts on other EU, and even non-EU, countries.

Biofouling of marine vessels results in significant operational costs, as well as the bio-security risk associated with the transport of marine pests. Biofouling is particularly rapid in sea-chest water intakes due to elevated temperatures and circulating flow. Inspection challenges are exacerbated, as sea chests are difficult to inspect and clean. This paper aims to present a method that utilises the flexibility and low-batch capabilities of additive manufacture to manufacture custom sea-chest inserts that eliminate circulating flow and increase the uniformity of shear stress distributions to enable more constant ablation of anti-biofouling coatings.

An automated design procedure has been developed to optimise sea-chest insert geometry to achieve desirable flow characteristics, while eliminating the necessity for support material in FDM manufacture – thereby significantly reducing build cost and time.

Numerical flow simulation confirms that the fluid-flow approximation is robust for optimising sea-chest insert geometry. Insert geometry can be manipulated to enable support-free additive manufacture; however, as the threshold angle for support-free manufacture increases, the set of feasible sea-chest aspect ratios decreases.

The surface of revolution that defines the optimal insert geometry may result in features that are not compatible with additive manufacture constraints. An alternate geometry is proposed that may be more useful in practice without compromising anti-biofouling properties.

Marine sea-chest biofouling results in significant negative environmental and economic consequence. The method developed in this paper can reduce the negative impact of sea-chest biofouling.

Marine sea-chest biofouling results in significant resource consumption and emissions. The method developed in this paper can reduce the negative impact of sea-chest biofouling.

The method presented in this paper provides an entirely original opportunity to utilise additive manufacture to mitigate the effects of marine biofouling.

This study contributes to the literature on workaholism by testing the Spence and Robbins workaholic triad; 5,853 full time workers participated in a national survey on working hours, covering a broad range of economic sectors and employment categories. Respondents were grouped eight clusters. Results show a strong similarity with those of other studies about the validity of the Spence and Robbins' typology. The same basic dimensions and the same types are identified, and similar relationships with extra‐work activities are found. In addition, a wide range of biographical, motivational and organizational data are included. One new type of workaholic was identified: the reluctant hard worker reports relatively long working hours, at a relatively low hierarchical level, with a strong perception of external pressure and a low perception of growth culture and a strong intention to leave the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and apply best practices in university entrepreneurship education to the creation of a new MBA in entrepreneurship and innovation management. It is a direct response to calls for a total re-envisioning of entrepreneurship education and criticism that existing programs lack rigour, content, pedagogy, measurement and an established definition.

This article uses reviews of the literature to identify normative best practices and how to apply them to the new program. An entrepreneurship program design framework (EPDF) was created and applied to a new MBA program being developed in central Germany.

Most studies describe aspects of current programs (e.g. lists of courses) but almost none say what should be in a program. Others provide abstract guidance (e.g. programs should define entrepreneurship) but do not give specific recommendations (e.g. what the definition should be). The proposed EPDF provided a rigorous structure for reviewing the literature, designing the new program and establishing specific best practice recommendations for defining program goals, content, pedagogy and measurement of student transformation.

The entrepreneurship literature is largely silent on normative best practice guidance, so the proposed application of best practices should be evaluated in that context.

Previous articles present relatively abstract frameworks and concepts, whereas this article is a direct application of the practical implications of these concepts. The proposed normative best practice guidelines may be somewhat controversial, but should stimulate useful discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to document augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) training provision by clinical services in England.

A questionnaire was used to obtain the following information concerning AAC training provision; frequency, length, type, content and cost, trainee occupations and numbers, and future training priorities, and information concerning training providers – service type, geographical area.

In total, 98 clinical service training providers in England responded. Services commonly reported providing AAC training to speech and language therapists, teaching assistants and teachers. Training around “use of specific AAC products, systems and technology” and “introducing/awareness raising of AAC products” were rated as high priority for future training and were two of the three subject areas where services reported the highest percentage of training. Training was predominantly provided at a foundation (basic) level.

There is no consensus on the amount or content of AAC training which professionals in England must receive. Evidence suggests that AAC training for pre-qualification professionals is limited and this paper has identified variation in the amount and type of post-qualification AAC training. While knowledge concerning specific AAC systems is necessary, focussing training primarily on this area may not address critical gaps in knowledge. There is a need for specific recommendations regarding AAC training for professionals in this field, to ensure professionals can fully support people who use AAC.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of organizational change, more specifically business model change, on corporate employees’ motivation and, consequently, performance.

The main approaches and managerial frameworks on organization change implementation, as well as the assessment methods on whether the company is ready to implement the change, were identified by reviewing the current literature on the subject between 1940 and 2016.

Reviewed individual behavioral reactions and provided steps to encourage favorable individual employee perceptions.

Existing gaps in supporting empirical data on the subject and a limited number of direct case studies and real-life scenarios. The research was primarily focused on employee motivation during the initial planning phase of organizational change, with lesser focus on motivation throughout and especially after the change process.

To benefit from the change, organizations must avoid improvising and should follow specific and formal change management procedures which take employee motivation and individual response towards change under consideration.

By providing real-life illustrations of successful business model change implementations, current and future companies facing this type of change in the future can learn from these specific scenarios.

The distinction of business model change as a sub-type of organizational change and the study of employee motivation under a business model change specifically is the novel contribution of the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the unfolding diet transformation in East and Southern Africa is likely to influence the evolution of employment within its agrifood system (AFS) and between that system and the rest of the economy. To briefly consider implications for education and skill acquisition.

The authors link changing diets to employment structure. The authors then use alternative projections of diet change over 15- and 30-year intervals to develop scenarios on changes in employment structure.

As long as incomes in ESA continue to rise at levels near those of the past decade, the transformation of their economies is likely to advance dramatically. Key features will be: sharp decline in the share of the workforce engaged in farming even as absolute numbers rise modestly, sharp increase in the share engaged in non-farm segments of the AFS, and an even sharper increase in the share engaged outside the AFS. Within the AFS, food preparation away from home is likely to grow most rapidly, followed by food manufacturing, and finally by marketing, transport, and other AFS services. Resource booms in Mozambique and (potentially) Tanzania are the main factor that may change this pattern.

Clarifying policy implications requires renewed research given the rapid changes in Africa over the past 15 years.

This is the first paper to explicitly link changing diets to changing employment within the AFS.

The challenge facing human resource/compensation professionals in the people‐intensive, high‐technology industry, will be the development of a model and strategy intended to respond to the specific needs of unique professionals engaged in high growth organisations. This article examines the complex purposes of compensation, including the eight factors contributing to the determination of compensation levels, while considering constraints and contingencies. Job‐based evaluation and person‐based systems will be examined together with individual and group incentive plans as they impact upon growth cycles of high‐tech firms. The innovative nature of high‐technology organisations can be directly linked to compensation strategies for management. These high growth firms utilise a most unique compensation approach which is fundamentally different from normative organisations. They: (1) use annual incentives, but emphasise the longer term; (2) emphasise stock rather than long‐term cash plans; (3) use stock options where the manager benefits only if stock prices increase; (4) use a much larger proportion of stock than typical firms provide; and (5) encourage much wider use of stock among a broad employee group. Compensation occupies as significant a niche as articulate strategies and leading edge innovativeness, for high‐technology organisations.

As Chinese companies move to the world stage of business, they must leverage a more knowledgeable and collaborative workforce to meet new challenges. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how two prominent individual attributes, education, and allocentrism, create work tension for human capital practices in Chinese companies.

Surveying nearly 500 workers in four Chinese companies and using multi-level methodology.

The authors found that higher levels of education work to the detriment of employees’ affective organizational commitment (AOC) and positively influence seeking-to-leave behavior. In addition, this study suggests a positive relation between allocentrism and AOC. Personalized leadership, a common leadership style in high-power distance cultures such as China, further exacerbates the problems with higher levels of education and diminishes the commitment benefits of allocentrism. Conversely, regardless of leadership style, if supervisors involve workers in decision-making activities, those workers who are more educated will become more committed to the organization and less likely to leave.

The data were collected using self-reported questionnaires, which may cause common method variance. The reliability for personalized leadership was slightly below 0.70. This may be due to the multiple dimensions that are reflected in leadership styles. Another limitation of this study is its focus on allocentrism without considering other personal expression of cultural values. This approach could be too narrow (Gelfand et al., 2007).

This study suggests that members who endorse allocentrism might be more likely to have high-affective commitment. If managers can select individuals high on the allocentrism scale, there is a higher likelihood these individuals will attach emotionally to the organization. Managers should not simply conclude that idiocentrics are “worse” employees than allocentrics. Instead, managers may utilize effective management tactics to cultivate more socialized leadership visions among their supervisors. Finally, the authors find that independent of whether leadership is more or less personalized, managers can retain valued educated workers by including them in decision-making activities.

The authors have found that education may serve as a double edged sword for employers. As hypothesized, the findings suggested that employees’ level of education negatively relates to their affective commitment for their organizations. This study also contributes to the knowledge on the role of culture at the individual level (i.e. allocentrism) and how it affects employees’ attitudes and behavior. The authors found that workers who more highly value the group that they function within (allocentrics) tend to be more affectively committed to their organization.

It is one of the first studies to examine educational level and cultural orientation as antecedents to affective commitment, especially in Chinese businesses where workers’ education level is a growing phenomenon and allocentrism is a traditional characteristic of Chinese workers. Also, understanding the dynamics of group-individual linkages is generally most helpful to understanding organizational phenomenon (House et al., 1995). This meso framework is a hallmark feature of the study, given the hierarchical nature of the research inquiry and data set.

Research on diversity climate has shown that diversity climate as an employee's perception of an organization's diversity-related practices or procedures has a positive impact on reducing turnover intentions. However, we know little about which intervening mechanism explains the relationship between diversity climate and employee's turnover intentions. In this study, we suggest that individual employee's perceived diversity climate influences turnover intentions through personal diversity value and affective commitment.

With a sample of 901 employees in more than 50 companies affiliated in South Korea, the authors test the hypothesized relationship, using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Our findings show that personal diversity value and affective commitment sequentially mediate the relationship between perceived diversity climate and turnover intentions.

This study can enhance the understanding about the mediating mechanism linking the relationship between perceived diversity climate and turnover intentions and how personal diversity value and affective commitment link the relationship.

The authors theorize and find that perceived diversity climate can influence personal diversity value that results in employee commitment and turnover intentions.