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1 – 10 of 74P.K. Kirner, P. Janschek, D. Schubart and K. Borgschulte
Thyssen Umformtechnik Turbinenkomponenten (TUT) in Remscheid is a supplier of turbine components for landbase turbines and for aero‐engines. Customers in the aerospace and…
Abstract
Thyssen Umformtechnik Turbinenkomponenten (TUT) in Remscheid is a supplier of turbine components for landbase turbines and for aero‐engines. Customers in the aerospace and landbase turbine business strive for reductions in costs and weight as well as for the improvement of operating temperatures in order to increase the efficiency of their engines. Next to short‐term activities like continuous improvement for cost reduction, TUT carries out research work as a long‐term investment. The research activities at TUT are numerous and range from the simulation of forging operations to the qualification of advanced materials. Various examples are presented.
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Benjamin Y.M. Chan and Hong Sheung Chui
Presents a study which investigated how school councils operate in the Australian state of Victoria and how parent councillors participate in the affairs of the school council…
Abstract
Presents a study which investigated how school councils operate in the Australian state of Victoria and how parent councillors participate in the affairs of the school council. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey on 172 schools, as well as visits to schools and attendance at school council meetings. Proposes a theoretical model linking personal, institutional and community‐related factors to the successful operation of the school council. Uses data collected in the survey to test and confirm the model by using structural modelling analysis. Concludes that most of the parent councillors are relatively highly educated and the working class is under‐represented in school councils. Finds several factors to be positively associated with successful operation of school councils: the readiness of and mutual acceptance between parents and teachers; commitment of principal; parents’ satisfaction with their participation; and parents’ contribution and donations to the school.
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At Shepparton in the Murray electorate of Victoria in 2007, the Federal Liberal Member, Sharman Stone, announced that under a returned Coalition Government, Shepparton ‘would get…
Abstract
At Shepparton in the Murray electorate of Victoria in 2007, the Federal Liberal Member, Sharman Stone, announced that under a returned Coalition Government, Shepparton ‘would get a stand‐alone technical college’. One year earlier, the Victorian Minister for Education, Lynn Kosky claimed that ‘We lost something when technical schools [the ‘techs’] were closed previously. Yes, the facilities were not great but we lost something that was important to young people’. This article explores the development and demise of ‘South Tech’, Shepparton South Technical School, 1966‐86 to identify the ‘something’ that Kosky claimed was lost, and to argue that technical education is essential in a reconstituted system.
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John Pardy and Lesley F. Preston
The purpose of this paper is to trace the restructure of the Victorian Education Department in Australia during the years 1980-1992. It examines how the restructuring of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to trace the restructure of the Victorian Education Department in Australia during the years 1980-1992. It examines how the restructuring of the department resulted in a generational reorganization of secondary schooling. This reorganization culminated in the closure of secondary technical schools that today continues to have enduring effects on access and equity to different types of secondary schooling.
Design/methodology/approach
The history is based on documentary and archival research and draws on publications from the State government of Victoria, Education Department/Ministry of Education Annual Reports and Ministerial Statements and Reviews, Teacher Union Archives, Parliamentary Debates and unpublished theses and published works.
Findings
As an outcome the restructuring of the Victorian Education Department, schools and the reorganization of secondary schooling, a dual system of secondary schools was abolished. The introduction of a secondary colleges occurred through a process of rationalization of schools and what secondary schooling would entail.
Originality/value
This study traces how, over a decade, eight ministers of education set about to reform education by dismantling and undoing the historical development of Victoria’s distinctive secondary schools system.
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Glessia Silva and Luiz Carlos Di Serio
The objective of this article is to discuss how the research on innovation in the small businesses may be operationalized. This paper discusses the field's concepts, typologies…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this article is to discuss how the research on innovation in the small businesses may be operationalized. This paper discusses the field's concepts, typologies, units of analysis and the general basic assumptions pertaining to the operationalization of innovation research in small businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
The article is an essay, whose format aims to provide the reader with reflections and multiple questions, by instigating the free thinking, the research as well as the construction of different ideas and/or perceptions in a logical and scientific way (Meneghetti, 2011). Thus, a conceptual approach for the operationalization of the innovation research in small businesses is proposed and discussed.
Findings
Most of the innovation literature has ignored the small businesses, so that its core concepts and basic assumptions should be reviewed in an inclusive approach. The authors developed an analytical proposal that consists of a four-step logical approach to researching innovation in small businesses, starting from the innovation's concept as something important and then evolving to discussing how one has to try and see the small business as an object of study.
Originality/value
The value of this paper lies with the attempt to critically bring the small businesses into the spotlight, as study them has practical and theoretical implications that go beyond the field of innovation itself.
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Many companies worldwide are currently involved in open innovation processes (OIPs), through which they aim to collect innovative insights and ideas from the crowd. The phenomenon…
Abstract
Many companies worldwide are currently involved in open innovation processes (OIPs), through which they aim to collect innovative insights and ideas from the crowd. The phenomenon has grown – and is destined to continue to grow – massively. As a result, there is strong interest from scholars and practitioners in rebuilding the relevant processes and developing a set of best practices. What seems to be missing from this developing topic of research is a focus on its antecedents and consequences. Since the phenomenon is so new, a focus on its consequences seems untimely. A focus on its antecedents, on the other hand, seems both promising and intriguing.
The fact that more and more companies are involved in OIPs suggests that they have already developed an organizational open innovation (OI) culture. If an OI culture already exists, how widespread is it and to what extent is it shared among those involved in knowledge ecosystems? With this question in mind, it seems worthwhile to investigate whether OI is supported culturally at both social and individual levels.
Finally, this chapter summarizes the state of the art of OI culture at social, organizational and individual levels and considers how an OI culture developed at company level may serve to drive its development at the social and individual levels.
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Jochem T. Hummel and Nima Amiryany
This study focuses on intra-industry determinants of acquisition performance. Seven years of printed research on acquisitions from 10 top-tier business journals is categorized on…
Abstract
This study focuses on intra-industry determinants of acquisition performance. Seven years of printed research on acquisitions from 10 top-tier business journals is categorized on the basis of R&D intensity – that is, per industry classification: high-, medium-, and low-technology – and determinants of acquisition performance. Instead of broadly generalizing acquisition performance determinants across industries, this study focuses on how the practice of enhancing acquisition performance is different per industry classification and what acquiring firms need to take into account.
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Helena Forsman and Hannu Rantanen
This paper aims to focus on innovation development in enterprises with fewer than 50 employees. It explores differences in innovation capacity and in the diversity of developed…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on innovation development in enterprises with fewer than 50 employees. It explores differences in innovation capacity and in the diversity of developed innovations across the four enterprise size categories within the small manufacturing and service enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical evidence is based on quantitative data gathered through an e‐mail questionnaire, which yielded 708 responses from the representatives of Finnish small enterprises. The analysis is based on non‐parametric tests.
Findings
The findings display a broad diversity of innovation patterns among small enterprises. The evidence identifies differences and similarities in innovation capacity and innovation development across the different size categories within the manufacturing and service sectors. Finally, a summary of the characteristics of small enterprises as innovators across size categories is provided.
Research limitations/implications
This paper studies innovation patterns based on innovation capacity and developed innovations. There is a need to study how innovation capacity has been transformed into innovations; thus, the innovation process should be included in the examination.
Practical implications
At a public policy level, the results of this study give ideas for encouraging innovation development in small enterprises. The evidence suggests that there are significant discrepancies between the enterprises as innovators. It should be acknowledged that small enterprises comprise several divergent target groups for policy making.
Originality/value
This study makes a contribution to academic literature by crystallizing the relationship between the size of an enterprise and innovation development. Applying these results will provide more specific questions for studying the nature of innovation development in small enterprises.
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In this chapter, the author considers how Melbourne’s grindcore metal scene produces itself as coherent, authentic and masculine through the discursive positioning of Sydney’s…
Abstract
In this chapter, the author considers how Melbourne’s grindcore metal scene produces itself as coherent, authentic and masculine through the discursive positioning of Sydney’s scene as lacking, inauthentic and feminine and/or homosexual. The way Melbourne scene-members talk about Sydney in ethnographic interviews and online, indicates how Melbourne’s grindcore scene identity rests on a particular striving towards – and fantasy of – a bounded, comprehensible masculine identity anchored in Symbolic/linguistic signifiers of homophobia. Building on my previous research on Melbourne’s scene, the author utilises a Lacanian perspective to argue that the masculinist talk of Melbournians works as a response to the affective experience of enjoying grindcore music. Here, the author departs from my earlier work, where the author used Deleuzian/Massumian understandings of affect to suggest that affect works to construct community belonging in grindcore scenes (2014). Instead, the author uses Lacan’s approach to affect to suggest that Melbourne grindcore fans construct their identity via furiously producing a fantasy of Sydney fans as ‘Other’. They Symbolically construct Sydney as a ‘cultural wasteland’ populated by ‘poofter[s]’ (Melbourne Grind Syndicate, 2016) who are imagined, and positioned as, inauthentic due to their affective enthusiasm for grindcore. Here, affect works to exclude and Other grindcore fans rather than as a force for collectivity.
This chapter is a reflection of how Venkataraman’s “The Distinctive Domain of Entrepreneurship Research” has influenced the field of entrepreneurship. The theory underlying the…
Abstract
This chapter is a reflection of how Venkataraman’s “The Distinctive Domain of Entrepreneurship Research” has influenced the field of entrepreneurship. The theory underlying the original chapter provided the first true theoretical basis for the discipline of entrepreneurship, grounded in Kirzner and Schumpeter. Its two discrete components, opportunity, and role of the individual became the basis for new approaches in empirical research and new conceptualizations of entrepreneurship theory. These components led to new approaches to concepts such as motivation, perception, and information’s role in the entrepreneurial process. The chapter revisits the three core questions raised by “The Distinctive Domain”: how opportunities arise, why do only some recognize and pursue opportunities, and what are the consequences of the pursuit of opportunities. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the impact of the original chapter in practice and academia.
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