Search results

The paper introduces a new conceptualisation of entrepreneurship that promotes a broader perspective of the phenomenon. The purpose of the paper is to re-conceptualise the act of entrepreneurship so as to reduce it to the fundamental behaviours and processes.

The paper sets out the motivations for and challenges in establishing a broader definition of entrepreneurship. Following this, current approaches to defining entrepreneurship are reviewed. In light of these, a definition of entrepreneurship is offered that captures a new perspective in understanding entrepreneurship. A critique of the offered definition is offered with regards to promoting theory development, empirical research, quality predictions and a distinctive research domain.

The authors argue that a definition of entrepreneurship that is focussed on the development and validation of ideas provides a thought-provoking re-conceptualisation of entrepreneurship. Extant perspectives on entrepreneurship as business/organisation creation, uncertainty, innovation, value creation and opportunity recognition/creation are drawn on to demonstrate the applicability of the definition.

The pursuit for an encompassing definition of entrepreneurship has been both extensive and earnest, which has inadvertently resulted in a sizable pool of definitions. The authors offer a re-conceptualisation of entrepreneurship with the intent to provide a broad yet coherent definition that encompasses all acts of entrepreneurship. A benefit of this conceptualisation is the establishment of the endpoint of the entrepreneurship process that delineates it from the domain of management.

There is a need for higher education to produce graduates who are motivated to transfer learning into the workplace. Motivated graduates are work-ready and associated with increased performance. Presently, the research field around motivation to transfer learning by students in higher education is not clear and is inconsistent.

This scoping review provides an overview of the characteristics of the literature, including key concepts, recommendations and gaps based on eight published articles on the motivation of students in higher education to transfer learning.

The results reflected a research field, which focused primarily on the influence of specific factors, namely student characteristics, educational design, the workplace environment, and on higher education students' motivation to transfer learning. The lack of a shared conceptual definition of motivation to transfer learning in higher education appears to influence the description of the results from the included studies. Most of the previous studies applied rigorous research designs.

This seemingly stunted research field related to higher education students' motivation to transfer learning needs to be amplified to influence the development of work-ready graduates from higher education. Approaches towards including all elements of motivation, expanding to other fields in higher education, including low-income countries, may be a proximal step in enhancing the trajectory of this research field.

This paper aims to develop an original framework of innovation and to explore the complexity of association between individual and collective (team-based) entrepreneurship, and their simultaneous impacts on innovation in context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

An integral theoretical framework is developed to encourage innovation and the hypothetical relations are tested with the help of structural equation modeling (SEM) through AMOS. Data were gathered through survey technique and the questioners were distributed through email among 700 entrepreneurs from SMEs operating in five major industrial cities of Punjab province Pakistan.

The results of SEM analyses confirm that both the individual entrepreneur and the collective efforts of all the business members contribute to innovation in SMEs. Entrepreneur’s personality traits have a direct positive impact on innovation while the centralized decision-making by entrepreneur is not associated with innovation. Centralized decision-making is found to be negatively associated with communication and have insignificant positive association with collaboration. Factors associated with the team-based entrepreneurship like communication and collaboration among members of the SME’s contribute to the entrepreneurial orientation and collective entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial orientation and collective entrepreneurship have direct positive impact on innovation in SMEs.

It is imperative for SMEs to encourage decentralized organizational culture and participative leadership to bring innovation into their products and processes and further to improve their competitive advantage.

To the best of author knowledge, present study is a first attempt that explores the complex association between individual and team-based entrepreneurship and further, empirically investigate the simultaneous impacts of these variables on innovation in context of SMEs.

Confronting the unveiled sophisticated structural and physical characteristics of permanent magnets, notably the samarium–cobalt (Sm-Co) alloy, This work aims to introduce a simulation scheme that can link physics-based micromagnetics on the nanostructures and magnetostatic homogenization on the mesoscale polycrystalline structures.

The simulation scheme is arranged in a multiscale fashion. The magnetization behaviors on the nanostructures examined with various orientations are surrogated as the micromagnetic-informed hysterons. The hysteresis behavior of the mesoscale polycrystalline structures with micromagnetic-informed hysterons is then evaluated by computational magnetostatic homogenization.

The micromagnetic-informed hysterons can emulate the magnetization reversal of the parameterized Sm-Co nanostructures as the local hysteresis behavior on the mesostructures. The simulation results of the mesoscale polycrystal demonstrate that the demagnetization process starts from the grain with the largest orientation angle (a) and then propagates to the surrounding grains.

The presented scheme depicts the demand for integrating data-driven methods, as the parameters of the surrogate hysteron intrinsically depend on the nanostructure and its orientation. Further hysteron parameters that help the surrogate hysteron emulate the micromagnetic-simulated magnetization reversal should be examined.

This work provides a novel multiscale scheme for simulating the polycrystalline permanent magnets’ hysteresis while recapitulating the nanoscale mechanisms, such as the nucleation of domains, and domain wall migration and pinning. This scheme can be further extended to simulate the part-level hysteresis considering the mesoscale features.

To continue to stay relevant in the era of Industry Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) alongside the unprecedented disruption of COVID-19, the importance of lifelong learning is indisputable though this concept has existed for decades. In this context, open and distance learning (ODL) institutions are urged to re-think and re-design their online learning support systems that inculcate self-regulated lifelong learning (SR3Ls) in their learners to be adaptable and resilient for the post-pandemic economy. The purpose of this paper is to develop a SR3Ls model, namely SR3Ls model by utilising the collective opinions of a panel of experts to determine the key domains and attributes.

A 2-round Delphi consensus study was conducted with 39 experts from five countries. The mean, standard deviation (SD), inter-quartile range (IQR) and the ratio of experts assigned score of 4 or greater were used as the basis of consensus assessment with criteria set at mean = 3.0, SD = 1.5, IQR = 1, ratio on score 4 or greater at = 75%. The questionnaire consisted of 5-point Likert-type scale rating the importance level of each attribute combined with open-ended questions.

This paper presented the findings of the first round of Delphi consensus study. For the first round, the experts were asked to evaluate 31 key attributes of SR3Ls model under five domains. The findings revealed that there were five key attributes to be eliminated from the list, while there were seven attributes identified as the key attributes with highest consensus. There were additional attributes suggested by the Delphi panel to be added in the second round of evaluation.

This international consensus-based SR3Ls model serves as an important benchmark for ODL institutions across the regions in developing meaningful and relevant online learning support systems for their learners to adopt SR3Ls attributes in order to meet the dynamic market demands.