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In this chapter, we present our ongoing efforts in developing and sustaining interdisciplinary STEM undergraduate programs at North Carolina A&T State University (NCA&T) – a state-supported HBCU and National Science Foundation (NSF) Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) Institutional Implementation Project grantee. Through three rounds of NSF HBCU-UP implementation grants, a concerted effort has been made in developing interdisciplinary STEM undergraduate research programs in geophysical and environmental science (in round 1), geospatial, computational, and information science (in round 2), and mathematical and computational biology (in round 3) on NCA&T campus. We first present a brief history and background information about the interdisciplinary STEM undergraduate research programs developed and sustained at NCA&T, giving rationales on how these programs had been conceived, and summarizing what have been achieved. Next we give a detailed description on the development of undergraduate research infrastructure including building research facilities through multiple and leveraged funding sources, and engaging a core of committed faculty mentors and research collaborators. We then present, as case studies, some sample interdisciplinary research projects in which STEM undergraduate students were engaged and project outcomes. Successes associated to our endeavor in developing undergraduate research programs as well as challenges and opportunities on implementing and sustaining these efforts are discussed. Finally, we discuss the impact of well-structured undergraduate research training on student success in terms of academic performance, graduation rate and continuing graduate study, and summarize many of the learnings we have gained from implementation and delivery of undergraduate research experiences at HBCUs.

The disruption global digitally based firms are imposing on the positions of established multinational telcos is not just in degree, but also in kind. As such, the telcos are entering a period of VUCA. Although digitally based competitors could suffer from liabilities of “outsidership,” we argue that the physical presence of telcos in local markets will be insufficient to avoid a future as utilities or dumb-pipes. One significant issue as they confront VUCA is therefore whether telcos are able to develop and apply dynamic capabilities.

We extend the Jones (1971) analysis of the effects of distortions in 2×2 trade models to the case of a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with capital accumulation. We do a comparative steady state analysis for the effect of policy changes on factor prices and the capital stock, and examine the dynamics of the system in the neighborhood of the steady state. We also show that the system will have multiple equilibria when value and physical factor intensity rankings of the sectors do not agree.

Purpose – Child abuse is widely accepted as having a negative effect on children's academic achievement. It is less clear why this relationship exists. Current explanations of the abuse-academic achievement connection rely on psychological theories that overlook the impact the abuse has on children's developmentally relevant social circumstances.

Methodology/approach – Using data from the National Survey of Adolescents (NSA), a nationally representative sample of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 years old, a social capital perspective is implemented to show how abuse impacts academic achievement.

Findings – Children victimized by physical or sexual abuse are more likely to join deviant peer groups, which in turn leads to increased levels of delinquent behavior by the individual. Both the “negative” social capital of the peer group and the deviant individual behaviors explain away much of the disparity in performance between abused and non-abused children and contribute to the overall understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the effects of abuse.

Originality/value of chapter – These findings provide evidence of the impact abuse can have on children's well-being and outlines social mechanisms that connect abuse victimization to children's outcomes.

Vintage capital growth models have been at the heart of growth theory in the 1960s. This research line collapsed in the late 1960s with the so-called embodiment controversy and the technical sophisitication of the vintage models. This chapter analyzes the astonishing revival of this literature in the 1990s. In particular, it outlines three methodological breakthroughs explaining this resurgence: a growth accounting revolution, taking advantage of the availability of new time series; an optimal control revolution, allowing to safely study vintage capital optimal growth models; and a vintage human capital revolution, along with the rise of economic demography, accounting for the vintage structure of human capital similarly to physical capital age structuring. The related literature is surveyed.

This chapter examines the impact of recent airline consolidations in the United States on the technical efficiencies of the airlines involved. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to assess the efficiencies, and the consolidations examined are those that occurred among major network carriers between 2005 and 2013. The airline production process is conceptualized as the transformation of labor, fuel, and fleet-wide seating capacity into available seat-miles, or, under an alternative model specification, into user value, as measured by the airline’s operating revenue. Efficiency is conceptualized in terms of minimizing the airline’s usage of the three inputs, given its output level. The analysis seeks to determine whether the airlines that consolidated were more efficient, post-consolidation, than they were prior to consolidation, compared to airlines that did not enter into consolidations. Although there are limitations owing to the small number of airlines in the dataset, the chapter finds no evidence that the consolidations enhanced the efficiencies of the airlines involved, relative to the efficiencies of the airlines that did not enter into consolidations.

Purpose – To show that Hayek's cognitive theory sheds light on Hayek's institutional theory.

Methodology/Approach – Although F. A. Hayek contributed richly to many fields of economics – from capital theory to monetary theory, and from institutions to spontaneous order – one theme is omnipresent in his work: the knowledge problem. This paper examines Hayek's work in psychology, The Sensory Order, and argues that there exist strong parallels between Hayek's cognitive and institutional theories.

Findings – Hayek's institutional (or social) theory makes a lot more sense when understood as a necessary consequence of his cognitive theory. Furthermore, Hayek's cognitive theory allows for rational individuals making choices that are socially embedded.

Research limitations/implications – Three Hayekian themes are explored: (1) institutional implications of limited knowledge; (2) learning and knowledge generation; and (3) mental models. The paper then uses a challenge within Hayek – the tension between microlevel methodological individualism and macrolevel institutional evolution – as a starting point toward resolving the lingering individual-culture methodological puzzle in contemporary economics. These are mere starting points for further research.

Originality/value of paper – Horwitz (2000) writes that “Hayek's thought will have come to fruition when the social sciences abandon rationalist and constructivist explanations of social phenomena in favor of ones that recognize the roles of tacit and contextual knowledge, institutional evolution, and spontaneous order. Such an approach would dramatically improve our understanding of the human mind.” This paper offers a step in that direction.

Global entrepreneurship may be defined to be the creation of new, value-adding transactions or transaction streams anywhere on the globe. The objective of this chapter is to present and examine a theory of global entrepreneurship. At the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, in January 1999, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for global entrepreneurship to meet the needs of the disadvantaged and the requirements of future generations. This chapter first presents a transaction cognition theory of global entrepreneurship that is intended as a path for research that responds to this call. Second, this chapter examines the theory from three critical viewpoints: (1) capability for explanation; (2) theoretical and operational utility; and (3) verifiability through the logic of scientific inference, and presents likely propositions that are surfaced by the analysis. Finally in this chapter, some of the likely implications of this theory within the context of globalization are discussed.