Search results

The chapter presents an overview of the state of Research Management and Administration (RMA) in Belarus. The country enjoys sound traditions in basic and applied research in some areas relevant to its economy, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The current science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy is focussed on the commercialisation of domestic research and development (R&D) results and the effectiveness of the national STI system.

The majority of competitive budget funds are allocated within different types of programmes that support R&D and innovation. Formal RMA positions exist at the programme level and are based in research centres, universities and companies being grounded on a solid legal basis. Roughly 150–250 people within 50 legal entities are directly involved in RMA. At the project level, the RMA activities are either combined with scientific supervision or informally distributed within the project team.

A possible increase in overall R&D expenditures in the country, the eventual enlargement of the scope of publicly supported STI projects and their collaborative nature, as well as their internationalisation and widening of international cooperation may significantly increase the demand for RMA professionals.

Traditional studies in the sociology of science have highlighted the self-organized character of the academic community. This article focuses on recent interrelated changes that alter that distinctive governance structure and its related patterns of competition and cooperation. The changes that we identify here are contractualization and large-scale cooperative research. We use different data sources to exemplify these new patterns and discuss the illustrative role of research clusters in German academia. Research clusters as funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) are both a highly prestigious scarce good in the competition for reputation and resources and a means of fostering cooperation. Our analysis of this German example reveals that this new institutional configuration of universities as organizations, academic researchers, and the state has a profound effect on organizational practices. We discuss the implications of our empirical findings with regard to collegiality in academia. Ultimately, we anticipate a further weakening of collegial bonds, not only because universities and the state have become more active in shaping the nature of academic competition and cooperation but also because of the increasing strategic and individualistic orientation of academic researchers. In the final section, we summarize our findings and address the need for further research and an international comparative perspective.

Machine learning (ML) analytical tools are increasingly being considered as an alternative quantitative methodology in management research. This paper proposes a new approach for uncovering the antecedents behind product and product–service innovation (PSI).

The ML approach is novel in the field of innovation antecedents at the country level. A sample of the Equatorian National Survey on Technology and Innovation, consisting of more than 6,000 firms, is used to rank the antecedents of innovation.

The analysis reveals that the antecedents of product and PSI are distinct, yet rooted in the principles of open innovation and competitive priorities.

The analysis is based on a sample of Equatorian firms with the objective of showing how ML techniques are suitable for testing the antecedents of innovation in any other context.

The novel ML approach, in contrast to traditional quantitative analysis of the topic, can consider the full set of antecedent interactions to each of the innovations analyzed.

The managerial questions of this paper are as follows, and the authors are trying to solve them: How revenue sharing contract (CSR) degree and government subsidy affect the agri-food quality? What kind of model (WPC, revenue-sharing contract [RSC] and cooperative) would be more effective in motivating manufacturers and retailer to increase effort and improve agri-food quality? What kind of model (WPC, RSC and cooperative) would make manufacturer and retailer better off?

Considering the jointing quality effort and contract decision in green agri-food supply chain, this paper proposes six models that consider CSR of manufacturer and retailer, and then the obtained optimal solutions are compared and analyzed. At the same time, the impact of government subsidies is analyzed, and corresponding conclusions are drawn.

The results show that, first of all, whether the increasing CSR of the manufacturer or the retailer can motivate both parties to improve the agri-food quality effort investment. Second, the WPC and RSC contract may play different role in different cases. Finally, under the model with government subsidies, regarding positive influence of government subsidies on efforts of manufacturer and retailer, quality and profits of members is investigated. Based on these conclusions, this study puts forward the following policy suggestions. Firstly, governments should formulate reasonable subsidy policies to support manufacturer and retailer to improve the agri-food quality, thereby promoting green industries' development. Secondly, manufacturer and retailer should actively improve CSR and strengthen the effort of agri-food so as to advance quality. Finally, manufacturer and retailer can choose cooperative model or WPC contract.

In this paper, one manufacturer and one retailer are considered. Since the agri-food supply chain structure in reality is more complicated, the future research direction can consider the supply chain structure with one manufacturer and multiple retailers. In addition, this paper only considers the subsidy, and future research can classify the subsidy into different types.

The study makes two substantive contributions to the body of knowledge in the field of sustainable operations:(1) incorporating quality-based demand function in supply chain and dynamic process of agri-food quality; (2) exploring the impact of CSR awareness of members and subsidy of government on agri-food quality, and comparing the influence in different models.

The authors aimed to contribute to the interface of comparative international entrepreneurship and international marketing by exploring the micro-foundations and micro-processes of network bricolage aimed at international market entry among the entrepreneurs of small biotechnology firms. The research questions of the study are (1) How do the international entrepreneurs of small firms act and use their domestic and/or international networks for new market entry? (2) How are the micro-foundations and micro-processes of networking similar or different between individuals from different countries?

A qualitative research design was used to investigate six cases from different countries of origin, looking at the micro-foundations and micro-processes underlying international market entry undertaken by entrepreneurs from Canada, Finland and New Zealand.

The micro-foundations for network bricolage by international entrepreneurs were taken to involve features of the country of origin, including market size and location, and the usefulness of the official language of the nation. The micro-processes were taken to involve the international entrepreneur’s network bricolage actions (i.e. collaborating and generating, obtaining and applying, reaching and maintaining, and seeking and reviewing), while encompassing also the location of their networks (domestic and/or international) and the operational domains these belonged to (R&D, funding, sales channel and customer). The study categorised three types of international entrepreneurs undertaking new market entry, illustrating cross-national differences: (1) sales-channel-oriented seekers, (2) funding-oriented riders and (3) customer-oriented hunters.

The study contributes to research on comparative international entrepreneurship and international marketing. This findings show that national-level micro-foundations influence the actions of network bricolage, the importance of various operational domains and the location of the network ties used. This main contribution is a conceptual model based on our cross-national investigation of international entrepreneurs’ networking actions. The authors reveal the micro-foundations and micro-processes relevant to international entrepreneurs’ network bricolage for new market entry, and present examples of international entrepreneur types emerging from our cross-national setting.

This article provides an overview and analysis of 50 years of European policies, actions, and challenges to align its higher education and research, as well as lessons learned from this for similar initiatives elsewhere.

The study builds on a comprehensive overview and study of policy documents and scholarly literature to identify by decade the main policies and actions and the related challenges towards a European Higher Education and Research Area.

The findings make clear the key rationales, challenges, shifts and lessons to be learned from 50-year European policies for the alignment of higher education.

Its value lies in the historical overview and analysis of current initiatives, in particular the European Universities Initiative (EUI), to provide a historical and geographical context, which might give insight for similar initiatives elsewhere.

This study provides theoretical and empirical insights into how firms can enhance their performance strategically and financially by integrating learning and transformational capabilities into research and development (R&D) activities based on the dynamic capabilities approach. To achieve this, the authors propose that transformational capabilities in R&D mediate the relationship between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage.

Using a purposive sampling technique and standardized questionnaires, data were collected from 118 R&D and senior managers. To analyze the data, multiple regression analysis, along with SPSS PROCESS macro (Model 4), was used.

The results support the theoretical assumption that there are direct and indirect positive and significant effects between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage as mediated by transformational R&D capabilities.

This study explores R&D from a dynamic capabilities perspective and suggests that learning capabilities should come first to enhance businesses’ competitive advantage. Furthermore, transformational R&D capabilities can explain the relationship between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage. The authors recommend that researchers should investigate the contributions of R&D to promote competitive advantage.