Resource constraints as triggers of radical innovation: Longitudinal evidence from the manufacturing sector

Despite the significant role of radical innovation as a driver of firm growth and performance, the consequences of resource constraints for radical innovation outcomes remain unknown. Our paper addresses this gap. We combine arguments from entrepreneurship theory and the theory of recombinative innovation to construct an overarching theoretical framework that argues why resource constraints can promote, rather than impede, radical innovation. We then build hypotheses on two specific resource constraints, knowledge and financial, and test these by a lagged-variable random-effects Tobit model with longitudinal data from an exceptionally large and detailed innovation survey. Controlling for absorptive capacity, firm age, and firm growth, we find full support for the hypothesis that knowledge constraints spur radical innovation and partial support for the hypothesis that financial constraints spur radical innovation. We discuss the theoretical significance of these findings and point to managerial implications and paths for future research.     

中学生数学建模能力水平的实验分析

1关于数学建模能力21世纪初启动的各国数学课程改革都将学生数学建模思想的形成以及数学建模能力的培养作为数学教育的重要目标之一.例如颁布于2003年底的德国数学教育标准明确提出,数学建模能力是学生应该发展的六大数学能力之一,也就是说学生要学会用数学方法去理解现实相关的情景,提出解决方案,并认清和判断现实中的数学问题.③我国《普通高中数学课程标准实验》也明确提出,数学课程要求把数学探究、数学建模的思想以不同的形式渗透在各模块和专题内容之中.“标准”强调数学建模是运用数学思想、方法和知识解决实际问题的过程.数学建模是…     

The use of public learning diaries in blended learning

Learning diaries—as we employ them—are students’ written reflections of their learning experiences and outcomes over the course of university seminars. The writing of such diaries is ‘tutored’ by a computer program: eHELp supports the writing of sophisticated learning diaries through a modelling and scaffolding of the phases of planning, production and revision. In addition, the learning diaries get published—by uploading them in a cooperation platform—so that the learners can read and discuss their peers’ diaries. The main function of such public learning diaries is to enrich traditional university courses (Blended Learning) with additional elaborative, organisational, critical reasoning, and metacognitive activities in order to foster a deeper processing and better retention of the contents to be learnt. We would like to present the educational rationale of our approach and report the findings of corresponding empirical studies.     

Towards a probabilistic model for supporting collaborative information access

In information retrieval research, models and systems traditionally assume that a single person is querying and reviewing the results. However, several empirical studies of professional practice identified collaboration during IR as everyday work patterns in order to solve a shared information need and to benefit from the diverse expertise and experience of the team members. Moreover, most IR systems that are employed in professional work routines are designed for individual use and prototype collaborative systems are too limited to support use in todays work practice. To bridge this gap, this papers develops and formalizes a decision theoretic approach towards supporting a team of people that explicitly set out together to resolve a shared information need. We develop a formal cost model for collaborative IR that considers the trade-off between estimated relevance of a document as well as estimated document redundancy. From this cost model, we use a decision theoretic approach to derive the notion of activity suggestions, that is, a formal optimum criterion that describes optimum collaboration strategies in IR as the solution of an integer linear program. Those collaboration strategies are suggested to team members with the aim to facilitate the collaborative performance of information retrieval tasks. We demonstrate the application of our model by means of search result division in two collaborative search tasks. In the conducted experiments, we study the effects of different domain knowledge and resulting relevance assessments of team members in four different conditions. The gathered results indicate that our approach can improve the retrieval effectiveness of teams in recall-oriented tasks.     

Does the accuracy matter? Accurate concept map feedback helps students improve the cohesion of their explanations

Students are often challenged by the demand of writing cohesive explanatory texts. Prior research has shown that providing students with concept map feedback that visualizes explanatory cohesion deficits helped students generate more cohesive explanations. We conducted an experiment to investigate whether the accuracy of the provided information within the concept map feedback affected students’ improvements of cohesion. Accordingly, we varied the represented accuracy of information within such concept maps: Students either received accurate concept map feedback that depicted the real relations between concepts, as well as the authentic cohesion gaps in their explanations, or students received inaccurate concept map feedback, which depicted randomly drawn relations and random cohesion gaps. Additionally, in a baseline condition, students did not receive any feedback. We found that the students in the accurate feedback condition generated more cohesive explanations than the students in the no-feedback condition, whereas the students in the inaccurate feedback condition lay in-between. Evidently, providing feedback in general can be regarded as beneficial to enhance students’ writing. However, the accuracy of the provided feedback further impacts the effectiveness of computer-generated concept maps.     

Seeking sustainability competence and capability in the ESD and HESD literature: an international philosophical hermeneutic analysis

Education for sustainable development (ESD) and higher education for sustainable development (HESD) are complex, multidisciplinary fields of enquiry, drawing on concepts and terms from different disciplines and languages. Although the fields are advancing in their acceptability within educational systems worldwide, they are currently struggling to achieve sought-after graduate and societal outcomes such as environmentally-responsible or sustainability-focussed-citizenship. The research described in this article explores the possibility that miscommunication or misunderstanding of basic concepts within these fields is contributing to slow progress towards their objectives. We used a philosophical hermeneutic analysis to explore how the terms ‘competence’ and ‘capability’ are used within selected ESD/HESD papers. We identify substantial internal contradictions and inconsistencies with respect to differences between learners’ abilities and their willingness to perform these abilities, and to the educational context in which these outcomes are sought. We emphasise the importance of linking educational objectives with pedagogical approaches to teaching and assessment.     

Modellbasierte Entwicklung eingebetteter Fahrzeugsoftware bei DaimlerChrysler

Steigende Softwareumf?nge und die damit einhergehende Komplexit?tssteigerung erfordern neue Herangehensweisen an die Entwicklung eingebetteter Fahrzeugsoftware. Als Reaktion auf diese Herausforderungen vollzieht sich seit einigen Jahren ein Paradigmenwechsel von der klassischen Programmentwicklung hin zu modellbasierten Techniken. Der Beitrag gibt einen überblick über den Einsatz modellbasierter Entwicklungstechniken bei DaimlerChrysler und zeigt aktuelle Forschungsschwerpunkte auf. The growing amount of software and attendant rise in complexity demand new approaches to the development of embedded vehicle software. For some years now, a paradigm change from classical program development to model-based techniques has been taking place in reaction to these challenges. This paper provides an overview of the application of model-based development techniques at DaimlerChrysler and presents the main foci of current research.

CR Subject Classification D.2.1,D.2.2,D.2.3,D.2.5,D.2.10,I.6.4,I.6.5     

Determination of the centre of mass kinematics in alpine skiing using differential global navigation satellite systems

In the sport of alpine skiing, knowledge about the centre of mass (CoM) kinematics (i.e. position, velocity and acceleration) is essential to better understand both performance and injury. This study proposes a global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-based method to measure CoM kinematics without restriction of capture volume and with reasonable set-up and processing requirements. It combines the GNSS antenna position, terrain data and the accelerations acting on the skier in order to approximate the CoM location, velocity and acceleration. The validity of the method was assessed against a reference system (video-based 3D kinematics) over 12 turn cycles on a giant slalom skiing course. The mean (± s) position, velocity and acceleration differences between the CoM obtained from the GNSS and the reference system were 9 ± 12 cm, 0.08 ± 0.19 m · s^-1 and 0.22 ± 1.28 m · s^-2, respectively. The velocity and acceleration differences obtained were smaller than typical differences between the measures of several skiers on the same course observed in the literature, while the position differences were slightly larger than its discriminative meaningful change. The proposed method can therefore be interpreted to be technically valid and adequate for a variety of biomechanical research questions in the field of alpine skiing with certain limitations regarding position.