The effects of owner identity and external governance systems on R&D investments: A study of Western European firms

This paper builds on agency and institutional theory to extend the analysis of the effects of ownership and control on R&D investments by considering the influence of different types of ownership and of institutional corporate governance systems. Our empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset of 1000 firms publicly-traded in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the UK). Controlling for industry- and firm-level effects, our findings show that higher shareholding by families is negatively associated with R&D investment. Moreover, widely-held firms invest less in R&D in the United Kingdom than in Continental European countries, thus suggesting the existence of a greater pressure towards the reduction of R&D in market-based governance systems. The results are robust against possible sample selection biases due to firms’ discretional R&D disclosure.     

Measuring ICT Use and Learning Outcomes: evidence from recent econometric studies

Based on PISA 2009 data, this article studies the relationship between students’ computer use and their achievement in reading, mathematics and science in 23 countries. After having categorised computer use into a set of different activities according to the skills they involve, we correlate students’ PISA test-scores with an index capturing the intensity of use for each of these activities and with the total number of activities they perform. Overall, we find that students’ PISA test scores in reading, mathematics and science increase with the intensity of computer use for Gaming activities while they decrease with the intensity of computer use for activities that are more related with school curricula (i.e. Communication and Collaboration activities; Technical Operations/Info Retrieval activities; Creation of Content and Knowledge Problem Solving activities). However, the number of activities (and hence the diversification of activities), irrespective of the intensity of computer use, is positively correlated with students’ proficiency in all three PISA domains in the vast majority of countries, indicating that computers breadth of use, as opposed to intensity of use in a given activity, has some positive effect on students’ PISA test scores.     

Timing with opportunity cost: Concurrent schedules of reinforcement improve peak timing

The temporal generalization gradient produced by the peak-interval (PI) procedure reflects behavior under the control of positive reinforcement for responding after the criterial time, but shows negligible discouragement for early responses. The lack of consequences for premature responding may affect estimates of timing accuracy and precision in the PI procedure. In two experiments, we sought to encourage more accurate timing in pigeons by establishing an opportunity cost for such responding. Concurrent ratio and interval schedules of reinforcement reduced the dispersion of keypecking around the target time. A sequence of three response-rate states (low-high-low) characterized performance in individual trials. Opportunity cost substantially reduced the mean and standard deviation of the duration of the middle-high state that typically enveloped the target time, indicating improved temporal acuity. We suggest a model as a first-order approximation to timing with opportunity cost.     

A triad of Filipino adolescents’ zones of lived experiences of information and communications technology (ICT)

Considering that today’s students feel extremely more comfortable with computers than did earlier generations of students vis-à-vis the notion that, as a social category, they have become one of the most interesting topics in research papers and journals in the field of behavioral and social sciences since the 1950s (Batan 2002), their individual and collective experiences of information and communications technology (ICT) could be expected to create a portrait of accounts that might inform educational policy makers as to how their ICT needs and concerns could be better addressed through a more responsive and a well-defined IT-driven educational platform. The central question that this phenomenological study purported to answer was: “How does a select group of Filipino adolescents collectively experience information and communications technology (ICT)?” Findings of this study revealed that the individual and collective articulations, verbalizations, and musings of the 60 adolescents recruited from two regions in the Philippines exposed three distinct but interrelated conceptual zones of ICT, namely: the zone of technology perspective (ZTP), zone of technology power and efficacy (ZTPE), and zone of technology deficits (ZTD). Implications of the study are also discussed in the paper. “There is a demand for qualitative research with an insider perspective, as young voices appear not to have been sufficiently heard.” (Hauan and Heggli 2002:13)      

A Global Culture of Peace: Transmission and Ethical Dimensions

The author considers in this article the ethical boundaries of knowledge, the challenges inherent in the improvement of international ethical and legal frameworks, and some of the ethically important moments of the past half‐century. Implications for higher education in the context of globalization are also considered, as are some of the new educational requirements of the knowledge‐driven economy and society.     

Persistence of innovation and patterns of firm growth

In this work we exploit a long-in-time panel of Spanish manufacturing firms observed during the period 1990–2012 to examine the long-run contribution of innovation persistence to sales growth and market share dynamics. We examine two main research questions. First, do persistent innovators grow more than other firms? Second, do persistent innovators show more persistent growth patterns over time compared to other firms? We find negative answers to both questions: firms that persistently innovate over the first decade, do not grow more and do not display more persistent growth dynamics in the succeeding years, regardless of whether innovation persistence is defined in terms of R&D, patenting activity, or product or process innovation. These findings lend support to luck and random theories of firm growth, in turn challenging innovation persistence theories commonly suggesting that persistent innovators enjoy large and sustained comparative advantages.     

Late Emergence of the First Possession Heuristic: Evidence From a Small‐Scale Culture

Western preschool children often assign ownership based on first possession and some theorists have proposed that this judgment might be an early emerging, innate bias. Five‐ to 9‐year‐olds (n = 112) from a small‐scale group in Kenya (Kikuyu) watched videotaped interactions of two women passing an object. The object's starting position and the women's gestures were varied. Use of the first possession heuristic increased with age, and 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds performed similarly to German 5‐year‐olds (n = 24). Starting position and gestures had no effect. A control study confirmed that 5‐year‐old Kikuyus (n = 20) understood the video material. The findings reveal that the first possession heuristic follows different developmental trajectories cross‐culturally and stress the role of children's sociocultural environment.     

The missing base molecules in atmospheric acid–base nucleation

Transformation of low-volatility gaseous precursors to new particles affects aerosol number concentration, cloud formation and hence the climate. The clustering of acid and base molecules is a major mechanism driving fast nucleation and initial growth of new particles in the atmosphere. However, the acid–base cluster composition, measured using state-of-the-art mass spectrometers, cannot explain the measured high formation rate of new particles. Here we present strong evidence for the existence of base molecules such as amines in the smallest atmospheric sulfuric acid clusters prior to their detection by mass spectrometers. We demonstrate that forming (H₂SO₄)₁(amine)₁ is the rate-limiting step in atmospheric H₂SO₄-amine nucleation and the uptake of (H₂SO₄)₁(amine)₁ is a major pathway for the initial growth of H₂SO₄ clusters. The proposed mechanism is very consistent with measured new particle formation in urban Beijing, in which dimethylamine is the key base for H₂SO₄ nucleation while other bases such as ammonia may contribute to the growth of larger clusters. Our findings further underline the fact that strong amines, even at low concentrations and when undetected in the smallest clusters, can be crucial to particle formation in the planetary boundary layer.     

Interval timing under a behavioral microscope: Dissociating motivational and timing processes in fixed-interval performance

The distribution of latencies and interresponse times (IRTs) of rats was compared between two fixed-interval (FI) schedules of food reinforcement (FI 30 s and FI 90 s), and between two levels of food deprivation. Computational modeling revealed that latencies and IRTs were well described by mixture probability distributions embodying two-state Markov chains. Analysis of these models revealed that only a subset of latencies is sensitive to the periodicity of reinforcement, and prefeeding only reduces the size of this subset. The distribution of IRTs suggests that behavior in FI schedules is organized in bouts that lengthen and ramp up in frequency with proximity to reinforcement. Prefeeding slowed down the lengthening of bouts and increased the time between bouts. When concatenated, latency and IRT models adequately reproduced sigmoidal FI response functions. These findings suggest that behavior in FI schedules fluctuates in and out of schedule control; an account of such fluctuation suggests that timing and motivation are dissociable components of FI performance. These mixture-distribution models also provide novel insights on the motivational, associative, and timing processes expressed in FI performance. These processes may be obscured, however, when performance in timing tasks is analyzed in terms of mean response rates.