Inheriting knowledge and sustaining relationships: What stimulates the innovative performance of small software firms in the Netherlands?

Previous studies showed that firms established by experienced founders have higher survival rates and employment growth, but the potential effect of pre-entry experiences on innovation remains unclear. Using an original dataset, we examine the effect of founder's experiences, the relationship with the founder's previous employer and spatial proximity to the previous workplace on the innovative performance of small software firms in the Netherlands. Apart from entrepreneurial experiences, the results suggest no effect of pre-entry experiences. Continued contacts with the founder's previous employer appear to limit the firm's innovative performance, but firms do benefit from being established near the previous workplace.     

User-innovators and “local” information: The case of mountain biking

In a study of innovations developed by mountain bikers, we find that user-innovators almost always utilize “local” information - information already in their possession or generated by themselves - both to determine the need for and to develop the solutions for their innovations. We argue that this finding fits the economic incentives operating on users. Local need information will in general be the most relevant to user-innovators, since the bulk of their innovation-related rewards typically come from in-house use. User-innovators will increasingly tend to rely on local solution information as the stickiness of non-local solution information rises. When user-innovators do rely on local information, it may be possible to predict the general nature of the innovations they might develop.     

Social Participation of Students with Special Needs in Regular Primary Education in the Netherlands

This study addresses the social participation of young students (Grades One to Three) with special needs in regular Dutch primary schools. More specifically, the focus lies on four key themes related to social participation: friendships/relationships, contacts/interactions, students’ social self‐perception, and acceptance by classmates. The outcomes of the study revealed that the majority of students with special needs have a satisfactory degree of social participation. However, compared with students without special needs, a relatively large portion of the students with special needs experience difficulties in their social participation. In general, students with special needs have a significantly lower number of friends and are members of a cohesive subgroup less often than their typical peers. In addition, students with special needs have fewer interactions with classmates, have more interactions with the teacher, and are less accepted than students without special needs. The social self‐perception of both groups of students does not differ. A comparison between students with different categories of disability regarding the four themes of social participation revealed no significant differences.