How do universities shape founding teams? Social proximity and informal mechanisms of knowledge transfer in student entrepreneurship

This paper investigates informal mechanisms of knowledge transfer (KT) from a local university to entrepreneurial teams comprising students and recent graduates. While the extant literature on university-industry KT largely focuses on formal mechanisms aimed at stimulating entrepreneurial initiatives in high-tech (HT) sectors, it overlooks the effect of university-industry KT on nascent entrepreneurship in low-medium tech (LMT) sectors. To fill this gap in the literature, we carry out a mixed-method analysis that exploits a dataset of 154 new business ideas (and 535 team members) presented at a business plan competition in Rimini from 2010 to 2017. Our findings highlight a robust relationship between educational field and the R&D intensity of entrepreneurial projects: students take advantage of the knowledge acquired at university to develop entrepreneurial projects with higher technological content than those planned by non-graduates. Furthermore, the empirical evidence shows that the local university nurtures the formation of ties among students and recent graduates enrolled in the same courses and fosters their efforts to launch new ventures. Finally, the qualitative analysis identifies relevant and non-traditional mechanisms of KT that are being exploited by nascent entrepreneurs to develop their business ideas in the LMT and HT sectors.

     

Runaway Bureaucracy? Exploring the Role of Nordic Regulatory Agencies in the European Union

This article reports a comparative study of the Environmental Regulatory Agencies in Norway, Denmark and Finland. Increasingly and relatively independently these agencies are taking part in transnational networks in the European Union involving the European Commission. An informal penetration, fuelled by faster electronic technology, is taking place between the European Commission and the regulatory agencies, largely outside the control of the domestic politico-administrative leadership. Changes in the character of the states' public administrations serve as an important background for these developments, a distinctive feature being the 'agencification' of the administrative apparatus during the last decades. Due to their relative autonomy, the national regulatory agencies are well placed to work 'double-hatted' in the sense that they interact directly with the European Commission at the same time as they perform traditional tasks as agents of national ministries. This development may challenge the image of integrated administrative apparatus and the notion of transparent and democratic governance.     

Gendered discourses of facilitation in a probation learning environment: challenging the heteronormative ideal

This article focuses on the cognitive behavioural rehabilitation programmes run by the probation service in the UK. Drawing on Judith Butler's assertion that both sex and gender are discursively produced and Becky Francis' notion of gender monoglossia and heteroglossia, the article seeks to analyse and problematise the gendered discourses of facilitation that were mobilised by policy-makers and practitioners in this setting. The dominant institutional model of heteronormative facilitation promoted the ideal of each programme being delivered by one female and one male facilitator in order to provide a gender ‘balance’. But underpinning this ideal lay the binarised and essentialist notion that ‘masculinity’ arose naturally from the male body and ‘femininity’ from the female body. Female facilitators were positioned as bringing a calming and non-threatening atmosphere to the group and as naturally possessing skills of ‘empathy’ and ‘warmth’. Male facilitators were highly valued by managers, but were also under pressure to perform masculinity in very specific ways that were linked to notions of intellectual, rational, ‘middle-class’ masculinity. Through an analysis of interviews with probation practitioners and session observations, the article highlights that despite these dominant institutional constructions, a variety of complex and contradictory performances of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ were mobilised in this environment.     

‘Belles from Bristol and Bournville in New Surroundings’: female confectionery workers as transnational agents, 1918–1928

ABSTRACT

In existing histories of the development of multinational business, women are usually absent. Yet when the British confectionery companies of Cadbury, Fry and Pascall took the bold step to build an entirely new factory in Tasmania in the early 1920s, women workers were important, and mobile, actors. This article draws on business history archives and genealogical material, from both Britain and Australia, to explore how a select group of British women became the ‘pioneers’ of the Cadbury-Fry-Pascall company. It examines why women were key to the formation of an Australian subsidiary, how they influenced, and sometimes challenged, the creation of workplace culture and practice, and the consequences of this mode of female labour migration.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Oil Industry in the Russian Arctic: Global Norms and Neo-Paternalism

Examining the oil and gas industry in the Russian Arctic, this article investigates the gap between corporate social responsibility (CSR) as articulated in corporate offices and implemented at the local level. In Russia, global CSR norms interact with weak formal institutions and the strong informal expectations of state officials and local communities that companies bear responsibility for welfare and infrastructure. As a result, the concept of citizens as ‘stakeholders’ is underdeveloped. Instead, local residents remain subjects within a neo-paternalist system of governance that mimics some elements of the Soviet past. Compensation for damages to indigenous peoples has blurred legal obligations and the voluntary nature of CSR. However, the CSR in the region is constantly developing and formal methods of compensation may assist in clarifying the scope and practice of CSR.     

Unusual and Fatal Case of an Undiagnosed Intravascular Large B-cell Lymphoma: The Oncologist’s Great Imitator†

Intravascular lymphoma (IVL) is a rare subtype of extranodal lymphomas that is characterized by the selective growth of neoplastic cells within the lumen of small vessels. Authors document the case of an unexpected death caused by an undiagnosed intravascular large B-cell lymphoma with multi-organ involvement, which had initially manifested as an infection and then as an unclarified central nervous system pathology. Histological examination showed a diffuse intravascular large B-cell brain lymphoma with prominent cerebral involvement. The relevance of the case report reveals the importance of an autopsy of an extremely rare and threatening pathology that in most cases is diagnosed only postmortem. As a result, the role of the forensic pathologist becomes particularly important. When specifically performing an in-depth autopsy evaluation with a specific histologic analysis, it is possible to identify the intravascular lymphoma and declare a more accurate cause of death.