The role of marketing activities in the fuzzy front end of innovation: a study of the biotech industry

In this paper we explore the importance of marketing activities during the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation (FFEI), which in product life cycle management is described as the phase between R&D and the beginning of formal new product development. The FFEI is characterized by informal processes and many industry specific conditions. The particular context in which the study was conducted involved research emerging from a US government sponsored institution. Firms obtain licenses for technology from the government sponsored institution with the purpose of advancing them towards commercialization. But, the process of development often gets stalled, especially during the initial stages due to the lack of a number of resources (financial, key personnel, etc.). The specific interest in this study was, therefore, to understand the extent to which various marketing efforts by the licensees enabled the survival of early stage biotech innovations. Licensees would be expected to seek resources by undertaking a number of marketing activities designed to communicate a value proposition to potential resource providers. The study involved qualitative data collection among licensees to uncover marketing activities in which they engaged during the FFEI phase. The data was coded to develop the specific types of marketing activities that had been employed so as to provide insight into which activities were important in enabling early stage innovation survival. Future research can build upon this study’s findings in industries other than biotech and involving different sources of technology transfer (universities, etc.).     

Developmental changes through adolescence in the spontaneous nomination of reference groups as a function of decision content

The achievement of behavioral autonomy and psychological independence from the family is one of the foremost developmental tasks of the adolescent. This aspect of adolescent socialization is examined with regard to the developmental trends in the individual's nomination of socialization groups as competent referents in different areas of judgment. Eighty subjects, distributed equally between sex and among samples drawn from the fifth, seventh, ninth, and twelfth grades, were interviewed and allowed to nominate spontaneously reference groups of their own choosing for guidance in moral, informational, and social judgments. A significant relation was found between the nomination of a particular reference group and the nature of the decision to be made. The distribution of reference group nominations among the grade levels sampled differed significantly in the case of informational and social judgments. With increasing age during adolescence, peers seemed to be a more acceptable source of information in matters of social judgment than either parents or adults outside the family. Adults outside the family, however, exhibited a marked increase in acceptability as a reference group for judgments of an informational nature. Parents seemed to be the most acceptable referent across all grades for moral judgments. The findings are viewed particularly in relation to the results of studies which have examined developmental trends in simulated group conformity situations and susceptibility to cross-pressures. The possible reasons for the different developmental phenomena revealed by this study and by the conformity studies are discussed.This article is based on a thesis submitted by the first author to Duke University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science with Distinction of Psychology.     

Public Attitudes About Property Distribution at Death and Intestate Succession Laws in the United States

Intestate succession statutes should reflect the distributive preferences of intestate decedents. To date, these distributive preferences could only be inferred from distributive patterns found in wills. This telephone survey of 750 persons living in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas supplements prior will studies and provides new insights concerning public attitudes about property distribution at death. The distributive preferences of the respondents revealed few significant differences that could be attributed to age, education, income, wealth, or occupational status. Two other important findings of this study suggest that a modern intestacy statute should provide that (1) the surviving spouse inherit the entire estate in preference to the decedent's issue or family of orientation and (2) issue who are in the same generation share equally in the estate.     

Praktische Probleme der Staatsanwaltschaft bei der Verfolgung von Tierschutzstraftaten

Das Tierschutzstrafrecht wird in der Praxis oft stiefmütterlich behandelt. Viele Probleme sind ungel?st. Der Beitrag besch?ftigt sich deshalb mit typischen Fragestellungen, die immer wieder im Rahmen von Tierschutzstrafverfahren auftreten. Auch wenn dabei auf die Sicht der Ermittlungsbeh?rden abstellt wird, sind die dargestellten Grunds?tze für alle anderen am Tierschutzstrafverfahren Beteiligten (z.B. Strafverteidiger, Veterin?re etc.) ebenso von Bedeutung.