Innovation practices in emerging economies: Do university partnerships matter?

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Enterprises’ resources and capabilities determine their ability to achieve competitive advantage. In this regard, the key innovation challenges that...     

The development of an entrepreneurial university

An entrepreneurial society refers to places where knowledge-based entrepreneurship has emerged as a driving force for economic growth, employment creation and competitiveness. In this context, entrepreneurial universities play an important role as both knowledge-producer and a disseminating institution. In the literature, several studies contributed with relevant findings. Most of these studies reveal a tendency to use case studies to explain this phenomenon justified by the embryonic nature of the topic field, and with the lack of a robust theoretical framework to understand it. No empirical study, however, has highlighted the interrelations among environmental and internal factors that conditioned the development of entrepreneurial universities with the teaching, research and entrepreneurial missions that they need to achieve. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of these interrelations identifying the most critical factors that conditioned these missions and to this end brings a proposal model to measure this phenomenon empirically in the light of the Institutional Economics and the Resource-Based View. The methodology adopted is integrated by the Spanish Entrepreneurial University Scoreboard to identify this phenomenon and Structural Equation Modeling to analyze the relationships among independent and dependent variables that integrate the proposal model of entrepreneurial university. This research could cover invaluable strategies to bring further benefits to society (in terms of the creation of new business and employment) and, in particular, to educational institutions.     

The involvement in sexual coercive behaviors of Spanish college men: prevalence and risk factors

This study aimed to know the prevalence of sexual coercion toward women perpetrated by acquaintance Spanish college men, and some personal factors associated with the involvement in these behaviors to replicate the confluence model. An anonymous questionnaire was completed by 196 university students that included an adaptation of the Sexual Experiences Survey, and other scales to assess different attitudes, motives, and experiences associated with sexual aggression. About 15% of men admitted some involvement in sexual behaviors when the woman did not want it. The control and dominance needs, the personal disposition to impersonal sex, and empathy competency showed the strongest association with the involvement in coercive sexual behaviors. Empathy moderated the effects of control and domination needs and the impersonal sex in predicting sexual coercion. Overall, our data supports the confluence model.     

Older women's living arrangements and family relationships in urban Mexico

It is often assumed that in Latin America the family will care for elderly relatives. Yet, older people's dependence on family members should not be regarded as unproblematic. This article reviews the living arrangements of older women in urban Mexico, where, despite widely held beliefs about the special treatment merited by women as mothers, one in nine older women now lives alone. Recent figures suggest the proportion is growing rapidly. We use a life course perspective to explore the reasons for this pattern and examine the implications for the well-being of unmarried women living alone or with married daughters or sons. The article presents findings from a research project on gender and the home using a combination of qualitative and survey research methods in Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city.     

Entrepreneurial universities in two European regions: a case study comparison

An entrepreneurial university is a natural incubator that tries to provide a supportive environment in which the university community can explore, evaluate and exploit ideas that could be transformed into social and economic entrepreneurial initiatives. Entrepreneurial universities are involved in partnerships, networks and other relationships to generate an umbrella for interaction, collaboration and co-operation. Rapid developments in science, the multidisciplinary nature of frontier research, legislative changes such as the Bayh–Dole Act and demands from business and society have shaped knowledge-based entrepreneurship within universities. Despite sharing similar historical backgrounds, economic conditions and cultural and social structures, entrepreneurial universities in most countries remain distinct from one another by their institutional arrangements, traditions and characteristics unique to each organization. Interestingly, no comparative research has been conducted to understand the similarities and differences of the conditioning factors and the outcomes/outputs of entrepreneurial universities in different regions that share similar social, economic and political conditions. This paper addresses this research deficit, adopting institutional economics and resource-based view. We compare entrepreneurial universities in two European regions (Spain and Ireland) using an in-depth qualitative approach based on multiple case studies (two Spanish universities and two Irish universities) between 2006 and 2010. The findings provide organizational practices and approaches relevant to the transformation process of other regional universities seeking to become entrepreneurial.     

Suicidal Ideation Among Women Court-Referred to Batterer Intervention Programs

Identifying the prevalence and correlates of suicidal ideation in women mandated to batterer intervention programs is necessary to prevent suicide in this greatly understudied population. This study used cross-sectional, self-report survey methodology to identify the prevalence and correlates of suicidal ideation among 79 women attending batterer intervention programs. Of the sample, 33% reported experiencing suicidal ideation during the two weeks prior to entering the program. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that (while controlling for number of batterer intervention sessions attended) symptoms of depression and borderline personality disorder, but not symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, were associated with suicidal ideation.     

Working with law students to develop legal literacy materials

This paper sets out the findings of a teaching development project undertaken with undergraduate law students at the University of Leicester (UOL) in 2013–2014, funded by the Higher Education Academy (HEA). In the course of this project, students were actively involved in the design, development and delivery of five interactive workshops for primary school children, each built around a particular theme and each designed to help develop an aspect of the children’s legal literacy. The aims were to assess the impact on the learning experience of student participants; to assess whether it may be possible to incorporate this form of activity within the undergraduate curriculum and to assess whether it may be possible to create a sustainable model for use in the future, with new groups of students and a wider number of schools. The most positive outcomes of the project relate to the students’ self-reporting of the development of transferable skills and their reported increase in self-confidence, as a result of being involved in the project. The role of group work in the development of transferable skills is also evident. By far the weakest area was the demonstration and development of legal research skills. The authors reflect on these findings, and comment on some of the unforeseen benefits and challenges of the project, before drawing conclusions as to its future viability.     

Care-tizenship: precarity,social movements,and the deleting/re-writing of citizenship

A series of activist efforts across Europe have been organizing under the umbrella concept of precarity, with a long trajectory of movements facing flexibilization policies, austerity programs and migratory restrictions. The rise of precarity activism in Spain has worked at the intersections of increasing vulnerability and mobility producing a prolific body of activist literature and rich repertoire of strategies. This paper explores how alternative concepts of citizenship have developed within debates among precarity organizing prior to and after the financial crisis in Europe. Concretely, feminist precarity collectives in Spain came up with the play-on-words of ‘Care-tizenship’ to evoke a different notion of political belonging with updated collective rights. The original Spanish term is arguably the result of a typo: an accidental switching of the order of vowels in the word ciudadanía resulted in cuidadanía, which totally changed the root word: from city to care. Caretizenship suggests a community of practice forged by ties of caring relationships, mutually attending to basic needs in a context of increasing vulnerability among local, migrant and emigrant populations. While far from a working institution, this activist theorization provides a ‘horizon’ to work toward constituting an opening of political imagination.     

Entrepreneurial activity and regional competitiveness: evidence from European entrepreneurial universities

The interesting relationship between entrepreneurial activity and regional competitiveness has been a major focus of academics, university managers, and policy makers during the past decades—in particular the role of institutions in the establishment of political, social, and economic rules-. For example, since the enactment of the US Bayh–Dole Act more than 30 years ago, many American cities and regions are increasingly viewing universities as potential engines of economic growth. In these new socioeconomic scenarios, the role of entrepreneurial universities is not only generates/transfers knowledge but also contributes/provides leadership for the creation of entrepreneurial thinking, actions, and institutions. Previous studies have shown the university’s role in economic development, but no empirical study has analyzed the entrepreneurial activity generated by university students per university at the country/regional level of analysis. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the university’s entrepreneurial activity on regional competitiveness. Adopting the institutional economics and the endogenous growth approaches, a proposed conceptual framework was developed and tested with structural equation modeling using data from 102 universities located in 56 NUTS II of 12 European countries. Our results evidenced that informal factors (e.g., attitudes, role models) have a higher influence on university entrepreneurial activity than formal factors (e.g., support measures, education and training). Our results also evidenced a higher contribution of universities on regional competitiveness, in particular, when we used social measures (talent human capital) instead economic measures (GDP per capita).