Entrepreneurial performance of principal investigators and country culture: relations and influences

The paper focuses on the role of a country’s culture in influencing the entrepreneurial attitudes of Principal Investigators, in shaping their ability to combine knowledge theory and business practice, in determining their capacity to strengthen the cooperation between the two domains of research and business, and in supporting research spin-off creation in entrepreneurial universities. To make Principal Investigators’ orientation match Entrepreneurial Universities’ goals of the marketing of innovation and entrepreneurship is not an easy task. A research-oriented approach, rather than an explorative entrepreneurial orientation, is still predominant in Principal Investigators. Among the factors influencing the strategic orientation towards entrepreneurship of Principal Investigators, the paper argues that the country’s culture could be key. Evaluating the influence of the entrepreneurial culture on a Principal Investigator’s activity is critical in predicting his performance and comparing it with that of Principal Investigators in other countries.     

Motorcyclists’ fatalities in multiple crashes: Who is responsible for death? (three cases)

In Italy in 2007, 26% of two-wheeled motor vehicle injury/fatalities concerned motorcyclists. However, it is rare (4%) that a motorcycle (MC) crashes with two other road users and even more exceptional is a crash between a MC and three other vehicles. In general, in MC–vehicle crashes, the vehicle driver is at fault in more than 50% of the cases and the motorcyclist in 37%. The study concerns three MC lethal road accidents in which the culpability of the motorcyclist's death was questioned by the prosecutor because it was supposed that one or more vehicles ran over the motorcyclist after a fall. The crucial question in these three cases was if it was possible to assign injuries to a specific crash-aetiology and to assign/exclude the responsibility of motorcyclist's death to a defined subject (motorcyclist himself and/or car drivers) after a crash-dynamics study made by an engineer consultant or by the police authority. Case (1) A 56-year-old motorcyclist on a highway had a front–rear end collision with a car that suddenly stopped; he was therefore projected against a concrete traffic island, thrown on the soil and run over by another car. Case (2) A 29-year-old motorcyclist on the East ring road fell on the soil, perhaps by a supposed front–rear end contact with a car and was run over by two cars in rapid succession. Case (3) A 34-year-old motorcyclist on the North ring road fell suddenly on the soil for unknown reasons; during first aid, the medical team around him was run over by the ambulance which pushed after a rear-end collision with a car. A stepwise analysis of the indicated crash dynamics and an evaluation of all the injuries revealed at autopsy, the study proposed, when possible, injury aetiology for each case and the related responsibility assignments and exclusions.     

Evaluating and comparing entrepreneurial ecosystems using SMAA and SMAA-S

The Journal of Technology Transfer - This paper focuses on the entrepreneurial ecosystem as a set of interdependent and coordinated factors in a territory enabling entrepreneurship. To date,...