Robotics and STEM learning: students’ achievements in assignments according to the P3 Task Taxonomy—practice,problem solving,and projects

This study presents the case of development and evaluation of a STEM-oriented 30-h robotics course for junior high school students (n = 32). Class activities were designed according to the P3 Task Taxonomy, which included: (1) practice—basic closed-ended tasks and exercises; (2) problem solving—small-scale open-ended assignments in which the learner can choose the solution method or arrive at different answers; and (3) project-based learning—open-ended challenging tasks. The research aimed at exploring students’ working patterns, achievements in learning the course, and the impact of this experience on students’ motivation to learn STEM subjects. Evaluation tools included a final exam on factual, procedural and conceptual knowledge in the STEM subject learned in the course, class observations, interviews with the students, and administrating an attitude questionnaire before and after the course. Since the experimental class was quite heterogenic in regard to students’ prior learning achievements and motivation to learn, some of the students completed just the basic exercises, others coped well with the problem-solving tasks, and only a few took it upon themselves to carry out a complex project. However, all students showed high motivation to learn robotics and STEM subjects. In summary, robotics provides a very rich and attractive learning environment for STEM education. Yet, the realization of this potential depends largely on careful design of the course methodology and especially the students’ assignments in the class. One should recognize that often only some students are capable of learning a new subject on their own through project work, and these students also need to gain additional knowledge and skills before dealing with complex projects.     

Australian enrolment trends in technology and engineering: putting the T and E back into school STEM

There has been much political and educational focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Australian schools in recent years and while there has been significant research examining science and mathematics enrolments in senior high school, little is known about the corresponding trends in Technologies and engineering. Understanding these subjects is essential for educators and policy-makers alike if Australians are to embrace the challenges of an innovation economy. We have collected raw enrolment data from each of the Australian state and territory education departments from 1992 to 2014 and analysed this across five Technology and Engineering subject areas. We also consider some of the relationships between these subject areas and other areas of the STEM equation. The results of these analyses are discussed in terms of absolute enrolments, participation rates and sex balance. We have found that the total number of students in Year 12 increased year on year and that this growth is echoed, to a lesser extent, in the participation rates for design technology, food technology and engineering. Digital Technologies however, grew rapidly until 2000, after which time it has been in steady decline. We identify that while the trends mostly show growth, there is a concerning male bias to many of these subject areas. We suggest that the broadening of the upper high school curriculum, confusion surrounding vocational training enrolments, and gamesmanship of the university entrance system, may be contributing to the limited growth observed. Finally, we identify a number of important areas for further research in this key learning area.     

Assessing food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean using FAO’s Food Insecurity Experience Scale

The complexity of the operational concept and definition of food insecurity has complicated the study of the ‘food insecure’ and efforts to determine clear policy directions. Previous findings on the prevalence and severity of food insecurity are inconsistent and often depend on the measure used. To overcome limitations in food security measurement, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations developed the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, which is the first survey protocol to measure people’s direct experience of food insecurity on a global scale. Using this new measure, our study contributes to the understanding of the food insecure by examining the determinants of food insecurity within and across countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Using a series of multilevel linear models, we find the three determinants associated with the largest increase in the likelihood of experiencing food insecurity in LAC are: low levels of education, limited social capital, and living in a country with low GDP per capita. Results suggest the need to promote education of the most vulnerable, encourage social interactions that help build individuals’ social capital, and adopt gender-sensitive programs. The results also suggest the need for a shift in policy from short-term strategies to long-term efforts that sustain household productive capacity and employment to promote sustained economic growth.     

Assessing changes in teachers’ attitudes toward interdisciplinary STEM teaching

Integrating engineering and technology concepts into K-12 science and math curricula through engineering design project-based learning has been found to increase students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), however preparing teachers to shift to interdisciplinary teaching remains a significant challenge. Primarily teachers need to develop both skills and attitudes toward interdisciplinary teaching. In doing so, professional development (PD) is considered a key component in helping teachers through this transformation process. In an educational environment of accountability, measuring the effects of PD programs on teacher behaviors and capacity is essential but often elusive. The current study describes the change in attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching of 29 self-selected middle and high school teachers who participated a PD workshop and in delivering a 12–15 week interdisciplinary teaching and design problem unit that spanned multiple STEM subjects. This quasi-experimental pilot study implemented a single group pretest–posttest design using survey methods to collect data from the participants at two intervals; at the time of the PD workshop and at the completion of the teaching unit that emphasized a long-term engineering design problem. The goals of this research are to (1) assess the changes in attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching, attitudes to teamwork, teaching satisfaction, and resistance to change, (2) explore relationships among these changes, (3) and describe the variation in these changes across teachers’ gender, school level, discipline taught, and education level.     

STEM education in the twenty-first century: learning at work—an exploration of design and technology teacher perceptions and practices

Teachers’ knowledge of STEM education, their understanding, and pedagogical application of that knowledge is intrinsically linked to the subsequent effectiveness of STEM delivery within their own practice; where a teacher’s knowledge and understanding is deficient, the potential for pupil learning is ineffective and limited. Set within the context of secondary age phase education in England and Wales (11–16 years old), this paper explores how teachers working within the field of design and technology education acquire new knowledge in STEM; how understanding is developed and subsequently embedded within their practice to support the creation of a diverse STEM-literate society. The purpose being to determine mechanisms by which knowledge acquisition occurs, to reconnoitre potential implications for education and learning at work, including consideration of the role which new technologies play in the development of STEM knowledge within and across contributory STEM subject disciplines. Underpinned by an interpretivist ontology, work presented here builds upon the premise that design and technology is an interdisciplinary educational construct and not viewed as being of equal status to other STEM disciplines including maths and science. Drawing upon the philosophical field of symbolic interactionism and constructivist grounded theory, work embraces an abductive methodology where participants are encouraged to relate design and technology within the context of STEM education. Emergent findings are discussed in relation to their potential to support teachers’ educational development for the advancement of STEM literacy, and help secure design and technology’s place as a subject of value within a twenty-first Century curriculum.     

Positive and negative synergies between the CEO's and the corporate board's human and social capital: A study of biotechnology firms

This paper contributes to the corporate governance literature by developing and testing theory regarding positive and negative synergies between the CEO's and the board's human and social capital. Using a sample of 360 biotechnology firms that went public between 1995 and 2010, we demonstrate that accumulated public company board experiences of the CEO and the board have positive synergistic effects on IPO performance whereas the current board appointments have negative effects. While scientific educational backgrounds have positive synergies, industry‐specific experiences produce either positive or counterproductive effects depending on the age and profitability of the firm. Thus, our paper contributes to the corporate governance and human and social capital literatures by describing the costs and benefits of specific types and combinations of CEO and board capital. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PERSPECTIVE: The World's Top Innovation Management Scholars and Their Social Capital*

Using 959 articles reflecting the work of 1,179 scholars, this study ranks the world's top scholars in innovation management (IM) on the basis of the number of research articles published across 14 top academic journals in technology and innovation management, marketing, and management between 1990 and 2004. Twenty‐three scholars have at least eight articles in this period. Michael Song has the most (31), followed by Robert Cooper, Roger Calantone, William Souder, and Elko Kleinschmidt, who have published at least 17 articles in the 15‐year period. Surprisingly, the list of schools that either trained or currently employ these top scholars is quite different from Linton's (2004) recent ranking of the top business schools in the management of technology. Guided by social capital theory, the present study analyzes the embeddedness characteristics of IM scholars to determine the extent to which social capital explains scholarly productivity. A current controversy in the social capital literature is the embeddedness characteristics that create social capital. On the one hand, the closure perspective argues that social capital results from strong relational ties with others in a dense, local neighborhood of actors who are relatively disconnected from others. On the other hand, the brokerage perspective argues that social capital is created when actors have relational ties that span these dense, local neighborhoods. The findings in the present study support both perspectives. Furthermore, the results suggest that strategic orientation is a contingency variable that clarifies the conditions in which closure‐ or brokerage‐based embeddedness is appropriate. Specifically, scholars pursuing an entrepreneurial publication strategy are more productive when their relational embeddedness is consistent with the brokerage perspective of social capital creation, whereas scholars pursuing a focused publication strategy are more productive when their relational embeddedness is consistent with the closure perspective of social capital creation. The results have implications for both the IM scholar community and the social capital literature. Whether IM scholars are pursuing an entrepreneurial strategy that capitalizes on emergent knowledge across various theories and perspectives or pursuing a focused strategy by concentrating on gaining deep understanding of a specific stream of research, there are many avenues and opportunities for improving publication performance through the formation of new social capital. Finally, the empirical support for the contingency variable strategic orientation is consistent with recent speculation that both perspectives are important and suggests that future work should focus on further identification and clarification of contingency factors associated with them.     

Incentive Redesign and Collaboration in Organizations: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Research summary : Separating the individual from the social effects of incentives has been challenging because of the possibility of synergies in team production. We observe a unique natural experiment in a South Korean e‐commerce company in which a switch from pay‐for‐performance to fixed (but different) salaries took place in a staggered and effectively random manner across employees. In this case, social and individual effects perspectives make opposing predictions, enabling a critical test. We find evidence consistent with social effects of incentives, particularly as predicted by goal framing theory. The results have implications for the design of incentives to foster collaboration, organizational learning, and organizational performance. Managerial summary : Managers often neglect the deeper hypothesis behind pay‐for‐performance schemes—that people primarily care about how much they are individually paid. An opposing school of thought contends that incentives have social effects too—that individuals care about not only what they receive but also what their peers receive. It is difficult to say whether individual or social effects would be more salient in a context, without a proper experiment with randomization. We exploit a rare opportunity provided by a company that changed its incentive system in a random order, thus unintentionally creating a natural experiment. The results strongly validate the existence of social effects of incentives, but also make the general case for the opportunity to learn from experimenting with organization design in a systematic manner. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decomposing the effect of supplier development on relationship benefits: The role of relational capital

Buyers invest considerably in developing their suppliers, yet the performance effects of such investments are not universal. Drawing on social capital theory, this research investigates whether the relationship between supplier development and relationship benefits may be facilitated by the generation of relational capital. The authors examine mediating and moderating roles of relational capital in the relationship between two aspects of supplier development (capability development, supplier governance) and two dimensions of relationship benefits (supplier benefits, buyer benefits), using survey data collected from 185 suppliers of a large manufacturing firm. Investment in supplier development does not automatically result in benefits for the supplier or reciprocated benefits for the buyer. Rather, relational capital “bridges” supplier development and relationship benefits. Without relational capital, benefits from capability development do not accrue, and the impact of a supplier governance regime can be even detrimental. In conditions of high relational capital, capability development results in lower perceived buyer benefits. The results can help managers ensure that the benefits from their supplier development efforts fully materialize.     

Managing asymmetries in information flows and interaction between R&D,manufacturing, and service in complex product development

Studies of new product development have demonstrated the value of effective interaction between research and development (R&D) and manufacturing, but few studies also include service operations despite their growing importance. Building on in‐depth studies of two firms in the capital goods sector, the paper illustrates how the structural differences between the R&D‐manufacturing and R&D‐service interfaces result in serious information and interaction imbalances, and presents managerial means to handle these. The paper makes three contributions. First, it shows the value of moving beyond a dyadic perspective to studies of more complex structures involving triads of specialized functions. Second, the paper underlines the role of informational flows that can compensate for asymmetries in such triads and facilitate thoughtful trade‐off decisions. Third, the paper highlights the importance of creating conditions for integrated knowledge‐based approaches across functions, which involve the generation and sharing of new knowledge. The paper ends with an emerging management agenda to support such integrative efforts in complex product development projects.     

Creating or destroying value through mergers and acquisitions: A marketing perspective

A majority of mergers and acquisitions are horizontal, combining companies within the same industry. They are most frequently motivated by a desire to achieve revenue and profit growth through market expansion or by adding new product lines, with cost efficiencies being a secondary agenda. However, the modest body of literature on post-merger performance using marketing metrics indicates that marketing objectives such as sales revenue and market share growth are rarely achieved. This paper reports on a detailed study of 45 M&A deals undertaken to develop a deeper understanding of how marketing performance is affected by mergers and acquisitions. Our results show that marketing performance improved along two dimensions — sales revenue growth, and a reduction in selling, marketing and administrative costs as a percentage of sales revenue, suggesting the realisation of synergies in these areas — economies of scale and scope. However, these benefits did not follow through into better returns on sales suggesting that the marketing cost economies are not sufficient to outweigh cost diseconomies in other parts of the business.     

Multipoint contact without forbearance? How coverage synergies shape equity analysts' forecasting performance

Research Summary: Scholars regularly use multipoint contact (MPC) to explain how encountering rivals in different domains shapes performance. While most explanations rely on mutual forbearance theory, I propose that competitive deterrence does not adequately explain how MPC shapes performance in knowledge intensive work and argue instead that cross-domain synergies may play a central role. I examine how security analysts' MPC with publicly traded firms captures synergies in their coverage portfolio, which improves forecasting accuracy and information leadership. The advantages of greater MPC for a focal analyst are counterbalanced by rivals' observational learning, which reduces the focal analyst's forecasting differentiation. A natural experiment helps corroborate my argument: rival analysts' forecasting accuracy dropped for firms in which high MPC analysts perished in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Managerial Summary: Competition in the knowledge economy often unfolds across multiple domains including product markets, geographic locations, and customer segments. In these settings, an actor's level of multipoint contact (MPC) in a domain captures the knowledge and other synergies available to the focal actor, which can improve performance in the domain. In the equity research setting, an analyst's MPC on a focal firm captures the likelihood that the analyst also covers that firm's suppliers, customers and important competitors. Using data on analysts' forecasting performance between 2001 and 2013, I find that greater levels of MPC on a focal firm predicts greater forecasting accuracy and information leadership but also lowers forecasting differentiation by attracting rivals who observe and benefit from the focal analyst's knowledge.     

Multidimensional social capital as a boost or a bar to innovativeness

Innovation does not only demand new ideas, financial resources and knowledge of supplier and user systems, but is also influenced by social capital which has an impact on the innovativeness in business networks. However, social capital is often vague, at times described as a “catch-all notion”. In this paper definitions of social capital are suggested to support the management of innovation in networks. Three dimensions of social capital are applied in a case study of a regional strategic network – the socio-economic, the structural and the actor-oriented dimensions – while focusing on the last one. Data were collected at two points in time, at the start of the regional strategic network in 2004 and at the end of the project in 2010. The application of the concepts and the comparison between these two points in time highlight the influence of social capital and how it can hinder or be used to promote innovation processes.     

Inter-organizational collaborations for social innovation and social value creation: Towards the development of new research agenda and theoretical perspectives

The intensifying poverty and poorer living conditions, the need for greater social welfare along with ongoing damages to the natural environment in several contexts of the world have proved the increasing importance of social innovation for creating positive social and environmental change. This special issue addresses to the limitations in social innovation literature by providing insights into the role of inter-organizational collaborations in the process, practice and outcome of social innovation. Thus, the papers published in this special issue advance current knowledge and scholarship on different aspects of the social innovation phenomena occurring in inter-organizational contexts. The current paper reviews existing perspectives and studies on social innovation undertaken inter-organizational contexts, develops the future agenda for improving scholarship on social innovation occurring through inter-organizational collaborations, and provides the development of new theoretical ideas by focusing on some key studies in the literature and papers published in this special issue. With a focus on subsistence contexts that are characterized by limiting institutional environments, this paper identifies the types of partnerships that are being formed by social enterprises and individual social entrepreneurs, and how they may facilitate and foster social innovation practice and performance through social value creation.     

The Importance of Social Capital to the Management of Multinational Enterprises: Relational Networks Among Asian and Western Firms

Social capital is an important concept for multinational firms. Firms operating in global markets rarely have adequate resources to compete effectively in global markets; they access the needed resources through formal and informal relationships with other firms. The cultures in Asian countries have emphasized relationships much more strongly than Western firms. Thus, relational capital, based on guanxi (China), kankei (Japan) and inmak (Korea), provides the framework for business dealings in many Asian countries. As a result, the social capital of many Asian firms gives them a potential competitive advantage in global markets. Western firms must develop social capital and learn to manage relational networks to gain and sustain a competitive advantage in global markets. Western firms can learn how to develop and manage social capital from Asian firms. Alternatively, social capital has some disadvantages. Firms are limited by their networks and thus experience opportunity costs and path dependence. Additionally, while Asian firms often have strong network ties in their domestic markets, they have to develop many more ties globally to operate effectively in global markets. As a result, the development and management of social capital has become of critical importance for competitive advantage in global markets.     

How school context and personal factors relate to teachers’ attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM

Integrated Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education is an emerging approach to improve students’ achievement and interest in STEM disciplines. However, the implementation of integrated STEM education depends strongly on teachers’ competence, which entails, among others, teachers’ attitudes. Nonetheless, not much is known about the factors that influence teachers’ attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM. Therefore this paper uses a survey method to get insight into the relationship between three groups of variables and teachers’ attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM: teacher background characteristics, personal attitudes and school context variables. The results of the multiple regression analyses reveal three variables that are positively linked with teachers’ attitudes: professional development, personal relevance of science and social context. Moreover two variables show a negative correlation: having more than 20 years of teaching experience and experience in mathematics. The results of this study provide valuable information about factors related to teachers’ attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM. Moreover, these results can be deployed by school administrators to guide them when implementing integrated STEM education in their school.     

Examining fidelity of program implementation in a STEM-oriented out-of-school setting

In the United States and many other countries there is a growing emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education that is expanding the number of both in-school and out-of-school instructional programs targeting important STEM outcomes. As instructional leaders increasingly train teachers and facilitators to undertake new STEM focused programs, it will become especially important for these leaders to understand the concept of program fidelity, which seeks to examine the alignment between how a program is designed to be implemented and how that program is actually implemented in the field. This article discusses an exploratory study examining program fidelity within the geospatial and robotics technologies for the twenty-first century (GEAR-Tech-21) project, which is an out-of-school program teaching educational robotics and geospatial-related STEM concepts, across more than 20 different states, as funded by the National Science Foundation. The study results identified relationships related to program fidelity that were identifiable across various instructional modules, and associated with specific training and content characteristics.     

Purchasing professional services: A transaction cost view of the antecedents and consequences of purchasing formalization

Professional services represent an increasing share of expenditures in contemporary organizations. While these services are often of strategic importance, they are also perceived as being difficult to purchase and use, which creates challenges for the purchasing process. In order to address these challenges, organizations are increasingly engaging in systematic efforts to improve their ability to purchase professional services. These efforts focus on formalizing the purchasing process by introducing policies, guidelines, and other measures for the hiring of service suppliers. Based on a transaction cost economic framework, the current paper investigates the nature, antecedents and consequences of formalization initiatives in the purchasing of professional services. The results from a cross-sectional study of 76 large Swedish organizations show that the formalization of purchasing professional services takes two different forms: the formulation of policies and the establishment of preferred supplier agreements. The former is driven by company size, whereas the latter is driven by the frequency of purchase transactions. Only the establishment of policies, however, is found to be positively related to organizations' perceived ability to purchase professional services.     

The impact of problem-based learning strategies on STEM knowledge integration and attitudes: an exploratory study among female Taiwanese senior high school students

This study was designed to explore the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) strategies on the attitudes of female senior high school students toward integrated knowledge learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Content analysis and focus group methods were adopted as the research processes. Data and information about the STEM internet platform, an attitude scale and the contents of interviews were also collected for analysis. The subjects were 10th grade students at a girls’ senior high school who volunteered to organize teams for a Solar Electric Trolley Contest. A total of 40 students were grouped into 18 teams. The results of the study indicate: (1) that PBL strategies can be helpful in enhancing students’ attitudes toward STEM learning and the exploration of future career choices; (2) that the PBL teaching strategy helped to lead students step by step toward completing the contest’s mission and to experience the meaning of integrated STEM knowledge; (3) that not only that students can actively apply engineering and science knowledge, but also that students tend to gain more solid science and mathematics knowledge through STEM learning in PBL; and (4) that PBL can enhance students’ abilities and provide them experiences related to knowledge integration and application. Therefore, it is recommended that the curriculum at the girls’ senior high school include more content related to specialty subjects to enhance their technological capabilities. In addition, a learning mechanism should be offered to aid advisers or teachers in strengthening students’ integrated and systematic knowledge about STEM.