Identifying the factors determining the entrepreneurial ecosystem of internet cultural industries in emerging economies

The integration of the Internet and the real economy has propelled the formation of a new economy. Internet cultural industries—defined as a collection of industries that engage in creative cultural content, production, circulation, and services based on Internet technology and core digitization—are a critical part of this new economy. This study argues that the development of Internet cultural industries has created a new entrepreneurial ecosystem, which is a dynamic and open ecosystem impacted by numerous factors. Using a structural equation model (SEM) method, we empirically examine the factors impacting the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Internet cultural industries. We find that both external ecosystem factors, including politics, the economy, sociocultural activities, and technological environments, and internal ecosystem factors, including netizens, governments, enterprises, and media and industry associations, are verified to significantly affect the entrepreneurial ecosystem performance of Internet culture industries. Most interestingly, we find that the political environment is the most crucial factor impacting the entrepreneurial ecosystem performance of Internet cultural industries. Thus, Internet cultural industries should prioritize the improvement of good government governance. Overall, our study deepens the research on the Internet entrepreneurial ecosystem by identifying its internal and external determining factors in the context of emerging economies.

     

The digital transformation of work: A relational view

Conversation about the current and potential effects of digital technologies on the nature of work is raging within scholarly and practitioner communities. Artificial intelligence, robotics, data analytics, digital platforms, and automation, among other technologies, are prompting a swift and profound transformation of work. Building on Pierpaolo Donati's relational sociology, we examine the changes these technologies are likely to bring about in work as a human relation. Despite the very real threats of unemployment, job insecurity, precariousness, and surveillance, technology may also encourage the emergence of a work culture that shifts the scales toward a relational realm rather than a transactional one. To this end, we argue that work should be understood as a social relation with four dimensions: exchange value, intrinsic extra‐economic purpose, communication for reciprocal services, and correspondence with primary human needs according to use values. Understanding the digital transformation of work from this point of view requires comprehending the differentiation and integration of these four dimensions.     

Identification of determinants for rescheduling travel mode choice and transportation policies to reduce car use in urban areas

This paper presents a qualitative analysis about the determinants related to rescheduling travel mode decisions during the activity scheduling process. Notably, we were interested to study changes between intention and behavior. Data used came from an in-depth Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) follow up survey to habitual drivers carried out during the implementation of a panel survey. An interpretative qualitative method based on Analytic Induction was used to cope with the complex nature of rescheduling decisions and the characteristics of the data. The Theory of Planned Behavior has been used to gain a better understanding of the reasons associated with rescheduling travel mode decisions and to obtain a possible explanation of the phenomena studied. In our sample, 12 codes were identified as the main determinants of travel mode changing. Main reasons for rescheduling a travel mode are different considering gender, age, and the type of travel mode change. Main reasons for changing a nonprivate preplanned travel mode to a private travel mode are different considering the type of travel mode preplanned. New determinants of rescheduling decisions different from those associated with other activity scheduling decisions previously identified emerge when analyzing travel mode changes. A number of important sustainable transportation policies to reduce car use in urban areas are derived from the results of this study.     

Evolution of state clusters related with technological capability in Mexico: Application of a multivariate statistical analysis of cluster

The objective of this work is to analyze how the technological capability is distributed between the Mexican states and to examine their evolution. To this end, an empirical study was developed using the cluster multivariate statistical analysis technique, based on the set of indicators proposed by Cepal (2007), and gathering the data from various public sources in the country during years 2006 and 2012. This was done to study the evolution of said conglomerates, trying to see which states have been able to move to a conglomerate located in more advanced positions and which have retreated within said period. The results show the existence of 7 groups of states characterized by different levels of technological capability. Furthermore, 3 entities that evolved into a more advanced conglomerate – regarding absorption and innovation capability, as well as infrastructure technological capability – are also detected.     

Horizontal inequality as an outcome

A considerable body of research suggests that horizontal inequality between ethnic groups has major socioeconomic implications, in particular for peace and economic development. Much of this work focuses on horizontal inequality as an independent causal variable, rather than an outcome of various processes. We offer conceptual, theoretical, and empirical reasons for treating horizontal inequality as an outcome and challenging assumptions of fixity. We first consider explanations for variation drawing on the literature on horizontal inequality, as well as on ethnicity more broadly. We then explore how horizontal inequality can be measured using survey and census data, and present analysis based on two datasets providing information on inequality in terms of educational attainment (HI-E) for the 1960s to 2000s. These data suggest both a general trend toward decline in HI-E over time and considerable regional variation. This article serves also to introduce and frame the contributions to this special section.     

Hegemony,Technological Innovation and Corporate Identities: 50 Years of Agricultural Revolutions in Argentina

The technological changes that have occurred since the mid‐1960s in Argentine agriculture – first the Green Revolution and then the Agribusiness Paradigm – have been conceptualized as revolutionary not only with regard to their productivity improvements but also because they brought with them a change of mentality. Based on two different business conceptions, during each period an agrarian elite led the ‘revolutionary’ process, offering a technological response as the means of guaranteeing agriculture's ‘survival’ after various crises. For each period, we can identify a correspondence between the status given to technology, the conception of business and the type of government regulation. This paper analyses how the proposition of a ‘technological revolution’ corresponds to the construction of the ideological leadership through which the agrarian bourgeoisie managed to orientate agrarian development.     

Psychiatric inpatient cost of care before and after admission at a residential subacute step-up/step-down mental health facility

Background: Residential step-up/step-down services provide transitional care and reintegration into the community for individuals experiencing episodes of subacute mental illness. This study aims to examine psychiatric inpatient admissions, length of stay, and per capita cost of care following the establishment of a step-up/step-down Prevention And Recovery Care (PARC) facility in regional Australia.

Methods: This was a pragmatic before and after study set within a participatory action research methodology. The target sample comprised patients at a PARC facility over 15?months. Six-month individual level data prior to study entry, during, and over 6-months from study exit were examined using patient activity records. Costs were expressed in 2015–2016AU$.

Results: An audit included 192 people experiencing 243 episodes of care represented by males (58%), mean age?=?39.3 years (SD?=?12.7), primarily diagnosed with schizophrenia (48%) or mood disorders (30%). The cost of 1?day in a psychiatric inpatient unit was found to be comparable to an average of 5 treatment days in PARC; the mean cost difference per-bed day (AU$1,167) was associated with fewer and shorter inpatient stays. Reduced use of inpatient facility translated into an opportunity cost of improved patient flow equivalent to AU$12,555 per resident (bootstrapped 95% CI?=?$5,680–$19,280). More noticeable outcomes were observed among those who stayed in PARC for longer during index admission (r_s = 0.16, p?=?0.024), who have had more and lengthy inpatient stays (r_s = 0.52, p?r_s = 0.69, p?p?Conclusion: Efforts should be directed toward the adoption of cost-effective alternatives to psychiatric inpatient facilities that provide comparable or improved patient outcomes.     

The distance to competitive balance: a cardinal measure

Competitive balance is a key variable in the analysis of sports competitions. There are several indexes that measure competitive balance but, either they are not a mathematical metric or they do not have the unit interval as a range. Therefore, these indexes do not indicate the magnitude of the differences, and the measurements cannot be interpreted as percentages. We characterize the space of all admissible configurations of the results of a competition. Then, we construct a new index, based on the concept of distance, whose range is the unit interval, and define it as a function in a metric space. So, it solves issues linked to the limited cardinality of most existing indexes, and we can answer this question: What is the meaning of the differences between the levels of competitive balance? We applied this index to the major European soccer leagues over the last twenty seasons.