Der Wunde beim Heilen helfen

Bedarfsgerechte Ern?hrung - Eine optimale Wundheilung erfordert auch eine an N?hrstoffen reiche Ern?hrung. Doch die ist bei vielen Betroffenen nicht gew?hrleistet. Deshalb ist auf eine den Phasen der Heilung angepasste kalorisch und qualitativ ausreichende N?hrstoffzufuhr zu achten.     

Sind Gruppen die besseren Entscheider? – Experimentelle Evidenz am Beispiel simulierter Entscheidungen im Kontext der Lagerverwaltung

Neben strategischen Entscheidungen geh?ren wiederkehrende Dispositionen unter Unsicherheit zu jenen Determinanten im betrieblichen Alltag, die den Unternehmenserfolg ma?geblich mitbestimmen. Bezüglich der Frage, ob solche Entscheidungen besser von Einzelpersonen oder Gruppen getroffen werden sollten, k?nnen auf Basis der Erkenntnisse der bisherigen Forschung nur bedingte Handlungsempfehlungen abgeleitet werden. Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt an den bestehenden Forschungsdefiziten an und gibt die Ergebnisse eines Laborexperiments wieder, das den Entscheidungserfolg von Gruppen und Einzelpersonen vergleicht. Das vorliegende Experiment zeigt, dass Gruppen bei wiederkehrenden Dispositionen signifikant rationaler entscheiden. Dieser Rationalit?tsgewinn wird jedoch mit mehr Stress und Friktionen erkauft.     

Personal attitudes in the assessment of the future of science and technology: A factor analysis approach

In 1996, the second German Delphi study (“Delphi '98”) was started. The Delphi '98 is a two-round Delphi expert survey being conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education, Research, Science, and Technology (BMBF). The study was published in February 1998, and is now getting into its implementation phase. Its inherent focus is on the development of science and technology in 12 thematic fields in the next 30 years. To arrive at a better understanding of the influence of personal attitudes towards general developments in natural environment and society, the respondents were asked in the first round of the Delphi survey for their personal opinion towards several megatrends concerning the natural environment, economic, sociological, and political developments. Over 2,300 answers led to a very solid database, which gives insights into the general attitudes of the German R&D experts. On some topics, there is a high consensus, whereas in others, opposite opinions coexist. These results may serve as the database for a factor analysis leading to the identification of five different expert types. This paper examines the crucial question of whether different patterns in assessing the future development in science and technology by expert types can be observed. In general, it turned out that differences in personal attitudes towards megatrends do not influence the estimation of developments in science and technology. However, differences exist in specific topics and the distribution of the five experts types among the respondents differs significantly in the 12 fields.     

Future-oriented technology analysis as a driver of strategy and policy

The methodology known as strategic foresight is an important tool to be used in long-term strategic planning activities and in support of the decision making process in public as well as private sectors. This article addresses the use of strategic foresight applied to the strategic management plan for an agency that deals with the funding and promotion for the development of science, technology and innovation in Brazil, and the logic that permeated its construction, promoting an alliance of the concepts of strategy and foresight. It has as key elements the long-term vision and the adoption of participatory approach and qualitative and quantitative methods. The methodological framework involved the use of different techniques, methods and tools, including, among others, web survey, diagnosis, SWOT, future timeline, interviews, workshops and strategic roadmap.     

Stemming the gender gap in STEM entrepreneurship – insights into women’s entrepreneurship in science,technology, engineering and mathematics

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are notably important for innovation and technological development, which in turn are seen as drivers of social and economic growth. Hence, researchers and policy-makers have paid substantial attention to analyzing and promoting high-growth ventures in STEM fields. However, STEM fields are highly gender-skewed, regardless of whether the population considered is students, faculty members, graduates, top managers, or entrepreneurs. This is noticeable in the small number of women entrepreneurs with STEM backgrounds. This underrepresentation of women in innovation-driven business startups highlights existing gender biases and systemic disadvantages in social structures, making visible the double masculinity that exists at the intersection of STEM and entrepreneurship. This article addresses this issue by combining insights from research about women’s entrepreneurship and research about the gender aspects of STEM fields. We emphasize institutional, organizational, and individual factors influencing women’s entrepreneurship in STEM fields, laying the foundation for the articles included in this special issue. Finally, we discuss the way forward for research on the gender aspects of STEM entrepreneurship to help us create the knowledge needed to close this gender gap.

     

Green supply chains and the missing link between environmental information and practice

Within the field of green supply chain management (GSCM), an interest in supply chain cooperation to create sustainable competitive advantage, i.e. the collaborative paradigm, has made researchers turn their attention to information related aspects of the supply chain. This study contributes to an understanding of a suboptimal use of environmental information, which is critical for all collaborative efforts aiming at sustainable competitive advantage. The aim of this article is to describe the use of environmental information at different stages of the Swedish food supply chain. The results from this case study of the Swedish food supply chain indicate that environmental information is perceived and used differently by purchasers in the supply chain depending on where (in the supply chain) they are situated in relation to other chain actors. The main contribution of this study is the suggestion of a stage‐dependent connection between perceived environmental cost and perceived environmentally informed consumer demand, which are barriers to GSCM practice discussed in recent GSCM literature. The missing link between information sharing and (environmental) performance of supply chains is explained as distance to end‐consumer in terms of supply chain stages. Implications for GSCM practice and theory are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Current Foresight Activities inCentral Europe

During the early 1990s, technology foresight has become much more widespread. First pioneered in the United States and later in Japan, it has now spread to continental Europe. One of the first engagements in modern national foresight occurred in the Netherlands. The task is to identify the areas of strategic research and the emerging generic technologies likely to yield the greatest socio-economic benefits. The decentralized foresight approaches are less holistic than elsewhere and are concerned with selected areas. In Germany, parallel approaches have been adopted for looking systematically into the longer-term future of science, technology, the economy, and society. In an era characterized by ever fiercer global economic competition, and with the burden of unifying two different science systems and over-stretched public expenditure budgets, the German governments on federal and state levels and indeed the public are coming to expect more direct economic and social benefits from science in return to their investment. Decentralized types of foresight are also observed in Austria, whereas in Hungary the first attempts to arrive at a foresight program seem to be modelled after British experiences.