Investigating Adoption of Free Beta Applications in a Platform‐Based Business Ecosystem

Planning new product development (NPD) activities is becoming increasingly difficult, as contemporary businesses compete at the level of business ecosystems in addition to the firm‐level product‐market competition. These business ecosystems are built around platforms interlinking suppliers, complementors, distributors, developers, etc. together. The competitiveness of these ecosystems relies on members utilizing the shared platform for their own performance improvement, especially in terms of developing new valuable offerings for end users. Therefore, managing the development of the platform‐based applications and gaining timely end‐user input for NPD are of vital importance both to the ecosystem as a whole and to the developers. Subsequently, to succeed in NPD planning developers utilizing beta testing need a thorough understanding of the adoption dynamics of beta products. Developers need to plan for example resource allocation; development costs; and timing of commercial, end‐product launches. Therefore, the anticipation of the adoption dynamics of beta products emerges as an important antecedent in planning NPD activities when beta testing is used for gaining end‐user input to the NPD process. Consequently, we investigate how free beta software products that are built upon software platforms diffuse among their end users in a cocreation community. We specifically study whether the adoption of these beta products follows Bass or Gompertz model dynamics used in the previous literature when modeling the adoption of stand‐alone products. Further, we also investigate the forecasting abilities of these two models. Our results show that the adoption dynamics of free beta products in a cocreation community follow Gompertz's model rather than the Bass model. Additionally, we find that the Gompertz model performs better than the Bass model in forecasting both short and long out‐of‐sample time periods. We further discuss the managerial and research implications of our study.     

Grundsteuerreform in Deutschland: eine unendliche Geschichte?

For many years property tax in its current form has been exhibiting increasing problems. There are three reform models currently being discussed that differ in their respective tax bases using either property values or areas, or both. They create different individual tax burdens and amounts of tax revenue in each state compared to the current property tax amount which alters local tax capacity within the fiscal equalisation system among the 16 states. The calculations on regional local tax revenue prove that the value-based models which promote greater equity are being neglected by the financially strong states. This is because they would be forced to provide higher transfer payments to the financially weaker states.     

Designing a medicalized wellness service: balancing hospitality and hospital features

Medicalized environments around the world are challenged with making trade-offs between the clinical nature of the service and the customer service elements needed to deliver the service. Many medicalized wellness services have yet to achieve an effective balance between their hospitality and hospital features to generate loyalty (repeat patronage). We present a case study of a blood service organization in a developed country that, at the time of data collection (2011), was working to resolve tension between clinical goals and expectations of Millennial donors. The results identified seven principles: ‘control over booking and service interactions’; ‘build social connections’; ‘offer a luxury, indulgent experience’; ‘build relationship with customer beyond the “medical” procedure’. The three remaining principles related to hospital-like features: ‘hide the functional/medical features of the service experience’; ‘demystify the “hidden” processes’; ‘ability for the physical service environment to be modified by the customer’.     

How do different background variables predict learning outcomes?

This article is a part of a research project aimed to find out how different background variables are related to learning outcomes in school subject Sloyd as found in the national evaluation of the Finnish National Board of Education. Results from this larger research project were previously published in this journal, where pupils’ readiness for Self-Regulated Learning were reported. Since then, pupils’ experiences of classroom techniques, attitudes towards the subject, leisure time interests and learning within the two domains of the subject (Technical Domain and Textile Domain, as the subject is usually divided in Finland) have been studied and results have been published in different journals. In this article, a new Structural Equation Model concludes the previous results. The new model highlights two paths of how the use of different learning orientations can predict successful learning outcomes. These paths can be followed using two pedagogical models: the Exploratory Production Approach and the Domain Specific Approach. Experiencing Learner-Centred Learning predicts positive attitudes and success in Exploratory Production activities. Experiencing Collaborative Learning predicts success in domain specific learning outcomes. Success in Exploratory Production predicts successful learning outcomes in both domains. The conclusion is that regulatory knowledge, “why”, is related to production activities and it is processed prior to domain specific knowledge, “what” and “how”. To develop the subject and pedagogy for schools and teacher training, it is not important to follow an approach defined by the domains (technical or textile). It is more important to teach pupils how to manage in the modern technological world and to understand why they need to be able to improve their life-world through Exploratory Production activities.     

Geosocial Lives in Topological Polis: Mohamed Bouazizi as a Political Agent

Geopolitical events and developments can hardly be detached from the mundane lives where people confront politicised and politicising matters, share meaningful experiences, build attitudes, and take action. To contribute to understanding how large-scale geopolitics connect with the everyday, this article draws attention to political subjectivity as the condition of possibility of political agency and polis as the geosocial context of political life as experienced, conceived, and practised. Empirically, the paper engages with the tragic end of Mohamed Bouazizi’s life and scrutinises his role in the events and developments generally known as the Arab Spring. Our analysis contests both the dominant interpretation that postulates political import to his acts, and the alternative account that underscores his apolitical stance. Instead, we propose that the international politicisation of Mohamed Bouazizi’s agency unfolded as an accomplishment of many individual and collective actors, including Bouazizi himself in his struggle to cope with emergent aspects of his everyday life.     

The Impact of Career Capital on Expatriates' Perceived Marketability

We examine how the development of three types of career capital (knowing how, knowing whom, and knowing why) during an international assignment affects the perceived marketability of organizational expatriates. Using the perceived marketability perspective and long‐term follow‐up data, we show that knowing how is seen as the most transferable type of career capital, while the development of other aspects of career capital has little impact on perceived marketability. We also show that career capital development is more recognized in the external market than by current employers. Our findings expand our understanding of long‐term career marketability among people who have completed international assignments. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.