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BackgroundIn remote areas, connected health (CH) is needed, but as local resources are often scarce and the purchasing power of residents is usually poor, it is a challenge to apply CH in these settings. In this study, CH is defended as a technological solution for reshaping the direction of health care to be more proactive, preventive, and precisely targeted—and thus, more effective. ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to explore the identity of CH stakeholders in remote areas of Taiwan and their interests and power in order to determine ideal strategies for applying CH. We aimed to explore the respective unknowns and discover insights for those facing similar issues. MethodsQualitative research was conducted to investigate and interpret the phenomena of the aging population in a remote setting. An exploratory approach was employed involving semistructured interviews with 22 participants from 8 remote allied case studies. The interviews explored perspectives on stakeholder arrangements, including the power and interests of stakeholders and the needs of all the parties in the ecosystem. ResultsResults were obtained from in-depth interviews and focus groups that included identifying the stakeholders of remote health and determining how they influence its practice, as well as how associated agreements bring competitive advantages. Stakeholders included people in government sectors, industrial players, academic researchers, end users, and their associates who described their perspectives on their power and interests in remote health service delivery. Specific facilitators of and barriers to effective delivery were identified. A number of themes, such as government interests and power of decision making, were corroborated across rural and remote services. These themes were broadly grouped into the disclosure of conflicts of interest, asymmetry in decision making, and data development for risk assessment. ConclusionsThis study contributes to current knowledge by exploring the features of CH in remote areas and investigating its implementation from the perspectives of stakeholder management. It offers insights into managing remote health through a CH platform, which can be used for preliminary quantitative research. Consequently, these findings could help to more effectively facilitate diverse stakeholder engagement for health information sharing and social interaction.

To date, understanding and empirical investigation of the internationalisation processes of university spin-outs (USOs) have been limited. Few studies have explored the role of the specific characteristics of their core technology, in particular their innovativeness, as a determinant of their early internationalisation. This is also an issue which is under-explored within the general international business field. To address this gap, the purpose of our paper is to examine how the innovativeness of USOs influence the pace of their internationalisation. To achieve this, we explore how innovativeness is nurtured and cumulatively developed during born global (BG) and non-born global (NBG) USOs' pre-foundation technology development trajectory. BGs represent a category of young, usually, high-technology firms that internationalise within 3 years of inception. By exploring the pre-foundation technology development process of Italian USOs across two research-intensive universities, we found that BG and NBG USOs differed in aspects around their "innovative proclivity," "firm innovativeness" and "the nature of the innovation." Specifically, we found that BG USOs had a longer pre-foundation period, focused on a specific invention with limited fields of application, and offered 'really new' innovations. BG USOs' products or services were also developed and largely standardised before market entry, which accelerated their internationalisation. In contrast, NBG USOs were characterised by short pre-foundation periods, relied on incremental innovation and a wide spectrum of innovative competencies. They also relied on technologies with a broad scope of market application and customised their offerings based on client needs, which slowed their market entry and internationalisation.

Within this paper, we take a micro level perspective to explore how ecosystem stakeholder motives have impacted value creation and value capture processes within the University Technology Transfer (UTT) business model over time. To achieve this, we adopt a longitudinal qualitative methodology comprising of case study evidence of two differing bounded contexts of universities and their respective UTT stakeholder-based business models over an eight-year period. Our findings reveal, that in seeking to balance and align the value creation and capture processes needed to satisfy diverse stakeholders and achieve university mission, the importance of portfolio models within UTT business model design to ensure ongoing strategic alignment and sustainability.

Given recent demands for more co-creational university technology commercialisation processes involving industry and end users, this paper adopts a micro-level approach to explore the challenges faced by universities when managing Quadruple Helix stakeholders within technology commercialisation processes. To explore this research question, a qualitative research methodology which relies upon comparative case analysis was adopted to explore the technology commercialisation process in two universities within a UK region. The findings revealed that university type impacts Quadruple Helix stakeholder salience and engagement and consequently university technology commercialisation activities and processes. This is important as recent European regional policy fails to account for contextual influences when promoting Quadruple Helix stakeholder relationships in co-creational university technology commercialisation.

National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) have been introduced and developed within a competency framework by successive UK governments. Potential benefits are listed as improved skills, less skills shortages and more appropriate job-employee fit. However, there has been considerable and sustained criticism of NVQs from employers, employees and academics. Criticisms include excessive bureaucracy, overly complex terminology and a lack of credibility of the competence concept. This case-based study examines the implementation of NVQs in an organisation based on 60 semi-structured interviews with those involved. The findings reveal that NVQ is seen as a training regime within the organisation and that there are no clear links to improved business performance or employee morale. Moreover, there were contextual problems in applying the standard.

Examines knowledge management from a critical perspective using a model of knowledge construction, embodiment, dissemination, and use. Concludes that organizations should clarify how knowledge is defined, evaluate benefits expected of knowledge management and approaches to knowledge capture, recognize employees as knowledge workers, and view technology as an enabler, not a driver. (SK)