Search

In recent years, magnetic skyrmion-based spin-torque nano-oscillators (STNOs) have attracted considerable interest for their prospect in future-generation communication and spintronic technologies. However, some critical issues, which hamper their practical applications, e.g., the long start-up time and variable skyrmion gyration orbit, remain to be resolved. Here, we numerically demonstrate the realization of a fixed-orbit STNO, which is based on an interlayer-coupled meron–skyrmion (MS) pair instead of a magnetic skyrmion. In this STNO, the MS pair possesses a structurally defined, fixed orbit within a broad range of driving currents, even in the presence of random defects. The output frequency range of the STNO based on an MS pair far exceeds that of the STNO typically featuring a single skyrmion. Moreover, the output frequency of this STNO can be further elevated if more MS pairs are incorporated. Our results reveal the nontrivial dynamics of the interlayer-coupled MS pair, opening perspectives for the design and optimization of fundamental spintronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic crises have profound effects on societies, motivating many individuals to launch their own firms in order to make a living. Although these firms created "out of necessity" possess few resources besides their founder's human capital, the role that this critical endowment plays in establishing a successful firm during a crisis is unclear, as existing knowledge offers diverging predictions about the value of general and specific human capital. We argue that this debate remains unresolved because we lack a holistic understanding of how each human capital type influences performance when founding conditions vary, and aim to reconcile the contrasting claims by considering how "hard" a crisis hits a given industry. Analyzing data collected from 500 founders who created firms in Greece during the Great Recession, combined with data from the Greek Statistical Office, we find that general human capital provides the greatest benefits, on average, during a crisis; yet specific human capital is more valuable in both the most favorable and the most unfavorable industry contexts. These results reveal how the value of human capital in entrepreneurship is contingent on founding conditions, and call into question existing notions of what it means to be resilient in a crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To hedge unforeseen risk, investors may prioritize male-led ventures that they anticipate most other investors will prefer, arriving at decisions that are biased against women. Yet, little is known about how investors infer such gendered preferences and when they are particularly likely to do so. Integrating insights from third-party bias research with social role theory, we posit that when women propose novel ventures, investors are more apt to make unpromising social approval forecasting—an anticipation of the extent to which other investors will endorse these ventures—and thus withhold funding support. This is because the intensified gender role violations due to women being entrepreneurial in tandem with being novel lead investors to impose harsher judgments that these ventures violate normative business practices. Our hypotheses receive support from results of three methodologically complementary studies, including an archival study of Shark Tank (2009–2019) coupled with preregistered online and field experiments. By casting light on how venture novelty, a key determining factor of entrepreneurial success, makes third-party bias against women particularly salient, our work identifies a less overt "entrepreneurial gender dilemma" and derives new insights into policy-making designed to help women entrepreneurs surmount financial and social barriers in the innovation-based economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using proprietary data from AngelList Talent, we study how startup job seekers' search and application behavior changed during the COVID-19 downturn. We find that workers shifted their searches and applications away from less-established startups and toward more-established ones, even within the same individual over time. At the firm level, this shift was not offset by an influx of new job seekers. Less-established startups experienced a relative decline in the quantity and quality of applications, ultimately affecting their hiring. Our findings uncover a flight-to-safety channel in the labor market that may amplify the procyclical nature of entrepreneurial activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interorganizational partnerships can spur innovation, but their value may be diminished by friction in knowledge flows between firms. We consider how a partner's organizational structure may influence the knowledge that is accessible via partnerships. We focus on how a partner's structure trades off localized autonomy for its managers, which facilitates timelier decision making, and unified control, which facilitates integration. By shaping this balance, centralization of decision rights within the partner organization shapes access to its knowledge. Centralized structures generate wide-ranging internal knowledge pathways that enable access to a broader array of a partner's knowledge. However, the reduced managerial autonomy afforded by centralization makes decision making more cumbersome, which constricts the rate of access to a partner's knowledge. We find evidence of this tradeoff in the context of corporate venture capital relationships between incumbents and startups in the pharmaceutical industry. An increase in the incumbent's diversity of knowledge or in the knowledge required by the startup enhances the value of a greater breadth of access, whereas the degree to which the startup can leverage social ties (affinity) or hierarchical fiat (authority) alleviates the costs of a reduced access rate. Each of these features makes an incumbent organization's centralization more valuable to the startup. By highlighting this tension related to centralization, our findings suggest that new firms striving to maximize their partnership benefits may need to carefully consider their partners' internal structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Startup accelerators, which aim to improve the set of choices representing a startup's entry strategy, have become increasingly influential in both regional development and the strategies of individual startups. This article explores an accelerator's impact on startup performance and whether that impact varies substantially by features of the startup's founding environment. Leveraging data from a leading startup accelerator, I use a regression discontinuity framework to hold startup quality constant so that I can compare the performance of admitted startups to those that do not make the cut, and I examine whether any observed performance differentials are driven by accelerator admission and by characteristics of the startup's earlier environment. I find evidence that startups from better pre-accelerator environments experience stronger gains from accelerator admission. I also find evidence of home bias, as local startups have a stronger treatment effect. These results provide evidence of ecosystem effects whereby the impact of one organizational sponsor in an ecosystem is strongly moderated by other features in the ecosystem. The findings help to explain the concentration of accelerator programs in already successful entrepreneurial ecosystems and reveal how such programs may interact with founding environments to complement resource abundance or magnify prior resource inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much of the academic literature on spinouts focuses on new ventures launched by the ex-employees of incumbent firms within the same industry, recent research shows that spinouts may also enter a focal industry from "knowledge contexts" outside of the incumbent industry. In particular, recent studies show that spinouts may enter from both upstream and downstream industries related to a focal industry along the value chain. Such spinouts have been called user-industry and supplier-industry spinouts. In this article, evidence from existing studies is collected to provide an indication of the relevance of such spinouts across various industries. This survey also includes an analysis of industry studies in which user- and supplier-industry spinouts may have been present but were not identified as such by scholars due to a difference in focus. The paper then considers the evidence accumulated to date in order to explore the industry contexts in which these two types of spinouts appear and to develop propositions concerning differences in the entry timing and product/market strategies of these startups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long been interested in understanding how a firm's "pre-history" shapes its behavior and performance, with recent scholarship highlighting the fact that industry entrants stem from different knowledge sources. Knowledge sources, the context in which entrants develop the knowledge they bring as they enter an industry, are argued to be important, because they may have differential effects on firm strategy and performance. We explore the effects of five different knowledge sources on firm behavior and survival using a mixed-methods approach. Survival analysis shows that user-founded new ventures outsurvive academic-founded new ventures, employee-founded new ventures, related diversifying entrants, and unrelated diversifying entrants. Qualitative analysis suggests that user-founded new ventures often enter niche markets defined by the clinical expertise of their founders and remain in these markets over time, honing their product offerings to specific clinical needs. Our analyses are based on novel, hand-collected archival data on the population of entrants in the modern medical imaging industry. We discuss the implications of these findings for the evolutionary theory, strategic management, and entrepreneurship literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit the staggered introduction of liability waivers when investors hold stakes in conflicting business opportunities as a shock to venture capital (VC) investment and director networks. After the law changes, we find increases in within-industry VC investment and common directors serving on startup boards. Despite the potential for rent extraction, same-industry startups inside VC portfolios benefit by raising more capital, failing less, and exiting more successfully. VC directors serving on other startup boards are the primary mechanism associated with positive outcomes, consistent with common VC investment facilitating informational exchanges in VC portfolios. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much should an entrepreneur experiment and when should they pivot? Do the answers to these questions change if the entrepreneur is subject to behavioral biases, such as overconfidence? In this paper, we develop a conceptual logic to address these questions. We focus on the design of a "program of experimentation," which we define as a sequentially interdependent set of experiments and pivot decisions an entrepreneur undertakes to develop a viable business idea. This conceptualization highlights two dimensions of program design: the number of experiments to run and the pivot threshold for evaluating experimental outcomes. Our computational model suggests that while experimenting and pivoting can improve new venture performance, it can also be taken too far. Programs of experimentation that generate frequent and early pivots may impede learning and underperform more conservative programs that generate fewer pivots. We also show that an effectively designed program of experimentation can partially remedy an entrepreneur's behavioral biases. Our work informs ongoing scholarly efforts to more fully understand the Lean Startup's strengths and limitations and advances the theoretical apparatus underlying a scientific approach to venturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how labor mobility restrictions like noncompete agreements affect firms' investment decisions. Using matched employee-employer data from LinkedIn, I show that increases in the enforceability of noncompete agreements lead to widespread declines in employee departures, specifically in knowledge-intensive occupations. Established firms that rely more on these knowledge-intensive occupations increase their investment rate in physical capital. However, new firm entry in corresponding sectors declines. I provide evidence for different mechanisms to explain these patterns. Together, the findings show that labor frictions play an important role in investment decisions. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) has tended to focus on the role that characteristics internal to the EE play in determining EE-level outcomes. Notwithstanding the insights that academics, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs have gleaned from these studies, prior research has yet to explain whether, how, and why these outcomes might also be impacted by an EE's position within the larger network of EEs. Given broad acceptance for the important role that networks play in facilitating entrepreneurship at the firm level, we contend that adopting a network-based view of EEs may also help predict and explain aggregate entrepreneurial outcomes at the EE level. Specifically, we adopt a double embeddedness lens to examine the impact of both inter-EE (i.e., structural embeddedness) and intra-EE (i.e., cultural embeddedness) factors on EE-level new venture creation. Using a longitudinal sample of regional data in the United States from 1994 to 2016, we develop and test hypotheses where the relationship between structural embeddedness and new venture creation follows an inverted "U" shape that is itself moderated by cultural embeddedness. We conclude by discussing how these findings inform theory and practice in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies how changes in investor protection regulations affect local entrepreneurial activity, relying on the heterogeneous impact of a 2011 SEC regulation change on the definition of accredited investors across U.S. cities. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I show that cities more affected by the regulation change experienced a significantly larger decrease in local angel financing, entrepreneurial activity, innovation output, employment, and sales. I find that small business loans and second-lien mortgages became entrepreneurs' partial substitutes for angel investment. My cost-benefit analysis suggests that the costs of protecting angel investors through the 2011 regulation change outweigh its benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does proprietary knowledge protection (PKP) spur or hinder the product-market performance of new firms? Exploiting the staggered adoptions of the inevitable disclosure doctrine by U.S. State Courts, which enhance PKP, we show that treated firms increase industry-adjusted sales growth by 2% compared to control firms. The effect is concentrated among small and young firms and increases with the scope of proprietary knowledge and rivals' access to external finance. PKP encourages firms to develop new products and stimulates initial public offering activity. Our results suggest that PKP alleviates predation risk associated with "deep-pocket" rivals by allowing firms to maintain competitive advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once scaled, online platforms reconfigure value to remain competitive. Reconfiguration in online platforms may take a different form than in pipelines, as online platforms are intermediaries that generate network effects among the sides they connect. They also face stiff competition from other spheres due to lower barriers to entry. Why and how do online platforms reconfigure value? By examining 13 Indian online platforms that have achieved a certain level of success (such as tipped markets, investor confidence, or profitability), this article offers four strategies for reconfiguring online platforms: enhance interactions, enhance capabilities, offer new services, and nurture new transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile platforms provide important entrepreneurial opportunities by facilitating access to a global market composed of more than a hundred countries. These opportunities are crucial for mobile app startups as they seek to reach a wider audience and accelerate growth. Nevertheless, performing in foreign countries is challenging as mobile app startups face a "foreignness liability" since they are competing against complementors (i.e., app developers) who have experience in their domestic market. We offer a research model that assesses the impact of cultural distance on the app-level performance of mobile app startups in foreign countries. We hypothesize the moderating effects of investor-consumer cultural distance and environmental characteristics within foreign countries. We test the model using a dataset of over 550 mobile app startups operating on the iOS platform. Our findings support our hypotheses and provide insights into whether mobile platforms are level playing fields. Our study sheds light on the interactions between a startup and its investors' cultural distances highlighting configurations of cultural distance that are beneficial for app performance in foreign countries when the environment is stable or uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are underrepresented in startups, but research on "joiners"—nonfounder employees attracted to startup work—offers limited explanations for why such underrepresentation occurs and how it persists. We argue that, even among joiners, women are less interested than men in applying for startup jobs and that this gender gap is associated with differential reactions to information about the gender composition of prospective employers. We analyze unique field data obtained from a job-matching mobile-application platform for startups, finding the hypothesized gender gap and showing that women, but not men, are sensitive to information about organizational gender composition, especially for startups signaling "diversity debt"—that is, no or only a token representation of women. A preregistered experiment further reveals that women's identity threat concerns mediate these effects. Gender disparities in startups are reproduced in a vicious cycle as existing underrepresentation deters women from applying. Our findings have implications for research and practice concerning joiners, the underrepresentation of women in entrepreneurship, and startups' ability to shape the gender composition of their applicant pools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To succeed in growing and scaling their organization, start-ups must establish roles, routines, rules, and plans that coordinate organizational activities. However, early-stage start-ups often lack such coordination mechanisms. Through a longitudinal qualitative multiple-case study of five start-ups, we develop a theoretical framework for how start-ups develop and improve coordination over time. We find that start-ups establish coordination through a learning sequence consisting of four distinct learning styles. To develop coordination successfully, start-ups anticipate coordination problems before they escalate, steal ideas and frameworks from others, experimentally implement coordination, and combine and simplify coordination mechanisms. By providing a processual understanding of how start-ups develop coordination, we contribute to the literature on coordination in start-ups, which has tended toward static explanations. We also add to the literatures on emergent coordination and organizational learning, as we highlight the role of deliberate learning in developing coordination, and how different learning styles link together to create learning sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creative revision involves sharing nascent ideas and soliciting feedback. This process has been portrayed as providing instrumental feedback that enables autonomous creators to shape and progress their ideas in a mostly positive, developmental way. However, creative revision also entails destruction—letting go of some ideas to make way for the new. Research has suggested that abandoning some aspects of ideas will be affectively challenging for creators, but has yet to elaborate how they navigate that challenge. In a longitudinal qualitative study of entrepreneurial ventures over a one-year period, we uncovered a novel phenomenon: the creative jolt—an episode of cognitive and emotional upheaval through which creators let go of their original ideas and allowed new ones to emerge, so that their ideas shifted in dramatic ways. We elaborate the processes through which creative jolts shape the trajectories of creative ideas. Our study captures the rollercoaster of heightened affect and cognitive disorientation experienced by autonomous creators as they try to bring nascent ideas to life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The number of innovation-orientated start-ups in Germany has been declining in recent years. A common reason for the failure of start-ups is that there is no market demand for the products and services on offer and too little attention is paid to this issue. However, market research is an important prerequisite for successful business start-ups. Therefore, an information research guide for market research is presented, which contains a methodical and structured procedure and shows the individual areas of investigation in the market research process. The information research guide is based on extensive practical and theoretical experience from the university and consultancy environment. It is supplemented by a literature and information resource search in university libraries in Silicon Valley, which successfully support their students regarding start-ups in a variety of ways from the beginning of their studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship scholars interested in the performance of innovative start-ups mainly focus on the internal factors related to innovation processes. In the present paper, the research perspective used to study the performance of innovative start-ups is broadened by also considering the influence of the context – more specifically, the technological regime, defined as the state of the art of the technological environment resulting from technological changes/upgrades. Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate if and to what extent the technological regime can affect the performance of innovative start-ups. Statistical elaborations for about 11,760 Italian innovative start-ups (data are retrieved from the Italian Ministry of Economic Development website and are current up to January 2021) are carried out through the estimation of a stochastic frontier analysis: a parametric model. This methodology identifies the causes of inefficiency and disentangles random from technical inefficiency of the model. The results reveal that the technological regime affects performance but, unexpectedly, does not boost the impact of internal factors (related to innovation processes) on performance. The main conclusion is that internal innovation-related factors and the technological regime do not benefit each other when innovation processes are managed in innovative start-ups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to analyze the rotational speed characteristics of a spherical turbine start-up process, and the rotational speed characteristic of the spherical turbine is studied by numerical simulation. In order to ensure the reliability of the numerical simulation, the numerical simulation results at different flow rates are compared with the experimental results, and the results show that it is feasible to investigate the rotational speed characteristics of the spherical turbine using numerical simulation. The numerical results demonstrate that the start-up process of the spherical turbine can be separated into two stages: the start-up acceleration stage and the transition stage, which are followed by periodic fluctuations of the rotational speed. In addition, when the flow rate is 8 m3/h , the spherical turbine can self-start under the load coefficient (Bg) if less than 3×10−5. If the Bg is larger than 3×10−5 , the turbine fails to start-up. The failed start-up shares characteristics: the turbine only moves forward and backward alternately in a small angular range. However, eventually, the applied load torque dominates, and the turbine starts to reverse. It is found that the flow rate and the turbine rotational speed present a linear relationship under the no-load operating condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• CCBS, HEPES, and PBS were investigated for improving the performance of anammox sludge. • Anammox activity and reactor start-up speed were improved with CO 2 /NaHCO 3 buffer. • Dominant anammox bacteria was Candidatus Kuenenia with the relative abundance of 71.8%. • Reactors could be started and enriched with anammox bacteria within microaerobic conditions. Anammox bacteria grow slowly and can be affected by large pH fluctuations. Using suitable buffers could make the start-up of anammox reactors easy and rapid. In this study, the effects of three kinds of buffers on the nitrogen removal and growth characteristics of anammox sludge were investigated. Reactors with CO 2 /NaHCO 3 buffer solution (CCBS) performed the best in nitrogen removal, while 4-(2-hydroxyerhyl)piperazine-1-ethanesulfonic acid (HEPES) and phosphate buffer solution (PBS) inhibited the anammox activity. Reactors with 50 mmol/L CCBS could start up in 20 days, showing the specific anammox activity and anammox activity of 1.01±0.10 gN/(gVSS·day) and 0.83±0.06 kgN/(m3·day), respectively. Candidatus Kuenenia was the dominant anammox bacteria, with a relative abundance of 71.8%. Notably, anammox reactors could also start quickly by using 50 mmol/L CCBS under non-strict anaerobic conditions. These findings are meaningful for the quick start-up of engineered anammox reactors and prompt enrichment of anammox bacteria. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of sulfate (SO42−) reduction during methanogenesis may considerably hinder the efficient energetic exploitation of methane, once removing sulfide from biogas is obligate and can be costly. In addition, sulfide generation can negatively impact the performance of methanogens by triggering substrate competition and sulfide inhibition. This study investigated the impacts of removing SO42− during fermentation on the performance of a second-stage methanogenic continuous reactor (R2), comparing the results with those obtained in a single-stage system (R1) fed with SO42−-rich wastewater (SO42− of up to 400 mg L−1, COD/SO42− of 3.12–12.50). The organic load (OL) was progressively increased to 5.0 g COD d−1 in both reactors, showing completely discrepant performances. Sulfate-reducing bacteria outperformed methanogens in the consumption for organic matter during the start-up phase (OL = 2.5 g COD d−1) in R1, directing up to 73% of the electron flow to SO42− reduction. An efficient methanogenic activity was established in R1 only after decreasing the OL to 0.625 g COD d−1, after which methanogenesis prevailed by consuming ca. 90% of the removed COD. Nevertheless, high sulfide proportions (up to 3.1%) were measured in biogas. Conversely, methanogenesis was promptly established in R2, resulting in a methane-rich (> 80%) and sulfide-free biogas regardless of the operating condition. From an economic perspective, processing the biogas evolved from R2 would be cheaper, although the techno-economic impacts of managing the sulfur pollution in the fermentative reactor still need to be understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technical and mainstream media's headline coverage of AI invariably centers around the often astounding abilities demonstrated by large language models. That's hardly surprising, since to all intents and purposes that's where the newsworthy magic of generative AI lies. But it takes a village to raise a child: behind the scenes, there's an entire ecosystem that supports the development and deployment of these models and the applications that are built on top of them. Some parts of that ecosystem are dominated by the Big Tech incumbents, but there are also many niches where start-ups are aiming to gain a foothold. We take a look at some components of that ecosystem, with a particular focus on ideas that have led to investment in start-ups over the last year or so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circular economy (CE) has emerged as a sustainable alternative to the current "take, make, waste" linear approach. Although prior studies have highlighted the salience of collaborative efforts between start‐ups and incumbents, little is known about the mechanisms behind collaboration in a CE context. This study enhances our understanding of the topic by drawing on six cases of circular start‐ups (CSUs) operating in the United Kingdom's business‐to‐business market and investigating the mechanisms by which start‐ups collaborate with incumbents. Using the Context, Intervention, Mechanism, Outcome framework, the paper's findings demonstrate that CE does not necessitate high‐risk and expensive changes and show that CSUs can collaborate with incumbents in low‐risk ways by outsourcing and developing service contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing attention to sustainability as a source of new business opportunities, current research on new ventures has hardly considered this factor with respect to access to funding. This paper examines the role of new venture sustainability signals on business angels' willingness to invest. Specifically, it considers the effects of third‐party sustainability certification and the self‐proclaimed label of sustainable entrepreneurship as congruent reputational signals for inducing angel investors' willingness to invest. Three studies were conducted using a 2 × 2 between‐subject experimental design on certification and label conditions, respectively, in two samples from the Amazon MTurk crowdsourcing marketplace and one from business angels. Results show that early‐stage ventures would use such signals in their sustainability exemplification strategy to convey quality and prestige and eventually improve their chances of raising business angel funding. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular economy (CE) aims to deeply transform the current linear model of economy and society into a business model capable to extend the lifetime of resources and decrease environmental impacts. For this to happen, changes in societal systems and production sectors, from micro to macro, are required. The present research, based on a multiple case‐study explorative approach of circular start‐ups (CSUs), investigates their adoption of environmental impact assessment methods, environmental and social certifications and contribution to a better integration of the social dimension in the CE model. Results indicate that three out of six CSUs carefully measure and certify their environmental and social impacts. Life Cycle Assessment resulted the most adopted environmental assessment method, while two CSUs are also certified benefit corporations. CSUs are mainly oriented toward the use of quantitative methods for the measurement of environmental and social impacts. Additional efforts are still needed toward the implementation of qualitative methods to properly highlight the achievement of social benefits (environmental and social awareness, employees' engagement, work time and free time balance, consumers health and safety, among others) for their stakeholders (workers, local community, consumers). Nevertheless, CSUs case studies highlight their potential of supporting the transition toward a fair CE while at the same time facilitating the integration of social dimension aspects into the CE model. Finally, by developing appropriate business to consumer models, CSUs can strongly affect consumption behaviors and habits, making them also more aware and responsible of their environmental and social life cycle impacts and improvement potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case allows students to apply managerial accounting concepts and analytical skills to solve a new, relevant, and ambiguous problem. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as the backdrop setting, this case takes students on a roller-coaster ride as they help a CEO of a high-tech startup company cut costs and increase sales to weather a highly uncertain and financially precarious environment. Based on a past budget report, students incorporate uncertainty into the planning process and provide managerial accounting insights to the CEO to make decisions as the company changes its business model in response to the pandemic. They analyze costs, revise the budget, predict cash runway under different scenarios, and integrate nonfinancial considerations with quantitative analysis in the decision-making process. JEL Classifications: L21; L26; M13; M41. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start‐ups which serves as a foundation for the analysis of acquisition policy. We show that, in spite of countervailing incentives on incumbents and entrants, prohibiting acquisitions has a weakly negative overall innovation effect. We provide conditions determining the size of the effect and conditions under which it is zero. We further analyze the effects of less restrictive policies, including merger remedies and the tax treatment of acquisitions and initial public offerings. Such interventions tend to prevent acquisitions only if the entrant has sufficiently high stand‐alone profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, the transfer from the level of knowledge to operation at full scale is often difficult due to the expectation of some problems associated with new technologies that usually cannot be identified and solved on a full scale. Therefore, aspects of start-up times and methodologies become even more relevant when starting to implement any (or any project) processing system in wastewater treatment. Thus, this work aimed to develop and validate a concept for starting up a laboratory-scale lagoon system. This system typically contains a series of three continuous-flow lagoons to treat 50 Liters in the day from a municipal sewage facility in Al Rumaitha City, located north of Al Muthanaa Province in Iraq. Further, the influence of hydraulic detention time (HRT) on the hydraulic lagoon performance depending on site-specific conditions and determining factors influencing actual hydraulic residence time was evaluated by investigating the start-up of three different HRTs: 7 days, 14 days, and 21 days, as changing it altered the depth and, thus, the effective volume. The start-up experiment involved two different phases of experiments, and they were conducted for four months, distributed in two different periods: the first period of start-up experiments was characterized to develop a proper microbial floc as quickly as possible and also to select the appropriate HRT of the lagoon. The results from these experiments led to the selection of the best three-cell lagoons design, which had an HRT of 7 days because it remained more stable concerning COD removal. After that, the second period of the experiments began, devoted to helping performance assessment of these facilities in continuous mode via providing basic information about the treatment processes occurring in a lagoon and summarizing performance expectations until a steady state was reached. Throughout the period of this experiment, average removal efficiencies were found to be 73.34% for COD, 76.54% for NH4+-N, 36.06% for TN, and 38.30% for TP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New venture strategies are required to deal with the 'conformity' needs caused by institutional pressures and the 'differentiation' needs led by competitive motivations. However, it is not clear that how the strategies affect firm performance, especially in the entrepreneurial context. Drawing on the optimal distinctiveness perspective, we conceptualised the two dimensions of the new venture strategy (conformity and differentiation). Further, we explored the mechanism of how new venture strategies promote firm performance by analysing a data set that included surveyed new ventures in Chinese high-tech industries. The findings indicate that the relationship between 'conformity' strategy and product innovation is inverted U-shaped, while the relationship between 'conformity' strategy and market expansion is significantly positive. 'Differentiation' strategy has a significantly positive effect both on product innovation and market expansion. Moreover, if new ventures implement both the strategies simultaneously, they should first transcend the legitimacy threshold. Our findings contribute to the literature pertaining to entrepreneurship theories, and offer important implications for entrepreneurship practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]