Macro Trends Research Articles

How is Corporate R&D Changing? Recent Research on Trends Affecting the Nature of Corporate R&D

Little consensus has been built around how and why the nature of firm R&D has changed. This symposium examines firm R&D and reflects on how and why firm innovation has changed over the last few decades. The four paper presentations and discussion will collectively tackle this question around the changing nature of corporate R&D by leveraging unique theoretical lenses, novel data sources, and methodological advancements. Results capture how specific macro trends manifest in individual firms and impact various metrics of R&D. Short-Termism & Technological Influence of US Firms Presenter: Rafael Corredoira; The Ohio State U. Fisher College of Business Presenter: Rachelle Sampson; U. of Maryland Presenter: Yuan Shi; Cornell SC Johnson College of Business First Mover Advantage and the Private Value of Public Science Presenter: Ashish Arora; Duke U. Presenter: Sharon Belenzon; Duke U. Presenter: Bernardo Dionisi; Duke U. The Impact of High-Skilled Migrant inward Mobility on Firm-level Innovation Performance Presenter: Keld Laursen; Copenhagen Business School Presenter: Bart Leten; KU Leuven Presenter: Ngoc Han Nguyen; Hasselt U. Presenter: Mark Vancauteren; Hasselt U. A New Direction or Lack of Direction? The Story of Innovation with Outsider CEOs Presenter: Leonardo Mayer Kluppel; Ohio State U. Presenter: Trey Cummings; Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

Taxonomia dos tipos de tendências: uma proposta concisa

A palavra tendência teve uso extensivo e sofre associações forçosas, sendo usada como justificativa ou qualificação de produtos e serviços dos mais diversos fins. Além disso, aplica-se uma gama de taxonomias dentro do escopo semântico da palavra, o que compromete seu entendimento e estudo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi reduzir a complexidade sobre o conceito de ten­dência e normatizar suas terminologias. A pesquisa realizada teve natureza qualitativa e abordagem analítica. A metodologia decorreu das pesquisas bi­bliográfica e comparativa, relacionando dados de diferentes autores sobre as taxonomias que aplicavam para caracterizar diferentes tipologias de ten­dências. Aplicando a codificação axial (Grounded Theory), pode-se reduzir a quantidade de termos em dois: macrotendências e microtendências. Macro­tendências correspondem a tendências socioculturais amplas, tendo longa duração e alto impacto. Microtendências são menos duradoras e impactan­tes, atingem apenas alguns segmentos do mercado ao apresentar orientações para produtos e serviços.

Micro and macro drivers affecting adult literacy proficiency profiles across countries

This article analyses comparative data from the 1994–1998 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the 2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). At the micro level, the author considers factors involved in the development of an individual person’s literacy from a lifecycle perspective. At the macro level, he investigates trends in literacy proficiency profiles for countries that participated in both the IALS and PIAAC studies. In a number of countries, small average declines in literacy were recorded. This apparent stagnation in overall literacy at the population level in so many member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) merits a closer look at the trend data made available from IALS and PIAAC. The aim of this research is to understand the determinants of literacy proficiency in terms of (1) how they may be affecting the development of literacy from an individual lifecycle perspective, and (2) how they may be affecting the development of national profiles of literacy proficiency as countries’ sociodemographic compositions, sociocultural practices and economies change over time. There are few other comparative data like these that can help to improve insights on what drives the development and maintenance of literacy in adult populations. The data suggest that macro trends in literacy practices in work-related contexts may be on the decline, an impression the author discusses in relation to the observed stagnation in literacy profiles across many of the countries for which trend data are available. He considers the implications of his findings in relation to the upskilling and deskilling of occupations, changes in the distribution of work tasks, and the continued measurement of practices in PIAAC.

Do government appropriations and tax policies impact donations to public research universities in Japan and the USA?

As constraints on government funding to public universities become a trend in higher education internationally, clarifying the impact of government policies on donor behavior from a comparative perspective is an issue of higher education research. This paper aims to explore the impact of government appropriations and tax policies on macro trends in donations to public research universities in Japan and USA. Panel data of donation revenue to public research universities in both countries is used to answer the following two research questions: (1) whether the trends in capital markets affect the donation revenue of public research universities operating under different tax systems in Japan and USA, and (2) how the level of government support to higher education affects donations to American and Japanese public research universities. The primary finding is that stock prices are positively associated with donations in USA; however, there is no evidence that stock prices have a positive impact on donations to Japanese public research universities. These contrasting results imply that higher stock prices do not always induce donations to universities and that it is important to consider each country’s tax structure when looking for possible links between stock prices and donations to universities. Also, donor behavior is independent of the amount of government appropriations received by universities in both Japan and USA; therefore, the recent decreasing trends in government appropriations in both countries do not necessarily attract donors.

Research Trends: Evidence-based policy for bamboo development in India: From “supply push” to “demand pull”

Over the last few years, the bamboo policy in India has undergone a major change. The national bamboo development programme has been restructured with a shift in priority from restoring bamboo forests to promoting farm bamboo and developing its market linkage. This programme earlier with the environment ministry, is now housed in the agriculture ministry. The Indian Forest Act 1927 has also been amended to free the production, harvest and trade of farm-bamboo. The implicit assumption here is that the vast domestic market and industrial use will soak up this supply of farm bamboo. Is removing supply-side constraints and shifting the focus from “forest to farm” sufficient for unlocking the potential of bamboo? This study responds to the lack of information on the bamboo value chain to support evidence-based policy making. Based on an extensive desk review and an intensive field study, we tracked the production, marketing and end-use of bamboo. The study found that over the last four decades, the share of bulk, low-value industrial processing (in paper industry) has dropped from 50% to 18%, while supply of raw culms (mainly in horticulture) has increased from 40% to 63%. The traditional bulk markets of bamboo such as paper, housing, etc., have been largely substituted, and new bulk, assured markets have not opened up resulting in a diminishing demand. The field study mirrored the macro trends with more than 80% of the forest bamboo resource unutilized. We argue that key challenges in bamboo development are in the demand-side and there is a need to create new markets for bamboo by promoting industries that support job creation and farmer incomes both.

Development of Timber Industry Complex as a Tool for the Realization of Regional Modernization Processes in the Second Half of the XX Century (on the Example of Karelia)

Introduction. The development of industry in the economic history of Russia often became one of the main factors in the activation of modernization processes. Moreover, during the periods of modernization breakthroughs, the most developed and vital sectors for the state developed most actively. These include the development of metallurgy, mechanical engineering, the coal and oil industries, etc. It is important to understand how the development of a particular industrial sector influenced the development of modernization processes in Russian regions. The study of regional specifics makes it possible to more thoroughly reveal the features of the implementation of Russian modernization processes, since only macro trends can be traced at the national level. The timber industry complex (TIC) is always an important element of the Soviet and then the Russian economy. Karelia during the second half of the twentieth century developed as a single-industry region with a predominant development of the timber industry sectors. As a result, the timber industry complex became an instrument for implementing modernization processes in the republic, which could not but affect the state and development of the region’s resource potential. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the analysis of mainly statistical materials reflecting the influence of the timber industry sectors on the development of regional modernization processes. Studying the regional features of the socio-economic development of Karelia as a single-industry region allows us to identify the features of modernization in certain regions of Russia, in which the development of the timber industry sectors has become the basis of economic development. In the research process, historical-systemic, historical-dynamic, historical-comparative, historical-genetic were used. Results. In the course of the analysis of statistical data on Karelia, the main trends in the production, socio-infrastructural and demographic development of the republic were identified under the influence of the development of the timber industry sectors. The main reasons that led to a gradual decrease in indicators of socio-economic development were identified. It was shown that the common cause of the decrease in the resource potential of Karelia was the preservation for decades of a one-sided orientation towards the development of mainly the timber industry sectors. Discussion and Conclusion. During the period under review, Karelia was formed as a single-industry region with a predominant development of the timber industry sectors, which directly affected the success of the modernization processes in the republic. Outlined since the mid-1960s a decline in the development of the timber industry sectors of the republic led to a decrease in timber production, a general decline in industrial production, poorly developed sectors for the production of consumer goods, and a lack of developed social infrastructure.

Long-term sociolinguistics trends and phonological patterns of American names

This paper identified macro trends and phonological patterns of 348 million American baby names over 137 years from 1880 to 2017. The analysis showed that sociolinguistic trends have significantly influenced naming over time, as seen in the rise of individualism and unisex names, the impact of public figures and pop culture, and the substantially higher count of unique female names compared to male names. In addition, phonological analysis showed significant differences between male and female names in the number, type, and location of vowels as well as the number of syllables. On average, female names had more vowels, less consonants, and more syllables than male names. Also, names with certain word-final vowels and consonants were identified to be mostly-female or mostly-male. These findings demonstrated an inherent correlation between phonology and the perceived gender of names.

Specificity of Pragmatism Evaluation of Interfirm-Relations between Enterprises at Network Structures in the Conditions of Business Macro Trends

Modern scientific research points to the fact that the enterprises at network structures are a kind of system that is formed of different components, which are related by various connections. In this context, it is quite relevant to study the assessment of inter-firm relationships of enterprises at network structures in the context of business macro trends. The article substantiates the list of indicators that can be used to assess the most important properties at network on the basis of existing economic relationships and determine certain of their limits, according to which they can be classified as network. It is established that the relationships should not be extremely rigid, as in this case they will be inherent in the hierarchically centralized business structures. It is investigated that the choice of system at indicators for assessing inter-firm relationships and establishing their upper and lower limits will allow based on statistical processing of source information to draw clear conclusions about the presence or absence at network structure. Based on this, it is established that indicative analysis can also be used to assess the dynamics at network, establish its type and study the transformation processes and draw conclusions. It is noted that the studied method of analysis relationships based on an indicative approach has the following disadvantages: the need to use to calculate the array of business information, the collection of which is problematic for managers of companies due to the significant time spent on it; fears of disclosing commercial information, as well as the advantages – ease of calculation at indicators and fairly high accuracy of assessment. It is established that for economically developed countries the tendency to form inter-firm networks on market principles with the use of decentralized mechanisms of coordination activities based on partnership trust prevails, the Ukrainian economy is dominated by hierarchical networks with centralized management. Keywords: enterprises of network structures, interfirm relations, evaluation indicators, partnership relations, interfirm networks.

Краткий анализ образовательной политики КНР

The study is devoted to the problems of education, since education is a strategic area, as it forms public consciousness and a system of values. According to the authors, the importance of education and the importance of its reform should not be underestimated, since the goals, content of education and the degree of its impact on all respondents of the educational process determine the present and future of society. The reform process in this area currently covers all countries and states without exception. Education reflects the general dynamics of integrating intellectual property into market relations and becomes an integral part of the “consumer society”. The subject of this research is the educational policy of the Chinese leadership. If earlier the countries of the East paid attention and borrowed a lot from the West - the market economy, political systems, as well as the education system, now, in the 21st century, on the contrary, the countries of the West are studying the East. According to the authors, despite the variety of works devoted to the problems of education considered in the article, the experience of China currently requires a deeper study and rethinking. The Chinese government prioritizes education, closely linking the economic success of society with education reforms. In this regard, the topic of this article seems to be very relevant. The research methodology is based on a combination of descriptive and structural analysis. This article examines the micro and macro trends in the development of education in China in the near future, which is the practical significance of the study. The authors conclude that the measures taken by the leadership of the PRC in the field of education are very successful and can be useful for overcoming the systemic crisis in education in Russia. Today, in the opinion of many scientists, in the context of globalization, the convergence of the eastern and western education systems will contribute to a paradigm shift: the technocratic vector of education will be replaced by an anthropological one, and the main resource of the educational process will be the eastern philosophy and the educational system of Asian countries, in particular China. The analytical base of the study includes legislative and regulatory acts, materials from periodicals, a review of scientific articles by experts in the field of education

Inequality and the Social Compact in Singapore Macro Trends versus Lived Realities

Inequality and the Social Compact in Singapore Macro Trends versus Lived Realities

Association Between Accreditation Engagement and Using The Community Guide for Preventive Services by Local Health Departments.

Accreditation is one of the macro trends shaping the future of public health practice, and The Community Guide to Preventive Services is a decision-making tool used to select evidence-based interventions. Although local health departments (LHDs) seeking accreditation use The Community Guide, the relationship between the two remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine whether accreditation engagement is associated with the extent to which LHDs use The Community Guide. Data from the National Association of County and City Health Officials' 2016 Profile of LHDs were examined for associations between accreditation engagement and the use of The Community Guide. Whereas 52.8% of LHDs used The Community Guide sometimes or consistently, only 21.5% were engaged in the accreditation process. Engaged LHDs were more likely to use The Community Guide consistently (adjusted odds ratios: 8.2; 95% confidence interval, 4.0-16.4) or sometimes (adjusted odds ratios: 3.6; 95% confidence interval, 2.4-5.3) than those not engaged at all. Local health departments serving a population of more than 50 000, organized with a county or mixed level of jurisdiction, and those having a top executive with a masters' or a doctoral degree, were more likely to report some use of The Community Guide. The extent that LHDs utilize The Community Guide is positively associated with the level of their accreditation engagement. Capacity building and policy measures could encourage LHDs to seek accreditation thereby increasing the use of The Community Guide for evidence-informed practice. Future studies should identify causal factors predicting the use of The Community Guide.

Big data insights into social macro trends (1800–2000): A replication study

Seeking to advance a big data approach to social theory, Roth et al. (2017) applied the Google Ngram Viewer to explore the way the evolution of the function systems of the modern society is reflected in the Google Books corpus. The authors produced a highly counterintuitive finding that the modern Western societies cannot be adequately described as capitalist. In order to respond to the controversies raised by this finding, the present article replicates Roth et al. (2017) study while using a superior plotting software that allows to control the risk that keyword strength can be biased due to the neglect of keyword quantity. Covering the English-, French-, and German-language corpora, the present replication effort has confirmed the existence of distinct trends exhibited by the individual function systems, such as secularization, the persistent dominance of the political system, and the relatively lesser role of the economic system. These results are largely consistent with those of Roth et al. (2017) and thus lend credence to the authors’ sceptical assessment of the validity of the capitalist semantics. The article concludes by pleading for the routinization of big data-driven checks of the modern social theories.

Change of vegetation cover in the US–Mexico border region: illegal activities or climatic variability?

This study explores both human activities and climatic factors to examine the change of vegetation cover in the US Southwest border region—a region that is almost 2000 miles long and with rich natural resources but mostly a sensitive semi-arid/arid ecosystem. It is the first study that integrates large-scale remote-sensing data with multiple layers of socio-economic data and aims to inform critical policy issues related to natural resources management and border security enforcement in the region. A fixed effects panel data regression model is deployed to control for spatial heterogeneities and macro trends in vegetation cover distribution. The results show that both illegal and legal activities have statistically significant impacts on the border region vegetation cover between 2008–2017. Within a 3 mile buffer of the border, a one-standard-deviation increase in illegal border-crossings would lead the vegetation cover index (measured between 0–100) to decline by 4.1% of its standard deviation. A one-standard-deviation increase in border patrol agent staffing would lead the vegetation cover index to decline by 19.0% of its standard deviation. Employment density (a proxy for the dominant local economic activities) in the border county economies and growing season monthly mean temperature are also statistically significant in driving the change of vegetation cover. These findings provide important implications for natural resources management and border security policy in the region, as well as for the quality of life in the local border communities.

The Impact of Water front Location on Residential Home Values Considering Flood Risks

We confirm existing findings of significant premiums for waterfront proximity, more so for oceans, bays, and large lakes than rivers. We then expand research on housing price trends immediately before and after major storms in directly affected markets. Our findings support a consensus view that single-family home prices rebound quickly to prior macro trends after major storms, with little persistent negative impact on value. In addition, using elevation as a proxy for flood risks associated with sea level rise, we find inconsistent evidence that the market perceives flood risk and discounts property prices accordingly. The absence of a permanent market reaction may change as the market is exposed to increases in insurance premiums or other direct pricing of the risks. Our results suggest either a short-term horizon for buyers of coastal properties at risk, or a moral hazard problem whereby residential owners are dependent upon and subsidized by government and mispriced flood risk insurance premiums.

SPECIFIC FEATURES OF ECONOMIC SECURITY ASSESSMENT OF ENTERPRISES UNDER CURRENT CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS MACROTRENDS: A REGIONAL APPROACH

Goal. The goal of the article is to substantiate the theoretical and applied aspects of economic security complex assessment on the example of regional business structures with the use of the apparatus of mathematical modeling in Economics in modern conditions of business macro trends. The assessment of the state of economic security of enterprises is carried out through a system of criteria and indicators. The criterion of enterprises economic security is a measure of the state of the entity in terms of compliance with the established indicators of its activity with pre-established indicators reflecting the essence of economic security. On the basis of this goal, the question arises of solving such problems as: the possibility of developing a unified conceptual approach and tools for assessing the impact of indicators on the of regional business structures’s economic security; developing measures to improve the economic component of regional business structures. Research methods. Structural methods, comparative analysis of empirical data, abstract-logical generalization and mathematical modeling in Economics were applied to solve this scientific problem. Results. In the work on the basis of the methodological approach the model of assessment formation of the enterprise’s economic security has been grounded on the basis of impact of economic security indicators by means of logit and probit-functions. The model does not take into account group effects, that is, there is no analysis of fixed effects. In order to avoid cross-effects, when not only the variable itself influences the likelihood of a crisis, but the public crisis begins to affect the behavior of the variable, two groups of models are built: for the first group of regressions from the sample, all observations after the first year of crises are excluded; for the second group of regressions all data were used except for the crisis years after the first year of the crisis. Conclusions. The fundamental provisions of the scientific investigation will enable domestic regional enterprises to apply the algorithm of forming the economic security assessment of the enterprise using the apparatus of mathematical modeling in Economics.

"Zweckoptimismus" and the Paris process will not save the world from climate catastrophe.

Politicians, government officials, business representatives, and nongovernmental climate activists all in various ways emphasize what they see as progress being made in the aftermath of the Paris Agreement, even if they continue to warn of the dire consequences of business as usual. Indeed, there is no lack of encouraging private and public sector initiatives on climate change. Some macro trends seem to be moving in the right direction, as well. But, closer scrutiny shows that these positive trends are still far from adding up to the necessary fundamental shift in the global energy economy. Furthermore, the public may greatly overestimate the advancement of renewable solar and wind energy technology, which contributes to a false sense of progress and lessens political urgency. Without determined and reinvigorated political leadership from the European Union (EU), there is little hope that necessary emission reduction goals to stay below 2 °C above preindustrial levels can be met. The EU has driven international climate policy from the beginning of climate negotiations, and there is unfortunately no other source of leadership in sight. It will require difficult political decisions to be taken sooner rather than later to force a much quicker domestic energy transition and to raise financing to help developing countries with their own energy transition and adaptation to a rapidly warming world. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2018;14:198-201. © 2018 SETAC.

Формування ік-компетентності у майбутніх вчителів початкових класів в умовах змішаної форми навчання

The article is devoted to the issue of formation and increasing digital competence of future primary school teachers. The article addresses the issue of the implementation of blended learning in higher education, analysis methods and software applications with which scientific and teaching staff engaged in educational activities. The characteristic features and needs of the new generation Z have been determined, the concepts of macro, meso and micro trends in European education have been analyzed. The authors discovered the meaning of Personal learning environment (PLE), substantiated the idea that giving students the opportunity to work in a qualitatively formed e-environment will allow them to acquire professional and soft-skills for later life, create their own e-portfolio, manage their own educational formal and informal learning process throughout life. There are highlighted and described the characteristic features of informal learning in the article. The emphasis in the work is on the personalization of educational trajectories of students, thanks to PLE tools. The use of ICT, in particular, network services, allows us to create the appropriate pedagogical and technological basis for the maintenance of modern informational systems of educational purposes, which are the priority in the basis of any educational process, the formation of digital competence, and the effective organization of the educational environment of an educational institution

Urban inequality, youth and social policy in Latin America: introduction to special section

This special section discusses some of the challenges of inequality in the Latin American urban context and its consequences for the lives of young people. The four papers provide an in-depth analysis, from different methodological and disciplinary perspectives, of the interaction between social policy and multiple dimensions of inequality in Mexico, Argentina and Nicaragua. Each seeks to shed some light on the ways social policy operates at the micro- and meso-level to reduce (or fail to reduce) socio-economic inequality and promote human development for young people. This introduction provides a short overview of macro trends on social policy and inequality in Latin America. It raises some questions and discusses challenges regarding their ‘trickling down’ in the lives of the young who live at the urban margins.

Emerging trends: Inflation

AbstractOur field has enjoyed amazing growth over the years. Is this a good thing or a bad thing, or just a thing? Good: Growth sounds good. It is hard to imagine a politician arguing against jobs. There are more people working in the field than ever before, and they are publishing more and more, and creating more and more value. What could be wrong with that? Bad: Whatever you measure you get. We are all under too much pressure to publish too much too quickly. Students are graduating these days with more publications than what used to be expected for tenure. So many people are publishing so much that no one has time to think great thoughts, or take time to learn about things that may not be directly relevant to the next publication. Neutral: Inflation is a fact of life. There are long-term macro trends on publication rates that are beyond our control. These trends hold over tens and hundreds of years, and will continue over the foreseeable future.

Improving the learning experience of business subjects in engineering studies using automatic spreadsheet correctors

The combination of two macro trends, ICT proliferation and novel approaches in education, has resulted in a series of opportunities with no precedent in terms of content, channels and methods in education. The present contribution aims to describe the architecture, functionality and impact of an automatic spreadsheet corrector responding to a problem-solving approach in an e-learning environment. A total of 179 students coursing technical studies attended a basic course on business administration in the framework of which the experiment was conducted. Subjective perception of students demonstrates a very good opinion about the learning experience using the proposed ICT tool. Objective results show that it is a valuable learning tool, while students who obtain a high final qualification are the ones that have been positively evaluated in the sessions using the automatic spreadsheet corrector. Beyond these highlighted benefits for students, teachers gain time, effort and workload reduction. The validity of the proposal is tested in the Polytechnic School of the University of Girona in Catalonia (Spain).