Search results for "TERT"
showing 10 items of 1210 documents
Why Study the Spread of Culture-led Development Strategies?
2012
Culture, entertainment and amenities as urban and regional development policies have received much attention over the last decade. In the wake of recent work on the creative class, culture-led development policies have been applied in cities and regions across the Western world. This article uses quantitative data to examine whether these policies have gained the support of Scandinavian local and regional politicians and, if so, why and how. Drawing on policy diffusion and policy transfer theory, the article examines from where politicians are influenced. Can the sources of influence be characterized as (1) horizontal, (2) top-down or (3) bottom-up? The main finding is that the top-down per…
Entreteniment i entreteniments en la cort d?Alfons el Magnànim (1424-1430).
2019
Resum: El propòsit d’aquest article és analitzar les formes d’entreteniment en la cort reial aragonesa a principis del segle XV, concretament, en el període entre 1424 i 1430 en què el rei Alfons el Magnànim (1416-1458) s’estableix a València. Amb d’aquest estudi volem establir quines són les activitats lúdiques del rei i dels nobles (justes, cacera, entreteniments musicals i qualsevol altre tipus de jocs i espectacles) i determinar quina era la missió d’aquestos jocs i passatemps en l’organització de la cort, la diplomàcia i les relacions del rei amb els aristòcrates o, encara, en la propaganda reial.Paraules clau Alfons el Magnànim, cort, jocs, noblesa, entreteniment.Abstract: The main pu…
An Application of Ant Colony Optimization to Decision Making on Affective Virtual Entities
2007
Learning is a never ending activity for humans; it takes place everywhere and even when we do not realize. However, current learning environments make students deal with lectures, mostly associated with low control of the situation and implicit motivation. In contrast, previous researches have shown that sports, games or hobbies are activities that make people reach optimal experiences where self-motivation, control of the situation, high level of concentration and enjoyment are present. Some current efforts to design next generation of learning environments make use of ubiquitous systems to encourage students to perform learning activities everywhere and at anytime. However, those approach…
The performance of entrepreneurial small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises
2012
Innovation is an important driver of economic growth for it leads to new products and services, enhanced quality, and lower prices. In an increasingly competitive global market, innovation turns out to be essential to secure a viable competitive position. Although there is no perfect correspondence between accounting intangible assets and innovation activities, the association between these two concepts is close enough to take investment in intangible assets as a proxy for entrepreneurship and innovation. To identify differences between innovative and non‐innovative small and medium enterprises in the service industry, both descriptive and statistical analyses are performed on financial dat…
The influence of innovation orientation on the internationalisation of SMEs in the service sector
2009
This article examines the internationalisation of small- and medium-sized service firms from an international entrepreneurship perspective. The results of the empirical research developed in Spain have shown that innovation orientation accelerates the time these companies take to internationalise and allows them to implement more activities and opt for high-control entry modes in foreign markets. The results suggest that two different models of internationalisation can be found within the services sector: firms either adopt a gradual process or attempt to benefit from a rapid transition period of internationalisation.
Guanxi, performance and innovation in entrepreneurial service projects
2013
PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the role played by two dimensions of entrepreneurs' private social capital in the survival, growth and innovativeness of entrepreneurial service ventures: local size and preferential attachment degree.Design/methodology/approachData were collected by a questionnaire, the unit of investigation being the private entrepreneur in the service sector in the city of Shanghai. The questionnaire allows the authors to identify the social network of the entrepreneurs, estimate the empirical degree distribution for the entire sample, and estimate local size and preferential attachment degree.FindingsThere is empirical evidence that entrepreneurs do not create social ne…
Master International Franchising in China: The Case of the Athlete’s Foot
2016
Franchising in China is a relatively new and growing phenomenon, which has gained momentum since the 1990s. Among the franchising pioneers in China are large and well-known food and beverage brands, such as KFC and McDonald’s. Less well known, but equally important, are the non-food retailing and service industries, which also made inroads in China using franchising. One such example is the case of the Athlete’s Foot Company. This American company has been a major competitor in the athletic shoes and sportswear sectors globally, made early entry into China using master international franchising, and, consequently, ran into problems indicative of the issues companies that expand internationa…
Women entrepreneurship in small service firms: motivations, barriers and performance
2012
This article presents an exploratory study on the characteristics of women entrepreneurs and the businesses they run in the Valencia region. Following a close look at the evolution of literature on women entrepreneurs, the study shows how different internal and external factors affect the motivation, obstacles and performance of firms created by women. These results contribute towards a better understanding of business creation by women as they provide an empirical contrast of these variables (motivation, barriers and performance). Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of women entrepreneurs and the businesses they run in the Valencia Region of Spain, in order…
Factors affecting the performance of entrepreneurial service firms
2008
In the current climate, the importance of the role played by entrepreneurship as a palpable reality that enables economic growth at a macroeconomic level, and as a factor that favours the progress of companies at a microeconomic level, has made it the subject of continual analyses from many different perspectives and in a variety of contexts by researchers from around the world. In this study, Spanish entrepreneurial firms in the service sector are analysed in order to determine the factors that influence their performance.
The overproduction of 2,4-DTBP accompanying to the lack of available form of phosphorus during the biodegradative utilization of aminophosphonates by…
2014
Although information about the ability of some filamentous fungi to biodegrade organophosphonates is available, the knowledge about accompanying changes in fungal metabolism is very limited. The aim of our study was to determine the utilization of the chosen, structurally diverse aminophosphonates by Aspergillus terreus (Thom), in the context of the behaviour of this fungus while growing in unfavourable conditions, namely the lack of easily available phosphates. We found that all the studied compounds were utilized by fungus as nutritive sources of phosphorus, however, their effect on the production of fungal biomass depended on their structure. We also observed an interesting change in the…