Software start-ups generally use development practices that are adapted to their agile and innovative environment. However, these practices, although consolidated, may not be the best ones for a specific context. This paper aims to present a set of guidelines for software development in start-ups. It also aims to show the results of three studies to validate and refine the proposed guidelines: a confirmatory survey, a focus group, and an expert panel. The participants were actors from both the industry and the academia. The results revealed that the guidelines obtained a positive perception from the participants of both contexts. Based on their approval, we can infer that those guidelines can increase the quality of products generated by start-ups and the chances of success for these organisations. Besides, the need for some improvements has been identified, and they will be implemented in the next version of the guidelines.

A number of studies have applied social network analysis (SNA) to show that the patterns of social interaction between software developers explain important organisational outcomes. However, these insights are based on a single network relation (i.e., uniplex social ties) between software developers and do not consider the multiple network relations (i.e., multiplex social ties) that truly exist among project members. This study reassesses the understanding of software developer networks and what it means for performance in software development settings. A systematic review of SNA studies between 1990 and 2020 across six digital libraries within the IS and management science domain was conducted. The central contributions of this paper are an in-depth overview of SNA studies to date and the establishment of a research agenda to advance our knowledge of the concept of multiplexity on how a multiplex perspective can contribute to a software developer's coordination of tasks and performance advantages.

The supply chains of the Canadian forest products industry are largely dependent on accurate demand forecasts. The USA is the major export market for the Canadian forest products industry, although some Canadian provinces are also exporting forest products to other global markets. However, it is very difficult for each province to develop accurate demand forecasts, given the number of factors determining the demand of the forest products in the global markets. We develop multi-layer feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) models for demand forecasting of the Canadian forest products industry. We find that the ANN models have lower prediction errors and higher threshold statistics as compared to that of the traditional models for predicting the demand of the Canadian forest products. Accurate future demand forecasts will not only help in improving the short-term profitability of the Canadian forest products industry, but also their long-term competitiveness in the global markets.

Over recent decades, advanced economies have been characterised by reduced rates of productivity. In this article, we advance the hypothesis that one of the potential causes of this trend might be the new knowledge capitalisation practices. Capitalisation of intangible assets is justified by the limited exhaustibility of knowledge, which implies its slow obsolescence, and hence, having the potential of being capitalised to reflect its prolonged period of contribution to productivity. However, the capitalisation of an increasing proportion of the assets that initially were accounted for as labour or intermediate inputs is having a direct effect on increasing capital and theoretical output and reducing total factor productivity (TFP). Our empirical analysis based on US-listed firms shows that the capitalisation of knowledge strongly reduces both the levels of TFP, and because of its fast increase in the last two decades, its rates of growth.

Intellectual assets, especially its relational forms, have become increasingly important to explain a firm's innovation. To examine relational forms of intellectual assets (IA), this study theoretically and empirically advances a concept of alliance management capability (AMC) to explain the value creation and capture aspects of a firm's innovation process. The concepts of value-creating alliance experiences (VCAE) and value capturing alliance experiences (VCPAE) were introduced in which a firm's ability to learn from these alliance experiences increases the firm's ability to discover and govern partnerships that bring the firm's innovations to market. Hypotheses were developed and empirically examined in the biotechnology industry. A contribution of this study is that a firm's VCAE and VCPAE introduce a greater 'openness' to a firm's innovation process. This openness enables a firm to better adapt and respond to the opportunities of the market and thus impact a firm's competitive advantage to innovate.

The notion of creative slack purposefully refers to the notion of organisational slack proposed by Penrose (1959), who suggested that managers in organisations always have some stock of unused resources that inevitably accumulate when developing projects and are the primary factors determining the growth and innovation of the firm. In this contribution, we aim at adding a new dimension to the notion of organisational slack. Our view is that in many innovative organisations the slack of unused ideas is essentially a creative one, which is accumulated in diverse communities through multiple projects. This creative slack is a key intangible asset and a source of knowledge creation and innovation. To explain how organisations may benefit from exploiting the creative slack accumulated by communities, we rely on the analysis of two case studies, that of the Hydro-Québec Research Institute (IREQ), and of Ubisoft Montreal.

This article explores dual affiliated graduate students that conduct research involving both universities and firms, which we conceptualise as a form of academic engagement, e.g., knowledge networks. We explore what they do during their studies, and their perceptions about their contributions to the firm's capacities for technology and innovation. So far, university-industry interactions in engineering are less researched than other fields, and this qualitative study focuses upon one department of Electrical Engineering in Sweden. First, we define and describe how the partner firms and universities organise this research collaboration as a form of academic engagement. Secondly, we propose a conceptual framework specifying how graduate students act as boundary-spanners between universities and firms. This framework is used for the empirical analysis, when exploring their perceptions of impact. Our results reveal that they primarily engage in problem-solving activities in technology, which augment particularly the early stages of absorptive capacities in firms.

Science-based university spin-offs face considerable technology and market uncertainty over extended periods of time, increasing the challenges of commercialisation. Scientist-entrepreneurs can play formative roles in commercialising lab-based scientific inventions through the formation of well-endowed university spin-offs. Through case study analysis of three science-based university spin-offs within a biotechnology innovation ecosystem, we unpack the impact of <i>pre-formation</i> intangible assets of academic scientists (research excellence, patenting, and international networks) and their entrepreneurial capabilities on spin-off performance. We find evidence that the pre-formation entrepreneurial capabilities of academic scientists can endow science-based university spin-offs by leveraging the scientists' pre-formation intangible assets. A theory-driven model depicting the role of pre-formation intangible assets and entrepreneurial capabilities in endowing science-based university spin-offs is developed. Recommendations are provided for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to more effectively commercialise high potential inventions in the university lab through the development and deployment of pre-formation intangible assets and entrepreneurial capabilities.

Work-life balance (WLB) is a widely explored topic in the academic discourse. The researchers are trying to find strategies to effectively balance their work and home responsibilities for women in management. This study aims to analyse how gender roles and inequalities shape the strategies of female academics in higher education institutions. Eighteen faculty members participated in the semi-structured interviews. The trustworthiness of qualitative inquiry was ascertained by using triangulation, thick descriptions, and peer reviews. Three major themes emerged from the analysis: emotional, religious and social strategies. Despite available support, faculty noted challenges in managing work and family roles and fighting with gender stereotypes. This research adds to the emerging concept of WLB literature from the developed countries' viewpoint. It also shows how WLB discourse varies from Western sensibilities and collaborates with the previously established strategies that female academics formulate in WLB.

This study aimed to assess the level of GW in Jordanian university students and compare the level of awareness of students according to their academic level (high and low), faculty (science and humanities), gender (male and female), and year of study (first and final years). This study is quantitative research that provides a comprehensive view of GW in Jordanian universities. A total of 383 university students of currently registered undergraduate programs from six independent universities in Jordan were recruited. An online questionnaire covering three aspects of GW was sent to participants in December 2020. Inferential and descriptive statistics were used to analyse data. Participants had 'good' (67%) overall knowledge about GW, a 'very good' level of GW causes (81%), and a 'poor' level of knowledge about the GW impacts on humans and the environment (47%) and knowledge about GW possible solutions (59%). Significant differences were founded between males and females, students from scientific faculties and students from other faculties, students with higher academic achievement than lower achievement in the total GW knowledge. But no significant differences were between students in the first year and the final years.

For a long time, high school students have been forced to practice selecting correct answers on college scholastic ability tests. Recently, it has been suggested that schools introduce biomimicry activities for STEM education to develop students' 21st century competency. However, there have been arguments about which system is more appropriate in terms of enhancing a student's competency development. Therefore, we evaluated neurological evidence of students' competency using fMRI scans taken during the selecting a correct answer for a biology question and during a biomimicry activity. Results showed that the repetitive practice of selecting correct responses limited a student's neurological activities to the brain network of the visual cortex and the front-parietal working memory cortex. However, the biomimicry activity simultaneously involved diverse prefrontal, parietal and temporal cortexes, and the putamen, limbic and cerebellum lobes. Therefore, this study proposes that the biomimicry activities could stimulate their coordinated brain development.