M. Maina Olembo, Timo Kilian, Simon Stockhardt, Andreas Hülsing and Melanie Volkamer
The purpose of this study was to develop and test SCoP. Users find comparing long meaningless strings of alphanumeric characters difficult. While visual hashes – where users…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to develop and test SCoP. Users find comparing long meaningless strings of alphanumeric characters difficult. While visual hashes – where users compare images rather than strings – have been proposed as an alternative, people are unable to sufficiently distinguish more than 30 bits, which does not provide adequate security against collision attacks. Our goal is to improve the situation.
Design/methodology/approach
A visual hash scheme was developed using shapes, colours, patterns and position parameters. It was evaluated in a series of pilot user studies and improved iteratively, leading to SCoP, which encodes 60 distinguishable bits. We tested SCoP further in two follow-up studies, simulating verifying in remote electronic voting and https certificate validation.
Findings
Participants attained an average accuracy rate of 97 per cent with SCoP when comparing two visual hash images, one placed above the other. From the follow-up studies, SCoP was seen to be more promising for the https certificate validation use case, with direct image comparison, while a low average accuracy rate in simulating verifiability in remote electronic voting limits its applicability in an image-recall use case.
Research limitations/implications
Participants achieved high accuracy rates in unrealistic situations, where the images appeared on the screen at the same time and in the same size. Studies in more realistic situations are therefore necessary.
Originality/value
We identify a visual hash scheme encoding a higher number of distinguishable bits than previously reported in literature, and extend the testing to realistic scenarios.
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Andrea Furlan and Roberto Grandinetti
Literature on spin-offs still lacks a thorough understanding of the forces governing spin-off performance. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by taking a network…
Abstract
Purpose
Literature on spin-offs still lacks a thorough understanding of the forces governing spin-off performance. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by taking a network perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper combines the literature on spin-offs with the network approach to new ventures to proposing a model showing how networking in the pre-entry phases affects a spin-off's survival and early growth.
Findings
The intensity and variety of interactions between the future entrepreneur (FE) and other individual actors has a positive impact on spin-off performance in both the incubation and the emergence phases. The degree of overlap between the network of the incubation phase and the network of the emergence phase also reinforces the effects of the intensity and variety of these interactions on performance during the emergence phase. Finally, entrepreneurial innovativeness is an antecedent of spin-off performance in that it requires different degrees of overlap between the network of the incubation phase and the network of the emergence phase.
Research limitations/implications
Being a conceptual paper, the study needs the support of empirical research. For example, samples of spin-offs achieving a high and low performance could be compared in relation to their FE's networking activity.
Originality/value
The paper creates a bridge between the inherited knowledge approach to spin-offs and the network approach to new ventures to provide a framework for explaining spin-off performance.
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Andrea Furlan and Roberto Grandinetti
– The purpose of this paper is to integrate knowledge inheritance theory with the social capital perspective to explain the initial endowments of spinoffs.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to integrate knowledge inheritance theory with the social capital perspective to explain the initial endowments of spinoffs.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors maintain that social capital plays a crucial part, both as a mechanism supporting the generation of intellectual capital prior to a spinoff’s foundation, and as an endowment that complements this capital once the spinoff is founded. Knowledge inheritance remains a fundamental mechanism for the formation of a spinoff’s intellectual capital. Its other endowment, social capital, derives from three types of relationship that future entrepreneurs develop within, through and outside their parent firm, all three of which are crucial to the formation of a spinoff’s intellectual capital.
Findings
The first result of the theoretical research is an integrative framework of a spinoff’s endowments. Moreover, the authors apply this framework to address two key research questions in the spinoff literature, i.e. whether spinoffs can differ from their parents in terms of intellectual capital; and why spinoffs tend to co-locate near their parents, in geographical clusters. The integrative approach helps to tackle these questions.
Originality/value
This conceptual paper offers a more comprehensive explanation of the emergence of spinoffs in terms of their initial endowments than the knowledge inheritance theory.
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Roberta Apa, Roberto Grandinetti and Silvia Rita Sedita
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by investigating the intermediary role of incubator…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by investigating the intermediary role of incubator management in fostering social and business ties linking tenants among each other, with the incubator management and external actors.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper offers a literature review on the NBIs and advances a comprehensive analytical framework of the networked incubation model. This framework is empirically illustrated through a case study research on a leading Italian private NBI, namely, H-Farm. The collection of primary data was conducted by means of face-to-face in-depth interviews and a survey. Data were processed through social network analysis (SNA) tools.
Findings
The results highlight the co-presence and interaction of social and business ties, which build up a vital environment nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Community-based relationships and the intermediation of incubator management are crucial for supporting tenants in product and business development activities.
Research limitations/implications
These results pave the way to further research, oriented to the conceptualization of a NBI as a (small) cluster. Moreover, the application of the SNA tools adopted invites further research on networked incubators, applying the same methodology in new directions.
Originality/value
This paper adds to previous literature on NBIs by providing evidence of the intermediary role of incubator management in promoting and facilitating social and business relationships occurring among tenants, between tenants and the incubator management, as well as with external advisors, clients and suppliers.