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Dynamic assessment in the educational setting has been shown to offer many benefits for students with speech and language disorders. This chapter highlights the benefits of dynamic assessment and describes the limitations of static assessments. Because dynamic assessment can be implemented in many ways, three scenarios have been designed to provide an overview of some of these variations. Scenario 1 includes a graduated prompt approach for assessing abilities in the production of speech sounds using a standardized dynamic assessment. Scenario 2 includes a graduated prompt approach for assessing the linguistic skills underlying spelling errors. Scenario 3 includes a test-teach-retest approach for determining the presence of language impairment in students who speak a nonmainstream dialect of English. Suggestions for goal setting and increasing dynamic assessment applications for students with speech and language disorders are presented.

Introduction Technological innovation is a subject of increasing importance in industrial life. There is a general feeling in Britain, that our relatively poor industrial performance compared with countries such as the United States, Japan and West Germany is because they are more advanced in adopting new technology. It is vitally important, in a situation changing as rapidly as at present, for organisations to keep abreast or even ahead of technological developments and to adopt innovations successfully. This article attempts to inter‐relate the findings of researchers who have examined the process of diffusion of innovations, in the hope that an increased understanding of this process will assist in the spread of new technology.

Bases itself on the premise that the categorisation of people who may adopt innovations is not the sole answer to the length of time taken for diffusion of innovations, but that a major factor is the characteristic of the innovations as perceived by adopters or non‐adopters. Says that marketers have an interest in decreasing the time taken for an innovation to diffuse throughout an industry by changing people from one category into another which is more progressive in outlook. States that two main industries were chosen to be used in this study – the flour milling industry and, to a lesser degree, the malting and dairying industries. Decided that the relationships between the time taken for innovations to diffuse throughout industry, and the characteristics of the innovations as perceived by technologists responsible for their introduction. Lays out the research method in detail and discusses this. Sums up that the research illustrates a method of studying the perceived characteristics technological innovation and shows a strong relationship between innovations and time taken.

This article looks at how capital equipment innovations are adopted. The reception of innovations by adoptors and non‐adoptors provides “profiles” of the characteristics of innovations, which can highlight good selling features and identify markets.

The purpose of this study is to explore the feasibility of natural capital accounting for the purpose of strengthening sustainability claims by reporting entities. The study showed how riparian land improvement influenced ecosystem services which could be measured in the context of financial reporting. The authors tested options for incorporating natural capital concepts into financial accounting practices under existing accounting standards specifically: on the balance sheet.

A case study approach was used with an Australian water utility that has accountabilities to protect the environment, including maintaining and enhancing riparian land assets. The authors examined internal data sources, stakeholder engagement outcomes, physical assets, monetary valuation processes and financial recognition of natural capital income and assets. Natural capital income was estimated by process-based ecological modelling and ecosystem services were valued in relation to stormwater filtration and carbon storage using data from both internal and external sources.

The authors demonstrated how an environmental agency can disclose natural capital as a class of assets on the balance sheet. The authors also found that current accounting standards allow the recognition of some types of environmental assets where ecosystem services were associated with cost savings. The proof-of-concept used for asset measurement through ecosystem service modelling proved useful to strengthen sustainability claims or report financial returns on natural capital investment.

While many studies have examined environmental disclosures in voluntary reports, this study established that natural assets can be included on the balance sheet of financial statements, offering a robust approach to measuring and reporting on natural capital. It did so by applying financial accounting processes and principles to a real-world natural capital management scenario with direct participation and cooperation between the asset manager, academic researchers and a government environment agency, bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Although entrepreneurial capacity building is a keenly debated topic in migration and diaspora research, the concept of female entrepreneurial capacity and the framing of highly skilled migrant women has remained underexamined. This chapter, therefore, addresses knowledge gaps related to migrant women entrepreneurs (MWEs) by focusing on the entrepreneurial experiences of highly skilled female migrants from both developed and developing countries. Specifically, we turn the ‘disadvantage’ lens towards migrant women’s inherent entrepreneurial dimension, an issue that deserves greater research attention, linking migrant women and their entrepreneurship to the entrepreneurial host context and business environment. Building on rich qualitative data collected via six semi-structured interviews with MWEs based in Finland, we also make practical suggestions for how MWEs can best engage with their entrepreneurial ecosystem as well as suggestions to policy-makers regarding how to improve gender awareness and migrant inclusivity aspects of entrepreneurial ecosystems.

This paper describes the entrepreneurial ecosystems of three public research universities involved in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Midwest I-Corps TM (trademark symbol) Node. It presents a synthesis of programming, functional structure, commonly referenced university metrics and their limitations in measuring impact on commercialization and regional development.

Based on current literature, university data and discussions with entrepreneurship leaders at the University of Michigan/Ann Arbor, University of Illinois/Urbana Champaign and Purdue University, this paper provides an overview and analysis of entrepreneurial resources and education initiatives.

University contributions to entrepreneurial ecosystems can be described with respect to infrastructure and leadership, technology and talent and culture of innovation. Four main university entities are responsible for driving entrepreneurship initiatives. Identification of these entities, their respective activities and their outcomes allows us to propose a framework for analyzing and measuring university entrepreneurial ecosystem impact.

The paper describes the variety of university-based entrepreneurial initiatives believed to contribute to university entrepreneurial vibrancy and ultimately regional development. It identifies ecosystem stakeholders and provides a framework for examining their role and impact for continuous development.

The research complements prior reviews and empirical studies of university-wide entrepreneurial ecosystems by focusing on programming within and across institutions according to four dimensions (academic, research administration, technology transfer and community engagement) with respect to technology and talent development. It describes similarities across institutions and limitations associated with measuring impact. It provides a foundation for future empirical research related to the impact of NSF I-Corps and entrepreneurial programming in academic settings.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems have quickly become one of the most popular topics in entrepreneurship research. Ecosystems are the characteristics and factors of a place that support high-growth entrepreneurship. This provides the ability for the field to provide important policy insights about how to aid the development of high growth, innovative ventures, as well as generate new insights into the relationship between the entrepreneurship phenomenon and the contexts it takes place within. However, work in the field remains undertheorized, with a little understanding of how the entrepreneur benefits from being in a strong ecosystem. This chapter argues that it is helpful to return to Ed Malecki’s work in a previous volume of this series, which explored the importance of networks. His work has contributed to a very broad stream of work on entrepreneurial environment. Using this as a starting point, this chapter distinguishes between “top-down” approaches to study ecosystems, which focus on the actors and factors that make up an ecosystem, and a “bottom-up” approach, which instead examines the ways in which entrepreneurs use their ecosystem to get the resources, knowledge, and support they need. The chapter concludes by suggesting how a research agenda for a bottom-up study of ecosystems can be informed by Malecki’s work.

Job performance in the US Army is a complex construct, in part because of the stressors that soldiers face, both day-to-day and during deployment. This chapter critically reviews job performance, and the connections between performance and stress and health, discussing how findings may also be relevant within the specific context of the Army. We review established conceptualizations and metrics of job performance within the Army as well as the civilian sector. Then, we discuss the existing research on the associations between performance and stress, physical health, health behaviors, and mental health. Considering these findings, we discuss lessons learned for Army performance metrics, recommending that stress- and health-related issues be incorporated into unit and leader performance metrics, with two critical caveats: (1) data are aggregated at a company level and (2) non-reactive measures are used. Finally, we discuss how existing data repositories can facilitate future research and note potential constraints of using secondary data.