We propose and test a process where potential entrepreneurs (PEs) prioritize a venture idea consideration set using preference-based decision-specific heuristics to assess idea feasibility and desirability. We test our hypotheses through two studies with PEs. The first experiment shows that prioritization occurs, with 113 of 122 PEs voluntarily changing a randomized list of their ideated ventures into a rank-ordered priority list of potential opportunities. Second, we employ a novel "equivocal forced-choice" conjoint design with 250 PEs. We find empirical support that PEs prioritize via relative preferences for experience-based knowledge, strong social ties, and low risk/low reward venture ideas. We contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by theorizing and providing evidence of a prioritization stage for multiple idea sets before evaluation. Further, we demonstrate the influence of individual and social network factors on prioritization and expand our understanding of how PEs conceptualize risk in venturing.

We investigate how internal sharing of values and knowledge in multinational enterprises (MNEs) influences the relationship between external national cultural distance and the adoption of subsidiary initiatives by headquarters. We draw on management control and knowledge-based theories and use a sample of 111 subsidiaries across various cultures and industries in the empirical test. As hypothesized, national cultural distance has a negative impact on subsidiary initiative diffusion, while organizational values sharing and knowledge sharing have positive effects. Internal values sharing does little to overcome the negative impact of national cultural distance, while internal knowledge sharing dampens this effect. Implications for MNE managers and research are discussed.

We examine the role of gender in the perception of anomie pressure and how this perception may vary by the position women occupy within firms to explain firm-level bribery supply. Connecting anomie theory to gender inequality research, our arguments deepen our understanding of the role of gender disadvantages and conformity to social and gender norms in the perception of women owners and managers of anomie pressure that encourages bribery. We argue that women-owned businesses are more likely to conform to prevailing anomie pressure and supply bribes while women managers are less likely to do so. Using a rich dataset that combines micro firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) and country-level data from the World Bank (World Development Indicators) and United Nations (the Inter-Parliamentary Union survey), our findings show that women-owned firms are more likely to supply bribes and that women managers tend to mitigate this relationship. Our evidence offers theoretical and practical implications for bribery research that move beyond prevailing assumptions about women's presence as a condition to reduce bribery to consider the connection between gender, prevailing bribery norms, and compliance.

In an exploratory qualitative study of 22 individuals, we study employee motivations to build and launch a prototype, shed light on factors that influence whether innovation activity may take place, and if so. where – within the organization, through independent entrepreneurship, or in an incubator. We find three dimensions that influence employee innovation decisions. While the offerings from an organization such as recognition or rewards, support, and an openness to innovation facilitate innovation among employees, individual employees have personal innovation goals and loyalty to the company that also influence their innovation decisions. This research highlights the complexity of factors that influence different stages of employee decision-making when considering innovation in an organization, explores how work experience moderates different dimensions of an individual’s perspective on corporate entrepreneurship, and indicates that employees prefer corporate entrepreneurship as the path of least resistance for innovation. Finally, we suggest that in a corporate environment, the intersection of the individual, the opportunity, and the organization requires attention. Not only are the individual’s actions impacting whether they come across an opportunity, but it is also the organization, both in terms of the opportunity context, as well as the benefits it offers that enables the opportunity to be acted upon by the individual or others.

We examine how entrepreneurs’ perceptions regarding individual-opportunity fit inform venture attractiveness assessments. Using conjoint analysis, 110 aspiring entrepreneurs individually evaluate eight hypothetical ventures with various combinations of individual and venture specific characteristics. We find that self-efficacy and preferences for work experience over education, strong ties over weak ties, and low risk-low reward over high risk-high reward relate to venture attractiveness. Furthermore, entrepreneurial passion moderates risk preferences such that passionate entrepreneurs are more risk embracing. We make important theoretical contributions to our understanding of how aspiring entrepreneurs assess potential ventures, and the critical role of preferences and perceived individual-opportunity fit. The idiosyncratic nature of this perception argues for a more subjective focus in venture formation research.

Objectives: We examined the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) diagnosed and at-risk status, and public awareness of COPD among adults in Japan, as well as respondent characteristics and health outcomes compared with controls. Methods: Regression models used 2012 National Health and Wellness Survey in Japan data to compare COPD-diagnosed, at-risk, and healthy adults (aged 18) on demographics, health behaviors, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), productivity and healthcare resource use. Results: Among n=29,978 respondents, diagnosed COPD prevalence was 0.9%; 26.9% were at-risk. Relative to controls, those at-risk and diagnosed with COPD had significantly greater healthcare resource use, with lower productivity and HRQoL. Fewer than 20% of respondents were aware of COPD. Conclusions: Over 25% of adult Japanese respondents were at-risk for COPD and had health outcomes impairments relative to controls. Efforts to increase awareness among the general public are needed.

The proposed study examines how early customers influence development of a collective understanding of organizational identity (“who we are as an organization”) during the venture creation process of innovative startups. While entrepreneurs’ initial goals and ideas are often underdeveloped, over time, organizational identity is negotiated, constructed, reconstructed, and sustained through informal and formal exchanges of ideas with different stakeholders. Early customers’ influences on new venture development are not well explored in entrepreneurship literature (Ruokolainen, 2008). We propose that early customers impact types of ventures created and create path-dependency for the subsequent type of customers adopted. Early customers are influential in venture identity formation in early stages of the venture creation process, particularly with increasing involvement in product co-design. Finally, we propose that while customer involvement speeds up identity formation to a certain point, excess customer involvement can slow identity formation, and having conflicting demands from two or more customers has varying effects. Practical implications of our research include understanding impacts of early customers on the new venture’s identity formation process on entrepreneurial learning and in the shaping of emerging business strategy and technology development. We see this research helping entrepreneurs optimize early customer selection to align with their growth strategy.

The aims of this study were (1) to compare health outcomes (i.e., health-related quality of life [HRQoL], productivity at work, and healthcare resource use visits) between those with insomnia and non-insomnia controls, (2) to compare health outcomes between those treated for insomnia and non-insomnia controls, and (3) to assess the prevalence of side effects of insomnia medications and their relationship with health outcomes. Data from the 2013 US (N = 75,000) and 5EU (N = 62,000) National Health and Wellness Survey (NHWS) were used. The NHWS is a patient-reported survey administered to a demographically representative sample of adults. Those who met DSM-V criteria for insomnia and, separately, those treated for insomnia were compared with equivalently sized control groups who were identified using a propensity score matching method. Outcomes included HRQoL (Short Form 36v2), productivity at work (Work Productivity and Activity Impairment-General Health questionnaire), and healthcare resource use visits in the past 6 months and were analyzed using one-way ANOVAs. Among those with treated insomnia, those with and without side effects were compared on health outcomes using general linear models controlling for confounding variables. Patients with insomnia (n = 4147) and treated insomnia (n = 2860) in the 5EU reported significantly worse HRQoL than controls (health utilities: 0.60 vs. 0.74; 0.60 vs. 0.74, respectively), greater overall work impairment (38.74% vs. 14.86%; 39.50% vs. 15.66%), and more physician visits in the past 6 months (9.10 vs. 4.08; 9.58 vs. 4.11). Similar findings were observed in the US. Among those treated for insomnia, 13.56% and 24.55% in the US and 5EU, respectively, were non-adherent due to side effects. In the US, non-adherence was associated with significantly worse HRQoL (health utilities: 0.60 vs. 0.64, p <.05) and greater overall work impairment (37.71% vs. 29.08%, p <.05), among other significant differences. These relationships were not significant in the 5EU. A significant burden of insomnia was observed in both the US and 5EU, and the association remained even after treatment. Non-adherence due to side effects was common and, in the case of the US, associated with significantly poorer health outcomes.

BACKGROUNDVulvovaginal atrophy (VVA) is a condition associated with decreased estrogenization of the vaginal tissue, which can result in vaginal dryness, irritation, and dyspareunia. This study quantified the burden associated with VVA symptoms across the United States and Europe and compared this burden with other chronic conditions.METHODSData were analyzed from the International Women's Health Study, a cross-sectional Internet survey of women aged 40-75 years in the United States and Europe. All postmenopausal women aged 40-75 years were included in the analyses (Germany n=970, Spain n=294, France n=1054, Italy n=387, United Kingdom n=1096, United States n=3267). VVA symptom severity (none, mild, moderate, severe) was assessed using the Menopause Rating Scale and included in general linear models to predict EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) quality of life scores.RESULTSThe prevalence of VVA symptoms varied between 40.00% (Germany) and 54.42% (Spain), with half of women reporting their symptoms as either moderate or severe. Pooling data from all countries together, each incremental level of severity (none through severe) was associated with a significant decrement in EQ-5D scores (none=0.84 vs. mild=0.81 vs. moderate=0.79 vs. severe=0.74; p<0.05). The decrements in EQ-5D scores associated with moderate to severe VVA symptoms were comparable to those observed in other serious conditions including arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and irritable bowel syndrome.CONCLUSIONSVVA symptoms are associated with clinically meaningful decrements in quality of life that may be comparable to serious conditions such as arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and irritable bowel syndrome. Improved management of VVA symptoms may be required to alleviate the impact of VVA on the quality of life of affected women.

Objective: The objective of this study is to provide current` estimates of the association between obesity and health outcomes and to examine these associations among subgroups of interest (pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes [T2D], and neither pre-diabetes nor T2D) in the United States. Methods: Data were analyzed from the 2013 US National Health and Wellness Survey (N = 71,530). Respondents were categorized by body mass index (BMI) class (normal, overweight, obese class I, obese class II, obese class III). Results: As BMI increased, health status decreased significantly (and to a clinically relevant degree) for respondents categorized as obese compared with normal weight. Work productivity impairment, physician visits, emergency room visits, and costs also increased significantly as BMI increased. The pattern of results was similar across the three subgroups. Conclusions: Increasing BMI was associated with decreasing health status and increasing work-related impairment, healthcare resource utilization, and costs.

We draw on the integration-responsiveness paradigm to investigate how the relationship between environmental turbulence and multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiary performance in China is moderated by choices to localize and/or globally integrate operations. Little research has been conducted on how MNE organizational design decisions on integration and responsiveness will impact subsidiary performance in emerging markets such as China. Analysis of data from 95 MNE subsidiaries suggests that environmental turbulence has a negative effect on subsidiary performance. While both global integration and local responsiveness have direct positive effects on subsidiary performance, we detect a significant positive moderating effect of global integration on the relationship between turbulence and performance. The findings underscore the importance of global integration and parenting advantages over autonomy for underpinning subsidiary performance in an emerging economy like China.

We use experiential learning theory to develop new conceptual insights into offshore outsourcing of innovation. In particular, we show how offshore vendor firms are able to overcome liability of outsidership and eventually learn how to innovate on behalf of their onshore clients as a result of their embedment with clients across multiple teams. We theorize that the cross-border relocation of innovative activities from a client firm to an offshore vendor is only possible when teams within the vendor team have assumed a double-loop learning capability from the client allowing them to determine governing variables relating to the client's organizational environment. Through direct on-the-job experience working with each other, international teams comprised in part from the vendor and in part from the client can undergo different learning transitions, which we classify as either relationship-oriented or task-oriented. These transitions determine the extent to which double-loop learning can be developed in offshore locations and are influenced by intra-team dynamics and the way the joint teams organize and manage themselves. Our perspective has implications for our understanding of organizational designs associated with both client and vendor multinational enterprises seeking to benefit from innovation in offshore outsourcing.

Background Much previous work on how normal aging affects visual enumeration has been focused on the response time required to enumerate, with unlimited stimulus duration. There is a fundamental question, not yet addressed, of how many visual items the aging visual system can enumerate in a “single glance”, without the confounding influence of eye movements. Methodology/Principal Findings We recruited 104 observers with normal vision across the age span (age 21–85). They were briefly (200 ms) presented with a number of well- separated black dots against a gray background on a monitor screen, and were asked to judge the number of dots. By limiting the stimulus presentation time, we can determine the maximum number of visual items an observer can correctly enumerate at a criterion level of performance (counting threshold, defined as the number of visual items at which ≈63% correct rate on a psychometric curve), without confounding by eye movements. Our findings reveal a 30% decrease in the mean counting threshold of the oldest group (age 61–85: ∼5 dots) when compared with the youngest groups (age 21–40: 7 dots). Surprisingly, despite decreased counting threshold, on average counting accuracy function (defined as the mean number of dots reported for each number tested) is largely unaffected by age, reflecting that the threshold loss can be primarily attributed to increased random errors. We further expanded this interesting finding to show that both young and old adults tend to over-count small numbers, but older observers over-count more. Conclusion/Significance Here we show that age reduces the ability to correctly enumerate in a glance, but the accuracy (veridicality), on average, remains unchanged with advancing age. Control experiments indicate that the degraded performance cannot be explained by optical, retinal or other perceptual factors, but is cortical in origin.