A social cognition perspective on entrepreneurial personality traits and intentions to start a business: Does creativity matter?

PurposeThis paper proposes and empirically assesses a social cognition conceptual model linking creativity (both artistic and scholarly), entrepreneurial personality traits, and entrepreneurial intention. Specifically, the study draws on social cognition perspectives to investigate the potential role of creativity as a mechanism underlying the relationship between entrepreneurial personality traits and entrepreneurial intention.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 194 creative nascent entrepreneurs, the study tests the proposed model using Partial Last Squares Structural Equations Modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe study reveals that, among entrepreneurial personality traits, only risk-taking propensity is positively related to entrepreneurial intention. Interestingly, while artistic creativity seems to enhance entrepreneurial intention, scholarly creativity is found to stimulate a more cautious approach toward venturing. The findings also reveal that scholarly creativity fully mediates the relationship between tolerance for ambiguity and entrepreneurial intention.Originality/valueThe study makes an original contribution by showcasing how both artistic and scholarly creativity developed in the same socially situated cognitive environment can differentially influence decision-making and the relationship between entrepreneurial personality traits and entrepreneurial intention, thus contributing to social cognition perspectives and research in entrepreneurship.

PRECONDITIONS TO DEEPEN BASIC KNOWLEDGE ON ISSUES OF "NATURAL FOCAL INFECTIONS" IN MEDICAL STUDENTS NOWADAYS

At the stage of forming of fundamental knowledge on focal infectious diseases, three compulsory disciplines are vertically “encountered”: medical biology, microbiology, virology and immunology, and infectious diseases. Microbiology, virology and immunology occupy a central position in the formation of basic knowledge, and as a leading preclinical discipline, it lays the foundations for the application of acquired knowledge, skills and abilities by future healthcare professionals. The article discusses the preconditions to form the fundamental knowledge of natural focal infections in medical students, whose majors are specialty "Medicine», and "Paediatrics", as well as possible ways to boost students’ cognitive activity/ learning interest, taking into account interdisciplinary integration. Medical students gain knowledge on natural focal infectious diseases, the scientifically grounded characteristics of this group of infections and the ways to apply this knowledge during their II and III years being fostered in the educational and cognitive environment of the Department of Microbiology, Virology and Immunology. Students are guided on receiving knowledge on natural focal infections also during independent out-of-class training. Such model is implemented in four stages, each of which assumes its own psychological and didactic goals aimed at the implementation of educational activities, and as the end result, consisting in the formation of basic knowledge on each specific topic of the practical lesson, for each specific thematic block, and at the end of intensive cognitive activity at the department - an expected high-quality educational and effective product from the mastered discipline.

Social Entrepreneurship and Volunteering: Moderation Effects of Volunteer Experience Levels on Social Entrepreneurial Intent Model

This study investigates whether an individual’s social work experience impacts the relationship between institutional environmental constructs and the perceived desirability and feasibility of establishing a social venture. It extends Urban, B. and L. Kujinga’s. (2017. “The Institutional Environment and Social Entrepreneurship Intentions.” International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research 23 (4): 638–55, doi: 10.1108/IJEBR-07-2016-0218.) social entrepreneurial intent model by comparing two groups of volunteers in Malaysia with different levels of social working or volunteering experience. The results show that the cognitive environment influences perceived desirability, with a distinctly higher path significance for perceived desirability among individuals with higher levels of experience. Perceived desirability has a relatively more substantial impact on social entrepreneurship intention for highly experienced individuals. Interestingly, the results indicate that neither the regulatory nor the normative environment influences perceived feasibility for either group. Governments and other relevant organisations can utilise these findings to devise better policies for promoting social entrepreneurship.

Priming exploration across domains: does search in a spatial environment influence search in a cognitive environment?

Is there a general tendency to explore that connects search behaviour across different domains? Although the experimental evidence collected so far suggests an affirmative answer, this fundamental question about human behaviour remains open. A feasible way to test the domain-generality hypothesis is that of testing the so-called priming hypothesis: priming explorative behaviour in one domain should subsequently influence explorative behaviour in another domain. However, only a limited number of studies have experimentally tested this priming hypothesis, and the evidence is mixed. We tested the priming hypothesis in a registered report. We manipulated explorative behaviour in a spatial search task by randomly allocating people to search environments with resources that were either clustered together or dispersedly distributed. We hypothesized that, in a subsequent anagram task, participants who searched in clustered spatial environments would search for words in a more clustered way than participants who searched in the dispersed spatial environments. The pre-registered hypothesis was not supported. An equivalence test showed that the difference between conditions was smaller than the smallest effect size of interest ( d = 0.36). Out of several exploratory analyses, we found only one inferential result in favour of priming. We discuss implications of these findings for the theory and propose future tests of the hypothesis.

Complex Dynamic Systems Theory for Cognitive Environment Approach

Population Fluctuations (PF), Patch Variation (PV), and Food Webs (FW) are just a few of the areas where the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) has made a significant impact on our understanding of the environment. Measures have been used to capture the variation between simple, disordered and ordered frameworks with local interactions that can generate surprising actions on a massive scale. But research shows that conventional explanations of convolution fail to take into account some major characteristics of ecological systems, an ideology that will limit the contributions of CDST to the entire ecosystem. In this paper, we have presented literature review of these characteristics of Environmental Convolution (EC), e.g. diversification, environmental variability, memory and cross-scale interactions, which progress to classical CDST. Advancements in these segments will be essential before CDST can be applicable in the comprehension of more vibrant systems in the environment.

Cognitive Environment at “Bansko Cultural Heritage Promotion Center”

The present research is based on “Methodics for Preservation and Promotion of the Cultural Heritage with Artistic Interactions and Educational Impacts through Information and Communication Technologies (Nenov 2019), and the application of “the possibilities to promote cultural heritage with artistic interactions and educational impacts through the application of modern information and communication technologies (ICT), applying an interdisciplinary analysis of the scientific information for the cultural heritage sites” (Nenov 2019). Analysis of the activities for preservation and promotion of the cultural heritage has been made in the context of the concept, prepared by author team headed by architect Nenov – “Concept for activities for revitalization of the tourist attractions for promotion of intangible cultural heritage sites, under category “national” significance in the town of Bansko. (Nenov 2019a). The concept explores the impact of the environment in the “House of Arts Bansko” and the prerequisites for its reconstruction in “Cultural Heritage Promotion Center”. The applicability of notions, such as “cognition”, “cognitive architecture”, “interpretation of the cultural heritage”, “media façade”, educational “STEM” method and “authentic artistic interactions”, related to the research, is being analyzed as new approach for preservation and promotion of the cultural heritage. The significance of the interpretation of the cultural heritage in the context of ICT capabilities for the promotion of tangible and intangible cultural values is substantiated. Present examples for application of the Augmented reality (AR) are examined. The study presents the “possibilities for interpretation of the cultural heritage through visual research with information and communication technologies (ICT) in a real “in situ” and museum environment in the context of the cultural heritage sites and using the cited methodics, which was introduced in the dissertation “Conservation of the cultural heritage of Bulgaria in the context of the synthesis of architecture and fine arts “(Nenov 2016–2019). The possibilities for building cognitive environment are explored in the context of introduction of new technologies and good practices for popularization of the cultural heritage.

Dueling deep Q-networks for social awareness-aided spectrum sharing

In overlapping spectrum sharing, due to the complexity of cognitive environment, it is a real challenge for a secondary user (SU) to correctly sense the usage of the spectrum in real time. To tackle this challenge, a social awareness-aided transmit power control policy for SUs is developed. First, a social network composed of a group of third-party sensing nodes that do not share the spectrum with the PU is established, which helps an SU collect the power information of the PU. Then, we design a Dueling Deep Q-Network (DQN) model to achieve efficient dynamic spectrum sharing between the PU and the SU with the power information collected in the social network. Experimental results show that the spectrum sharing success rate is higher and the comprehensive performance is improved with the sensing nodes selected by the social relationship. Moreover, compared with other deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms, the performance of Dueling DQN is more stable on our targeted spectrum sharing problem.

Network Optimization Using Femtocell Deployment at Macrocell Edge in Cognitive Environment

<div>This research focuses on the problem of cell edge user’s coverage in the context of femtocell networks operating within the locality of macrocell border where pathloss, shadowing, Rayleigh fading have been included into the environment. As macro cell edge users are located far-away from the macro base station (MBS), so that, the underprivileged users (cell edge users) get assisted by the cognitive-femto base station (FBS) to provide consistent quality of service (QoS). Considering various environment factors such as wall structure, number of walls, distance between MBS and users, interference effect (i.e., co-tier and cross-tier), we compute downlink (DL) throughput of femto user (FU) for single input single output (SISO) system over a particular sub-channel, but also based on spectrum allocation and power adaptation, performance</div><div>of two tier network is analyzed considering network coverage as the performance metric. Finally, the effectiveness of the scheme is verified by extensive matlab simulation.</div>