The impact of intellectual property types on the performance of business start-ups in the United States

Using a large, longitudinal panel of US start-ups collected between 2004 and 2011, this article shows the extent to which intellectual property (IP) types, for example trademarks, patents, copyrights and outward licensing, enhance multidimensional performance. An ordered probit analysis corrected for sample selection bias, estimates performance to derive the following conclusions. First, trademarks and out-licensing IP types increase a firm’s chances of being a high performer, confirming the importance of certain forms of IP protection for start-ups. Second, patenting significantly reduces the chances of being a high performer, suggesting patenting has limited performance benefits for start-ups. Third, few performance synergies exist in the joint use of IP types, suggesting that strong complementarities among IP types are limited. While out-licensing patents and out-licensing copyrights increase performance, out-licensing patents and out-licensing trademarks diminish it. Furthermore, registering more trademarks and out-licensing more trademarks also diminishes performance, suggesting start-up firms should keep trademarks in-house.

A Study of Performance Management System as a Strategic Tool of HRM

In present hard-hitting competition, one of the strategies to be a successful organization is to get right candidates for every available position in the organization and retain the good employees to have better and highly motivated workforce. So what actually needed for an organization and managers is to attract, retain and motivate a talented workforce? It is proven fact that all high performance organizations whether public or private are and must be focus on developing and adopting effective performance measurement and performance management system; because it is only with the help of these systems organization can remain high performer. Now-a-days, in any industry whether small or big, human resource management not just plays traditional role but they are using various strategical tools of HRM to evaluate its employees’ performance and manage it accurately with a new system in the field of HRM known as Performance Management System (PMS). PMS helps the organization in aligning individual’s goal and objectives with organizational objectives. This paper deals with how PMS can be utilized for taking various strategic HR decisions and the effectiveness of PMS. The result of the study shows that a performance management system acts as a strategic tool and a powerful foundation for the employees to achieve their ambitions and organizations to achieve their key financial goals.

High-Performance Trauma Centers in a Single-State Trauma System

Background Trauma centers with low observed:expected (O:E) mortality ratios are considered high performers; however, it is unknown whether improvements in this ratio are due to a small number of unexpected survivors with high mortality risk (big saves) or a larger number of unexpected survivors with moderate mortality risk (marginal gains). We hypothesized that the highest-performing centers achieve that status via larger numbers of unexpected survivors with moderate mortality risk. Methods We calculated O:E ratios for trauma centers in Pennsylvania for 2016 using a risk-adjusted mortality model. We identified high and low performers as centers whose 95% CIs did not cross 1. We visualized differences between these centers by plotting patient-level observed and expected mortality; we then examined differences in a subset of patients with a predicted mortality of ≥10% using the chi-squared test. Results One high performer and 1 low performer were identified. The high performer managed a population with more blunt injuries (97.2% vs 93.6%, P < .001) and a higher median Injury Severity Score (14 vs 11, P < .001). There was no difference in survival between these centers in patients with an expected mortality of <10% (98.0% vs 96.7%, P = .11) or ≥70% (23.5% vs 10.8%, P = .22), but there was a difference in the subset with an expected mortality of ≥10% (77.5% vs 43.1%, P < .001). Conclusions Though patients with very low predicted mortality do equally well in high-performing and low-performing centers, the fact that performance seems determined by outcomes of patients with moderate predicted mortality favors a “marginal gains” theory.

Can benchmarking Australian hospitals for quality identify and improve high and low performers? Disseminating research findings for hospitals

This paper examines the principles of benchmarking in healthcare and how benchmarking can contribute to practice improvement and improved health outcomes for patients. It uses the Deepening our Understanding of Quality in Australia (DUQuA) study published in this Supplement and DUQuA’s predecessor in Europe, the Deepening our Understanding of Quality improvement in Europe (DUQuE) study, as models. Benchmarking is where the performances of institutions or individuals are compared using agreed indicators or standards. The rationale for benchmarking is that institutions will respond positively to being identified as a low outlier or desire to be or stay as a high performer, or both, and patients will be empowered to make choices to seek care at institutions that are high performers. Benchmarking often begins with a conceptual framework that is based on a logic model. Such a framework can drive the selection of indicators to measure performance, rather than their selection being based on what is easy to measure. A Donabedian range of indicators can be chosen, including structure, process and outcomes, created around multiple domains or specialties. Indicators based on continuous variables allow organizations to understand where their performance is within a population, and their interdependencies and associations can be understood. Benchmarking should optimally target providers, in order to drive them towards improvement. The DUQuA and DUQuE studies both incorporated some of these principles into their design, thereby creating a model of how to incorporate robust benchmarking into large-scale health services research.

Analysis of Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs): Item and Test Statistics from the 2nd year Nursing Qualifying Exam in a University in Cavite, Philippines

Introduction:Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) is used extensively as a test format in nursing education. However, making MCQs still remains a challenge to educators. To avoid issues about its quality, this should undergo item analysis. Thus, the study evaluated item and test quality using difficulty index (DIF) and discrimination indices (DI), with distractor efficiency (DE); determined the reliability usingKuder-Richardson 20 coefficients (KR20); and identified which valid measure was developed. Methodology: The study was conducted among 41 level two nursing students in the College of Nursing. The qualifying examination comprised of 194 MCQs. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel 2010 and SPSS22 and were analyzed. Results: According to DIF, out of 194 items, 115 (59.53%) had right difficultyand 79 (40.7%) were difficult. Regarding DI, 17 (8.8%) MCQs were considered very gooditems to discriminate the low and high performer students. While 21 (10.8%), 32 (16.5%), 24 (12.4%), and 100 (51.5%) demonstrated good, fair quality, potentially poor, and potentially very pooritems, respectively. On the other hand, the number of items that had 100% distractor effectiveness is 57 (29.4%), as 65 (33.5%), 49 (25.3%), and 23 (11.9%) revealed 66.6%, 33.3% and 0%, respectively. The reliability of the test using KR20 is 0.9, suggesting that the test is highly reliable with considered good internal consistency. After careful analysis of each item, 55 (28.35%) items were retained without revisions. Further, the stem of the 24 (12.37%) items, the distractors of the 66 (34.02%) items and both the stem and distractors of 46 (23.71%) items were modified, and 3 (1.55%) items were removed. Discussion:The researcher recommends doing an analysis between upper and lower scorers and its relationship to DE. For future study, it will be beneficial to explore other factors like student’s ability, quality of instructions, and number of students in relation to quality of MCQs.