Optimistic Expectations and Proactivity: Can they be the Key to Successful Strategies in Entrepreneurship?

The most valuable thing we learned from expectation theories is that expectations affect behaviors significantly. This study deepens this knowledge, and proposes a model that puts forward the idea that optimistic expectations stimulate proactive personality characteristics and in this way activate strategic vigilance which forms the basis of behavioral decisions. In order to test this model, research was carried out with 280 entrepreneurs participating. Data obtained from the sample were analyzed using statistical programs which examine mediating effect. The research findings have shown that optimistic expectations affect strategic vigilance significantly and positively, and proactive personality traits have a fully mediating role in this effect. This is the first study that examines the relationships among optimistic expectations, personality characteristics, and cognitive abilities. To find out other relations between optimistic expectations and personality characteristics and cognitive abilities, there should be more researches. The findings can help provide a different perspective both in analyzing entrepreneurship success and in developing other management practices that increase positive work outputs.

Blockchain and the Evolving Financial Market: A Literature Review

Blockchain technology has gained widespread utility, particularly in the field of finance due to the popularity of bitcoin. There are other areas such as energy trade and securities market, which have evolved due to blockchain. These fields are new and building regulations and architecture to enhance their functionality. There are studies on blockchain finance and this paper aims to summarize a few of the pathbreaking studies and guide future research in this field. This paper reviews 77 journal publications related to blockchain from 2018 to 2021 available in the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) database. The selected papers have been grouped into 10 categories. This overview indicates that research in blockchain finance needs to focus on developing better privacy and security mechanism as well as better regulations regarding financial transactions not only to benefit from “Initial Coin Offerings”, but also to diversify investor’s risk.

Adaptive Shewhart Control Charts Under Fuzzy Parameters with Tuned Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

In recent years, adaptive control charts in which the design parameters depend on the observed samples have been successfully used as efficient alternatives for traditional control charts with constant parameters. In crisp run control rules, the process state may change very sharply from in-control to out-of-control conditions which increase the rate of false alarms. To overcome this drawback, this paper presents an adaptive Shewhart-type control chart, where the design parameters (sample size ([Formula: see text]), sampling interval ([Formula: see text]), and control limit coefficients ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text])) are defined with linguistic variables. To accomplish that, the chart parameters are determined based on the location of eight previous chart statistics using a set of fuzzy rules in a continuous environment. In order to improve the sensitivity of the proposed control chart in detecting small shifts in both location and scale parameters, the adaptive procedure is designed by integration of fuzzy Western Electric rules and fuzzy adaptive sampling rules. After designing the control charts using a fuzzy inference system (FIS), in order to provide an economic design of the proposed control chart, a tuned Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed to determine the optimal values corresponding to membership functions of the control chart parameters. Finally, using simulation studies, the capability of the proposed control chart is analyzed and compared with common charts in the literature. The results confirm that under different shifts in location and scale parameters, the proposed control chart outperforms other charts in terms of both economic and statistical criteria.

Artificial Intelligence Applications for Industry 4.0: A Literature-Based Study

Artificial intelligence (AI) contributes to the recent developments in Industry 4.0. Industries are focusing on improving product consistency, productivity and reducing operating costs, and they want to achieve this with the collaborative partnership between robotics and people. In smart industries, hyperconnected manufacturing processes depend on different machines that interact using AI automation systems by capturing and interpreting all data types. Smart platforms of automation can play a decisive role in transforming modern production. AI provides appropriate information to take decision-making and alert people of possible malfunctions. Industries will use AI to process data transmitted from the Internet of things (IoT) devices and connected machines based on their desire to integrate them into their equipment. It provides companies with the ability to track their entire end-to-end activities and processes fully. This literature review-based paper aims to brief the vital role of AI in successfully implementing Industry 4.0. Accordingly, the research objectives are crafted to facilitate researchers, practitioners, students and industry professionals in this paper. First, it discusses the significant technological features and traits of AI, critical for Industry 4.0. Second, this paper identifies the significant advancements and various challenges enabling the implementation of AI for Industry 4.0. Finally, the paper identifies and discusses significant applications of AI for Industry 4.0. With an extensive review-based exploration, we see that the advantages of AI are widespread and the need for stakeholders in understanding the kind of automation platform they require in the new manufacturing order. Furthermore, this technology seeks correlations to avoid errors and eventually to anticipate them. Thus, AI technology is gradually accomplishing various goals of Industry 4.0.

PANDA as a Startup-Orientated Cooperative Innovation Strategy for the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industry

Generating innovations is one of the key success factors of companies and organizations. To constantly create new innovations, an effective innovation strategy must be implemented by companies. Therefore, a variation of different strategic frameworks has been formulated. One framework which combines the idea of Open Innovation with startup-based interaction is the startup-orientated cooperative innovation (SOCI) strategy. The PANDA initiative of Fresenius University of Applied Science can be characterized as a coupled process of the SOCI framework. This paper presents the results of a survey, analyzing the impact of PANDA on the innovation strategies of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry based on the innovation attributes defined by the Oslo Manual 2018. The survey was used to compare 12 PANDA project evaluations implementing by European chemical and pharmaceutical companies. The main results of this study show that PANDA represents an effective tool to foster early-stage innovation development and indicates general effectiveness of SOCI strategies for chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

Business Model Innovation of Technical Start-ups in Emerging Markets

Innovation is critical for a start-up company to succeed, especially in emerging markets. Business Model Innovation (BMI) is highly related to entrepreneurship, though researchers have not paid sufficient attention on it. This paper develops a conceptual model to address the following questions. First, the authors try to find out the drivers of BMI and the difference between developing and developed countries. Second, the way start-ups partner escrow online payment service providers in emerging markets is discussed. Lastly, this paper studies how BMI could adapt to external changes and maintain a sustainable advantage.

Technological Resources for Fighting COVID-19 Pandemic Health Issues

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global effect with several people dying daily due to the dreaded disease. Therefore, each individual has a duty to support the efforts of their countries either financially, socially, technically, or by any other means to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. During this crisis, engineers can come up with innovations to fight the pandemic. One of the reasons for the death of a patient suffering from COVID-19 was the lack of resources required for patient care. The doctors who are taking care of COVID patients could get infected due to lack or the deficiency of available safety kits. Some of the resources required to fight COVID-19 are personal protective equipment (PPE) (e.g. gloves, gowns, face masks and shields for respiratory and eye protection respectively), mechanical ventilators and body vital monitoring devices. Engineers can contribute to the fight against COVID-19, by developing compact size ventilators, 3D printed face shield, masks, door handles, hand sanitizer, etc. The available medicines to fight the disease are still under development and trials with limited options at present has led to deaths among patients mostly those who are elderly or having any co-morbid condition. The deficiency of medicine availability can be resolved up to some extent by applying tools of supply chain management.