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The paper examines the possibility of using team building in order to address one of the main issues that lead to Start-up failure – lack of team cohesion and shared vision regarding goals. Team building refers to a set of activities that are supposed to help build and/or consolidate a team and facilitate the team’s ability to work together towards achieving clear, well defined goals. The research of the paper was conducted by first examining the existing literature in the field of team building and Start-ups in order to understand if the topic has been previously covered and if so, take note of the results. Secondly, it is based on the experience of the authors with implementing team building practices in the case of three Start-up businesses and continuing with applications in an educational context. The results suggest the existence of a link between the usage of team building activities and team cohesion, which in the case of Start-up businesses could prove to be the difference between their success or failure.

El libro de Gabriel Amengual Coll, cate-drático de la Universidad de las Islas Balea-res, es una obra sin afán de exhaustividad, como marca el autor en varios lugares del libro, pero muy completa y que, además, permite cierta apertura a nuevas propuestas. No obs-tante, es a partir de 1840 que la solidaridad comienza a tener sus elaboraciones teoricas más minuciosas. Para él la solidaridad es una depen-dencia natural y necesaria que ayuda a imple-mentar la felicidad, el perfeccionamiento, el bienestar y la libertad de las personas. Pecqueur utiliza su concepto principalmente desde la economia, siendo que la solidaridad nos des-cubre a unos siendo dependientes de otros, pero a su vez la solidaridad moral debe crear unidad donde la economia causa division. Si bien en el Estado siempre está presente el riesgo de devenir en totalitarismo, también Amengual muestra que esto vienen cuando se tergi-versa la solidaridad y se la refiere solo den-tro de un parámetro nacionalista. Ahora Amengual pasa a vislumbrar la propuesta posterior francesa. Es más, en la sociedad se van generando cooperativas como medio de transformacion del tejido social. La solidaridad es aqui un hecho social que proviene de una conciencia comun y de una necesidad mutua. Pesch afirma que hay un valor absoluto del individuo, pero que el individuo es eminentemente un ser social. La solidaridad pone de relieve al ser humana como fin de la economia, siendo que la soli-daridad es la realizacion de nuestra esencia tanto individual como social. Asi, Gundlach al final es tam-bién uno de los pensadores que acercan el cristianismo a nociones marxistas, como la clase social, la lucha de clases, y a otros más liberales como los derechos liberales y la democracia parlamentaria. Este autor es muy inte-resante por su concepcion social. El individuo, además, tiene que tener conciencia de la sociedad en la vive y viceversa, de tal modo que al final se coim-plican. El ser humano es un ser social, pero cada uno es dueno de si mismo y debe ser el responsable de sus actos. Como senala Amengual, al final la propuesta de Scheler es posible porque está de trasfondo el amor cristiano para pautar a la solidaridad propia-mente dicha. Pero la prioridad de la libertad y de la igualdad, hacen que la solidaridad plantee como objetivo que la sociedad se mantenga a través de ella, es decir, es dotadora de cohesion social. De social lleva a un conflicto antes o después. resultas, es un concepto de solidaridad que Por eso, en este punto a la teoria de Haber-tiene como objetivo la cohesion social en mas es interesante, aunque cuestionable en ultimo término. su práctica.

Ultrafine-grained (UFG) Ni and multi-walled carbon nanotube (CNT) composite powders were prepared using non-covalent functionalization of CNTs to promote cohesion between the metal powders and CNTs. Following consolidation using spark plasma sintering, the resultant NiaCNT composites had densities >97 % with well-dispersed CNT reinforcements. Tensile testing revealed comparable fracture strengths between the reinforced and unreinforced UFG Ni, whereas the former exhibited smaller fracture strain than the latter. In addition, the former had higher microhardness than the latter. The results are rationalized using a shear-lag model, and it is suggested that grain edge lengths should be used as the reinforcement lengths when applying the model to tensile stress response descriptions.

Although social integration has always been a central sociological issue, there has never been a consensus how to approach the topic empirically. In the new millennium, social cohesion has emerged as a lead concept for measuring how integrated societies are—not the least, because many observers see the social fabric of modern-day societies in deep crisis. Consequently, scholars and think tanks have intensified their efforts to chart how strong the social glue of contemporary societies is, as well as which conditions strengthen or weaken it. The main goal of our article is to provide an overview of measures of social cohesion that have been specifically designed for cross-national comparisons. To this end, we compare selected measures with respect to what they measure, how, and for what purpose. We then highlight key empirical insights gained by these measures, touching upon the issues of levels, regimes, as well as determinants and outcomes of social cohesion. The review concludes that one of the measures, the Bertelsmann Social Cohesion Radar, stands out in terms of conceptual clarity, methodological sophistication, and richness of empirical findings.

The core sociological subject of 'social cohesion' (hereafter SC) has re-emerged as a key concept in the social sciences. On the one hand, SC is thought to be influenced by a society's degree of inequalities and the quality of its welfare state. On the other hand, SC is thought to be instrumental in its own right to other factors such as economic growth, institutional quality, and individual well-being. In recent years, a few attempts have been made to measure SC empirically. Many current indices have not been sufficiently theoretically substantiated, and do not consider the importance of different 'social levels' when explaining and measuring SC as both cause and effect of other correlates. Very often, SC is simply defined as a 'social quality' or a quality of a collective. As a result, measures are often aggregate macro-indices leading to a loss of the information base of any social 'units' below the macro-societal-level. Contributing to this important methodological debate, this paper provides a conceptual reformulation of SC. Hence, when assessing SC based on a multi-dimensional index, it is insightful and feasible to evaluate both its internal variation as well as its holistic validity. In fact, it is proposed that these two aspects of measurement stand in direct relationship to one-another. The paper starts out with a discussion of SC as a 'social fact' in the Durkheimian sense. In addition, three bridging propositions on the measurement of SC are advanced: (a) SC as outcome or consequence at the level of individual attitudes and orientations ('micro'); (b) SC as degree of dissimilarity and presence of latent conflict within a society at the level of salient social categories ('meso'), and (c) SC as predictor, social determinant and hence antecedent at the societal-level ('macro'). Using all rounds of the European Social Survey with a very large sample size, the advantages of this approach are illustrated by singling-out the important link between socio-economic inequalities, social cohesion and individual subjective well-being in a path of action.

PurposeAlthough research on how the downstream calculations of a patent’s profit potential influence invention renewal decisions is extensive, the impact of the upstream knowledge creation stages is overlooked. The purpose of this study is to address this theoretical vacuum by examining the intra-organizational configuration of knowledge networks and collaboration networks.Design/methodology/approachThe data consist of 491 global pharmaceutical firms that patent in the USA. Drawing on patent records, the authors simultaneously construct intra-organizational knowledge networks and collaboration networks and identify network cohesion features (i.e. local and global). The authors employ panel fixed-effects models to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that local knowledge cohesion and local social cohesion decrease invention renewals, while global knowledge cohesion and global social cohesion increase renewals. Moreover, the marginal effects of local and global social cohesion are stronger than those of local and global knowledge cohesion, respectively.Research limitations/implicationsThe hypotheses are tested using the pharmaceutical industry as a research setting, which limits the generalizability of our findings. In addition, potential formal and informal contingencies are not considered.Practical implicationsDespite its limitations, this study provides valuable implications. First, managers are cautioned against the adverse effects of local cohesion structures on invention renewal. Second, firms can dynamically adjust their local and global network configuration strategies to harmonize the generation of valuable inventions and the retention of good ideas.Originality/valueComplementary to previous research that focused on inventions’ performance feedback, this study delves into upstream knowledge creation stages to understand invention renewals.

Research summary: This study addresses a theoretical dilemma regarding how alliance network constraint (reflected by network cohesion) affects a firm's alliance formation with new partners. Using a network pluralism approach, we separate a firm's ego alliance network into two activity-based networks—an exploratory network and an exploitative network—based on the primary value chain activity involved in each alliance. We argue that the cohesion of exploratory or exploitative networks has an inverted U-shaped effect on the addition of new partners in the same activity-based network, and a positive effect on the addition of new partners in the other network. Results based on data from the biotechnology industry largely support our predictions with one exception. Our study contributes to both scholarly understanding of network embeddedness and alliance practice. Managerial summary: The structure of firms' ongoing alliance networks may have paradoxical implications for their efforts to search for and form alliance with new partners. That is, when a firm's alliance partners are tightly connected with each other, the cohesive network tends to both encourage and impede the focal firm to add new partners. We resolve this dilemma by showing that when a firm is deeply entrenched in a cohesive alliance network conducting a certain type of activities (e.g., R&D activities), it may not easily add new R&D alliance partners. However, it may still be able to escape from the cohesive R&D alliance network by seeking new partners conducting other activities (e.g., manufacturing activities).

Given the importance of the neighbourhood context for residents’ social cohesion, the current study examines the association between types of social and non-social places on three indicators of social cohesion: neighbour networks, social cohesion and neighbourhood attachment. We spatially integrate data from the census, topographic databases and a 2012 survey of 4132 residents from 148 neighbourhoods in Brisbane, Australia, and employ multilevel models to assess whether the variation in resident reports of social cohesion is attributable to land uses that function as neighbourhood social conduits. We also consider the degree to which neighbourhood fragmentation affects our indicators of social cohesion. Our findings reveal that even after controlling for the socio-demographic context of the neighbourhood and a range of individual and household control variables, residents’ reports of social cohesion are significantly associated with the types of social conduits, the diversity of land use and the degree of neighbourhood fragmentation. 鉴于邻里环境对居民社会凝聚力的重要性，本项研究考察了社交和非社交场所类型之间的关联，我们所依据的是社会凝聚力的三个指标：邻里网络、社会凝聚力和邻里依恋。我们在空间上整合来自人口普查，地形数据库和2012年对来自澳大利亚布里斯班148个社区的4132名居民的调查数据，并采用多层次模型来评估：居民所报告的社会凝聚力差异是否可归因于街区将土地用作邻里社交管道的情况。我们还考虑了社区分裂对我们社会凝聚力指标的影响程度。我们的研究结果表明，即使在控制了社区的社会人口背景和一系列个人和家庭控制变量之后，居民报告的社会凝聚力与社交管道的类型、土地利用的多样性和社区分裂程度显著相关。