Jönköping University

Abstract Background The emergence of the COVID-19 and its consequences has led to fears, worries, and anxiety among individuals worldwide. The present study developed the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) to complement the clinical efforts in preventing the spread and treating of COVID-19 cases. Methods The sample comprised 717 Iranian participants. The items of the FCV-19S were constructed based on extensive review of existing scales on fears, expert evaluations, and participant interviews. Several psychometric tests were conducted to ascertain its reliability and validity properties. Results After panel review and corrected item-total correlation testing, seven items with acceptable corrected item-total correlation (0.47 to 0.56) were retained and further confirmed by significant and strong factor loadings (0.66 to 0.74). Also, other properties evaluated using both classical test theory and Rasch model were satisfactory on the seven-item scale. More specifically, reliability values such as internal consistency ( α = .82) and test–retest reliability (ICC = .72) were acceptable. Concurrent validity was supported by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (with depression, r = 0.425 and anxiety, r = 0.511) and the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Scale (with perceived infectability, r = 0.483 and germ aversion, r = 0.459). Conclusion The Fear of COVID-19 Scale, a seven-item scale, has robust psychometric properties. It is reliable and valid in assessing fear of COVID-19 among the general population and will also be useful in allaying COVID-19 fears among individuals.

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has received substantial conceptual and empirical attention, representing one of the few areas in entrepreneurship research where a cumulative body of knowledge is developing. The time is therefore ripe to document, to review, and to evaluate the cumulative knowledge on the relationship between EO and business performance. Extending beyond qualitative assessment, we undertook a meta–analysis exploring the magnitude of the EO–performance relationship and assessed potential moderators affecting this relationship. Analyses of 53 samples from 51 studies with an N of 14,259 companies indicated that the correlation of EO with performance is moderately large (r = .242) and that this relationship is robust to different operationalizations of key constructs as well as cultural contexts. Internal and environmental moderators were identified, and results suggest that additional moderators should be assessed. Recommendations for future research are developed.

Abstract While theory suggests that management has discretion in manipulating resources in order to build competitive advantage, resource‐based research has focused on the characteristics of resources, paying less attention to the relationship between those resources and the way firms are organized. In explaining performance, entrepreneurship scholars have focused on a firm's entrepreneurial strategic orientation (EO), leaving its interrelationship with internal characteristics aside. We argue that EO captures an important aspect of the way a firm is organized. Our findings suggest that knowledge‐based resources (applicable to discovery and exploitation of opportunities) are positively related to firm performance and that EO enhances this relationship. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

<h3>Importance</h3> Cancer and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are now widely recognized as a threat to global development. The latest United Nations high-level meeting on NCDs reaffirmed this observation and also highlighted the slow progress in meeting the 2011 Political Declaration on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and the third Sustainable Development Goal. Lack of situational analyses, priority setting, and budgeting have been identified as major obstacles in achieving these goals. All of these have in common that they require information on the local cancer epidemiology. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study is uniquely poised to provide these crucial data. <h3>Objective</h3> To describe cancer burden for 29 cancer groups in 195 countries from 1990 through 2017 to provide data needed for cancer control planning. <h3>Evidence Review</h3> We used the GBD study estimation methods to describe cancer incidence, mortality, years lived with disability, years of life lost, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). Results are presented at the national level as well as by Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income, educational attainment, and total fertility rate. We also analyzed the influence of the epidemiological vs the demographic transition on cancer incidence. <h3>Findings</h3> In 2017, there were 24.5 million incident cancer cases worldwide (16.8 million without nonmelanoma skin cancer [NMSC]) and 9.6 million cancer deaths. The majority of cancer DALYs came from years of life lost (97%), and only 3% came from years lived with disability. The odds of developing cancer were the lowest in the low SDI quintile (1 in 7) and the highest in the high SDI quintile (1 in 2) for both sexes. In 2017, the most common incident cancers in men were NMSC (4.3 million incident cases); tracheal, bronchus, and lung (TBL) cancer (1.5 million incident cases); and prostate cancer (1.3 million incident cases). The most common causes of cancer deaths and DALYs for men were TBL cancer (1.3 million deaths and 28.4 million DALYs), liver cancer (572 000 deaths and 15.2 million DALYs), and stomach cancer (542 000 deaths and 12.2 million DALYs). For women in 2017, the most common incident cancers were NMSC (3.3 million incident cases), breast cancer (1.9 million incident cases), and colorectal cancer (819 000 incident cases). The leading causes of cancer deaths and DALYs for women were breast cancer (601 000 deaths and 17.4 million DALYs), TBL cancer (596 000 deaths and 12.6 million DALYs), and colorectal cancer (414 000 deaths and 8.3 million DALYs). <h3>Conclusions and Relevance</h3> The national epidemiological profiles of cancer burden in the GBD study show large heterogeneities, which are a reflection of different exposures to risk factors, economic settings, lifestyles, and access to care and screening. The GBD study can be used by policy makers and other stakeholders to develop and improve national and local cancer control in order to achieve the global targets and improve equity in cancer care.

This paper sets out to explore contexts for entrepreneurship, illustrating how a contextualized view of entrepreneurship contributes to our understanding of the phenomenon. There is growing recognition in entrepreneurship research that economic behavior can be better understood within its historical, temporal, institutional, spatial, and social contexts, as these contexts provide individuals with opportunities and set boundaries for their actions. Context can be an asset and a liability for the nature and extent of entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurship can also impact contexts. The paper argues that context is important for understanding when, how, and why entrepreneurship happens and who becomes involved. Exploring the multiplicity of contexts and their impact on entrepreneurship, it identifies challenges researchers face in contextualizing entrepreneurship theory and offers possible ways forward.

Research articles on women's entrepreneurship reveal, in spite of intentions to the contrary and in spite of inconclusive research results, a tendency to recreate the idea of women as being secondary to men and of women's businesses being of less significance or, at best, as being a complement. Based on a discourse analysis, this article discusses what research practices cause these results. It suggests new research directions that do not reproduce women's subordination but capture more and richer aspects of women's entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has become an important and extensively researched topic in the literature. Empirical results suggest that EO may influence firm performance. However, it is important to determine whether the EO-performance relationship is sustainable since EO can be a resource-consuming strategic orientation. This research examines the sustainability of the EO-performance relationship; i.e., whether EO affects performance during an extended period of time or is a “quick fix” where performance is only temporarily affected. Using data from Swedish small firms, the results indicate that there is indeed a positive relationship between EO and performance. This relationship also increases over time. The results show that investments in EO may be worthwhile for small firms since they pay off over an extended period of time.

This article focuses on risk taking as one important dimension of entrepreneurial orientation and its impact in family firms. Drawing on a sample of Swedish SMEs, we find that risk taking is a distinct dimension of entrepreneurial orientation in family firms and that it is positively associated with proactiveness and innovation. We also find that even if family firms do take risks while engaged in entrepreneurial activities, they take risk to a lesser extent than nonfamily firms. Moreover, and most importantly for our understanding of entrepreneurial orientation in family firms, we find that risk taking in family firms is negatively related to performance. Both theoretical and practical implications of our findings are provided.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a new gender‐aware framework to provide a springboard for furthering a holistic understanding of women's entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach The paper builds on an existing framework articulating the “3Ms” (markets, money and management) required for entrepreneurs to launch and grow ventures. Drawing on institutional theory, it is argued that this “3M” framework needs further development and “motherhood” and “meso/macro environment” are added to extend and mediate the “3Ms” and construct a “5M” framework to enable the study of women's entrepreneurship in its own right. Findings It was found that “Motherhood” is a metaphor representing the household and family context of female entrepreneurs, which might have a larger impact on women than men. The meso/macro environment captures considerations beyond the market, such as expectations of society and cultural norms (macro), and intermediate structures and institutions (meso). Practical implications For the women entrepreneur, this analysis has implications for understanding the sources of the challenges they face by providing insights on the importance of the interplay of both individual and societal factors that impact on their enterprise. For policy makers, it turns the spotlight on the need for an integrated approach for fostering female entrepreneurs that is not blind to overarching institutionalised social structures and gender asymmetries. Originality/value The framework helps lay a foundation for coherent research on women's entrepreneurship. It is unique in making explicit the social embeddedness of women entrepreneurs and considers the multiple levels of influence on their entrepreneurial actions.

abstract This introductory paper provides a background to the origins, themes and papers of this Special Issue on Micro Strategy and Strategizing. Our overarching argument is that, while the field of strategy has traditionally concentrated on the macro‐level of organizations, it needs now to attend to much more micro‐level phenomena. We propose an activity‐based view of strategy that focuses on the detailed processes and practices which constitute the day‐to‐day activities of organizational life and which relate to strategic outcomes. The paper develops this view by considering two bodies of theory, those of the resource based view and institutionalism; two bodies of empirical work, those on corporate diversification and structure; and finally the process tradition of strategy research. The paper identifies the benefits of the activity‐based view and introduces some challenges for further research. It concludes by introducing the papers in this Special Issue.

Late-onset Alzheimer's disease is a prevalent age-related polygenic disease that accounts for 50-70% of dementia cases. Currently, only a fraction of the genetic variants underlying Alzheimer's disease have been identified. Here we show that increased sample sizes allowed identification of seven previously unidentified genetic loci contributing to Alzheimer's disease. This study highlights microglia, immune cells and protein catabolism as relevant to late-onset Alzheimer's disease, while identifying and prioritizing previously unidentified genes of potential interest. We anticipate that these results can be included in larger meta-analyses of Alzheimer's disease to identify further genetic variants that contribute to Alzheimer's pathology.

INTRODUCTION: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common heart rhythm disorder. Several life-style factors have been identified as risk factors for AF, but less is known about the impact of work-related stress. This study aims to evaluate the association between work-related stress, defined as job strain, and risk of AF. METHODS: Data from the Swedish WOLF study was used, comprising 10,121 working men and women. Job strain was measured by the demand-control model. Information on incident AF was derived from national registers. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between job strain and AF risk. RESULTS: In total, 253 incident AF cases were identified during a total follow-up time of 132,387 person-years. Job strain was associated with AF risk in a time-dependent manner, with stronger association after 10.7 years of follow-up (HR 1.93, 95% CI 1.10-3.36 after 10.7 years, versus HR 1.11, 95% CI 0.67-1.83 before 10.7 years). The results pointed towards a dose-response relationship when taking accumulated exposure to job strain over time into account. CONCLUSION: This study provides support to the hypothesis that work-related stress defined as job strain is linked to an increased risk of AF.

This paper reports on a unique study of a large, random sample of business start-ups that were identified prior to the actual, commercial launch of the ventures. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, to present frequencies on the involvement of the Swedish population in the small business sector (particularly in start-ups of firms) and to compare these with estimates from Norway and the USA, which are based on studies using a similar research design. The authors also discuss the possible reasons for the differences that emerge between countries. Second, the characteristics of nascent entrepreneurs (i.e. individuals trying to start an independent business) are analysed and compared for sub-groups within the sample and with characteristics of business founders as they appear in theoretical accounts or retrospective empirical studies of surviving all firms. In order to get a representative sample from the working age population, respondents ( n = 30, 427) were randomly selected and interviewed by telephone. It was found that 2.0% of the Swedish population at the time of the interview were trying to start an independent business. Sweden had a significantly lower prevalence rate of nascent entrepreneurs compared to Norway and the USA. Nascent entrepreneurs were then compared to a control group of people not trying to start a business. The results confirmed findings from previous studies of business founders pointing to the importance of role models and the impression of self-employment obtained through these, employment status, age, education and experience. Marital status, the number of children in the household, and length of employment experience were unrelated to the probability of becoming a nascent entrepreneur. The gender of the respondent was the strongest distinguishing factor. Importantly, the results suggest that while one has a reasonably good understanding of the characteristics associated with men going into business for themselves, the type of variables investigated here have very limited ability to predict nascent entrepreneur status for women.

Basic gait parameters were extracted from 233 healthy subjects--116 men and 117 women, 10 to 79 years of age. The measurements were made in a gait laboratory on a 5.5 m walkway. The results are presented in a series of reference tables for slow, normal, and fast gait. Mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, 95% confidence intervals, and 95% prediction intervals were calculated. Significant sex differences exist in all gait parameters. In a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) model, there was a statistically significant age-variability for gait speed and step length at normal and fast gait, but not for step frequency. In the step length parameter there was a significant interaction effect of age and sex at normal and fast gait. The reference data are considered valid in an indoor laboratory situation.

This paper examines the institutional embeddedness of entrepreneurial behavior. The institutional context influences the nature, pace of development, and extent of entrepreneurship as well as the way entrepreneurs behave. This is particularly apparent in challenging environments such as emerging market and transition economies with an uncertain, ambiguous, and turbulent institutional framework. The paper develops suggestions as to how to extend the current institutional approach by emphasizing that institutions not only influence entrepreneurs but entrepreneurs may also influence institutional development by contributing to institutional change. This also includes acknowledging the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial responses to institutional conditions, depending on the situational configuration of institutional fit, enterprise characteristics, and entrepreneur's background, in which the role of trust as an influence on entrepreneurial behavior needs to be investigated. By focusing on these interrelationships, the paper aims to make a theoretical contribution to the field of entrepreneurship, illustrating how entrepreneurial behavior is linked to its social context.

Abstract Prior research documents the significance of using platform boundary resources (e.g. application programming interfaces) for cultivating platform ecosystems through third‐party development. However, there are few, if any, theoretical accounts of this relationship. To this end, this paper proposes a theoretical model that centres on two drivers behind boundary resources design and use – resourcing and securing – and how these drivers interact in third‐party development. We apply the model to a detailed case study of Apple's iPhone platform. Our application of the model not only serves as an illustration of its plausibility but also generates insights about the conflicting goals of third‐party development: the maintenance of platform control and the transfer of design capability to third‐party developers. We generate four specialised constructs for understanding the actions taken by stakeholders in third‐party development: self‐resourcing, regulation‐based securing, diversity resourcing and sovereignty securing. Our research extends and complements existing platform literature and contributes new knowledge about an alternative form of system development.

Up to now it has been difficult to study fear of childbirth because of a shortage of adequate psychological measurements. Therefore the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/ Experience Questionnaire (W-DEQ) was developed. This paper presents the theoretical background of the W-DEQ together with a documentation of the first psychometric studies. Examination of construct validity indicates that it seems to be possible to penetrate a psychological construct related to fear of childbirth by means of the W-DEQ, both before and after delivery, in nulliparous as well as in parous women. The questionnaire measures the construct more clearly in parous than in nulliparous women. Internal consistency reliability and split-half reliability of the W-DEQ of > or = 0.87 are good for a new research instrument. More research is on its way to make the W-DEQ suitable even for measurements in applied settings.

AIM: These international clinical practice recommendations (CPR) for developmental coordination disorder (DCD), initiated by the European Academy of Childhood Disability (EACD), aim to address key questions on the definition, diagnosis, assessment, intervention, and psychosocial aspects of DCD relevant for clinical practice. METHOD: Key questions in five areas were considered through literature reviews and formal expert consensus. For recommendations based on evidence, literature searches on 'mechanisms', 'assessment', and 'intervention' were updated since the last recommendations in 2012. New searches were conducted for 'psychosocial issues' and 'adolescents/adults'. Evidence was rated according to the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (level of evidence [LOE] 1-4) and transferred into recommendations. For recommendations based on formal consensus, two meetings of an international, multidisciplinary expert panel were conducted with a further five Delphi rounds to develop good clinical practice (GCP) recommendations. RESULTS: Thirty-five recommendations were made. Eight were based on the evidence from literature reviews (three on 'assessment', five on 'intervention'). Twenty-two were updated from the 2012 recommendations. New recommendations relate to diagnosis and assessment (two GCPs) and psychosocial issues (three GCPs). Additionally, one new recommendation (LOE) reflects active video games as adjuncts to more traditional activity-oriented and participation-oriented interventions, and two new recommendations (one GCP, one LOE) were made for adolescents and adults with DCD. INTERPRETATION: The CPR-DCD is a comprehensive overview of DCD and current understanding based on research evidence and expert consensus. It reflects the state of the art for clinicians and scientists of varied disciplines. The international CPR-DCD may serve as a basis for national guidelines. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: Updated international clinical practice guidelines on developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Refined and extended recommendations on clinical assessment and intervention for DCD. A critical synopsis of current research on mechanisms of DCD. A critical synopsis of psychosocial issues in DCD, with implications for clinical practice. The first international recommendations to consider adolescents and adults with DCD.

Summary We discuss recent advances on robust unfitted finite element methods on cut meshes. These methods are designed to facilitate computations on complex geometries obtained, for example, from computer‐aided design or image data from applied sciences. Both the treatment of boundaries and interfaces and the discretization of PDEs on surfaces are discussed and illustrated numerically. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

General and specific cognitive abilities were studied in intact Swedish same-sex twin pairs 80 or more years old for whom neither twin had major cognitive, sensory, or motor impairment. Resemblance for 110 identical twin pairs significantly exceeded resemblance for 130 fraternal same-sex twin pairs for all abilities. Maximum-likelihood model-fitting estimates of heritability were 62 percent for general cognitive ability, 55 percent for verbal ability, 32 percent for spatial ability, 62 percent for speed of processing, and 52 percent for memory. There was also evidence for the significant influence of idiosyncratic experience as the environmental component that most determines individual differences in cognitive abilities late in life.