nep-ppm 2019-09-09 papers

on Project, Program and Portfolio Management

Issue of 2019‒09‒09
two papers chosen by
Arvi Kuura
Tartu Ülikool

Crowdfunding Dynamics By Paul Belleflamme; Thomas Lambert; Armin Schwienbacher
Students as partners : on developing a student led conference to enhance the skills of UG project students By Stephany Veuger; Seth Racey

By:	Paul Belleflamme; Thomas Lambert; Armin Schwienbacher
Abstract:	Various forms of social learning and network effects are at work on crowdfunding platforms, giving rise to informational and payoff externalities. We use novel entrepreneur-backer data to study how these externalities shape funding dynamics, within and across projects. We find that backers decide to back a particular project based on past contributions not only to that project—as documented by prior work—but also to other contemporaneous projects—a novel result. Our difference-in-differences estimates indicate that such ‘cross-project funding dynamics’ account for 4-5% in the increase of contributions that projects generate on a daily basis. We show that recurrent backers are the main transmission channel of cross-project funding dynamics: by initiating social learning about project existence and quality, recurrent backers encourage future funding by other backers. Our results demonstrate that even though contemporaneous projects compete for funding, they jointly benefit from their common presence on the platform. We finally show that these crowdfunding dynamics stir platform growth, with important consequences for competition among platforms.
Keywords:	crowdfunding, digital platforms, FinTech, network effects, social learning
JEL:	D43 G23 L14 L26 L86
Date:	2019
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7797&r=all

Students as partners : on developing a student led conference to enhance the skills of UG project students

By:	Stephany Veuger (Northumbria University); Seth Racey (Northumbria University)
Abstract:	An important final year assessment which is common to most UK Undergraduate (UG) degree programmes is the final year project or dissertation. It is considered the capstone module on degree programmes whereby students gain valuable skills valued by employers. Our project engages final year UG students in a collaboration designed with inclusivity and partnership in mind.We ran student-led conferences to communicate the experience of final year students and disseminate their top tips to level 5 students. The project sits across three disciplines in the health and life sciences, the largest faculty in Northumbria University with the aim of developing a widely applicable solution for use across different programmes, departments, faculties and universities. By placing the student experience at its heart, our project seeks to enhance support for student learning through the improvement of graduate attributes including independence of thought and action, curiosity and critical thinking. Thus, employability outcomes are enhanced. The Project conferences aim to respect the diversity of the student body while creating a sense of equality to 1) support supervision quality across the institution. 2) Improve academic experience and 3) enhance graduate characteristics and thus employability.The inclusion of students as partners in pedagogic research in the student-led conferences and in a reflective exercise on the inclusion of students as equal partners in pedagogical research encouraged self- management of their own project and supervisor/student relationship thereby enhancing the student experience whilst developing their key graduate attributes. Student researchers played a major role in data analysis and evaluation. Additionally an eLearning platform organisation site has been constructed continuing the key resources for staff and students alongside video recordings of student presentations. This scalable project supports the development of graduates that are distinguished by their intellectual expertise and employability through meaningful pedagogical research that maximises student satisfaction.
Keywords:	Undergraduate, Research, Graduate, Skills, Partnership, Conference
JEL:	I23
Date:	2019–06
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:itepro:8410631&r=all

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