Silicon Valley is the world's most successful innovation region. Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Uber, and Airbnb changed our way of living. Silicon Valley has built a brilliant ecosystem that supports startups. Its entrepreneurial mindset fosters risk-taking, thinking big, and sharing. A fast growing number of accelerators in Silicon Valley help startups by bringing their product to the market, refining their business idea, developing their product, strengthening their team, designing a marketing strategy, getting first customers and traction, raising funds, and coping with the hardships of startup life. In Accelerators in Silicon Valley Peter Ester describes how these 'schools of startup entrepreneurship' operate and empower startups. What can we learn from how Silicon Valley accelerators help startups to become successful companies? This book gives the answer. Accelerators in Silicon Valley is a book for those who share a fascination for building the new startup economy.

Highlighting the progress made by researchers in using Web-based surveys for data collection, this timely volume summarizes the experiences of leading behavioral and social scientists from Europe and the US who collected data using the Internet. Some chapters present theory, methodology, design, and implementation, while others focus on best practice examples and/or issues such as data quality and understanding paradata. A number of contributors applied innovative Web-based research methods to the LISS panel of CentERdata collected from over 5,000 Dutch households. Their findings are presented in the book. Some of the data is available on the book website. The book addresses practical issues such as data quality, how to reach difficult target groups, how to design a survey to maximize response, and ethical issues that need to be considered. Innovative applications such as the use of biomarkers and eye-tracking techniques are also explored. Part 1 provides an overview of Internet survey research including its methodologies, strengths, challenges, and best practices. Innovative ways to minimize sources of error are provided along with a review of mixed-mode designs, how to design a scientifically sound longitudinal panel and avoid sampling problems, and address ethical requirements in Web surveys. Part 2 focuses on advanced applications including the impact of visual design on the interpretability of survey questions, the impact survey usability has on respondents' answers, design features that increase interaction, and how Internet surveys can be effectively used to study sensitive issues. Part 3 addresses data quality, sample selection, measurement and non-response error, and new applications for collecting online data. The issue of underrepresentation of certain groups in Internet research and the measures most effective at reducing it are also addressed. The book concludes with a discussion of the importance of paradata and the Web data collection process in general, followed by chapters with innovative experiments using eye-tracking techniques and biomarker data. This practical book appeals to practitioners from market survey research institutes and researchers in disciplines such as psychology, education, sociology, political science, health studies, marketing, economics, and business who use the Internet for data collection, but is also an ideal supplement for graduate and/or upper level undergraduate courses on (Internet) research methods and/or data collection taught in these fields.

Highlighting the progress made by researchers in using Web-based surveys for data collection, this timely volume summarizes the experiences of leading behavioral and social scientists from Europe and the US who collected data using the Internet. Some chapters present theory, methodology, design, and implementation, while others focus on best practice examples and/or issues such as data quality and understanding paradata. A number of contributors applied innovative Web-based research methods to the LISS panel of CentERdata collected from over 5,000 Dutch households. Their findings are presented in the book. Some of the data is available on the book website. The book addresses practical issues such as data quality, how to reach difficult target groups, how to design a survey to maximize response, and ethical issues that need to be considered. Innovative applications such as the use of biomarkers and eye-tracking techniques are also explored. Part 1 provides an overview of Internet survey research including its methodologies, strengths, challenges, and best practices. Innovative ways to minimize sources of error are provided along with a review of mixed-mode designs, how to design a scientifically sound longitudinal panel and avoid sampling problems, and address ethical requirements in Web surveys. Part 2 focuses on advanced applications including the impact of visual design on the interpretability of survey questions, the impact survey usability has on respondents' answers, design features that increase interaction, and how Internet surveys can be effectively used to study sensitive issues. Part 3 addresses data quality, sample selection, measurement and non-response error, and new applications for collecting online data. The issue of underrepresentation of certain groups in Internet research and the measures most effective at reducing it are also addressed. The book concludes with a discussion of the importance of paradata and the Web data collection process in general, followed by chapters with innovative experiments using eye-tracking techniques and biomarker data. This practical book appeals to practitioners from market survey research institutes and researchers in disciplines such as psychology, education, sociology, political science, health studies, marketing, economics, and business who use the Internet for data collection, but is also an ideal supplement for graduate and/or upper level undergraduate courses on (Internet) research methods and/or data collection taught in these fields.

For decades now, Silicon Valley has been the home of the future. It's the birthplace of the world's most successful high-tech companies-including Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many more. So what's the secret? What is it about Silicon Valley that fosters entrepreneurship and innovation? With Silicon Valley, Planet Startup, Peter Ester and Arne Maas argue that the answer lies in Silicon Valley's culture-a corporate culture that values risk-taking, creativity, invention, and sharing. Through extensive interviews with Dutch entrepreneurs working in the area, Ester and Maas show that Silicon Valley is above all a mind-set: a belief in thinking, with passion and ambition, far beyond the here and now. Scholars and business people and budding entrepreneurs alike are sure to find both inspiration and illumination in the stories and analyses Ester and Maas have assembled here.

Values are a hot topic in Europe, both in the public and political debate as well as in the social sciences. Is Europe a community of values? What are the cultural borders of the European Union? How united are Europeans with respect to their fundamental values? How does globalization affect European values? Do national values vanish? There is also a clear moral overtone in the debate: basic values are believed to erode, community values are waning, values become fragmented, and civic engagement is rapidly declining while hedonism and consumerism are prevailing. But are these far-reaching assumptions true? Answers are provided in this book. The three core issues that guide the various chapters in this book are the following: do basic values in European countries converge or diverge? Do we observe a marked decline in traditional values in European societies? Is it the youngest generation in Europe that embraces new values?

Culture explains much of the behavioral and institutional differences around the globe. In social science there are many ways of framing cultural diversities. This book brings together authors with a classic status in the field of comparative cultural studies on one overarching theme: what are the relevant differences and similarities of contemporary cultural dimensions with which countries, organizations, and people can be compared? This book is the first publication available in which the cultural divisions of the world are compared and confronted. In the first part of the book classic authors reflect on each others key work and assess the main overlap and distinction. The book next provides insight in frontline academic work from a wide range of countries and social science disciplines dealing with the classic status cultural dimensions aimed at addressing contemporary key issues.