Data Elicitation for Continuous Awareness of Team Climate Characteristics to Improve Organizations’ Creativity

The creativeness of a company’s employees depends on the characteristics of working climates, e.g. au-tonomy or appropriate workload. Tools for their assessment exist, but the frequency of their applica-tion is too low to detect the relevant dynamics which characterize the varying challenges of agile and learning organizations. The evaluation of a first prototype to monitor these dynamics by frequently repeating a common online employee survey re-vealed relevant features to overcome a lack of ac-ceptance of answering the same question items in repetition. \ \ Three variables were identified which influence the acceptance of a repeated question: The time since it had last been answered, the user’s current willing-ness to participate and the user’s situation. Based on these variables, a new prototype offers users more self-determination in their rate of participation, allows for assigning dynamic repetition rates to every question item, and exploits context infor-mation to optimize the prompting of users.

A dual perspective towards building resilience in manufacturing organizations

Modern manufacturing organizations exist in the most complex and competitive environment the world has ever known. This environment consists of demanding customers, enabling, but resource intensive Industry 4.0 technology, dynamic regulations, geopolitical perturbations, and innovative, ever-expanding global competition. Successful manufacturing organizations must excel in this environment while facing emergent disruptions generated as biproducts of complex man-made and natural systems. The research presented in this thesis provides a novel two-sided approach to the creation of resilience in the modern manufacturing organization. First, the systems engineering method is demonstrated as the qualitative framework for building literature-derived organizational resilience factors into organizational structures under a life cycle perspective. A quantitative analysis of industry expert survey data through graph theory and matrix approach is presented second to prioritize resilience factors for strategic practical implementation

An Activity Based Workspace Project: A study to explore how actual user behaviour reflects original design intention

Today, many organisations are implementing Activity Based Workplaces (ABW), which offer an open and transparent workspace with flexible seating configurations to enhance numerous work activities. Whilst many researchers propose the ABW facilitates interaction, collaboration, concentration, privacy and distractions, existing literature also evidences inconsistencies and contradictions as to the benefits and the potential to enhance specific behaviours. Human behaviour can be unpredictable, it is influenced by a diverse range of factors, i.e. attitude, emotion, culture, values, accordingly, users’ perceptions, use and needs are often not aligned with the presuppositions and expectations of designers and leadership teams. The success of the ABW implementation is commonly assessed through satisfaction and productivity, with negligible focus on how the workspaces are being used in comparison to design intention expectations. This study explores the events, factors and characteristics of an activity based workspace, which users consider facilitate positively or negatively upon their day to day activities. Through its objective to understand how individuals use the workspaces, as against original design intention, this study brings a new focus within workplace research. It explores, through the lens of the individual, how they adapt the workspace to best meet their requirements, compared with the conventional benchmark of how workspace impacts users. The repertory grid technique, an innovative method within workplace research, was used to enable individuals to share their tacit thoughts and meanings explicitly, enhancing the understanding of the congruency between the original design intentions and actual use. Key findings revealed, through the exploration of preferences and needs, that participants frequently used workspaces in ways which were not assigned by the original design intention, appropriating them in accordance with their preferences and needs. Daily work activities were dynamic and predominantly aligned with a more informal way of working. Motivation to collaborate was perceived as a fundamental component of their job role and self determined, and not purely shaped through the provision of collaborative spaces. The findings advocate a need for continued detailed inquiry and a deeper understanding of ABW workplace features and characteristics, which either enable or hinder daily working activities, through contextual user behavioural feedback. A framework is presented which introduces a more user centric approach to the ABW design implementation process, through the exploration and in-depth assessment of user perceptions and meanings of how they use and adapt to the workspace. Design decisions are simply hypotheses of desired performance parameters, therefore fundamental to the design process framework is the commitment to measuring their success. This study also offers two original contributions to knowledge and practice. The first, through the repertory grid technique, which encompasses a robust and structured approach to elicit findings. This method acknowledges the uniqueness of individuals, delivers in-depth understanding which adds value to the design process and enhances the assessment of project success. Secondly, through a different study approach which explores how individuals’ use, adapt and modify the environment to meet their personal needs, preferences and activities. The unique findings, through the understanding of congruency between the original design intention and actual use, challenge and add to existing workplace design knowledge and practice

How do public servants perceive the notion of civic virtue?

Organisational citizenship behaviour has been an active field of research for over three decades with research typically focusing on helpful and sportsmanlike behaviours or, conversely, examining destructive or criminal acts. Between these two is the frequently ignored civic virtue which includes questioning, making suggestions and challenging organisational norms. Civic virtue is the least researched, least performed, and the least popular organisational behaviour with it often being deemed an act of deviancy. Yet importantly, in terms of the transforming public service agenda, it is also the organisational behaviour that links most closely with organisational improvement. In pursuing this under-researched field, interpretivism provides a salient philosophical framework for the operationalisation of the thesis which utilises an in-depth qualitative approach to explore the lived realities of public servants, and seeks to advance the limited knowledge of civic virtue, set against the backdrop of public service citizenship. Using the lens of symbolic interactionism the thesis contributes an incremental advance in research method; specifically projective image elicitation, by using the metaphorical power of contextualised cartoon images to explore individuals’ perception of the workplace and their The thesis proposes a contribution to theory in recommending that public service citizenship promotes a predilection to bifurcate behaviours demonstrated by others and self into the act and underpinning values. Within public services this interpretative process gives precedence to the underpinning values; and promotes an environment where disdained behaviours are pardoned if the underpinning values are deemed honourable. This concept is termed value governance. Drawing on value governance, a model emerged which indicates that public servants predominately enact civic virtue when they perceive their values are seriously contested; otherwise their collectivist tendencies are dominant The discovery of value governance is significant in informing the conception of a dialogic public service citizenship; a citizenship which has its foundation in publicness but which is also able to face the challenges of civicness

Assessing intention of volunteers to develop their leadership: creation of an instrument using the theory of planned behavior

During the current tough economic times volunteers are playing an increasingly important role in making human services widely available and in building collaborative community partnerships. Volunteers are most likely to be productive, to be satisfied with their experience, and to sustain their volunteer service when the opportunities provided to them are aligned with their motives for volunteering, which may include building the kinds of knowledge, skills, and interpersonal awareness that are the cornerstones of leadership. Organizations that purposefully recognize, support, and develop their volunteers’ leadership potential generate positive outcomes not only for themselves and their volunteers, but also for the clients they serve, and for whole communities. Across the country more than 240 affiliates of the HandsOn Network (HON), the nation’s largest volunteer network, serve as clearinghouses for individuals seeking both long-term and short-term (episodic) volunteer opportunities, and for nonprofit agencies seeking volunteer services. In its commitment to civic engagement and innovative problem solving, HON is investigating opportunities and technologies for volunteer and community empowerment, and is actively engaged in the inquiry as to how best to serve volunteers who want to cultivate their leadership at every level. In partnership with HON, and using the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991), an elicitation study was conducted as formative research to determine the most salient factors that predict volunteers’ intentions to develop their leadership via their attitudes toward leadership development, subjective norms regarding leadership development, and perceived behavioral control of leadership development. Themes derived from the elicitation study provided the content framework to create a survey tool, which was then administered in a pilot study to HON volunteers across the country. Content analysis of pilot study responses produced a solution in which items reflecting the respective theoretical constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior separated with near-exact fit in a six-factor solution. This research resulted in the production of an instrument, the Volunteer Leadership Development Questionnaire (VLDQ), which can identify the factors influencing intentions of HON volunteers to express and develop their leadership. Recommendations are made for ongoing validation and refinement of the instrument

Understanding the Influence of Human Emotions in Organizations: The Emotional Extent Effects

Emotional disengagement of employees may cause poor organizational performance, while emotional commitment of employees may enhance organizational performance. Informed by the theory of psychological ownership in organizations, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore how employee emotional interactions in the workplace related to organizational performance within 3 multinational companies in Nigeria. The 3 selected companies represented the 3 industrial sectors in Nigeria were financial, construction, and oil and gas. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 24 participants with a minimum of 5 years\u27 experience in their respective organizations. Data analysis included transcription, coding, and querying, which produced 5 themes: positive emotions, negative emotions, organizational success, organizational failure, and contextual excellence, cumulating into a fundamental notion of emotional extent effects. Positive emotions contributed to the organizational success, and negative emotions encouraged organizational failure. Both positive and negative emotions instigated the contextual excellence. The findings have the potential of promoting positive social change because practitioners in leadership and organizational change may use the results of this research to improve the adaptive responses to change. The findings of the study may benefit managers by helping them better lead their employees towards impacting social and economic transformations. Implementing workplace spirituality, learning taxonomy, and sustainable human resources practices may manifest innovative socio-economic performance in organizations

Matching knowledge management and human capital management: Towards an integrative framework

The rapidly increasing economic dynamics that global market poses to modern organizations combined with the emergency to attract, develop and retain the best human capital (HC) led to more effective approach to knowledge management (KM). HC becomes the center of KM while the distribution of knowledge among organization's employees is considered its main activity. Effective KM use requires the ability to choose among all skills and knowledge those which contribute to creation of organizational key processes and activities. KM and Human Capital Management (HCM), two highly popular topics in current management discussions, are often bracketed together. An extensive literature review shows that knowledge plays a background role in HCM discussions, emphasizing the impact of KM practices on leadership, creativity, motivation, new ideas generation, recruitment, and employee competence. Some gaps are diagnosed in terms of absence of literature regarding an holistic approach to HC and KM processes, given the fragmentation on findings between the research in the two areas. The literature review of both KM and HC provides a deeper understanding of how KM practices contribute to develop, retain and renew organization’s HC, as part of a broader and more integrated effort to manage and develop human capability for business performance. Taken together, these two research domains are matched in a framework that intends to support the implementation of KM practices in order to promote HC development. A survey was administered to eight portuguese healthcare institutions to infer the most relevant KM practices to impact HC level contributing to the framework

Information system development in a process management environment: the dynamics of improvisation and bricolage during embedded software design

The main objective of this thesis is to make a contribution to knowledge regarding the nature of improvisation and bricolage activities in the practice of embedded software design and how the tensional relationship between process management and improvisation and bricolage can be balanced. There is a lack of understanding embedded systems development in practice, and how the difficulties correspond to prescribed and emergent processes in this context. In order to address this knowledge gap I conducted an in‐depth case study of an embedded system development project in the German automobile context between December 2004 and November 2008. The research adopted an interpretive approach, which involved the collection and analysis of qualitative data. Empirical data that was derived through interviews and observation revealed new insights as to how embedded systems are developed in practice. I adopt the position that emergent processes occur not randomly, but as purposeful agents that navigate through a turbulent environment of ongoing need to improvise with the items at hand. The finding indicates that the success to achieve the aims is bound to the capabilities to be continuously reflexive and induce corrective actions as appropriate. A theoretical conceptualisation disclosed measures that may enhance the capacity to be reflexive. The findings implied that process management frameworks help as scaffolding in order to practice improvisation and bricolage as a coping strategy. Moreover, improving the capabilities to cope with challenges means enhancing reflexive capabilities. The original contribution of this research is founded on rich descriptions and interpretations as to how embedded systems are developed in practice, and the theoretical conceptualisation that can aid to balance the tension between process management and improvisation and bricolage

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Tool catalogue frame-based information tools

In the perception, knowledge production and policymaking on complex issues (‘wicked problems’), such as climate change, frames and framing play an important but often hidden role. Frames relate to one’s ‘schemas of interpretation’; the conceptual images, values, starting points, and mental models that one may have of an issue. This can include, for instance, one’s problem definition, perceptions of the cause-effect relationships in an issue, one’s primary goals, perception of one’s and others’ roles and responsibilities relating to the issue, and views on suitable strategies and interaction with (other) stakeholders (cf. Dewulf et al., 2005)