Curriculum renewal for interprofessional education in health

In this preface we comment on four matters that we think bode well for the future of interprofessional education in Australia. First, there is a growing articulation, nationally and globally, as to the importance of interprofessional education and its contribution to the development of interprofessional and collaborative health practices. These practices are increasingly recognised as central to delivering effective, efficient, safe and sustainable health services. Second, there is a rapidly growing interest and institutional engagement with interprofessional education as part of pre-registration health professional education. This has changed substantially in recent years. Whilst beyond the scope of our current studies, the need for similar developments in continuing professional development (CPD) for health professionals was a consistent topic in our stakeholder consultations. Third, we observe what might be termed a threshold effect occurring in the area of interprofessional education. Projects that address matters relating to IPE are now far more numerous, visible and discussed in terms of their aggregate outcomes. The impact of this momentum is visible across the higher education sector. Finally, we believe that effective collaboration is a critical mediating process through which the rich resources of disciplinary knowledge and capability are joined to add value to existing health service provision. We trust the conceptual and practical contributions and resources presented and discussed in this report contribute to these developments.Office of Learning and Teaching Australi

Boosting Innovation and Productivity in Enterprises: What Works?

A return to economic growth and higher employment requires growth in the number and sustainability of Irish enterprises. Innovation at enterprise level is essential for sustainability and competitiveness and plays a major role in increasing overall productivity. Understanding the determinants of enterprise innovation and how it affects productivity is important for designing effective innovation policies. The tight fiscal constraints and the urgency of achieving successful outcomes require that government policies aimed at enhancing enterprise innovation and raising productivity need to be very effective. This paper draws on recent international theoretical and empirical literature based on enterprise level data to explore four questions: Does innovation contribute to higher productivity? Which types of enterprises invest in innovation? Which enterprises have higher innovation expenditure per employee? Which types of enterprises are more likely to innovate successfully? We then look at what these findings imply for policy in relation to indigenous enterprises, whether the current policy mix is appropriate and how it might become more effective.Productivity

The effect of technological innovation capabilities on corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance in the South African media and entertainment industry

A research report submitted to the faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation (MMENVC) Wits Business School, 2016In order for developing countries like South Africa to not only compete in business at an international level, but to also establish a sustained competitive advantage in this increasingly integrated global business economy, a radical change in thinking is required. Technological innovation, knowledge and its application, which holistically explains an enterprise‟s technological innovation capability, are absolutely essential for modern firms looking to develop strategic and operational prowess on a global scale. Research in this field has largely highlighted the lack of technological innovation capabilities in developing regions around the world, and more recently the need for nations and firms to increasingly invest heavily in fostering technological innovation as a means for national economic growth. The same notion goes for the practice of corporate entrepreneurship, which has been internationally recognised as an integral aspect of firm survival, growth and relevance in all sectors and industries around the world. However, while several researchers agree that the relationship between technological innovation capabilities and corporate entrepreneurship is not clear, it is also vague as to the effect this relationship consequently has on organisational performance. Therefore, this research aims to delineate these relationships, specifically between technological innovation capabilities and corporate entrepreneurship, between technological innovation capabilities and organisational performance, between corporate entrepreneurship and organisational performance and through these constructs, shed some light on the investment capability of firms in these concepts in the context of the South African Media and Entertainment Industry. The research looks at the seven dimensions of technological innovation capabilities, the four dimensions of corporate entrepreneurship and a minor dimension on investment capability, all in relation to firm performance. This research employs both a regression and multi-correlation analysis to demonstrate the relationships between the two constructs and their individual relationships to firm performance.GR201

The Learning Organisation: Validating A Measuring Instrument

The EFMD reports in their Survey Summary Service (2006) that the topic of “The Learning Organisation” ranked in that year as the second most enduring idea about strategy and business, out of ten ideas most likely to last at least another ten years. Management literature contains a considerable number of references to the learning organisation and its characteristics.  An instrument developed by Pedler, et al. (1991) to measure eleven characteristics of the learning organisation was used in the present study to measure the degree to which respondents considered their own organizations to conform to the eleven characteristics ascribed to the learning organisation. The aim of this paper is to report on the research and analyses being undertaken to better understand the factor structure and content of the construct, as well as the predictive and discriminatory validity of the same instrument. Item Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were used for this purpose. The predictive/discriminatory validity of the instrument, which has been proved to be uni-dimensional, was investigated by means of One-way Analysis of Variance, Stepwise Discrimination Analysis and Discrimination Analysis. The results indicate that the instrument can adequately distinguish between respondents from different economic sectors and organisations as well as differentiate respondents in terms of some other variables. The study should be regarded as entirely applicable to the South African cultural and organizational environments

Strategic learning : a route to competitive advantage?

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Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

The MinK Framework: An Integrated Framework to Assess Individual Knowledge in Organisational Context.

Knowledge is the currency of the global economy, the foundation of wealth creation, and the sole antecedent of sustainable competitive advantage in today’s markets. In the current business environment, success of organisations is dependent upon their ability to develop and implement resilient Knowledge Management (KM) strategies to leverage and exploit their knowledge assets. Yet, knowledge is intrinsically linked to individuals and their exclusive abilities to create, share and apply knowledge thereby creating value for their organisations. Knowledge holders are without doubt the valuable assets which lead the increasing velocity of organisational transformation in order to cope with market pressures and confront uncertainty. Effectual KM thus implicates knowledge assessment capability that enables the identification of knowledge holders within the firm and accordingly optimises the allocation of knowledge assets. Identifying and retaining knowledge holders requires a systematic KM initiative to help managers assess the individual knowledge of their employees and hence formulate and evaluate knowledge management and retention strategies. This research therefore attempts to focus on knowledge assessment practice and explores the underlying constructs of individual knowledge in the organisational context. In light of the knowledge-based view of the firm[1][2][3], a comprehensive theoretical model highlights the crucial role of individuals in organisational knowledge dynamics based on seminal KM theories of Stocks and Flows of Knowledge[4], Intellectual Capital[5] [6] [7], and the SECI Model of Knowledge Creation[8]. Evolving from this conceptual foundation, the MinK framework is proposed as an innovative framework that endows organisations in delineating knowledge stocks and visualising knowledge flows by providing an integrated assessment platform for decision makers. The presented framework ensures that individual knowledge is accurately assessed from a number of perspectives using a well-defined set of theoretically grounded and industry validated indicators stemming from a multi-dimensional scorecard. Flexibility is embedded in the MinK framework, allowing managers to customise the key measures according to the firm’s specific context. Adopting the 360-degree approach, the assessment process uses self evaluations and multi-source knowledge appraisals to provide rich and insightful results. An Individual Knowledge Index (IK-Index) that denotes the overall knowledge rating of each employee is another research outcome spanning out of a unique formula that combines a number of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques to consolidate assessment results into a single reflective numeral. The incorporation of technology enables the complete automation of the assessment process and helps to address parametric multiplicity and arithmetic complexity. Armed with advances in Information Technology, the MinK Web System offers a user-friendly interface supported by a sophisticated computational module and a smart deep learning algorithm to ensure the efficiency, security, and accuracy of the assessment process. Companies that used MinK in the pilot study have described the framework as an accurate assessment solution which can enable managers to make informed decisions, particularly in human capital planning. Such an approach balances the art and science of KM while taking into account the culture and dynamics of the organisation. Ultimately, this research advocates a people-centric KM approach that places the individual knowledge holder at the core of KM activity, and suggests that effective KM is essentially effective management of knowledge workers

Workplace innovation and new product development in Vietnamese manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises

Workplace innovation (WI) and new product development (NPD) is essential for organisations to ensure their market positioning. Vietnam is at the starting point of innovation. The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of senior management practices in NPD projects in the Vietnamese manufacturing industry and the status of the NPD process, strategic planning, resource allocation and success measure in Vietnamese manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); identify NPD success factors in Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs at the project level; investigate the relationship between WI, NPD capability, strategic planning and performance in Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs at the project level; and determine the moderating effect of two groups (manager and employee) on the relationship between WI, NPD capability and NPD strategic planning on NPD performance in Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs. A total of 795 questionnaires were sent to manufacturing SMEs in Hanoi, with a response rate of 42.77% yielding 340 usable responses. Using IBM SPSS AMOS (v.25) software (hereafter AMOS) to test the research model of the relationship between WI, NPD capability, NPD strategic planning and NPD performance, the findings confirmed the simultaneous relationship between WI, NPD capability, NPD strategic planning and NPD performance in Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs at the project level. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the field of WI and NPD research from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Theoretically, this thesis contributes to the existing literature in the field of WI and NPD in organisations by 1) integrating the framework of contingency theory, the dynamic capability view and resource-based view theory in the study of the relationship between WI, NPD capability, NPD strategic planning and NPD performance; 2) developing a validated conceptual framework for examining the relationship between WI, NPD capability, NPD strategic planning and NPD performance in Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs; 3) observing a difference of perspective on the relationship between employee and managers, with the thesis findings confirming for the first time the simultaneous relationship between WI, NPD capability, NPD strategic planning and NPD performance, thereby expanding the contingency theory (Miller and Friesen, 1983) to a new environment¿capability¿strategic planning¿performance paradigm; and 4) recognition of moderating effect of manager and employee on WI and NPD capability. Practically, the findings enhance current understanding of senior management practices in NPD projects and NPD success factors within Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs and discuss for the first time NPD process, strategic planning, resource allocation and success measures in Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs. These results are hugely beneficial, for manufacturing SMEs in Vietnam in particular and for other industries and countries in general, in assisting successful NPD