Evidence for a creative dilemma posed by repeated collaborations

We focused on how repeat collaborations in projects for inventions affect performance. Repeat collaborations have two contradictory aspects. A positive aspect is team development or experience, and a negative aspect is team degeneration or decline. Since both contradicting phenomena are observed, inventors have a dilemma as to whether they should keep collaborating in a team or not. The dilemma has not previously been quantitatively analyzed. We provide quantitative and extensive analyses of the dilemma in creative projects by using patent data from Japan and the United States. We confirm three predictions to quantitatively validate the existence of the dilemma. The first prediction is that the greater the patent a team achieves, the longer the team will work together. The second prediction is that the impact of consecutive patents decreases after a team makes a remarkable invention, which is measured by the impact of patents. The third prediction is that the expectation of impact with new teams is greater than that with the same teams successful in the past. We find these predictions are validated in patents published in Japan and the United States. On the basis of these three predictions, we can quantitatively validate the dilemma in creative projects. We also propose preventive strategies for degeneration. One is developing technological diversity, and another is developing inventor diversity in teams.We find the two strategies are both effective by validating with the data

Trends and tradition: Negotiating different cultural models in relation to sustainable craft and artisan production

If the identity of ‘design’ as a practice is contested then the relationship of design and designers to craft and craft practices can be hugely confused. This lack of clarity can encourage non-design based organisations to promote the use of ‘trend forecasting’ as a panacea to the design dilemma associated with craft production for non-traditional markets. Consequently fashion sensitive trends become perceived as the driving force of design-led consumption. In this context how do we understand what ‘trend forecasting’ is and becomes when used in this manner? How does it contribute or not to the sustainability of local design cultures? This paper examines how these challenges have been interrogated and experienced through practice at Masters Level at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. It seeks sustainable strategies for design and craft drawing on a diverse range of examples to illustrate contemporary artefacts realised from a diverse range of projects, sources and geographical locations

A Planet Where the Muses Work Together : Opera Training as a Vehicle for Interdisciplinary Engagement in Higher Education

This study is positioned within the context of the current recommendations for increased interdisciplinary and collaborative engagement in curriculum development (Department of Education and Skills, 2011, p.35). Supported also by recommendations for professional arts practitioners to be multi-skilled, circulated in such publications as the European Association of Conservatoires reports (AEC, 2003), Trinity Guildhall\u27s The Reflective Conservatoire (Odam & Bannan, 2005) and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education (Gaunt & Westerlund, 2013), this study is proposing that there are significant educational benefits from the implementation of and participation in opera-based activities. These possible benefits are discussed along with an overview of the range of skills and requirements which a career in opera is likely to demand. The paper includes as case-history a recent example of this collaborative approach - The Paris Collection, a large-scale opera project which was performed in January 2014 at the National Concert Hall in Dublin by students from Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music and Drama and designed by students from Dublin College of Creative Arts. The production was named thus because the two operas featured, Lehar\u27s The Merry Widow and Puccini\u27s La Bohème are both set in Paris. The project was implemented through the undergraduate and postgraduate modular frameworks in each college and involved the engagement of over 160 students. The production, which was positively received and subsequently won the Institute for Designers in Ireland Highly Commended Award in the Education category, was deemed to be a success; an appraisal which was expressed not only in the positive response to the performance, but also through feed-back and evaluation from staff and students in various formal and informal de-briefing sessions. However, in the process of preparation and rehearsal, the enterprise also presented significant challenges and issues. Although the remit of the project included the implementation of a professional environment, compromises had to be made in several instances, in order to enable it to proceed. These compromises gave rise to several broader questions relating to collaborative enterprises and the implementation of authentic professional demands within an educational framework. The paper concludes with a discussion of opera-training as a productive vehicle for interdisciplinary study. With reference to The Paris Collection as case-history, the educational relevance of the project is evaluated with an identification and analysis of the benefits and challenges which arose during that process. Recommendations may assist the sustainable facilitation of other future enterprises which can be devised to truly reflect professional practice, demands and criteria. They make particular reference to establishing collaborative projects within academic programmes where they can form an intrinsic modular role in the curriculum

Digital Innovation Through Partnership Between Nature Conservation Organisations and Academia : A Qualitative Impact Assessment

We would like to thank all interviewees for sharing their experiences of working with academics, and the guest editor and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier versions of the work. The research in this paper is supported by the RCUK dot.rural Digital economy Research Hub, University of Aberdeen (Grant reference: EP/G066051/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Developing Digital Competences. Work learn trajectories in Italian School System

The work based learning is the core European dispositions on educational and training issue and a pillar of the Europe 2020 strategy (EUCOM 2009/C119/02). Therefore, the educational system has to increase the quality of standards and learning results in order to response adequately to competence needs and to permit the successful entrance of the youth in the world of work. The SWA is a coherent reaction. Indeed, the current literature lead to reflect on the SWA as a new prospective of school and world of work relationship (Arlotti and Barberis 2015), and as a resolution for the skills mismatch (Caputo and Capecchi 2016; Froy, Giguere, Hofer, 2009; A. Green, Hasluck, Hogarth, Reynolds, 2003). In a context which needs a different school that provides different types of skills, it is desirable that a policy instrument such as the SWA – became mandatory by the reform “La Buona Scuola” (Law 107/2015) – is included in the scientific debate, especially for its potential to contribute to renewal of the school system. Many authors encourage the scientific debate regarding the question to clarify the peculiar characteristics of the SWA model in Italy and to begin effective reflection on its revolutionary impact for the school system. According to Tino and Fideli (2015), the SWA is a process, not only as an experience, a fundamental methodology to promote the knowledge of the world of work and the development of competences (professional and citizenship) thanks to the interconnection between formal-informal learning and creative combination process between theory and practice

The Paris Collection: Reflections on an Interdisciplinary Performance Project

Between September 2013 and January 2014, students and staff of the Technological University Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama and DIT Dublin School of Creative Arts collaborated on the creation of an opera production which was presented at the National Concert Hall on Jan 23rd. The project was implemented within the modular framework from both colleges. The collaboration was both multi and inter-disciplinary and the students engaged at a professional level, working under staff supervision and in tandem with personnel and resources outside the college environment. The performers were required to audition for their roles and the teams of design students had to prepare and present a \u27pitch\u27 for their concept to be selected. These same design students also took responsibility for the set construction, while the entire cohort had to respond to the logistical and artistic challenges of taking the production into a major venue on the day of performance and being ready to begin in a significantly limited period of time. The delivery of a public performance in a high profile venue meant that the project culminated in full exposure of public scrutiny, and consequently demanded the skills, intelligence, energy and commitment of all involved. This presentation will focus on the collaboration as a relevant case-study, exemplifying a modular-based inter-disciplinary project within the College of Arts and Tourism. It will provide an evaluation of the insights, strengths and benefits gained by all who participated. It will also provide an honest discourse on the requirements, resources and challenges such an undertaking demands, particularly with reference to establishing professional demands within an educational context. With reference to future implementation of other synergies, the presentation will provide recommendations as to how these can be realistically and sufficiently facilitated through creative and flexible programme development

Building adaptive capacity in project network organizations: Project contexts, network ties and relational practices

This chapter examines key drivers of variation in adaptive capacity of project network organizations (PNOs). PNOs are defined as strategically coordinated sets of longer-term, yet project-based relationships, which provide for both stability and change in volatile project businesses. While prior research has emphasized the adaptive role of flexible structures and agency, the author focuses on the role of project variety and contextual embedding and disembedding in building adaptive capacity. Comparing two PNOs in TV movie production, the author argues that differences in adaptive capacity are a function of inter-context connectivity, that is, the level of task and team linkages among diverse project contexts, and the degree to which network ties and relational practices have “dual quality” in being valuable both within and beyond specific project contexts. Findings have important implications for project, network, and organization research

Broadening Participation in Research Focused, Upper-Division Learning Communities

We address several challenges faced by those who wish to increase the number of faculty participating in upper-division learning communities that feature a student research experience. Using illustrations from our own learning community, we describe three strategies for success that focus on providing low cost incentives and other means to promote and sustain faculty cooperation

Projects, paths, and practices: Sustaining and leveraging project-based relationships

In this article, we examine how project entrepreneurs maintain and leverage long-term project-based relationships in highly uncertain and volatile project businesses with clients and key service providers across ever changing collaborative contexts. Based on a thorough analysis of TV project networks, using both quantitative and qualitative data, we find that project entrepreneurs form core teams with particular clients and service providers, and establish sequences of related projects thereby forming collaborative paths. These paths allow partners to exploit and stretch existing, and explore new capabilities and partner resources across time and contexts of collaboration. Paths are promoted by connecting practices partners apply to establish task and team linkages between past, present and potential future projects. Our findings promote a more processual understanding of project-based organizing and learning, and tie formation and maintenance in dynamic industry contexts

Artistic work and structural organization of theater groups in Lisbon area. Five empirical standpoints to inform public policies.

Organizational structures in the cultural and creative sectors are being challenged by deep changes in the economic, cultural and governance frameworks in which they operate. These changes force them to assume increasingly differentiated strategies to face the challenges that thus emerge. This phenomenon increases the complexity of the analysis of the art worlds and it also brings new challenges to the conception of public policies for these sectors. This is particularly visible in the field of the performing arts; when we observe the evolution of organizational structures, the professional paths and individual careers, as well as when we witness the indecisions and dilemmas in contemporary public policies in those fields. Drawing from a theoretical discussion based on recent contributions of sociology and economics of the arts and culture, and departing from a typology previously suggested elsewhere by the authors, this paper offers an empirical standpoint towards five dimensions of theater groups’ work in order to extract conclusions that may inform public policy decisions: organizational structure, artistic work, art world commitment, economic structure and geographical scope.FC