Reflexivity and flexibility: Complementary routes to innovation?

Flexibility and reflexivity are essential processes for organisational innovation. The aim of the paper is to investigate their concurrent and interactive contribution in enhancing two innovation outcomes (the organisational openness towards innovation and the actual innovation adoption). Participants were 357 Italian employees. Results of a hierarchical regression model showed the role of both factors in fostering the two innovation outcomes under study. In addition, results showed the complementary interaction of reflexivity and flexibility, outlining two possible routes to innovation. Specifically, reflexivity appears to be a generative learning process capable of encouraging innovation in low-flexibility conditions, whereas flexibility tends to encourage innovation in low-reflexivity conditions. The findings provide empirical support of their roles as complementary resources for innovation, which has been under-examined in the literature

The routinisation of management controls in software.

Author's post-print version. Final version published by Springer; available online at http://link.springer.com/Our paper aims to explore management control as complex and intertwining process over time, rather than the (mainstream) fixation on rational, optimising tools for ensuring business success. We set out to contribute towards our understanding of why and how particular management controls evolve over time as they do. We discuss how the management control routines of one organisation emerged and reproduced (through software), and moved towards a situation of becoming accepted and generally unquestioned across much of the industry. The creativity and championing of one particular person was found to be especially important in this unfolding change process. Our case study illuminates how management control (software) routines can be an important carrier of organisational knowledge, both as an engine for continuity but also potentially as a catalyst for change. We capture this process by means of exploring the ‘life-story’ of a piece of software that is adopted in the corrugated container industry

Learning in clinical practice: findings from CT, MRI and PACS

This thesis explores learning in clinical practice in the cases of CT, MRI and PACS in UK hospitals. It asks the questions of how and why certain evolutionary features of technology condition learning and change in medical contexts. Using an evolutionary perspective of cognitive and social aspects of technological change, this thesis explores the relationships between technology and organisational learning processes of intuition, interpretation, integration and institutionalisation. Technological regimes are manifested in routines, skills and artefacts, and dynamically evolve with knowledge accumulation processes at the individual, group and organisational levels. Technological change increases the uncertainty and complexity of organisational learning, making organisational outcomes partially unpredictable. Systemic and emergent properties of medical devices such as CT and MRI make learning context-specific and experimental. Negotiation processes between different social groups shape the role and function of an artefact in an organisational context. Technological systems connect artefacts to other parts of society, mediating values, velocity and directionality of change. Practice communities affect how organisations deal with this complexity and learn. These views are used to explore the accumulation of knowledge in clinical practices in CT, MRI and PACS. This thesis develops contextualised theory using a case-study approach to gather novel empirical data from over 40 interviews with clinical, technical, managerial and administrative staff in five NHS hospitals. It uses clinical practice (such as processes, procedures, tasks, rules, interpretations and routines) as a unit of analysis and CT, MRI and PACS technology areas as cases. Results are generalised to evolutionary aspects of technological learning and change provided by the framework, using processes for qualitative analysis such as ordering and coding. When analysed using an evolutionary perspective of technology, the findings in this thesis suggest that learning in clinical practice is diverse, cumulative and incremental, and shaped by complex processes of mediation, by issues such as disease complexity, values, external rules and choice restrictions from different regimes, and by interdisciplinary problem-solving in operational routines

A transition process from information systems acceptance to infusion behaviour in online brand communities: A socialization process perspective

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and online communities plays an important role for knowledge production and diffusion as well as discussions among people. Among social media, online brand communities (OBCs) have recently received attention from both academics and practitioners due to the practical benefits of OBCs for consumers and companies. For consumers, knowledge sharing and its collective activities help them to make purchase decisions and to protect themselves against firms’ monopoly and oligopoly or collusion and anticompetitive actions. For companies, new ideas and feedback on brand products created by OBC members are useful input to develop new products and enhance existing product lines. Therefore, active content generation by community members is one of the critical success factors of OBCs. However, many scholars argue that only a few members who are more devoted to a community are tending to engage in OBC activities and many community members tend to remain in the periphery (sometimes called ‘lurkers') of the community by using OBCs merely for gathering information without any contributions. Therefore, it is important to make members in the periphery of the community transit to the core to increase members’ intentions and ‘devoted members’ to produce more valuable benefits for both consumers and firms. In spite of its importance, the literature is lacking in efforts to explain how and when community members in the periphery transit to the core of the community in a long-term perspective. This study aims to reveal how and why OBC members transit from the periphery to the core of the community and how to increase their intention to use OBC from a long-term perspective. OBC use behaviour is classified into, largely, two categories according to the purposes of an OBC: behaviour with a brand product consumption purpose; and behaviour with a social relationship building purpose. This study classifies OBC members as three clusters by social identity theory: tourists, minglers, and devoted members (devotees and insiders). The devoted members have valuable consumption knowledge of brand and strong social bonds in the OBC and the OBC members become a devoted member by accumulated brand knowledge and experiences through long-term OBC use. Therefore, from a socialisation aspect, this study adopts organisational socialisation theory as the theoretical lens to explain how and why the members evolve from novice members as tourist to devoted members in OBC contexts. Socialisation theories argue that there are usually three sequential stages for a member to gain full membership in a community: pre-entry, accommodation, and affiliation. In addition, this study adopts IS implementation theory to understand OBC user behaviours from an IS use behaviour perspective: acceptance in the pre-entry stage and routinisation in the accommodation stage and infusion in the affiliation stage. By reviewing socialisation theory and IS implementation theory, this study finds four significant motivations, those of information quality, trust, sense of belonging, and brand loyalty for intention of OBC use from the acceptance (pre-entry) to infusion (affiliation) stages. To integrate the socialisation perspective with the IS use perspective, this study adopts a technology acceptance model (TAM) as a theoretical framework to link to motivators in different OBC use behaviour from the acceptance to infusion stages. As a result, this study proposes a conceptual framework to explain the OBC members’ transition process from acceptance (pre-entry) to infusion (affiliation). The aim of this study is to predict and explain the transition of motivators for OBC use from pre-entry to affiliation and how to improve members’ intention of OBC use from a long-term perspective ultimately to foster ‘devoted members’. This study adopts an online survey targeting 518 participants who belong to 17 OBCs in South Korea and the conceptual framework is validated. The results show that all factors (i.e. information quality, trust, sense of belonging, brand loyalty) are significant determinants to increase intention to use OBCs and the factors have a causal relationship with each other to form a transition process from the acceptance (pre-entry) to infusion (affiliation) stages. This study also reveals that brand loyalty has a significant role to explain the transition process and directly influence user intention to use OBCs. The sense of belonging also directly affects members’ intention to use OBCs but has less impact than brand loyalty. In addition, the results indicate that TAM is an appropriate model to predict user behaviours in a long-term perspective to explain the change of OBC use behaviour from the acceptance to infusion stage and confirms that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have significant impact on the intention to use OBCs as in other IS studies. Understanding the transition process within OBCs has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it will extend our understanding of how IS end users transit from acceptance behaviour to continued use and extended use of information systems in virtual community contexts. For managers, this study will provide them with insight on how to retain potential consumers in OBCs and facilitate their activities to gain consumer feedback on existing and new products

Developing High-Order Mathematical Thinking Competency on High School Students’ Through GeoGebra-Assisted Blended Learning

Blended Learning has received considerable attention in the field of mathematics education in recent years. This study combines online learning and face-to-face based learning. Blended Learning is based on some of the weaknesses found in online learning. In Blended Learning, Online learning is not just the learning that collects teaching materials, assignments, exercises, tests, and results of students’ works. It also has to be an interesting and attractive learning so that students’ will have better understanding on learning objectives. One of the tools for developing interesting and attractive online learning process is an open source software called GeoGebra. Blended Learning has very good quality when applied in developing students’ High-Order Mathematical Thinking Competency (HOMTC) as it is evident from previous researches. This study was an experiment based on pretest-posttest control group aiming to examine the influence of Blended Learning and students’ initial mathematical ability on students’ achievement and enhancement of HOMTC consisting of some aspects such as mathematical problem solving, mathematical communication, mathematical reasoning, and mathematical connections. The research subjects are 96 students’ of grade XI IPA 1 SMAN I Gading Rejo in Lampung Province. The results showed that students’ who learned Probability and Statistics under GeoGebra-Assisted Blended Learning (GABL) have higher HOMTC than students’ who received Conventional Learning (CL). There is no differences on students’ HOMTC enhancement between those receiving GABL learning and CL in terms of Initial Mathematical Ability (IMA). HOMTC aspects of the students’ who learned by using BLGA that have the highest enhancement are mathematical connections followed by aspects of mathematical communication, mathematical reasoning and mathematical problem solving.. Keywords: Blended Learning, Online Learning, Geogebra, High-Order Mathematical Thinking Competency

Mobile technology capabilities in creative service firms: A resource-based perspective

This paper endeavours to understand the process of mobile technology (MT) employment in creative service firms through the prism of a Resource-based View. In doing this, it utilises the competence framework proposed by Sanchez (2003), according to which firms that operate as an ‘open system’ of resources and capabilities excel in the strategic competition. The case study approach is applied to describe and examine the chosen framework in six firms through in-depth interviewing and analysing secondary sources. With respect to findings, MT resources are deployed in accordance with the strategic logic of a firm. There is a general consensus that MT is non-substitutable but strategically useful. All six firms share a common coordination mechanism in managing MT resources in the form of a relationship management. The role of management is stressed in the form of an account manager who uses clients’ objectives as means for allocating tasks and resources

Service innovation implementation in international hotel groups: a critical realist study

Services have a dominant role in the world economy, with an increasing number of organisations adopting business models that incorporate product and service provision, in an effort to offer holistic customer experiences. Service innovation, as an avenue for growth, is becoming a major strategic focus in organisations worldwide. Service innovation research however, does not reflect the high level of interest in innovation shown by practitioners. There is a long tradition of product-related research that describes the conditions underlying service development in relation to products. However, evidence in the literature suggests that services are different from products and their features uniquely shape the innovation process. A significant research gap exists in the ways innovation projects are implemented in services. Existing studies fail to provide complete models of implementation that go beyond prescriptive step-by-step process manuals and to cover a variety of service industries that are as heterogeneous as products and services. This study attempts to fill these gaps by focussing on the implementation process in the under-studied service context of hotels, an industry that provides unique insights into the way interpersonal interactions shape implementation. Findings in this study derive from qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with managers and employees involved in two service innovation projects rolled out to European countries in 2011. Guided by a critical realist philosophy that perceives the world as mind-independent but accessible only through our subjective interpretations, the role of the researcher in this study was to approach innovation implementation by searching for valid explanations behind the participants’ experience. The study has found that the implementation process is an iterative process of planning, training, launch, review and routinisation, and follow-up periods. These are repeated as the implementation cascades through large organisations from the regional level to local organisational units. Secondary adoption and adaptation processes permeate implementation, whereby choices made at higher levels are evaluated at lower ones in a continuous cycle of decision-making. A variety of factors relating to the individuals involved, the firm where the innovation is implemented, the innovation concept, and the execution of the process have been linked to the realisation of the projects. Among these factors, knowledge, organisation of informal activities and the innovation-market fit have been shown to have the most significant positive influence on implementation. The events in the process have been explained by a combination of four mechanisms as diverse as sensemaking, organisational learning, organisational politics and emotional reactions to the implementation process. Thus, this research sheds new light on the theory and practice of service innovation implementation and paves the way for further research into the field