"Who are you going to call?" Network activation in creative idea generation and elaboration

Considering creativity as a journey beyond idea generation, scholars have theorized that different ties are beneficial in different phases. As individuals usually possess different types of ties, selecting the optimal ties in each phase and changing ties as needed are central activities for creative success. We identify the types of ties (weak or strong) that are helpful in idea generation and idea elaboration, and given this understanding, whether individuals activate ties in each phase accordingly. In an experimental study of individuals conversing with their ties, we provide evidence of the causal effects of weak and strong ties on idea generation and idea elaboration. We also find that individuals do not always activate ties optimally and identify network size and risk as barriers. Our results in a series of studies reveal that individuals with large networks, despite providing more opportunity to activate both strong and weak ties, activate fewer weak ties and are less likely to switch ties across phases than individuals with smaller networks, particularly when creativity is perceived as a high-risk endeavor. Finally, we find that activating the wrong ties leads to either dropping creative ideas or pursuing uncreative ones

The Redesign Of School Discipline: One School’s Approach To Rethink And Redesign Discipline Practices Through The Restorative Justice Model

An over reliance on punitive discipline methods for addressing wrongdoing in schools has caused educational leaders to pause, and consider their alternatives. The enforcement of zero-tolerance policies and the use of corresponding strategies like detentions, suspensions and expulsions, are no longer proving effective. These antiquated efforts focus only on the rules that were broken and the deserved punishment, failing to actually repair relationships and recognize root causes. In 2014, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan stated, “The need to rethink and redesign school discipline practices is long overdue.” Restorative discipline has emerged as an effective tool that responds to wrongdoing. This approach offers an alternative model that provides a respectful focus on accountability and the reparation of harm. The emphasis of restorative discipline is to recognize individual needs and to promote collaboration, cooperation, and problem solving. This dissertation provides voice to the real-life work of student deans within a large high school setting as they redesign discipline practices to reflect a restorative model. Captured throughout the research are the personal anecdotes and experiences that have resulted in moments of success, hesitation and thoughtful consideration. Findings provide a detailed analysis of the implementation process, as well as a thorough examination of the largely problematic and antiquated use of zero-tolerance policies in education. Conclusions are also drawn to highlight the potential benefits the restorative justice model may have on school climate and how other schools can better prepare themselves for the challenges of implementation

Who runs the place? : the evolving role of corporate centre in the strategy-making process : an empirical investigation of a major Russian multi-business corporation

This research was inspired by a particular business problem – the search for an optimal model of strategy-making process in Severstal, a major Russian metals and mining company going through a period of rapid growth and transformation. The research reports on the results of a longitudinal explorative case study based on two distinct empirical projects. The first project addressed strategy process nature, participants, roles of corporate centre, time perspective and impact of the external environment. Its results highlighted the importance of CEO leadership and personal traits, which became the principal focus of the second empirical project. The key empirical contribution of the research was definition of "leader-focused decentralisation" as a particular approach to strategy-making in a multi-business group. This approach combines decentralized, bottom-up, business units-led generation of strategic proposals and initiatives with a crucial role of a company leader as a deeply involved decision-maker, presiding over a small and lean corporate centre with minimal corporate rules and bureaucracy. In Severstal’s case, the "leader-focused decentralisation" approach to strategy was a good match to its volatile yet rewarding external environment. The suggested model can be seen as an empirically-derived step towards a theoretical synthesis of "activist" vs. "detached" views of corporate centre roles in relation to strategy process in multi-business firms. It exhibited some distinctive features which were not yet described in other contexts, including co-existence of strong entrepreneurial leadership and organisational decentralisation. From a practical standpoint, the research highlighted weaknesses and limitations of existing strategy-making model and offered a background for the discussion of ways to develop it in the future.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Neuromedia, Cognitive Offloading, and Intellectual Perseverance

This paper engages in what might be called anticipatory virtue epistemology, as it anticipates some virtue epistemological risks related to a near-future version of brain-computer interface technology that Michael Lynch (2014) calls 'neuromedia.' I analyze how neuromedia is poised to negatively affect the intellectual character of agents, focusing specifically on the virtue of intellectual perseverance, which involves a disposition to mentally persist in the face of challenges towards the realization of one’s intellectual goals. First, I present and motivate what I call ‘the cognitive offloading argument’, which holds that excessive cognitive offloading of the sort incentivized by a device like neuromedia threatens to undermine intellectual virtue development from the standpoint of the theory of virtue responsibilism. Then, I examine the cognitive offloading argument as it applies to the virtue of intellectual perseverance, arguing that neuromedia may increase cognitive efficiency at the cost of intellectual perseverance. If used in an epistemically responsible manner, however, cognitive offloading devices may not undermine intellectual perseverance but instead allow us to persevere with respect to intellectual goals that we find more valuable by freeing us from different kinds of menial intellectual labor

Impact of network relational and structural embeddedness on firm's innovation, a study at the Saudi firm's level

Firms are facing great challenges in the rapidly changing economy of today's world. Therefore, firms have begun searching for new means and ways to innovate in order to stay alive, compete and grow. However, many firms have yet to discover that their embedded network of relations and structures can play a crucial role in their innovation outcomes. As a result, there is growing consensus among innovation scholars that networking and inter-firm collaboration are key strategies in stimulating innovation within firms. This has resulted in a growing body of literature focused on studying the link between innovation performance and firm participation and position in networks. However, there is still disagreement and fragmented results among scholars regarding the optimum firm's network embeddedness configuration for both product and process innovation. Moreover, firms should be aware of the type of network embeddedness configurations that could constrain their innovation performance. This remains unresolved academic and practitioner challenges that require detailed investigation. Furthermore, a limited number of studies have theoretically discussed and empirically tested this research area in the context of emerging economies.This research study addresses the aforementioned challenges and aims to shed light on the relationship between firms' network embeddedness characteristics (i.e. relational embeddedness and structural embeddedness) and their innovation output (i.e. product and process innovation).;This study draws primarily on three complimentary perspectives-social capital, social network and network embeddedness-in order to shed more light on the effect that network embeddedness characteristics have on firms' product and process innovation. Furthermore, the thesis aims to both conceptually and empirically reveal the influence that network embeddedness aspects have on innovation outcomes in the context of emerging economies, with particular reference to medium and high (M&H) technology sectors in Saudi Arabia.The study draws on the significance of network embeddedness characteristics in influencing firms' innovation performance with the principle aim of unravelling key network relational and structural embeddedness characteristics at the firm's level. This research is primarily based on new empirical evidence from the primary source data of 121 firms in M&H technology sectors in Saudi Arabia, using social network analysis and logistic regression modelling to investigate the effect of various configurations of firms' network, relational and structural embeddedness characteristics on the types of innovation (i.e. product and process innovation). The results of this study indicate that firms' innovation outcomes largely depend on their various network relational and structural embeddedness configurations. As a result, in order to fully capture the impact of network embeddedness characteristics on firms' innovation outcomes, network relational and structural embeddedness characteristics should be jointly considered (i.e. the interaction effect among different network embeddedness settings).;The evidence reveals that, by analysing the combination of firms' relational and structural network embeddedness characteristics, firms can recognise the potential, associated effects in product and process innovation outputs. This is indicated by the interaction effect between network embeddedness relational aspects (i.e. strong/weak ties) and structural properties (i.e. dense/sparse network and peripheral/central position). For instance, the findings suggest that, for high-density and central network embeddedness, strong ties type of relations will have a positive impact on firms' product and process innovation. In contrast, the empirical analysis suggests that firms that are sparsely and peripherally embedded in a network will become better product and process innovators if they develop relationships with other organisations in terms of weak ties type of relations.The outcome of this research has both theoretical and practical implications. These implications are theoretical in the sense that they provide new insights into innovation networks area from the social capital, social network and network embeddedness perspectives, jointly considering firms' network relational and structural embeddedness characteristics, as well as the direct, and the interaction effect on firm's innovation outcome. Regarding managerial implications, this study highlights the primary network structural properties, specifically addressing their direct, interaction effect on firms' product and process innovation. This could guide professional managers aiming for high innovation performance to re-evaluate their firms' network embeddedness configurations. Furthermore, in light of this study's limitations, directions for future research are outlined.Firms are facing great challenges in the rapidly changing economy of today's world. Therefore, firms have begun searching for new means and ways to innovate in order to stay alive, compete and grow. However, many firms have yet to discover that their embedded network of relations and structures can play a crucial role in their innovation outcomes. As a result, there is growing consensus among innovation scholars that networking and inter-firm collaboration are key strategies in stimulating innovation within firms. This has resulted in a growing body of literature focused on studying the link between innovation performance and firm participation and position in networks. However, there is still disagreement and fragmented results among scholars regarding the optimum firm's network embeddedness configuration for both product and process innovation. Moreover, firms should be aware of the type of network embeddedness configurations that could constrain their innovation performance. This remains unresolved academic and practitioner challenges that require detailed investigation. Furthermore, a limited number of studies have theoretically discussed and empirically tested this research area in the context of emerging economies.This research study addresses the aforementioned challenges and aims to shed light on the relationship between firms' network embeddedness characteristics (i.e. relational embeddedness and structural embeddedness) and their innovation output (i.e. product and process innovation).;This study draws primarily on three complimentary perspectives-social capital, social network and network embeddedness-in order to shed more light on the effect that network embeddedness characteristics have on firms' product and process innovation. Furthermore, the thesis aims to both conceptually and empirically reveal the influence that network embeddedness aspects have on innovation outcomes in the context of emerging economies, with particular reference to medium and high (M&H) technology sectors in Saudi Arabia.The study draws on the significance of network embeddedness characteristics in influencing firms' innovation performance with the principle aim of unravelling key network relational and structural embeddedness characteristics at the firm's level. This research is primarily based on new empirical evidence from the primary source data of 121 firms in M&H technology sectors in Saudi Arabia, using social network analysis and logistic regression modelling to investigate the effect of various configurations of firms' network, relational and structural embeddedness characteristics on the types of innovation (i.e. product and process innovation). The results of this study indicate that firms' innovation outcomes largely depend on their various network relational and structural embeddedness configurations. As a result, in order to fully capture the impact of network embeddedness characteristics on firms' innovation outcomes, network relational and structural embeddedness characteristics should be jointly considered (i.e. the interaction effect among different network embeddedness settings).;The evidence reveals that, by analysing the combination of firms' relational and structural network embeddedness characteristics, firms can recognise the potential, associated effects in product and process innovation outputs. This is indicated by the interaction effect between network embeddedness relational aspects (i.e. strong/weak ties) and structural properties (i.e. dense/sparse network and peripheral/central position). For instance, the findings suggest that, for high-density and central network embeddedness, strong ties type of relations will have a positive impact on firms' product and process innovation. In contrast, the empirical analysis suggests that firms that are sparsely and peripherally embedded in a network will become better product and process innovators if they develop relationships with other organisations in terms of weak ties type of relations.The outcome of this research has both theoretical and practical implications. These implications are theoretical in the sense that they provide new insights into innovation networks area from the social capital, social network and network embeddedness perspectives, jointly considering firms' network relational and structural embeddedness characteristics, as well as the direct, and the interaction effect on firm's innovation outcome. Regarding managerial implications, this study highlights the primary network structural properties, specifically addressing their direct, interaction effect on firms' product and process innovation. This could guide professional managers aiming for high innovation performance to re-evaluate their firms' network embeddedness configurations. Furthermore, in light of this study's limitations, directions for future research are outlined

Financial Bootstrapping as Relational Contract : Linking resource needs, bootstrapping behaviors, and outcomes of bootstrapping exchanges

The aim of this thesis is to develop a conceptual model for understanding conditions for and outcomes of bootstrapping behaviors. Recent literature on financial bootstrapping in new firms acknowledges the necessity to consolidate and conceptualize the existing knowledge. Yet, the focus and findings of current research remain dispersed and at times contradictory, which might indicate the need for consolidation and conceptualization. Bootstrapping to date has been mostly studied cross-sectionally, with the help of quantitative methods and with reliance on theoretical concepts borrowed from disciplines that poorly describe a new firm’s reality. In this thesis, I develop the understanding of bootstrapping exchanges as relational contracts between the entrepreneur and resource-providing stakeholders, and demonstrate the process-bound nature of norms, conditions, and gradually emerging outcomes of bootstrapping behaviors. My longitudinal study employs a qualitative, case-within-a-case approach, offering a methodological contribution to upcoming research. This study also contributes with comprehensive literature studies of bootstrapping and relational contracting knowledge, comprising the systematic reviews and bibliometric analysis. The study offers contribution for practicing entrepreneurs by discussing the gradually emerging, fine-grained outcomes of bootstrapping behaviors that may lead to larger implications, for instance for a firm’s growth and possibilities for attracting external financing. Thus, the main contribution to policy actors and entrepreneurial practice is presenting the practical, multi-stakeholder perspective on bootstrapping exchanges, conditions for bootstrapping behaviors, and their outcomes

Team adaptation in complex work environments

A adaptação é fundamental para a eficácia do trabalho em equipa em ambientes complexos. A literatura sugere que as características dos membros da equipa, os processos episódicos e os estados emergentes contribuem para a capacidade de as equipas se comportarem de forma adaptativa. No entanto, as causas e condições em que estas variáveis se relacionam e contribuem para a adaptação em ambientes de trabalho complexos exige mais investigação. Nesta dissertação, vamos concentrar-nos nas dinâmicas multinível, transversais e longitudinais que caracterizam o processo adaptativo. Os participantes dos estudos feitos nesta dissertação foram estudantes universitários, e trabalhadores de diversos contextos organizacionais (e.g. gestão; saúde hospitalar; policia). O teste das hipóteses de investigação foi feito através de metodologias de regressão e equações estruturais. A metodologia de regressão foi utilizada para estimar os efeitos diretos, indiretos e condicionados. A modelagem com equações estruturais foi utilizada para estimar os efeitos indiretos, multinível e longitudinais. No geral, os resultados sugerem que a performance adaptativa contribui para a eficácia das equipas em ambientes de trabalho complexos. Os nossos resultados também clarificam a natureza das relações entre as características dos membros das equipas, os processos e estados emergentes. Esta dissertação contribui para a teoria e a prática, uma vez que amplia o conhecimento prévio sobre as dinâmicas de adaptação do trabalho em equipa, e tece recomendações de como e por que razões as práticas de GRH devem incorporar os resultados desta dissertação na gestão de pessoas.Team adaptation is paramount for effective teamwork in complex work environments. Literature suggests that team member characteristics, episodic team processes, and emergent states contribute to collective ability to behave adaptively. However, we know very little about the causes and conditions under which these constructs relate to predict adaptation and effectiveness in complex work environments requires further clarification. In this dissertation, we focus on the multilevel, cross-level and longitudinal examination of the dynamics of team member characteristics, episodic team processes, and emergent states driving team adaptation in the work place. In this dissertation data collection was done in simulated and field settings. Participants were university students and professional workers from diverse organizational settings (e.g. business; healthcare; police). Hypotheses testing were done through regression and structural equations modelling. Regression was used to estimate direct, indirect, and conditioned effects. Structural equations modelling were used to estimate indirect, multilevel and longitudinal effects. Overall, the results suggest that team adaptation contributes to team effectiveness in complex work environments. Our results also contribute to clarify the entanglement between team member characteristics, processes and emergent states in teams. This dissertation contributes to theory and practice as it extends previous knowledge on the dynamics of team adaptation, and it makes recommendations of why and how HRM practices should incorporate our findings in people management

PRINCIPALS’ PERCEPTIONS OF ENABLING AND HINDERING BEHAVIORS, RULES, AND STRUCTURES IN NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL DISTRICTS

There has been increasing recognition among researchers and practitioners that the demands of the principalship have become unsustainable. School districts play a pivotal role in supporting school leaders in the execution of their responsibilities. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to further uncover how school district bureaucracies enable and hinder the work of principals. In the quantitative phase of the study the researcher analyzed survey responses from 244 New York State principals to determine the extent to which district structures were perceived as hindering or enabling their work. In the qualitative phase, the researcher interviewed two principals, one who described their district as enabling and one who described their district as hindering. The researcher analyzed interview transcripts using two cycles of coding to first identify hindering and enabling structures of the district bureaucracy, and then examine how the identified behaviors, rules, and structures hindered or enabled the work of school leaders. The perceptions by principals of enabling and hindering behaviors, rules, and structures were the basis for creating prototypes of enabling and hindering district practices

Exploring how entrepreneurs make decisions on the growth of their business: A cognitive perspective

The purpose of this study was to explore how entrepreneurs, who are past the start-up stage of business, evaluate and make decisions on growth opportunities. Small business growth is a complex, dynamic and episodic phenomenon and prior research on firm growth has emphasised cross-sectional approaches, rather than view growth as a dynamic process over time. Understanding small business entrepreneurs’ cognition and behaviours when making opportunity-related decisions will show how growth decisions are made. It is still unclear what cognitive styles and knowledge structures entrepreneurs use to process and frame information for opportunity-related decision-making. A closer look at opportunity evaluation, decision-making and entrepreneurial cognition revealed fragmentation, research gaps and areas for future research recommended by key scholars. As a consequence of this, an integrated process approach was taken using these three research streams. Specifically, a cognitive style lens, as a complex construct with multiple dimensions was used for viewing opportunity-related decisions, an approach missing from the opportunity evaluation literature. Additionally, the study was conceptually underpinned by dual process theory, the cognitive experiential self-theory or CEST. A longitudinal, concurrent triangulation design was used to explore the decision-making process over five time points in a two-year period. A mixed methods approach supported the pragmatic paradigm for an exploratory study. A multiple-case strategy used a sample of 11 small manufacturing entrepreneurs, from novice to mature, with 3-30 years’ experience as owner-manager. Data was collected at each time point using semi-structured interviews and two style assessments, the CoSI and REI. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis for the qualitative data. Combining interviews and psychometric questionnaires for triangulation produced robust findings. Data was used to construct cognitive maps and cognitive complexity for insight. Findings showed entrepreneurs were high on more than one style and switched between styles according to context, demonstrating styles were orthogonal. A unique finding was a synthesised, versatile style observed as a ‘mirror effect’ between the analytical and intuitive styles. Novices developed a more intuitive style over time, contingent with experience. A developing link in the novices’ mental structures showed how past experience increased cognitive complexity and connectivity. A further unique finding showed the central concept ‘Thinks it through’ in the decision process as a structural conduit or 'Hub' for both analytical and intuitive processing. Analysis suggested that cognitive complexity mediated the relationship between creative and experiential information styles and successful opportunity-related decision-making effectiveness. These unique findings show opportunity-related decisions as a dynamic, time-based process. The time-based model provided a framework for future opportunity evaluation research as a contribution to theory. Likewise, a dual process and information processing perspective has offered an alternative structure for examining opportunity evaluation. Finally, a teaching model was developed to improve metacognitive thinking and connectivity for decision-making effectiveness as a contribution to practice