International Firms’ Market Orientation and Use of Knowledge: Implications for Market Information Systems

Efficient dissemination of market knowledge within the industrial firm is essential to global competitiveness. However, use of knowledge regarding firm’s foreign markets needs more attention in research. This paper extends the understanding of the industrial firm’s use of its stock of market knowledge. Relying on the knowledge-based view of the firm and the market orientation construct, a conceptual model and propositions are developed. These focus on associations between foreign subsidiary’s value-adding scope and its growth, and the moderating roles of market knowledge created locally, or somewhere else in the corporation. An understanding of the importance of knowledge of foreign markets and use situations will facilitate the design of market information systems that include creation and sharing of knowledge within international industrial firms

Issues in designing learning by teaching systems

Abstract: Learning by teaching systems are a relatively recent approach to designing Intelligent Learning Environments that place learners in the role of tutors. These systems are based on the practice of peer tutoring where students take on defined roles of tutor and tutee. An architecture for learning by teaching systems is described that does not require the domain model of an Intelligent Tutoring System. However a mutual communication language is needed and is defined by a conceptual syntax that delimits the domain content of the dialogue. An example learning by teaching system is described for the domain of qualitative economics. The construction and testing of this system inform a discussion of the major design issues involved: the nature of the learnt model, the form of the conceptual syntax, the control of the interaction and the possible introduction of domain knowledge. 1

The deferred model of reality for designing and evaluating organisational learning processes: A critical ethnographic case study of Komfo Anokye teaching hospital, Ghana

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The study proposed an evidence-based framework for designing and evaluating organisational learning and knowledge management processes to support continuously improving intentions of organisations such as hospitals. It demarcates the extant approaches to organisational learning including supporting technology into ‘rationalist’ and ‘emergent’ schools which utilise the dichotomy between the traditional healthcare managers’ roles and clinicians’ roles, and maintains that they are exclusively inadequate to accomplish transformative growth intentions, such as continuously improving patient care. The possibility of balancing the two schools for effective organisational learning design is not straightforward, and fails; because the balanced-view school is theoretically orientated and lack practical design to resolve power tensions entrenched in organisational structures. Prior attempts to address the organisational learning and knowledge management design and evaluation problematics in actuality have situated in the interpretivist traditions, only focusing on explanations of meanings. Critically, this is uncritical of power relations and orthodox practices. The theory of deferred action is applied in the context of critical research methods and methodology to expose the motivations behind the established organisational learning and knowledge management practices of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) which assumed rationality design conceptions. Ethnographic data was obtained and interpreted with combined critical hermeneutics and narrative analyses to question the extent of healthcare learning and knowledge management systems failures and unveil the unheard voices as force for change. The study makes many contributions to knowledge but the key ones are: (i) Practically, the participants accepted the study as a catalyst for (re)-designing healthcare learning and knowledge management systems to typify the acceptance of the theory of deferred action in practice; (ii) theoretically, the cohered emergent transformation (CET) model was developed from the theory of deferred action and validated with empirical data to explain how to plan strategically to achieve transformative growth objectives; and (iii) methodologically, the sense-making of the ethnographic data was explored with the combined critical hermeneutics and critical narrative analyses, the data interpretation lens from the critical theory and qualitative pluralism positions, to elucidate how the unheard emergent voices could bring change to the existing KATH learning and knowledge management processes for improved patient care

Testing the acquisition and use of navigation strategies in humans using a virtual environment

Testing the acquisition and use of navigation strategies in humans using a virtual environment Navigation is the area of spatial cognition related to how people move through space. Agents represent this space using reference frames fixed relative to the agent (egocentric) or the environment (allocentric). Research into how reference frames are used and interact has revealed many variables that can affect navigation. The thesis aim was to assess some of these variables and observe the important, modulatory roles of environment structure and complexity. For this a virtual Morris water maze analogue was designed to flexibly assess allocentric, intrinsic information-based and sequential response-based navigation. This research focussed on four facets of the interaction between environment and navigation: 1) How different reference systems knowledge develops over time in an environment; 2) What information drives improvements in navigation; 3) How reference systems interact when they suggest competing responses; 4) The relationship between the preceding points and environmental complexity. The results showed successful allocentric navigation after little training. Successful self-referential knowledge took longer to develop. Allocentric knowledge was centred on landmarks, overshadowing other cues, while egocentric knowledge was idiothetic. Conflict tests showed a strong preference for allocentric navigation that related to training maze complexity. A simpler training maze produced more egocentric navigators with relatively accurate route knowledge. These results provide further evidence for the multiple types of spatial navigation information that can be acquired and utilised, and demonstrate the importance of consideration of environment design for navigation research. The strong correspondence between these results and the real world navigation of human and non-human animals also suggest this virtual reality setup as a promising way to assess navigation in future

Encouraging Individuals to Go Green by Gamification: An Empirical Study

The quality of the environment is the main concern of the current world. For the improvement of environmental quality, individuals are suggested to perform pro-environmental behaviors. Gamifying information systems to encourage their users to do so is an emerging phenomenon showing its potential for environmental conservation. Contributing to the environment in interesting ways is the main idea of gamification which helps the system attract users. However, maintaining active user engagement within such a gamified system is difficult. To understand the mechanism of users’ continuous intention to use gamified information system for environmental protection, this research based on the theories of goal framing and gamification affordance to explain what factors influence user’ continuance to use intention and what roles the gamification design takes in the user interaction with the system. This study contributes to knowledge of research and practice regarding gamified information systems for environmental protection

Recruitment and Selection

[Excerpt] In this chapter, we look to address the second issue by developing a theoretical model of the link between different staffing systems and firm-level performance. We first look to existing theory on organizational design and structure to better understand the role of recruitment and selection. Specifically, we argue that organizations are structured into unique subunits of employees based on the equivocality of available information in their jobs and the resulting need for organizational rationality or openness. Drawing on existing empirical work on strategic human resource management, we argue that unique systems of recruitment and selection practices are necessary to provide the level of employee knowledge, skills, and abilities to match the level of information equivocality faced by the employees in these roles. In particular, we put forth arguments that recruitment and selection systems that match with the mechanistic organizational structure are the best fit for subunits of employees facing low information uncertainty; whereas recruitment and selection systems that match with the organic organizational structure are the best fit for subunits of employees facing high informational uncertainty