The rationale of development practices for expert systems : an empirical investigation

Practices of expert system development are not widely investigated. In this paper I describe results of case studies on the inhouse deployment of small expert systems in two companies, along with a review of empirical research. The investigation focuses on the underlying rationale of the observed practices during the stages of design, field transfer and use. The examples show the importance of integrative approaches to technical and organizational aspects of development projects. The remaining potential for organizational turbulences is explained with inherent tensions of the rationale

Competências, Processos e Estratégias em Gestão de Design: uma abordagem multidimensional para um modelo conceitual

Over the past six decades, the focus shift caused by the evolving role of design in business environment has leveraged design to the rank of strategic factor of competitive advantage. As a theoretical and managerial background, Design Management is responsible for managing the design as part of the company’s strategic intention, properly inserting and integrating capabilities, processes and strategies. Although it is already consolidated as knowledge, conceptual frameworks can be continuously developed to better approach the reality of companies. This paper presents a conceptual model of Design Management developed through theoretical background and qualitative research with rounds of in-depth interviews within companies and with experts and designers. The first two stages of interviews with experts and designers allowed the analysis of design use in companies helping to map the processes related to design, identifying their role in the dynamics of companies and how they are managed. The results, together with the theoretical background made possible to outline a conceptual model of Design Management consisting of three dimensions that was, in a final stage of research, reviewed by experts and designers and verified in the practice of companies and in theory.Keywords: conceptual framework, design management, design management theory.Nas últimas seis décadas, a mudança de foco causada pela evolução do papel do design no ambiente de negócios alavancou- o à posição de fator estratégico para vantagem competitiva. Como fundamento teórico e gerencial, a Gestão de Design é responsável por gerenciar design como parte da intenção estratégica da empresa, inserindo e integrando competências, processos e estratégias apropriadamente. Embora o tema esteja consolidado como conhecimento, modelos conceituais podem ser continuamente desenvolvidos para melhor abordar a realidade das empresas. Este artigo apresenta um modelo conceitual de Gestão de Design desenvolvido através de fundamentos teóricos e de pesquisa qualitativa com rodadas de entrevistas em profundidade em empresas e com especialistas e designers. As primeiras duas etapas de entrevistas com especialistas e designers permitiram a análise do uso do design nas empresas auxiliando a mapear os processos relacionados ao design, identificando seu papel na dinâmica da empresa e sua gestão. Esses resultados, junto com a revisão teórica, tornaram possível delinear um modelo conceitual de Gestão de Design composto por três dimensões, que foi, na etapa final de pesquisa, revisado por especialistas e designers e verificado na prática das empresas e na teoria. Palavras-chave: Modelo conceitual, gestão de design, teoria de gestão de design

Outsourcing the Design of Structural Building Components

As the outsourcing phenomenon spreads to the structural building components industry, there are exciting possibilities ahead for component manufacturers. Along with these possibilities come tough management decisions, regarding if, when and how to capitalize on this opportunity. This opportunity is presented at a unique time when the industry is at historic lows. Tapping into an increasingly broad technical workforce in India may be a way to overcome domestic issues which hamper profitability. This project contains an examination of the tasks associated with the design of structural building components. These tasks are evaluated to determine the feasibility of outsourcing any or all “core competencies” to a consultant which employs design technicians working in India. The conclusion establishes a rationale for the recommendation to keep component design work stateside

Exploring the Technology Input and Economy Output in Chinese National Innovation Demonstration Zone Based on Rough Set Theory

The previous study about the relationship between technology input and economy output was mainly concentrated on their linear or functional formulation, while little on the data independencies between them. This study explored the data independencies between technology input and economy output of Chinese National Innovation Demonstration Zone based on Rough Sets Theory, for the purpose of conducting a new way to understand the unstructured relation between technology input and economy output, as well as to promoting the effective combination of technology and economy output of Chinese National Innovation Demonstration Zone, which was the most important part of national innovation system of China. The Rough Set Theory was applied to analyze the 8 Chinese National Innovation Demonstration Zone’s technology input and economy output data from 2007 to 2014. The result demonstrated that: (1) of the economy output indicators, ratio of technical income to total income, ratio of net profit to total income and export were not combined effectively with the technology input, while total income, technical income, net profit and taxes submitted had been combined with the technology input very significantly; (2) of the technology input indicators, all of them had shown the linkage with economy output indicators significantly, and expenditure on R&D activities was the most important one; (3) an two factor theory effect might existed between the technology input and economy output, senior and middle level professional qualifications, personal engaged in R&D activities and expenditure on R&D activities were the hygiene factors, ratio of expenditure on R&D activities to personal engaged in R&D activities and ratio of expenditure on R&D activities to total income were motivation factors. Keywords: Chinese National Innovation Demonstration Zone, Technology input indicators, Economy output indicators, Combination effectiveness, Rough Set Theor

Competency Maturing grounded theory

Becoming a competent IS/IT graduate is not a once-off event because rapid technological changes require that IS/IT graduates continually strive to be up-to-date and relevant. Continuous updating of knowledge, acquiring a diverse set of IS/IT/ICT competencies, and being competent is a problematic task globally, which requires building competencies comprising knowledge, skills, abilities, and values. This study employs Classic Grounded Theory Methodology to identify the main concern of senior IS undergraduates during their learning process, and how they resolve the concern. The students’ main concern emerged as a perceived lack of IS Competency. Maturing competency is a substantive theory which explains how these students attempt to resolve their concern. Three phases of the basic social process of Maturing Competency are student engagement, self-awareness of competency, and self-development. The findings suggest that creating an organic learning environment can be a useful approach to developing more competent IS graduates

CRIS-IR 2006

The recognition of entities and their relationships in document collections is an important step towards the discovery of latent knowledge as well as to support knowledge management applications. The challenge lies on how to extract and correlate entities, aiming to answer key knowledge management questions, such as; who works with whom, on which projects, with which customers and on what research areas. The present work proposes a knowledge mining approach supported by information retrieval and text mining tasks in which its core is based on the correlation of textual elements through the LRD (Latent Relation Discovery) method. Our experiments show that LRD outperform better than other correlation methods. Also, we present an application in order to demonstrate the approach over knowledge management scenarios.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) Denmark's Electronic Research Librar

Learning, favoritism and incentive provision within organizations

This doctoral dissertation provides new theoretical and empirical analysis on employer learning and its impact on employees’ incentive provisions within organizations. In the first chapter, we show with 20 years of personnel data from a large U.S. firm, that employee performance displays a unique pattern that cannot be explained by human capital or incentive theories under the classical principal-agent framework. To explain the observed pattern, we propose an enriched principal-manager-employee framework that captures real life complications such as favoritism and influence activities. We show that supervisors are disciplined to give less biased subjective evaluations under promotion-based incentive schemes compared to bonus-based incentive schemes and the costs of wasteful influence activities could constrain the firm's ability to optimize employees’ effort in a way that generates equilibrium performance patterns we observe in the data. In the second chapter, we study the credibility of the firing threat, which is widely used as a disciplinary device in the workplace. Despite its prevalence, theoretical foundations on the credibility of firing threats are not well studied. When firing is costly to the employer, it is not credible to carry out a firing threat unless a decrease in expected future return is associated with the employee’s misbehavior. We explore the role of learning in ensuring the credibility of firing threats and how a certain level of uncertainty is necessary to effectively induce compliance. Peter Principle arises as an outcome of the model, as workers who are known to be competent almost certainly can no longer be disciplined and need to be promoted to more difficult tasks, even though they may be less productive at those tasks. In the third chapter, we propose a new method to test asymmetric learning in a multi-period framework and derive testable implications based on easily observable dynamic wage patterns. We test our model predictions using the NLSY97 data. The empirical results are consistent with symmetric learning and show no evidence of asymmetric learning

Reducing the Incidence of Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers by Enhancing the Role of Unit-Based Skin Champions

Reducing the Incidence of Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers by Enhancing the Role of Unit-Based Skin Champions Abstract Hospital Acquired Pressure Ulcer continues to be an alarming issue in today’s healthcare systems. Often preventable, it is a significant nursing role and a frequently used benchmark for quality care. Studies have shown that hospital-acquired pressure ulcer (HAPU) complications have been associated with “up to 60,000 deaths each year in the United States” (AHRQ, 2014). A major health problem, it presents grave consequences on the patient’s well-being, significant treatment and recovery delays, increase length of inpatient stays, and have become a “never” event from the standpoint of Medicare reimbursement. A 175-bed general medical-surgical hospital in Southern California was challenged with an increasing HAPU incidence in 2014-2015. With a higher older adult population, the hospital sought to reduce HAPU prevalence by reviving the Skin Task Force and enhancing the role of Unit-Based Skin Champions. Focused on raising awareness, increasing education, improving documentation and communication, and implementing various preventive practices, sixty-two (62) skin champions underwent training and education. Their presence empowered staff to utilize and implement evidence-based preventive skin care protocols, optimized consistency of practice, performed root cause analysis, conducted prevalence studies, identified barriers in care delivery, and provided expert advice to peers (Bergquist-Beringer, S., et al., 2009). While a review of literature strongly suggest a multifaceted program, the Skin Champions drove practice changes at the bedside and contributed to positive outcomes. By April 28, 2016, HAPU incidence was reduced to one. Although at its early stages, elements that significantly contributed to the program’s success include strong leadership, peer to peer involvement, communication, and an emphasis on personal responsibility. With ongoing training and support, the Skin Champions will continue to drive pressure ulcer prevention best practices at the point of care until goal of zero HAPU is reached

Competencies of Outstanding Executive Coaches: A Grounded Theory Approach

The personal, business, and executive coaching industry is large and growing. In spite of the size and growth of the industry, the coaching research literature reveals a lack of understanding about the competencies of outstanding executive coaches. This grounded-theory study sought to discover a model of executive coach competencies, through in-depth interviews with coaches rated as outstanding by a large purchaser of coaching services. Sixteen coaches participated in the recorded and transcribed interviews. A line-by-line analysis of the transcripts led to a competency model for executive coaching. For the coaching research community, this study will fill a key gap in our understanding of executive coach competencies. For coaching practitioners, this study will clarify what it takes to become an outstanding executive coach. For prospective coaches, this study will help in self-assessment against competencies and in selecting appropriate coach education programs to fill competency gaps. For buyers of coaching services, this study will be helpful in improving coach recruitment and selection procedures. In addition, large organizations with internal coaching programs might find the results of this study useful in selecting and preparing their coaches. Finally, for coach educators, this study may point to changes in curriculum, and to changes in how students are admitted, trained, and evaluated

The role of coaching in facilitating the transition from engineer to manager

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Business Executive Coaching Wits Business School March 2015The extensive training that goes into developing engineering professionals is part of the price society pays for infrastructure development. Yet when it comes to developing young engineering managers, their education is often left to chance. Organisations rely on a combination of manager’s intuition and chance to recognise potential new managers and then they are expected to find their own way through the maze of policies, financial reporting, and stakeholder management politics after their appointment. This study was based in a State Owned Company where a group of new engineering managers were interviewed on their experiences as they moved into management in order to identify the challenges they experienced during the transition. The findings in the course of this research contribute to the understanding of the managerial competencies needed in a multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary engineering environment in order to guide new managers and the way in which coaching can contribute to their successful transition into engineering management. This study used a deductive approach to establish the transition challenges based on selected literature and compared the themes to the data from thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with 16 engineering professionals working in a State Owned Company engineering company. The role of new managers as talent trustees and containers of corporate memory is an essential part of skills retention strategy. This implies that dysfunctional behaviour at this level will affect future engineering skills retention and development. The cost of coaching should be offset by the risk of management failure when the new managers do not negotiate the transition challenges successfully. South African companies integrate coaching with the talent or business strategy and they use internal coaches to coach up-and-coming talent and graduates (Steenkamp, 2013). There is an urgent and important need to develop engineers into managers and therefore the assistance given to new managers would be an advantage not just in terms of the general management competencies but also the transition competencies needed in the developing countries, such as South Africa (Denton & Vloeberghs, 2003). The challenges of the transition are exacerbated by the heterogeneous nature of the business world where multiple cultures and generations complicate information exchange in the engineering labour environment. This research uses some of the insights gained from the international management competencies and applies the differences found in the South African context to identify transitionery management competencies for the developing world. The research goes on to determine how organisations and coaches can facilitate the transition of managers in South Africa