The paradigm of consumer-driven and responsive supply chains: An integrated project approach

This paper describes an integrated project approach that forms the basis of the studies on consumer-driven innovative and responsive supply chains in ISAFRUIT Pillar 1. This integrated approach leads to a wide range of indepth results on trends, preferences, and innovativeness of the European consumer in the context of fruit, and on product innovation, chain innovativeness, and transition strategies for the European fruit industry. Differences ill, for instance, preferences for different fresh, prepared, and processed fruit products across consumers and across consumption situations, and differences in consumer innovativeness in the context of novel fruit products, lead towards a cross-cultural European segmentation and a variety of consumer-driven fruit chain strategies to valorise the added value of fruit products. Inputs from social, natural, and technical sciences are combined to optimise true consumer-driven innovativeness

Unravelling technology-acceptance factors influencing farmer use of banana tissue culture planting materials in Central Uganda

Effective management of plant health is fundamental for food and income security to meet the growing demands of local and global markets. This however requires farmers’ adequate access to quality planting materials under the prevailing contextual and psycho-social factors. This study, anchored in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technologies, unravels technology-acceptance factors that influence farmers’ intentions to use banana tissue culture planting materials in the control of Banana Xanthomonas Wilt. Data were collected from 248 randomly sampled banana farmers using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modelling to examine hypothesized paths in the uptake of banana tissue culture planting materials. Results show that farmer intentions to use tissue culture planting materials are dependent on two constructs: social influence and farmer innovativeness. However, social influence is the main predictor of intentions to use tissue culture planting materials. In particular, farmer innovativeness mediates facilitating conditions and social influence in predicting intentions to use tissue culture planting materials. Thus, this study reveals two factors that influence farmer intentions to use tissue culture planting materials: social influence and farmer innovativeness. The findings imply that social influence and farmer innovativeness are critical in disseminating novel agricultural technologies in Uganda and elsewhere

How Does Positive Work-Related Stress Affect the Degree of Innovation Development?

Many studies sustain that work-related stress exerts pervasive consequences on the employees’ levels of performance, productivity, and wellbeing. However, it remains unclear whether certain levels of stress might lead to positive outcomes regarding employees’ innovativeness. Hence, this paper examines how the five dimensions of work-related stress impact on the employees’ levels of innovation performance. To this aim, this study focused on a sample of 1487 employees from six Italian companies. To test the research hypotheses under assessment, we relied on the use of the partial least squares (PLS) technique. Our results reveal that, in summary, the stressors job autonomy, job demands, and role ambiguity exert a positive and significant impact on the employees’ levels of innovativeness. However, this study failed to find evidence that the supervisors’ support–innovation and colleagues’ support–innovation links are not statistically significant. View Full-Tex

Job Resources Boost Work Engagement, Particularly When Job Demands Are High

This study of 805 Finnish teachers working in elementary, secondary, and vocational schools tested 2 interaction hypotheses. On the basis of the job demands–resources model, the authors predicted that job resources act as buffers and diminish the negative relationship between pupil misbehavior and work engagement. In addition, using conservation of resources theory, the authors hypothesized that job resources particularly influence work engagement when teach

Surgical Smoke Evacuation Guidelines: Compliance Among Perioperative Nurses

Smoke (plume) is produced when tissue is cut or coagulated with lasers or electrosurgery devices during surgery. Research has documented that surgical smoke creates a serious workplace hazard for over 500,000 healthcare workers. Toxic gases create an offensive odor, small particulate matter causes respiratory complications, and pathogens may be transmitted within the surgical smoke to the surgical team. Previous research notes that smoke evacuation recommendations are not being consistently followed by perioperative nurses. The purpose of this study is to determine key indicators that are associated with compliance with smoke evacuation recommendations by perioperative nurses. The Diffusion of Innovation theory by Rogers serves as the model since it describes key indicators for the adoption of an innovation, including individual innovativeness, perceptions of the innovation attributes, and organizational innovativeness. A descriptive explanatory/exploratory study was conducted using a validated and piloted survey that consisted of both expert-generated questions and adaptations of previously proven measures. A population of AORN (Association of periOperative Registered Nurses) staff nurse members who have e-mail addresses (N=20,272) was targeted as the universe. A random sampling consisting of 4000 nurses were invited to respond to a web-based survey during a two-month period. There were 777 completed responses representing a 19.4 percent response rate. The SPSS statistical computer package was employed to analyze the data using frequency/descriptive statistical techniques and bivariate analyses to examine the relationship between the key indicators and compliance with smoke evacuation recommendations. Major findings reveal that specific key indicators influencing compliance include increased knowledge and training, positive perceptions about the complexity of the recommendations, and larger facilities with increased specialization, interconnectedness, and leadership support. The study outcomes are planned to be disseminated via lectures and articles. Promoting a safe surgical environment is a top priority for perioperative nurses. By identifying key predictors that influence compliance with smoke evacuation practices, a better understanding of the many factors that influence perioperative nurse practices is fostered. Nurse training programs can be developed that directly target and address these key predictors so that a safe and healthy surgical environment free from surgical smoke can be promoted

New challenges in education and schooling: an example of designing innovative motor learning environments

The aim of this study is to address the key topical challenges in modern teaching from the perspective of competences. A special focus is placed on examining innovative early childhood education, which is defined as the basis – acquired through innovative methods – for quality development of hereditary motor skills and performance of body movement patterns. The study looks at which factors the respondents consider important in terms of innovative teaching of motor skills, which teaching practices they apply in their work, and the correlation between the reported importance rating of individual factors and the common practice in this particular area. The study included 132 preschool teachers, 73 (55.3%) of whom work in Slovenian and 59 (44.7%) in Croatian preschools, who completed an online questionnaire. The results show that the preschool teachers believe the most important factor in innovative teaching of motor skills is coherence of the child’s overall development and that the child-oriented practice has been rated as the most important self-reported innovative teaching practice. The highest correlation (r¼0.679) was obtained between creativity and innovativeness and implementing childoriented practice and between practising innovative approaches and practising professional competences (r¼0.673)

ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATIVENESS MEASUREMENT: INCORPORATING CSI AND CFI IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL

Organizational innovativeness is the latent capability of an organization that produces innovation over time. This is like any other abilities of an organization such as producing goods, services and thus it can be influenced, improved and increased with proper focus and deliberation. The role of innovativeness in the survival of business is essential and unavoidable and yet the findings and constructs in the field of organizational innovativeness are fuzzy and inconsistent. To address this need, this research begins with two research questions: what is the current state of innovativeness measurement in technology companies? And How can a diagnostic tool help to ensure growth and success for technology companies? In conjunction with three objectives: identify and present a set of critical success indicators (CSIs) and critical failure indicators (CFIs) for technology companies to be innovative, determine how innovative technology companies position themselves to ensure growth and success in the marketplace, and develop a tool that can be adopted by technology companies to measure their innovativeness successfully. The quest to close this research gap and provide a comprehensive diagnostic tool, the research proposes a framework that combines critical success indicator (CSI) and critical failure indicator (CFI) into the same framework to diagnose organizational innovativeness. This framework consists of five dimensions: culture, leadership, strategy, structure, and execution. And synthesizes a set of CSIs and CFIs for each dimension. This research applies mixed method research. The empirical data were collected from focus group study, semi structured interview and survey. The results from the empirical study suggests that pursuing critical success indicators do not necessarily result in higher levels of organizational innovativeness. Rather, it is the pursuit of both critical success indicators and critical failure indicators that help organizations in enhancing their overall organizational innovativeness level. This study proposed a diagnostic tool that a business can implement to assess its organizational innovativeness continuously and devise improvement plans based on the current outcome. A simple and intuitive visualization matrix created in this research helps a business management team to draw conclusions and gain insights into innovation dynamics of an organization

Acceptability of internet-based interventions for depression in Indonesia

Background: In Indonesia, internet-based interventions may represent a promising strategy to reduce the mental health gap given that the level of internet usage in the country continues to increase. To check the acceptability of internet-based interventions, this study investigates factors that contribute to the use of internet-based interventions for depression in Indonesia. Method: The survey was conducted online and had 904 participants recruited from specific social networks on mental health and general social media (Mean age = 27.07, 50.22% females). The three dependent variables were (1) behavioral intention to start using internet-based interventions for depression, (2) preference to use it as a substitute for regular treatments and (3) preference to use it to complement regular treatments. The predictor variables included sociodemographic characteristics, perceived mental health conditions, personal situational characteristics, personal innovativeness toward online services, and depression level. Results: A large majority reported to be open to using internet-based interventions for depression (73.7%), as well as to use it as a substitution (73.3%) or as a complementary (73%) to regular treatments. Personal innovativeness toward online services was the strongest significant predictor for all types of use, even when corrected for current depression level. When added to the analyses separately, depression level was the second strongest predictive factor for all dependent variables. Conclusion: The majority of Indonesians showed openness to use internet-based interventions for depression. To increase the adoption of internet-based interventions for depression, it is important to first promote internet usage to more people across the country, especially for those who are currently depressed