THE INFLUENCE OF THE PERCEPTION OF FAIRNESS ON INNOVATION IDEA VALUE AND KNOWLEDGE SHARING BEHAVIOR IN INNOVATION IDEA NETWORKS

This article explores the relationships between innovation idea valu, innovators´ perceptions of fairness, and their participation behavior and knowledge sharing behavior in the intrafirm social network. The study uses survey data and a database from a large company that is one of Europe´s top performers in idea management. In addition to the idea database, this study surveys participating employees about their perceptions of fairness and their participation behavior and knowledge sharing behavior. The results show that there is a clear relationship between innovation idea valu, employees´ perceptions of fairness, and employees´ participation behavior and knowledge sharing behavior. Furthermore, there is clear evidence that tenure increases the valu of innovation ideas. The findings suggest a number of implications for ideation management and for the design of social networks for innovation ideas. To increase the valu of innovation ideas, social networks for innovation ideas can be used if the allocation of rewards for idea providers is positively associated with the fairness perceptions of network members

Electronic Reverse Auctions: Spawning Procurement Innovation in the Context of Arab Culture

Government e-procurement initiatives have the potential to transform local institutions, but few studies have been published of strategies for implementing specific e-procurement tools, particularly involving procurement by a foreign government adapting to local culture in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA). This case describes procurement at a forward operating base (FOB) in Kuwait in support of operations in Iraq. The government procurers had to deal with a phenomenon unique to the MENA region: wasta. Wasta is a form of social capital that bestows power, influence, and connection to those who possess it, similar to guanxi in China. This study explores the value proposition and limitations of electronic reverse auctions (eRA) with the purpose of sharing best practices and lessons learned for government procurement in a MENA country. The public value framework provides valuable theoretical insights for the implementation of a new government e-procurement tool in a foreign country. In a culture dominated by wasta, the suppliers enjoyed the transparency and merit-based virtues of eRA’s that transferred successfully into the new cultural milieu: potential to increase transparency, competition, efficiency, and taxpayer savings. The practices provided herein are designed specifically to help buyers overcome structural barriers including training, organizational inertia, and a lack of eRA policy and guidance while implementing a new e-procurement tool in a foreign country

Social Responsibility as a Driver for Local Sustainable Development

The increased interconnection among local and global players induced by globalization, as well as the need for a complete application of the “subsidiarity principle”, calls for a re-thinking of the “corporate social responsibility” concept. This new concept broadens the perspective of the single company interacting with its own stakeholders in relation to specific social and environmental impacts, to a network of organizations, with different aims and natures, collaborating on relevant sustainability issues. In this paper, the authors will provide a definition of “Territorial Social Responsibility”, sustaining the multi-stakeholder approach as a driver toward local sustainable development. Firstly, theoretical approaches to sustainable development at the territorial level will be examined, identifying the most innovative ideas about governance, network relation and development theories. The idea of development focuses not only on the economic aspects, but on the structural and institutional factors. The existence of cooperative territorial networks is essential to fulfil the creation of tangible and intangible assets at the local level. At the same time, the effectiveness of the decision-making and rules’ system can stimulate and empower territorial networks to tackle sustainable development. An analytical framework, scheme-shaped, will be set in order to identify the main aspects, indicators and practices characterizing the territorial social responsibility concept. It will represent a first attempt to create a feasible instrument aimed at understanding how cooperative social responsible actors, operating in the same territory, could direct the path toward sustainable development.Local Sustainable Development, Territorial Social Responsibility, Participation, Local Governance, Accountability, Sustainability Reporting, Multi-Stakeholder Approach, Networks

Satisfaction with creativity: a study of organisational characteristics and individual motivations

In answering the question of what influences satisfaction for creativity in the workplace, this work takes into account the extent to which the organization supports human aspiration to creativity. The empirical model uses survey data encompassing over 4,000 workers in Italian social enterprises. Results show that satisfaction for creativity is supported, at organizational level, by teamwork-oriented action, including the quality of processes, relations and on-the job autonomy. At the individual level, satisfaction for creativity is enhanced by the strength of intrinsic and socially oriented motivations and by competence. The analysis of interaction terms shows that teamwork and workers' intrinsic motivations are complementary in enhancing the perception of creativity-enhancing work settings, while a high degree of required competences appears to substitute good relationships with superiorscreativity, job satisfaction, organizational processes, motivations, teamwork,autonomy, interpersonal relations

Behavioural operations in healthcare : knowledge sharing perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide arguments and empirical evidence that different knowledge sharing behaviours – i.e. sharing best practices, sharing mistakes, seeking feedbacks – are promoted and enabled by different types of knowledge assets, and differently affect employees’ innovative work behaviours. Design/methodology/approach The research framework includes four sets of constructs: employees’ innovative work behaviour, knowledge sharing, knowledge assets, psychological safety. The literature-grounded hypotheses were tested collecting data from healthcare professionals from three hospice and palliative care organisations in Italy. In all, 195 questionnaires were analysed using structural equations modelling technique. Findings First, findings show that the linkage between knowledge assets and knowledge sharing is both direct and indirect with psychological safety as relevant mediating construct. The linkage between relational and structural social capital and seeking feedbacks and sharing mistakes is fully mediated by psychological safety. Second, findings show that each dimension of knowledge sharing affects the different dimensions of employees’ innovative work behaviour – i.e. idea generation, idea promotion, idea implementation – in a distinct manner. While sharing of best practices influences all of them, seeking feedbacks affects idea promotion and sharing mistakes influences idea implementation. Practical implications The results provide operations managers with a clearer picture of how to pursue improvements of current operations by leveraging on knowledge sharing among employees through the creation of numerous, high-quality interpersonal relationships among employees, based on rich and cohesive network ties. Originality/value This study, by adopting a micro-level perspective, offers an original perspective on how knowledge assets and knowledge sharing initiatives may contribute to the engagement of innovative work behaviour by employees

Managing for Stakeholders, Stakeholder Utility Functions, and Competitive Advantage

A firm that manages for stakeholders allocates more resources to satisfying the needs and demands of its legitimate stakeholders than what is necessary to simply retain their willful participation in the productive activities of the firm. Firms that exhibit this sort of behavior develop trusting relationships with stakeholders based on principles of distributional, procedural and interactional justice. Under these conditions, stakeholders are more likely to share nuanced information regarding their utility functions, which increases the ability of the firm to allocate its resources to areas that will best satisfy them (thus increasing demand for business transactions with the firm). In addition, this information can spur innovation, as well as allowing the firm to deal better with changes in the environment. Competitive advantages stemming from a managing-for-stakeholders approach are argued to be sustainable because they are associated with path dependence and causal ambiguity. These explanations provide a strong rationale for including stakeholder theory in the discussion of firm competitiveness and performance

Social Innovations in Creative Communities for Sustainable Consumption: is it promising?

In the current discourse on sustainable consumption, there have been major interventions by the businesses and governments, focusing on changing consumer behavior through greening products and services. However, the problem of consumption is not limited to greening products and environmental impacts, but it is also a social issue. Together with the increasing consumption around the world and materialistic aspirations, a decline in well being and happiness can also be observed, particularly in industrialized countries. Recently, the sustainable consumption process has started to draw attention to individual value shifts reflected on peoples consumption patterns and social behavior. To examine and explain phenomenon, examples from creative communities are being analysed. According to some experts on sustainable production and consumption, these creative communities are showing promising outcomes through increasing well being and developing sustainable lifestyles. Still, they have been unable to disseminate their practices to the mainstream markets. This indicates a need for developing strategies to explore the creative communities in terms their values, principles, social innovation strategies, practices and their perspectives of sustainability. Unless these are well understood and an exchange platform is established between relevant actors including citizens, it is unlikely that creative community practices (i.e. sustainable lifestyle cases) will be incorporated the society as a whole. This research addresses the challenges and opportunities facing creative communities, their behaviours and social innovation solutions using both theoretical and empirical studies. The results are based on five field case study communities from the US, Scotland, Sweden and Italy, each with different types of social innovations. The main findings on individual value orientation and action incurring benefits demonstrate the potential of the communities or their practices to be adapted by wider society. Moreover, the nature of their practices, which highly depend on ethical responsibility, transfer of knowledge and networking relations, have shown the potential of linking between creative communitycitizens, external actors-community and between individuals. This can be established through creating relational spaces, which can take varied forms to stimulate social innovation in the agenda of sustainable consumption

Millennials: What They Offer Our Organizations and How Leaders Can Make Sure They Deliver

According to recent Pew research, ten thousand Baby Boomers reach age 65 every day in the United States and the pace will continue for the next 18 years; similar numbers are also reported for Canada and Europe. The effect on the workforce will be dramatic, perhaps even more dramatic than the effect they had when they arrived on the scene six decades ago. Thus, it falls not to Generation-X, as this generational cohort is too small to make a significant impact, rather the task shifts to the Millennials. Much has been said of the youngest generation currently in the workplace. The Millennials have been described as globally aware, socially inept, technologically sophisticated, needy, narcissistic, team-oriented, optimistic, lacking in work ethic, multi-tasking geniuses, ambitious, and curious. With such a wide spectrum of views this paper utilizes the popular and academic literature to provide clarity on these aspects of the Millennial Generation, focusing on their work values, and how their entrance into the workplace will impact organizational culture in the years to come. Finally, leadership approaches that will best align with their values, desires, and development will be addressed, focusing upon developing core competencies for leaders of all generations

Contracts, relationships and innovation in business-to-business exchanges

Purpose: – This paper aims to contrast two approaches to the study of contracts in business and industrial marketing: first, as a legal document in shaping at the outset exchanges and interactions, for instance in projects; and second, as relational norms in becoming integrated into a business relationship through interactions, for instance as a resource. Design/methodology/approach: – The paper draws on cross-case comparison of three projects, as actors develop an engineering service for optimizing the maintenance of large-scale capital equipment by analyzing real-time data from sensors and user records. Comparison is by coding interview and observational data as micro-sequences of interactions among actors. Findings: – Preparing contracts allows a project to commence and is an early form of interaction, intensifying new relationships or cutting into and recasting established ones. Relational norms augment and can supersede the early focus on the contract, thus incorporating incremental innovation and absorbing some uncertainties. Research limitations/implications: – The research approach benefits from detailed comparison and captures some variety across its three cases, but the discussion is limited to theoretical generalization. Practical implications: – The analysis and discussion highlights and focuses on when different approaches to understanding contracting are more apparent across durable business relationships. Transitions from a contractual document to a view of relational norms are subtle, vulnerable and not always made successfully. Originality/value: – This paper’s originality is in it comparison of overlapping approaches to understanding businesses’ uses of contacts in business and industrial marketing, of contract and relational norms. It develops a valuable research proposition, in the transition from a mainly contractual to a mainly relational uses of contracts, thus identifying contract as a particular business resource, to be deployed and embedded