Unpacking organisational culture for innovation in Australian mining industry

Innovation has become the backbone of organisations in today's increasingly changing environment. Research shows that many organisations fail to innovate due to a lack of a supportive culture. Particularly in the mining industry, with a dominant risk-averse mindset along with other barriers, such as capital intensiveness, frequent market fluctuations, and siloed and bureaucratic structures, developing an innovation culture is necessary for the future survival of the industry. However, the existing literature is still inconclusive regarding which cultural values promote innovation and is especially lacking in context-specific studies. Understanding of behaviours that should be promoted to support an innovation culture is still limited. Using a systematic literature review and 18 interviews with experts in the mining industry, this study unpacks the dimensions and behaviours that support innovation values in the context of the Australian mining industry. Findings from this study reveal 33 underlying cultural dimensions and specific organisational behaviours promoting an innovation culture. This study shed further light on how mining companies can support and promote an innovation culture

The dynamic conformational landscape of the protein methyltransferase SETD8

Elucidating the conformational heterogeneity of proteins is essential for understanding protein function and developing exogenous ligands. With the rapid development of experimental and computational methods, it is of great interest to integrate these approaches to illuminate the conformational landscapes of target proteins. SETD8 is a protein lysine methyltransferase (PKMT), which functions in vivo via the methylation of histone and nonhistone targets. Utilizing covalent inhibitors and depleting native ligands to trap hidden conformational states, we obtained diverse X-ray structures of SETD8. These structures were used to seed distributed atomistic molecular dynamics simulations that generated a total of six milliseconds of trajectory data. Markov state models, built via an automated machine learning approach and corroborated experimentally, reveal how slow conformational motions and conformational states are relevant to catalysis. These findings provide molecular insight on enzymatic catalysis and allosteric mechanisms of a PKMT via its detailed conformational landscape

Methodological alignment in qualitative research of organisational culture

Research has long established that organisational culture is an important aspect of organi- sational life (Kieser, 1997), and organisational culture has evolved as a strong paradigm in organisational studies. However, the existing literature has accommodated different views about fundamentals such as defining organisational culture and how we think it works (Martin, 2002). While some scholars consider culture as an independent variable, others believe that organisational culture is not a variable, which can be easily captured, but is the organisation itself including its identity, which is constantly created and recreated (Smircich, 1983). In addition, some scholars believe that organisational culture can be captured as ‘us’ (our values, beliefs, assumptions) and ‘them’ (the values of others) (Anthony, 1994). Presence of subcultures means that it is difficult to define organisational culture as an organisation-wide phenomenon, which is clear and known and can establish harmony and coherence in the organisation. The divergent views on organisational culture and the way the knowledge about culture has been structured have led to ‘ambiguity’ and ‘fragmentation’ of the organisational culture phenomena (Martin, 2002). Qualitative research on the relationships between organisational culture and management systems have used different lenses based on different conceptualisations of such relationships. This has created distinct pockets of studies with different ontological and epistemological assumptions. Therefore, qualitative research on organisational culture can be characterised as diverse, disparate, and controversial (Alvesson, 2012). These diverse approaches to conceptu- alise organisational culture mean that there is a need to systematically capture methodological approaches used for studying organisational culture including ontological and epistemological assumptions, data collection and analysis methods. In this chapter, we are presenting different approaches and the methods used to study organisational culture, which may assist organi- sational culture researchers to select appropriate design and methods for the purpose of their unique studies of organisational culture

The innovation process in mining: integrating insights from innovation and change management

Innovations in the mining sector have the potential to address decreasing access to resources, lessen environmental impact, increase production and improve mineral recovery. One of the obstacles to implementing innovations in mining is organisational resistance to change. Existing innovation models do not explicitly articulate the role of people and how to engage them in the process of implementing innovations and often do not recognise the specific context of the innovation activity. The nature of mining makes innovation adoption difficult because it involves changes to the mining operation, which impact the value chain. We use a qualitative exploratory approach based on 25 interviews with highly experienced mining practitioners to understand how the innovation adoption process unfolded in that context. Using an abductive approach, we draw from the empirical data and insights from the innovation and change management literature to develop an actionable process model for innovation adoption in the context of mining. The study makes important contributions. It articulates and validates a three-phased process model of innovation adoption, which explicitly incorporates a focus on the people who are active agents in the innovation process. The model is contextualised to mining in terms of language, practices, nature of the business and nature of innovation in that business

Operationalising a process model of innovation for the mining industry

Technological innovations in mining help improve the efficiency, sustainability and productivity of the mining sector. However, most research on the development and implementation of technological innovations is at the level of the organisation and often not context-specific, providing limited insights into specific practices of individual employees and teams, underpinning the innovation process. This study operationalises a process model of innovation for the mining industry. Using data from twenty-five interviews with mining experts, our study identified and mapped actionable practices that mining organisations can adopt to effectively identify, develop and implement innovation. Three main contributions emerged from the study. The study offers an actionable process model of innovation for mining that considers the mining context at the level of individual and team behaviours. The study reveals the need to involve multiple types of stakeholders and that the mix of stakeholder types varies between innovation phases. Finally, the study finds that the innovation practices identified map to six innovation culture enablers, all of which are required but vary in importance across each phase of the innovation process

Contribution of computing services to benchmarking asset management knowledge management

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.Asset management has broadened from a focus on maintenance management to whole of life cycle asset management requiring a suite of new competencies from asset procurement to management and disposal. Well developed skills and competencies as well as practical experience are a prerequisite to maintain capability, to manage demand as well to plan and set priorities and ensure on-going asset sustainability. This paper has as its focus to establish critical understandings of data, information and knowledge for asset management along with the way in which benchmarking these attributes through computer-aided design may aid a strategic approach to asset management. The paper provides suggestions to improve sharing, integration and creation of asset-related knowledge through the application of codification and personalization approaches