Manufacturing flexibility and performance: bridging the gap between theory and practice

How firms scan and interpret their environments has implications for the flexibility strategy that they choose, as well as for the performance of that strategy. We extend Daft and Weick's (Acad Manage Rev 9(2):284-295, 1984) model of firms as interpretation systems into a theoretical model of flexibility performance through extended iterations between observations of a failed flexibility initiative and relevant literature. We test the model using well-known teaching cases. We argue that the use of an iterative process that involves cases and theory both stimulates creativity in integrating theory and lays an initial foundation for evidence-based practic

Towards Mobile Blended Interaction Fostering Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a fundamental skill that all citizens should have. Unfortunately, while beliefs in unfounded claims are pervasive, teaching critical skill is a strenuous task. Digital mobile interaction could potentially support face-to-face teaching to foster critical thinking skills. In this paper, we present a preliminary version of the BaloneyMeter, a mobile app that provides support for teaching critical thinking skills. We report on a case study in a class of 150 students and present an open research question that we plan to address in subsequent work

Rule of Thumb – Effect of Social Button Icons on Interaction

Social buttons are now widespread in social media apps. They are used to assign weight to user content and trigger user engagement. They come in different shapes (e.g., thumb in Facebook, arrows in Reddit or StackOverflow, plus one in Google+) but very little is known about the influence of the shape on user behaviour. This paper addresses this issue by presenting results of a controlled randomized experiment with 173 users. The results suggest that thumbs up / thumbs down icons are significantly more engaging than the plus one / minus one icons. At the same time, the result shows that type of the icon used has no significant influence on the direction of the vote

The Daily Texan

Texas Student Medi

DinerRouge ::bringing wealth and income inequality to the table through a provocative UX

Income and wealth inequality was one of the important social issues of the last decade. Nevertheless, it is rarely discussed through the lense of Human Computer Interaction. In this paper, we aim at investigating how a provocative user experience can contribute to engaging users when it comes to issues about wealth and income inequality. More precisely, we present the design of DinerRouge, a novel mobile application that can spark income inequality discussion by providing a provoking way to split the bill in restaurants based on income. We conducted a preliminary evaluation of DinerRouge with 78 participants which convey the fact that DinerRouge is usable, provocative and informative. Finally, we present open research questions to guide future investigations

Stress pulls us apart: Anxiety leads to differences in competitive confidence under stress

SummarySocial competition is a fundamental mechanism of evolution and plays a central role in structuring individual interactions and communities. Little is known about the factors that affect individuals’ competitive success, particularly in humans. Key factors might include stress, a major evolutionary pressure that can affect the establishment of social hierarchies in animals, and individuals’ trait anxiety, which largely determines susceptibility to stress and constitutes an important determinant of differences in competitive outcomes. Using an economic-choice experiment to assess competitive self-confidence in 229 human subjects we found that, whereas competitive self-confidence is unaffected by an individual's anxiety level in control conditions, exposure to the Trier social stress test for groups drives the behavior of individuals apart: low-anxiety individuals become overconfident, and high-anxiety individuals become underconfident. Cortisol responses to stress were found to relate to self-confidence, with the direction of the effects depending on trait anxiety. Our findings identify stress as a major regulator of individuals’ competitiveness, affecting self-confidence in opposite directions in high and low anxious individuals. Therefore, our findings imply that stress may provide a new channel for generating social and economic inequality and, thus, not only be a consequence, but also a cause of inequality through its impact on competitive self-confidence and decision making in financially-relevant situations

Gamifying knowledge sharing in humanitarian organisations: a design science journey

Humanitarian organisations provide invaluable work to improve the lives of individuals impacted by natural and anthropogenic hazards. While humanitarian organisations are highly knowledge intensive, they often fail to manage knowledge effectively. Providing adequate incentives to foster knowledge sharing on a knowledge management system is a challenge for many organisations. It is especially important in the humanitarian context where organisational efficiency leads to saving more lives. We argue that gamification (i.e., the integration of game-like features, such as points or badges in non-game systems) is a viable solution to address the lack of knowledge sharing often encountered. To do so, we embark on a design science journey with Doctors Without Borders to investigate how gamification within (e.g., using a personal profile) and outside (e.g., using a connected ambient object) a knowledge management system can improve knowledge sharing. Our findings demonstrate that well-designed gamification can increase engagement and knowledge sharing, in particular for altruistic individuals