Individual attitudes, organizational reward system and patenting performance of R&D scientists and engineers

The interactive process perspective of innovation suggests that the innovation performance of individual R&D scientist or engineers (RSEs) is influenced by a nexus of interaction between individual attributes and organizational characteristics. While numerous empirical studies have investigated the effects of various sets of individual and organizational antecedents on the innovation performance of individuals, few have examined the interaction effects between the two. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence on the interactive effects of the attitudes of individual RSEs and the organizational reward system on the patenting performance of these RSEs.Innovative performance; individual attitudes; organizational reward system

Firms’ Innovative Performance: The Mediating Role of Innovative Collaborations

While existing studies have provided many insightful discussions on the antecedents to innovative collaborations and the benefits of collaborative behavior, few studies have focused on the mediating role of innovative collaborations in enhancing the firm’s technological innovative performance. In this paper, we investigate the mediating role of the firm’s innovative collaborations in the relation between government innovation support and the firm’s product and process innovation intensities. As a mediating factor in the innovation process, innovative collaborations form part of the innovative inputs that contribute to the firm’s product and process innovation intensities. Using arguments derived from the resource-based theory, we found that while receipts of government innovation support help increase the firm’s level of innovative inputs as observed in its collaboration intensity, it is equally important for firms to internalize management practices that encourage maximum leverage of government innovation support for pursuits of innovative collaborations. In a similar vein, while innovative collaborations are necessary for realizing innovative outputs including product and process innovations, it is not a sufficient condition for achieving strong innovative performance. The firm’s internal capabilities as observed in its learning, R&D, resource allocation, manufacturing, marketing, organizing, and strategic planning abilities have a positive influence on the relationship between innovative collaborations and innovative outputs.Innovative Performance; Innovative Collaboration; Firm’s Contextual Factors

Entrepreneurship by circumstances and abilities: the mediating role of job satisfaction and moderating role of self-efficacy

Prior studies have found that job dissatisfaction and self-efficacy are significant factors influencing individuals’ entrepreneurial propensity. Existing literature on entrepreneurship often regards job dissatisfaction as an entrepreneurial push factor and self-efficacy as an entrepreneurial pull factor. The argument is that individuals who are dissatisfied with their jobs are more likely to seek alternative mode of employment such as self-employment. In other words, poor job circumstances may push individuals to leave their paid employment to start their own businesses. On the other hand, personal abilities such as self-efficacy may pull individuals toward starting their own businesses in areas where they are confident and competent in. Despite the importance of job dissatisfaction and self-efficacy for new venture creation, few if any studies have examined the entrepreneurial phenomena from a holistic perspective. Utilizing concepts from the P-E fit and self-efficacy literatures, this paper argues that the path to entrepreneurship is a multi-faceted interactive process between individuals’ personal attributes and their work environment. We specifically examined how IT professional’s personal attributes such as innovation orientation and self-efficacy condition individuals for an entrepreneurial career in unsatisfactory work environments.

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION ACTIVITIES IN FIRMS AND PROPENSITY OF INDIVIDUALS STARTING NEW BUSINESSES

Prior studies have found that knowledge gained from work experience is a way to gather insights for business opportunity recognition. However, little is known about the specific types of knowledge that lead to business founding. Utilizing concepts from knowledge spillovers and from the opportunity recognition literatures, this paper argues that through an organization’s technological innovation activities, employees develop specialized knowledge that provides them with the entrepreneurial opportunities to found new businesses. Besides highlighting the positive relationship between technological innovation activities in organizations and the propensity of individuals leaving the organizations to start new businesses, this paper also provides a more fine-grained explanation of the types of technological innovation activities that can lead to business founding. We argue that knowledge acquired through product innovations is more easily appropriated by individuals for commercial uses, while knowledge acquired through process innovations must be integrated with other parts of the organization to be valuable. This study proposes that product innovation activities in an organization more so than process innovation activities in an organization are related to new business founding. Implications for opportunity exploitation and ways to appropriate knowledge spillovers are discussed.

"Becoming an American Princess?": The Interpretations of American Popular Culture by Young Korean Girls Living in the United States

Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, School of Education, 2006This dissertation was to investigate young Korean girls' understanding about the American popular culture by using peer group discussions. Assuming that children are active learners in interpreting American popular culture, it focused on how they constructed distinct meanings for the significance that American popular culture holds in their lives. In order to do so, this dissertation looked particularly at young Korean girls who have lived in the United States by examining how these girls interpreted, negotiated with, and reconstructed American socio-moral values and expectations that are presented in American popular culture. In this dissertation, Disney animated films were chosen since they are considered one of the exemplary symbols of American children's popular culture by American Disney reviewers as well as by Korean audiences. Before analyzing young Korean girls' understanding on the Disney films, this dissertation started by illustrating the relationships between popular culture, society, and education, popular culture's meaning to and influence on children, and the importance of children's interpretation of popular culture in the field of both cultural studies and education. In addition, it addressed the multicultural contexts of Korean children who live in America and these contextual influences on the Korean children's understanding of American popular culture. This dissertation then discussed three major themes, which dealt with young Korean girls' perspectives of the characteristics of attraction of romantic love, their interpretations of sexual messages and constructing sexuality, and their perceptions of being royals in the Disney films. Finally, this dissertation provided some implications and suggestions for young children's parents, early childhood teachers and teacher education programs, and researchers about using popular culture as a way to understand young children and their diverse interpretations which depend on the various contexts of different audiences

Son Preference, Sex Selection and Economic Development

Motivated by high and rising sex ratios in countries such as India and China, we formulate a theoretical framework for analyzing the impact of economic development on parental sex choice when sons are culturally prized and children provide old age support. Two key assumptions drive our model. First, the cultural valuation of children varies not only with gender but also with marital status. In particular, while a married son is preferred to a married daughter, the latter is preferred to an unmarried son. Second, we assume that faced with a shortage of brides, poor parents will have a harder time marrying their sons than rich parents. Our model predicts male sex ratios at low levels of development, where the surplus sons are chosen by the poorest who forego grandchildren for old age support. With development, incomes and the bride price rise, allowing the poorest reproductive children. Consequently, sex ratios fall, and the relationship between parental income and offspring maleness turns positive. We also present corroborative evidence from South Korea, a now developed country which shares with India and China a strong patriarchal culture and a recent past of poverty

Entrepreneurial intentions: The influence of organizational and individual factors

An individual's intent to pursue an entrepreneurial career can result from the work environment and from personal factors. Drawing on the entrepreneurial intentions and the person–environment (P–E) fit literatures, and applying a multilevel perspective, we examine why individuals intend to leave their jobs to start business ventures. Findings, using a sample of 4192 IT professionals in Singapore, suggest that work environments with an unfavorable innovation climate and/or lack of technical excellence incentives influence entrepreneurial intentions, through low job satisfaction. Moderating effects suggest that an individual's innovation orientation strengthens the work-environment to job-satisfaction relationship; selfefficacy strengthens the job-satisfaction to entrepreneurial intentions relationship.Entrepreneurial intentions Job satisfaction Self-efficacy