Foresight and participant heterogeneity ability to foster radical educational ideas

The Nordic welfare model is facing a significant challenge due the ageing population. This emphasises the need of radical innovations also in the case of wellbeing and security education. Therefore in this study we are evaluating participant heterogeneity and foresight driven idea generation process ability to foster especially radical ideas. Our iterative multi-actor and multi-phased idea generation process resulted following seven main idea themes: 1) multi-cultural and language, 2) learning environments, 3) changing operational environment, 4) development and technological know-how, 5) multidisciplinary and life-long learning, 6) interaction and communication and 7) short term courses. We found some support that participant heterogeneity and alternative scenarios are indeed helping to generate diverse educational ideas. However, most of the generated ideas could be considered as incremental instead of radical innovation from educational system point of view

Social network analysis of ERDF‐projects in Finland 2007‐2013

The aim of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union by correcting imbalances between its regions. Therefore, ERDF-projects can be considered as an important tool for implementing National and Regional Innovation strategies across the Europe. By utilizing Social Network Analysis (SNA) methods and popularity based scientometrics approach, this study evaluates what kind of collaboration relationships are existing between Finnish ERDF-project actors and who are the leading ERDF-actors in Finland. The dataset covering the latest fully implemented EDRF program period (2007-2013) included 10.913 projects and 5.991 different organizations. Results revealed that great majority (67.6%) of all organizations had participated only in one project and only small portion (5.9%) of all projects included multiple beneficiaries. The list of most active organizations was heavily dominated by universities, which typically operated in multiple regions

Managing Human Factor at the Fuzzy Front-End of Innovation

The fuzzy front end of innovation (FFE) is attributed to the early phase of the innovation process. Selecting the best ideas for further development is critical for business success. However, the existing FFE literature has mainly focused on the idea generation processes, whereas studies regarding idea selection processes are significantly less representative. By following cross-disciplinary research strategy, this theoretical and methodological concept development study identifies factors from psychology, behavioural sciences and neuroscience which can influence individual person’s decision-making process during the FFE idea selection stage. Moreover, we discuss the impact of the identified factors in incremental vs. radical idea selection processes in order to evaluate the possible differences between these two very different idea types. As a result it is concluded that radical idea selection process appears to be more systematically negatively influenced by choice biases whereas choice biases have more scattered influence on successful selection of incremental ideas

Comparison of Health and Wellbeing Living Lab Business Models : Preliminary result based on Business Model Canvas Evaluation

The most popular thematic focus area among ENoLL members is the health and wellbeing, which covers nearly a half of all the certified Living Labs. However, the studies evaluating Living Lab (LL) business models in general and especially those focusing on health and wellbeing Living Labs are rare. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess industry standard Business Model Canvas (BMC) usefulness to compare LL business models. The business models among 12 Baltic Sea Region Health and Wellbeing LLs were described and compared. After the recoding process, the original 241 different BMC attribute spellings were reduced to 87 different attributes. On the average 26.7 attributes were used to describe the LL business model. As an example, two network illustrations are presented to showcase the different Living Lab business models. As a result of the assessment, the need to develop LL specific business modelling tool based on fixed a set of valued attributes was recognized

Towards a comprehensive framework to analyse edutainment applications

By following action research principles this study develops a comprehensive framework that enables more systematical data collection on the design and impact of edutainment applications, in particular serious games and gamification, from learning and learner’s points of view. Schell’s original game design framework including aesthetics, story, mechanics and technology dimensions was enhanced with pedagogy and player dimensions. Moreover, these abstract dimensions were decomposed into individual functional elements on the basis of prior findings in literature. The enhanced framework was tested with four serious games. The framework helped to gain deeper insight in design choices being made and reveals subtle differences between game designs. There is, however, room for improvement. Some elements seem to be partly overlapping; others do not seem to differentiate much across different games. More research is needed to fine-tune and operationalize the framework elements

Massidea.org : Defining a Digital Business Ecosystem (DBE) for Massinnovation

This study is introducing Massidea.org from Digital Business Ecosystem (DBE) point of view. Massidea.org is an open innovation community for sharing challenges, ideas and visions. It boosts individual and communal creativity by intelligently connecting people and their insights. In Massidea.org, public, private and educational sector organizations and nations can collaborate with the wide range of people. Technologically Massidea.org is grounded on open source solution. Digital Business Ecosystem is divided into two main partitions: 1) digital (ecosystem): the technical infrastructure and 2) business (ecosystem): “An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the ‘organisms of the business world’. Therefore our Massidea.org definition will include both of these approaches. The data collection for this case study was carried out in Finland, which is one of the most competitive countries in the world

Social Network Analysis of the ISPIM Innovation Management Community in 2009 - 2011

Scientific communities are bound together by common purpose and interests, and tangible evidence of the structure of such communities may be found by investigating co-authorship networks. We utilise social network analysis to examine the network structure of ISPIM (International Society for Professional Innovation Management), using co-authorship data from six ISPIM events during the years 2009-2011. We find interesting evidence of the network structure, illustrating vividly the central authors and sub-components of the network. Related to this, results reveal surprisingly tight clustering based on geographical and institutional boundaries. We also find evidence of high performing authors which span these boundaries via significantly different strategies. Overall, the results help to uncover the underlying structure of the scholarly network behind ISPIM, which helps to better understand the key contributors and their networks, and also the development points and promising research collaboration opportunities

Yksityiseen turvallisuusalaan vaikuttavat muutostekijät : Kansainvälisten tutkijoiden näkemyksiä yksityisen turvallisuusalan tulevaisuudesta

Vuosina 2011-2013 toteutettu pitkän aikavälin laadullisen ennakoinnin ForeMassi2025-verkostohanke kohdentui ikäihmisten kotona asumista tukeviin hyvinvointipalveluihin sekä turvallisuusalaan. ForeMassi2025-hankkeen tulosten avulla tuotetaan julkishallinnolle, yrityksille ja kolmannen sektorin toimijoille osaavia hyvinvointi- ja turvallisuusalan työntekijöitä, jotka kykenevät vastaamaan tulevaisuuden haasteisiin. ForeMassi2025-hanke rahoitettiin Manner-Suomen valtakunnallisen ESR-ohjelman työmarkkinoiden toimintaa edistävien osaamis-, innovaatio- ja palvelujärjestelmien kehittäminen -toimintalinjasta, jonka rahoittavana viranomaisena toimii Opetushallitus

Yksityiseen turvallisuusalaan vaikuttavat muutostekijät : Kansainvälisten tutkijoiden näkemyksiä yksityisen turvallisuusalan tulevaisuudesta

Vuosina 2011-2013 toteutettu pitkän aikavälin laadullisen ennakoinnin ForeMassi2025-verkostohanke kohdentui ikäihmisten kotona asumista tukeviin hyvinvointipalveluihin sekä turvallisuusalaan. ForeMassi2025-hankkeen tulosten avulla tuotetaan julkishallinnolle, yrityksille ja kolmannen sektorin toimijoille osaavia hyvinvointi- ja turvallisuusalan työntekijöitä, jotka kykenevät vastaamaan tulevaisuuden haasteisiin. ForeMassi2025-hanke rahoitettiin Manner-Suomen valtakunnallisen ESR-ohjelman työmarkkinoiden toimintaa edistävien osaamis-, innovaatio- ja palvelujärjestelmien kehittäminen -toimintalinjasta, jonka rahoittavana viranomaisena toimii Opetushallitus

The success of selective and total outsourcing of firm-wide IT-infrastructure: an empirical evaluation

In literature, Information Technology outsourcing is often investigated as a generic phenomenon. In practice, outsourcing transactions and services are varying. Hence IT services can be outsourced selectively or as a whole. We investigate the outsourcing of firm-wide IT infrastructure, and evaluate empirically if the successes of selective and total outsourcing differ, as a whole and in technology and application related services. We utilize a new instrument to measure IT-outsourcing success. Not surprisingly, total outsourcers have more ambitious objectives than selective outsourcers, whereas there are no significant differences in outsourcing success for either service type. Our results imply that there is little connection between the targets and the success of outsourcing, since perceptions of success are similar despite different targets. Our results also indicate that evaluations of total outsourcing success dominate evaluations of individual success items. To practitioners we suggest that in order to achieve the objectives set for outsourcing, they must prioritize objectives clearly and measure their achievement repeatedly throughout the entire life-cycle of an outsourcing transaction