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Reviews the latest learning and development books across the globe and pinpoints practical implications.
Abstract
Purpose
Reviews the latest learning and development books across the globe and pinpoints practical implications.
Design/methodology/approach
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
Innovation is essential for organizations and individuals to meet the challenges of global change and competition. This is an easy to read, lively book that delivers on its promise to make innovation understandable and accessible. Scott Anthony writes in a conversational style and uses footnotes to add insights and personal thoughts. The book begins by explaining that the ability to innovate can be improved by studying and applying patterns. This idea, adopted from Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and author of The Innovators's Dilemma, serves as a guide for the book.
Practical implications:
Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.
Originality/value
The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.
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Keywords
This paper presents physical and geotechnical characteristics of unstabilized (original) and stabilized peat soil samples from Sarawak, Malaysia. Peat soil is heterogeneous, with…
Abstract
This paper presents physical and geotechnical characteristics of unstabilized (original) and stabilized peat soil samples from Sarawak, Malaysia. Peat soil is heterogeneous, with high compressibility, high water content, low specific gravity and has medium to low permeability. As a result, evaluation of physical and geotechnical properties are very important for any types of construction on it. Different physical and geotechnical properties e.g. organic content, loss on ignition, liquid limit, specific gravity, fiber content, compaction and Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) tests have been carried out on peat soil sample. Locally available fly ash (FA) from coal fired thermal power plant and commercially available quick lime (QL) were used as stabilizers. The amount of FA and QL added to the peat soil sample, is 5 to 25% and 2 to 8%; respectively, for curing periods of 7 to 120 days. The standard Proctor compaction test and UCS test were carried out on original and stabilized peat soil samples with the above mentioned percentages of stabilizer and results show that the UCS value increases significantly with the increase of FA and QL percentage and also with curing periods. But, with 15 to 20 % FA and 6 % QL added with peat soil, the UCS values slightly decreases up to 28 days and again increases after 120 days curing periods. Furthermore, liquid limit and specific gravity tests have been carried out with only for the FA stabilized peat soil samples, in order to comprehend their stabilized behavior.
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Birgitta Sandberg, Leila Hurmerinta and Peter Zettinig
The purpose of this paper is to advance and clarify conceptualisations of innovative and entrepreneurial individuals through the analysis of their personality traits.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to advance and clarify conceptualisations of innovative and entrepreneurial individuals through the analysis of their personality traits.
Design/methodology/approach
This study has elements of both theory testing and theory creation, which led the authors to choose the case study as their research strategy. The “case” is an innovative and entrepreneurial individual, and the authors used extreme‐type empirical cases to develop ideal‐type concepts. The analysis is based on extensive longitudinal data.
Findings
The study makes a contribution to theories of both entrepreneurship and innovation. It adds conceptual clarity in terms of providing evidence that the individuals concerned should not be considered as one characteristic group of actors. The authors propose that highly innovative and entrepreneurial individuals can be further divided to entrepreneurial innovators and innovative entrepreneurs.
Practical implications
This study may enable the colleagues, business partners and competitors of entrepreneurial innovators and innovative entrepreneurs to better understand – and to some extent also to forecast – their behaviour. It also gives some hints regarding cooperation opportunities with both types of individual, and getting the most out of them. The results should also help policy makers and support agencies to recognise these people, who play an important role in the economy.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge this study is the first to analyse the traits of individuals who are both extremely innovative and highly entrepreneurial.
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Mohamed Mousa, Vesa Puhakka and Hala A. Abdelgaffar
The purpose of this paper is to focus on physicians in the four public hospitals located in the October province of Egypt in an attempt to explore the effect of climate change on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on physicians in the four public hospitals located in the October province of Egypt in an attempt to explore the effect of climate change on physicians’ affective, continuance and normative commitment with and without mediating the role of responsible leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 360 physicians were contacted and all of them received a set of questionnaires. After two follow-ups, a total of 240 responses were collected with a response rate of 66.67 percent. Multiple regressions were employed to show how much variation in affective, continuance and normative commitment can be explained by climate change with and without the mediation of responsible leadership.
Findings
The findings show a statistically negative effect for climate change on physicians’ three approaches of organizational commitment (affective, continuance and normative). Furthermore, the statistical analysis proved that having responsible leaders in hospitals has a negligible effect on the relationship between climate change and the affective, continuance and normative commitment.
Originality/value
This paper contributes by filling a gap in environment and organization literature, in which empirical studies on the relationship between climate change and organizational commitment have been limited until now.
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Keywords
S. Monchaud and R. Prat
A simple ultrasonic sensor coupled with a colour sensing system has been designed and built in the laboratory of the French National Institute of Applied Science at Rennes, and…
Abstract
A simple ultrasonic sensor coupled with a colour sensing system has been designed and built in the laboratory of the French National Institute of Applied Science at Rennes, and mounted on the laboratory's VESA mobile robot. It can distinguish simple configurations of obstacles and measure their distance from the robot, and within certain limits of illumination can classify obstacles to eight reference colours.
Tanja Hautala, Jaakko Helander and Vesa Korhonen
The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the attributes of loose and tight coupling in educational organizations. In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the attributes of loose and tight coupling in educational organizations. In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this phenomenon has value and strategies to offer for the current educational administration and research.
Design/methodology/approach
Integrative literature review and content analysis, assisted by Atlas.ti software, were used as the methods of this paper. Review data included 32 articles from peer reviewed journals.
Findings
Conceptual framework of continuum of organizational couplings in educational organizations was generated. Elements of the framework include the features of coupling concepts within the continuum, components of couplings, contributory types of organizational couplings and the elements of leadership and change process with emerging strategies, as well as the element of cultural context. In this paper, elements of continuum of couplings and leadership will be emphasized.
Practical implications
Findings have practical implications for the management and leadership in educational organizations, and for the researchers in the field for future research purposes.
Social implications
Findings have social implications for both teaching staff and administration in educational organizations, by highlighting the attributes of loose and tight coupling, and their connections with leadership, change process and cultural context.
Originality/value
The paper presents a distinctive synopsis of the educational administration literature, in the context of loose and tight coupling, with the time span of four decades.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate optimal strategic decision alternatives for Finnish pulp production companies in response to rising export tariffs on Russian…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate optimal strategic decision alternatives for Finnish pulp production companies in response to rising export tariffs on Russian roundwood. Traditionally, increasing the domestic or Russian supply to pulp mills satisfied their wood requirements. However, once this conventional strategy could no longer be implemented (in 2008), the wood requirements were met by adjusting pulp production (reducing) and wood procurement (increasing domestic procurement).
Design/methodology/approach
As the primary research data for the study, the procurement situation in 2005 was used to describe the conventional business strategy for purchasers of Russian or domestic roundwood. Possible business strategies were then simulated for changing pulp production by Stora Enso, with the goal of adjusting roundwood requirements, to develop a globally‐optimal strategy to solve the procurement problem.
Findings
After removing production by the northernmost Finnish pulp mill, the authors could not find a globally optimal solution for the wood‐procurement problem. It was found that Russia's tax policy (high export tariffs on roundwood) will have large implications for Finnish wood procurement (i.e. the use of domestic wood vs imported Russian roundwood), and can dramatically change the basis, type, and location of pulp mills. The reduction or total elimination of imported Russian roundwood caused severe supply shortages and reduced pulp production.
Originality/value
Based on the results of analysis, the authors recommend adjustment methods to assist strategic wood‐procurement decisions, given the need to adapt wood‐procurement logistics to an unpredictable and complicated pulp production environment that requires continual optimization of the wood flow.
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Mireka Caselius and Vesa Suutari
The purpose of the present study is to explore the effects of early life international exposure on the career capital (CC) of adult third culture kids (ATCKs).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the present study is to explore the effects of early life international exposure on the career capital (CC) of adult third culture kids (ATCKs).
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a qualitative research design based on 34 semi-structured interviews with ATCKs who have had international exposure in their childhood as members of an expatriate family.
Findings
The results show that a globally mobile childhood has extensive long-term impacts on ATCKs' CC in the areas of knowing-why, knowing-how and knowing-whom. Additionally, their early international experience also had several negative impacts across these aspects of CC.
Originality/value
This paper provides a novel understanding of the long-term impacts of early life international exposure on ATCKs' CC, and this paper is the first study to use the CC framework among an ATCK population.
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Sari Laari-Salmela, Tuija Mainela, Elina Pernu and Vesa Puhakka
The purpose of this paper is to examine subsidiary positioning within the dynamic business networks in the context of multinational companies (MNCs). The research question of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine subsidiary positioning within the dynamic business networks in the context of multinational companies (MNCs). The research question of the study is: How does the positioning of a subsidiary emerge through strategic practices in the dynamic business networks of an MNC?
Design/methodology/approach
The study relies on the IMP view on strategy with a focus on market positioning activity and the strategy-as-practice approach. Positioning is seen as a question of strategic practices in the interactive spheres of the subsidiaries. In the empirical part of the study, the authors examine the practices of a forest machine industry multinational through longitudinal interview and archival data on three of its sales subsidiaries in Sweden, Russia and the USA.
Findings
The study defines core tensions in subsidiary interactive spheres and the related strategic practices that shape the positioning of the subsidiaries. The study models the practice-based network positioning of MNC subsidiaries as a dynamic play of relationship tensions.
Originality/value
Prior research has focused either on the internal organizing of the MNCs or embeddedness of subsidiaries in their local environment. Less attention has been paid to the practices of positioning through which the subsidiaries deal with the inevitable tensions at the intersection of the internal and external networks.
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