Developing a model of innovation implementation for UK SMEs: A path analysis and explanatory case analysis

Continuous large-scale changes in technology and the globalization of markets have resulted in the need for many SMEs to use innovation as a means of seeking competitive advantage where innovation includes both technological and organizational perspectives (Tapscott, 2009). However, there is a paucity of systematic and empirical research relating to the implementation of innovation management in the context of SMEs. The aim of this article is to redress this imbalance via an empirical study created to develop and test a model of innovation implementation in SMEs. This study uses Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the plausibility of an innovation model, developed from earlier studies, as the basis of a questionnaire survey of 395 SMEs in the UK. The resultant model and construct relationship results are further probed using an explanatory multiple case analysis to explore ‘how’ and ‘why’ type questions within the model and construct relationships. The findings show that the
effects of leadership, people and culture on innovation implementation are mediated by business improvement activities relating to Total Quality Management/Continuous Improvement (TQM/CI) and product and process developments. It is concluded that SMEs have an opportunity to leverage existing quality and process improvement activities to move beyond continuous
improvement outcomes towards effective innovation implementation. The article concludes by suggesting areas suitable for further research.

The Relevance Framework for Category-Based Induction: Evidence From Garden-Path Arguments

Relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson. 1995) suggests that people expend cognitive effort when processing information in proportion to the cognitive effects to be gained from doing so. This theory has been used to explain how people apply their knowledge appropriately when evaluating category-based inductive arguments (Medin, Coley, Storms, & Hayes, 2003). In such arguments, people are told that a property is true of premise categories and are asked to evaluate the likelihood that it is also true of conclusion categories. According to the relevance framework, reasoners generate hypotheses about the relevant relation between the categories in the argument. We reasoned that premises inconsistent with early hypotheses about the relevant relation would have greater effects than consistent premises. We designed three premise garden-path arguments where the same 3rd premise was either consistent or inconsistent with likely hypotheses about the relevant relation. In Experiments 1 and 2, we showed that effort expended processing consistent premises (measured via reading times) was significantly less than effort expended on inconsistent premises. In Experiment 2 and 3, we demonstrated a direct relation between cognitive effect and cognitive effort. For garden-path arguments, belief change given inconsistent 3rd premises was significantly correlated with Premise 3 (Experiment 3) and conclusion (Experiments 2 and 3) reading times. For consistent arguments, the correlation between belief change and reading times did not approach significance. These results support the relevance framework for induction but are difficult to accommodate under other approaches.

Path-selective photoinduced electron transfer (PET) in a membrane-associated system studied by pH-dependent fluorescence

The pH-dependent fluorescence behavior of two regioisomeric 'receptor(1)-spacer(1)-fluorophore-spacer(2)-receptor(2)' systems 1 and 2 in micellar solutions of sodium dodecyl sulfate show that photoinduced electron transfer (PET) only occurs from the amine group connected to the 4-amino position of the aminonaphthalimide fluorophore in both cases. This demonstrates the directing influence of the photogenerated electric field within the aminonaphthalimide excited state on the electron transfer process. Since path-selectivity of PET is also known within the membrane-bound photosynthetic reaction center in bacteria, its origins may be illuminated by the simple experiments described here. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.