Towards a theoretical framework for creative participation : how personal characteristics influence employees' willingness to contribute ideas

To retain competitiveness, succeed and flourish, organizations are forced to continuously innovate. This drive for innovation is not solely limited to product/process innovation but more profoundly relates to a continuous process of improving how organizations work internally, requiring a constant stream of ideas and suggestions from motivated employees. In this chapter we investigate some recent developments and propose a conceptual framework for creative participation as a personality driven interface between creativity and innovation. Under the assumption that employees’ intrinsic willingness to contribute novel ideas and solutions requires a set of personal characteristics and necessary skill that might well be unique to each organizational unit, the chapter then explores personal characteristics associated with creativity, innovation and innovative behavior. Various studies on the correlation between creativity and personality types are also reviewed. The chapter provides a discussion of solutions and future development together with recommendations for the future research.

Key drivers of frontline employee generation of ideas for customer service improvement

Anchored in the service-dominant logic and service innovation literature, this study investigates the drivers of employee generation of ideas for service improvement (GISI). Employee GISI focuses on customer needs and providing the exact service wanted by customers. GISI should enhance competitive advantage and organizational success (cf. Berry et al. 2006; Wang and Netemeyer 2004). Despite its importance, there is little research on the idea generation stage of the service development process (Chai, Zhang, and Tan 2005). This study contributes to the service field by providing the first empirical evaluation of the drivers of GISI. It also investigates a new explanatory determinant of reading of customer needs, namely, perceived organizational support (POS), and an outcome of POS, in the form of emotional exhaustion. Results show that the major driver of GISI is reading of customer needs by employees followed by affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction. This research provides several new and important insights for service management practice by suggesting that special care should be put into selecting and recruiting employees who have the ability to read customer needs. Additionally, organizations should invest in creating work environments that encourage and reward the flow of ideas for service improvement

O medo no contexto organizacional

This study looked for identify the causes and the effects of fear in the individuals within the organizational context. The procedure for data collection consisted in a questionnaire divided in two stages, and applied in 76 individuals. The first stage consisted in a words evocation test and the second, as a complementary mode, was composed by four open questions. The theory of social representations and the central nucleus theory were the foundations of the data analysis of the words evocation test. The processing of the open questions was consisted in an interpretative analysis, based in the presented theoretical referencial and supported by the respondents social representation of fear. In the enterprises context, different causes and effects of fear had been found in the inserted individuals. However, in its majority, it was identified that the biggest individuals fears are the unemployment, the threats, punishments, the unstable and unsafe environments of work, the unfair competition, the collusions, sabotages, tricks, the incapacity to do its work¿s tasks and the abusive increase of the work load. On the other hand, about the fear¿s effects, there is a frequent physiological and psychological instability when they had been submitted in high work loads. The fear is an excellent creativity, innovation and aptitude repressor, and it is capable to generate disgusts, frustrations, defensive postures, standstills and to increase the jobs navigability.

O perfil dos gerentes do Banco Central do Brasil: tradicionalismo ou contemporaneidade aberta do futuro?

O objetivo da dissertação é investigar se o perfil dos gerentes do Banco Central apresenta características que possibilitem uma atuação condizente com os conceitos contemporâneos de gestão: maior flexibilização, descentralização das decisões, delegação, participação, críatividade, inovação, suscetibilidade a mudanças, racionalidade administrativa, investimento na valorízação do corpo funcional, compartilhando uma gerência mais dialógica/comunicativa; ou se ainda perduram os conceitos de uma gestão tradicionalista, weberíana, tais como: centralização, controle e apego ao tecnicismo, autoridade hierárquica, verticalização, impessoalidade, padronização de métodos e procedimentos. Para tanto foram realizadas pesqUIsas bibliográfica e documental de forma a embasar conceitualmente as relações entre a teoria e a prática gerencial no Banco Central. As características do perfil dos gerentes foram levantadas, via entrevistas, com o Presidente e Diretores, e por intermédio de questionários com os próprios gerentes e seus subordinados, o que nos levou a perceber a gestão do Banco sob três enfoques: Alta Administração, grupo gerencial e grupo operacional. Os resultados do estudo demonstram que apesar de os gerentes do Banco Central apresentarem uma tendência ao tradicionalismo, na visão dos subordinados, eles se percebem num momento de transição, coerente com a mudança de paradigma, absorvendo os novos conceitos da gestão contemporânea, posição avalizada pela Superior Administração.

La gestión del conocimiento en las Bibliotecas Universitarias : ¿El qué, cómo y para qué?

El presente artículo tiene como propósito proponer la incorporación de la teoría administrativa denominada Gestión del Conocimiento (GC), en Bibliotecas Universitarias (BU). ¿El qué, el cómo y el para qué? Representa un reto de gestión que conlleva a la implementación de diversas estrategias para el cambio y la innovación (ECI). Hipotéticamente, el diseño de estrategias de gestión posibilita que la BU en los escenarios competitivos de la sociedad de conocimiento y el tercer entorno desarrolle nuevas competencias y directrices para el aprovechamiento de sus diversos recursos con eficiencia y logren alcanzar sus objetivos con eficacia. La innovación es otra de las variables que posibilita la transformación de los servicios que son ofertados a los usuarios, también denominados "socios estratégicos", bajo la visión de creatividad, sustentabilidad y bienestar

La gestión del conocimiento en las Bibliotecas Universitarias : ¿El qué, cómo y para qué?

El presente artículo tiene como propósito proponer la incorporación de la teoría administrativa denominada Gestión del Conocimiento (GC), en Bibliotecas Universitarias (BU). ¿El qué, el cómo y el para qué? Representa un reto de gestión que conlleva a la implementación de diversas estrategias para el cambio y la innovación (ECI). Hipotéticamente, el diseño de estrategias de gestión posibilita que la BU en los escenarios competitivos de la sociedad de conocimiento y el tercer entorno desarrolle nuevas competencias y directrices para el aprovechamiento de sus diversos recursos con eficiencia y logren alcanzar sus objetivos con eficacia. La innovación es otra de las variables que posibilita la transformación de los servicios que son ofertados a los usuarios, también denominados "socios estratégicos", bajo la visión de creatividad, sustentabilidad y bienestar

La gestión del conocimiento en las Bibliotecas Universitarias : ¿El qué, cómo y para qué?

El presente artículo tiene como propósito proponer la incorporación de la teoría administrativa denominada Gestión del Conocimiento (GC), en Bibliotecas Universitarias (BU). ¿El qué, el cómo y el para qué? Representa un reto de gestión que conlleva a la implementación de diversas estrategias para el cambio y la innovación (ECI). Hipotéticamente, el diseño de estrategias de gestión posibilita que la BU en los escenarios competitivos de la sociedad de conocimiento y el tercer entorno desarrolle nuevas competencias y directrices para el aprovechamiento de sus diversos recursos con eficiencia y logren alcanzar sus objetivos con eficacia. La innovación es otra de las variables que posibilita la transformación de los servicios que son ofertados a los usuarios, también denominados "socios estratégicos", bajo la visión de creatividad, sustentabilidad y bienestar

A Kraft-index – kreatív városok – fenntartható vidék (The KRAFT Index: Creative Cities – Sustainable Regions)

A KRAFT-index: Kreatív városok – fenntartható vidék egy komplex mutatórendszer, amely a fejlődési tendenciát, hálózatosodást, a fontosabb szereplők együttműködési készségét és kapacitását, kreativitási potenciálját, valamint a szereplők szinergiáiból fakadó belső energiákat és lehetőségeiket jelzi. A város- és vidékfejlesztés sikerének zálogaként előtérbe állítja és méri az ún. „puha” tényezőket, úgymint a kreativitást, innovációs képességet, új tudás létrehozását, tudástranszfert, együttműködési készséget, bizalmat, kollektív kompetenciákat. A társadalmi, gazdasági és tudományos kapcsolatok és hálózatok sűrűsége, minősége és dinamizmusa a sikeres fejlődés és fejlesztés kulcsai: ezek ma már fontosabb tényezők, mint a fizikai távolság, az adminisztratív jogi határok vagy az ún. „kemény” indikátorok. Az index értékeli egy térség lehetőségeit arra, hogy az ott élők, dolgozók, alkotók és letelepedni kívánók életminőségét, a vállalatok minőségi munkaerő iránti igényét és a fenntarthatósági szempontokat egyaránt figyelembe véve fejlessze gazdaságát és versenyképességét. Három tulajdonságcsoportot mér: 1. kreativitiási és innovációs potenciál, az új tudás létrehozásának képessége, 2. társadalmi és kapcsolati tőke, hálózati potenciál és „összekapcsoltság”, valamint 3. fenntarthatósági potenciál. _____ The KRAFT Index: Creative Cities – Sustainable Regions is a complex indicator system to measure development tendencies, ‘networkedness’, cooperation inclination and capacity, creativity potential and possibilities arising from the synergies among actors. It highlights and gauges ‘soft’ factors, such as creativity, innovation capacity, knowledge production, knowledge transfer, willingness for cooperation, trust, and collective competences and perceives effective regional cooperation among economic and social actors as the measure of successful urban and rural development. The density, quality and dynamism of social, economic and academic networks are more important factors than physical distance, administrative legal barriers or ‘hard’ indicators. The index evaluates the potential of a region to develop its economy and competitiveness by considering the quality of life of its inhabitants, workers, producers and immigrants, the quality workforce requirements of companies and sustainability. It measures three groups of qualities: 1. creativity and innovation potential, the ability of knowledge production; 2. social and connection capital, network potential and connectedness; and 3. sustainability potential.

Physics-based modeling of power system components for the evaluation of low-frequency radiated electromagnetic fields

The low-frequency electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is an increasingly important aspect in the design of practical systems to ensure the functional safety and reliability of complex products. The opportunities for using numerical techniques to predict and analyze system's EMC are therefore of considerable interest in many industries. As the first phase of study, a proper model, including all the details of the component, was required. Therefore, the advances in EMC modeling were studied with classifying analytical and numerical models. The selected model was finite element (FE) modeling, coupled with the distributed network method, to generate the model of the converter's components and obtain the frequency behavioral model of the converter. The method has the ability to reveal the behavior of parasitic elements and higher resonances, which have critical impacts in studying EMI problems. For the EMC and signature studies of the machine drives, the equivalent source modeling was studied. Considering the details of the multi-machine environment, including actual models, some innovation in equivalent source modeling was performed to decrease the simulation time dramatically. Several models were designed in this study and the voltage current cube model and wire model have the best result. The GA-based PSO method is used as the optimization process. Superposition and suppression of the fields in coupling the components were also studied and verified. The simulation time of the equivalent model is 80-100 times lower than the detailed model. All tests were verified experimentally. As the application of EMC and signature study, the fault diagnosis and condition monitoring of an induction motor drive was developed using radiated fields. In addition to experimental tests, the 3DFE analysis was coupled with circuit-based software to implement the incipient fault cases. The identification was implemented using ANN for seventy various faulty cases. The simulation results were verified experimentally. Finally, the identification of the types of power components were implemented. The results show that it is possible to identify the type of components, as well as the faulty components, by comparing the amplitudes of their stray field harmonics. The identification using the stray fields is nondestructive and can be used for the setups that cannot go offline and be dismantled

Ser gestora da educação infantil: quais sentidos atribuídos na cultura profissional?

This research has been the aim understanding the senses that managers attribute to school management of the Child Education from his owner teacher high degree formation and his professional culture. The need to research about the sense attributed to the school management of the Child Education by the managers could be considered as contribute to school management studies in the manager team perspective itself. It depart from idea that attributed senses reveal the reinvention process of the professional culture those escape from a regard less attentive and take divers forms, been construct and reconstruct in the social interactions in the live quotidian of school community. The empirical investigation has developed in the Centro Municipal de Educação Infantil (CMEI) Marilanda Bezerra, located in Natal city (RN), during the years of 2012-2013. The methodology is endorsed in the qualitative approach with character of an ethnography type research in education having as main information’s construction tools the semi structured comprehensive interview. This permit (by the interlocutor’s oral discourse) the interpretation of the senses and values selfattributed to hers actions, the personal notebook of ground registers, the record of the interpretative analysis, the evolutionary plans and the participant observation. It distinguish auteurs as Jean-Claude Kaufmann, Adir Ferreira, Sônia Kramer, Álvaro Marchesi, Júlia Oliveira-Formosinho, Maurice Tardif, Telmo Caria, Andy Hargreaves; those supported this paper theoretically and methodologically. The analysis and the experience interpretation point to the possibilities of sharing actions of the Child Education unity with the community, featuring the importance of a participant and collaborative school management practice of the CMEI, highlight the value of this school management possibilities more horizontal and interactive in an essay of constitute a democratic and critical space to the professional culture, with a decisive participation of the managers team. This educational manager form has demonstrated sensibility, creativity, innovation and the possibility of social transformation through institutional action and Child Education teacher’s practices, cohabiting with the challenges, the dilemmas and the problems of work quotidian and the lacunas of a fragmentary formation.

Factors that drive Female Entrepreneurship in Armenia

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy. Entrepreneurship includes creativity, innovation, risk taking, planning and management and is described as transferring ideas into action. Female entrepreneurship, in particular, is considered an important tool in enabling female empowerment and emancipation. In the light of recent world events, this has become a crucial area to study and understand, especially with respect to motivations, obstacles, constraints and consequences of female entrepreneurship. Having the previous framework in attention, this thesis focuses on female entrepreneurship in a developing country - Armenia – and proposes a conceptual framework of the phenomenon. A joint cooperation between the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development allowed to conduct an enterprise survey in the country and from that survey a microeconomic dataset was released and applied in this research study. A logistic regression econometric method is applied to the dataset to identify and measure the relationship between female entrepreneurship and several factors such as the location, size, legal status, market and obstacles faced by Armenian firms. The study concludes that women entrepreneurs in Armenia share many common features and obstacles with their male counterparts. Moreover, gender of the top managers, the firm’s location, size, main market type, the number of competitors and full-time employees, the adoption of new marketing methods, the access to land, the tax administration system and an inadequately educated workforce are found to be statistical significant factors in the explanation of female entrepreneurship in Armenia.

A criaçao de climas organizacionais geradores de criatividade e de inovação organizacional: Estudos de caso em contextos culturais diferenciados

Devido ao contexto económico vivido actualmente, de muita concorrência e de incerteza, impõe-se a aposta em fazer diferente, em fazer melhor e a um menor custo. Tal caminho pode ser percorrido com recurso à criatividade e inovação resultando deste binómio elementos potenciadores de mais-valias para a empresa e para o consumidor. Será que o ambiente organizacional influencia o aparecimento de criatividade e inovação? A opinião de que o ambiente é realmente muito importante para tal acontecer é partilhada por vários autores. A cultura organizacional, a forma como é considerado o indivíduo dentro da organização, como é feita a gestão de talentos, a forma como são encorajadas as ideias de todos os indivíduos pode realmente ser um factor decisivo para facilitar e encorajar a criatividade e inovação na empresa. A abordagem empírica assenta num estudo qualitativo, para o qual foram seleccionadas três empresas. A selecção de duas das empresas teve em conta o seu posicionamento no mercado como empresas inovadoras e a terceira pelo facto do seu core business estar directamente relacionado com a criatividade. Através do estudo realizado conclui-se que a cultura e o clima organizacional, ou seja, a forma como é visto o colaborador, como lhe é dado poder de decisão, como é reconhecido o seu esforço, trabalho e empenho, influencia os níveis de criatividade e inovação dentro da Organização. ABSTRACT; Due to the current economic context, marked by a fierce competition and uncertainty, it is necessary to focus on making differently, better and cheaper. Such path can be followed using creativity and innovation. Profit-boosting elements for the company and the consumer. Does the work environment affect the occurrence of creativity and innovation? Several authors share the opinion that the environment is very important for that occurrence. The organizational culture, the way how the individual is perceived inside the organization, how the management of talents is made, the ideas from all individuals are seen, can be a major to facilitate and encourage creativity and innovation in the company.

Physics-Based Modeling of Power System Components for the Evaluation of Low-Frequency Radiated Electromagnetic Fields

The low-frequency electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is an increasingly important aspect in the design of practical systems to ensure the functional safety and reliability of complex products. The opportunities for using numerical techniques to predict and analyze system’s EMC are therefore of considerable interest in many industries. As the first phase of study, a proper model, including all the details of the component, was required. Therefore, the advances in EMC modeling were studied with classifying analytical and numerical models. The selected model was finite element (FE) modeling, coupled with the distributed network method, to generate the model of the converter’s components and obtain the frequency behavioral model of the converter. The method has the ability to reveal the behavior of parasitic elements and higher resonances, which have critical impacts in studying EMI problems. For the EMC and signature studies of the machine drives, the equivalent source modeling was studied. Considering the details of the multi-machine environment, including actual models, some innovation in equivalent source modeling was performed to decrease the simulation time dramatically. Several models were designed in this study and the voltage current cube model and wire model have the best result. The GA-based PSO method is used as the optimization process. Superposition and suppression of the fields in coupling the components were also studied and verified. The simulation time of the equivalent model is 80-100 times lower than the detailed model. All tests were verified experimentally. As the application of EMC and signature study, the fault diagnosis and condition monitoring of an induction motor drive was developed using radiated fields. In addition to experimental tests, the 3DFE analysis was coupled with circuit-based software to implement the incipient fault cases. The identification was implemented using ANN for seventy various faulty cases. The simulation results were verified experimentally. Finally, the identification of the types of power components were implemented. The results show that it is possible to identify the type of components, as well as the faulty components, by comparing the amplitudes of their stray field harmonics. The identification using the stray fields is nondestructive and can be used for the setups that cannot go offline and be dismantled