Measuring employee innovation:a review of existing scales and the development of the innovative behavior and innovation support inventories across cultures

Purpose - The paper develops a model of employee innovative behavior conceptualizing it as distinct from innovation outputs and as a multi-faceted behavior rather than a simple count of ‘innovative acts’ by employees. It understands individual employee innovative behaviors as a micro-foundation of firm intrapreneurship that is embedded in and influenced by contextual factors such as managerial, organizational and cultural support for innovation. Building from a review of existing employee innovative behavior scales and theoretical considerations we develop and validate the Innovative Behavior Inventory (IBI) and the Innovation Support Inventory (ISI). Design/methodology/approach – Two pilot studies, a third validation study in the Czech Republic and a fourth cross-cultural validation study using population representative samples from Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic (N=2812 employees and 450 entrepreneurs) were conducted. Findings - Both inventories were reliable and showed factorial, criterion, convergent and discriminant validity as well as cross-cultural equivalence. Employee innovative behavior was supported as comprising of idea generation, idea search, idea communication, implementation starting activities, involving others and overcoming obstacles. Managerial support was the most proximal contextual influence on innovative behavior and mediated the effect of organizational support and national culture. Originality/value - The paper advances our understanding of employee innovative behavior as a multi-faceted phenomenon and the contextual factors influencing it. Where past research typically focuses on convenience samples within a particular country, we offer first robust evidence that our model of employee innovative behavior generalizes across cultures and types of samples. Our model and the IBI and ISI inventories enable researchers to build a deeper understanding of the important micro-foundation underpinning intrapreneurial behavior in organizations and allow practitioners to identify their organizations’ strengths and weaknesses related to intrapreneurship.

Vállalati vezetők innovációs érzékenysége, szemlélete és szándékaik – egy felmérés tapasztalatai (Managers' innovation sensivity, approach, and purposes – experience of a survey)

A magyar vállalatok innovatív képességét felmérő kérdőíves kutatások eltérő eredményeket adtak, ami a piaci szereplők eltérő innováció-értelmezésével magyarázható. A szerzők feltevése szerint a vállalati vezetők jellemzően innovatívnak tartják magukat, és ez alapján jelentős részük fejlesztéseket tervez a jövőben, amelyhez pályázati forrásokat kívánnak igénybe venni. A gyakorlati életben az innováció fogalmát a tudományos definíciónál tágabban értelmezik, a vállalatnál bevezetett újdonságokat (például a piaci versenytársaktól átvett új terméket) is innovációnak értékelik. A vállalati növekedést a finanszírozási nehézségek korlátozzák. A támogatások, a hitelek és a kockázati tőke jellegű források eltérő mértékben játszanak szerepet a vállalatok életében. A szerzők tanulmányukban a vállalatok innovatív tevékenysége és a különböző források megléte közötti kapcsolatot, valamint a pályázati rendszerhez fűződő vállalati tapasztalatokat vizsgálják. /===/ Questionnaire surveys of innovation abilities of the Hungarian enterprises have given different results, which could be explained by different innovation interpretation of the market players. According to the authors' hypothesis the managers consider themselves innovative, and many of them plan developments in the future to realize them with tender sources. In the practice idea of innovation is broader interpreted than the scientific definition, and novelties introduced at the companies (eg. a new product taken over from competitors) is also considered innovation. Corporate growth is limited by financing difficulties. Supports, credits and sources of venture capital character play a role int he corporate life to different extent. Authors investigate the connection between the innovative activity of companies and the existence of several sources, and corporate experience linked to tendering system.

An integrative approach to face and expression recognition from 3D scans

Biometrics is afield of study which pursues the association of a person's identity with his/her physiological or behavioral characteristics.^ As one aspect of biometrics, face recognition has attracted special attention because it is a natural and noninvasive means to identify individuals. Most of the previous studies in face recognition are based on two-dimensional (2D) intensity images. Face recognition based on 2D intensity images, however, is sensitive to environment illumination and subject orientation changes, affecting the recognition results. With the development of three-dimensional (3D) scanners, 3D face recognition is being explored as an alternative to the traditional 2D methods for face recognition.^ This dissertation proposes a method in which the expression and the identity of a face are determined in an integrated fashion from 3D scans. In this framework, there is a front end expression recognition module which sorts the incoming 3D face according to the expression detected in the 3D scans. Then, scans with neutral expressions are processed by a corresponding 3D neutral face recognition module. Alternatively, if a scan displays a non-neutral expression, e.g., a smiling expression, it will be routed to an appropriate specialized recognition module for smiling face recognition.^ The expression recognition method proposed in this dissertation is innovative in that it uses information from 3D scans to perform the classification task. A smiling face recognition module was developed, based on the statistical modeling of the variance between faces with neutral expression and faces with a smiling expression.^ The proposed expression and face recognition framework was tested with a database containing 120 3D scans from 30 subjects (Half are neutral faces and half are smiling faces). It is shown that the proposed framework achieves a recognition rate 10% higher than attempting the identification with only the neutral face recognition module.^

An innovative electroforming process for oil heated rotational moulding tools

Rotational moulding is a method to produce hollow plastic articles. Heating is normally carried out by placing the mould into a hot air oven where the plastic material in the mould is heated. The most common cooling media are water and forced air. Due to the inefficient nature of conventional hot air ovens most of the energy supplied by the oven does not go to heat the plastic and as a consequence the procedure has very long cycle times. Direct oil heating is an effective alternative in order to achieve better energy efficiency and cycle times. This research work has combined this technology with new innovative design of mould, applying the advantages of electroforming and rapid prototyping. Complex cavity geometries are manufactured by electroforming from a rapid prototyping mandrel. The approach involves conformal heating and cooling channels , where the oil flows into a parallel channel to the electroformed cavity (nickel or copper). Because of this the mould enables high temperature uniformity with direct heating and cooling of the electroformed shell, Uniform heating and cooling is important not only for good quality parts but also for good uniform wall thickness distribution in the rotationally moulded part. The experimental work with the manufactured prototype mould has enabled analysis of the thermal uniformity in the cavity, under different temperatures. Copyright © 2008 by ASME.

Sentiment classification with case-base approach

L’augmentation de la croissance des réseaux, des blogs et des utilisateurs des sites d’examen sociaux font d’Internet une énorme source de données, en particulier sur la façon dont les gens pensent, sentent et agissent envers différentes questions. Ces jours-ci, les opinions des gens jouent un rôle important dans la politique, l’industrie, l’éducation, etc. Alors, les gouvernements, les grandes et petites industries, les instituts universitaires, les entreprises et les individus cherchent à étudier des techniques automatiques fin d’extraire les informations dont ils ont besoin dans les larges volumes de données. L’analyse des sentiments est une véritable réponse à ce besoin. Elle est une application de traitement du langage naturel et linguistique informatique qui se compose de techniques de pointe telles que l’apprentissage machine et les modèles de langue pour capturer les évaluations positives, négatives ou neutre, avec ou sans leur force, dans des texte brut. Dans ce mémoire, nous étudions une approche basée sur les cas pour l’analyse des sentiments au niveau des documents. Notre approche basée sur les cas génère un classificateur binaire qui utilise un ensemble de documents classifies, et cinq lexiques de sentiments différents pour extraire la polarité sur les scores correspondants aux commentaires. Puisque l’analyse des sentiments est en soi une tâche dépendante du domaine qui rend le travail difficile et coûteux, nous appliquons une approche «cross domain» en basant notre classificateur sur les six différents domaines au lieu de le limiter à un seul domaine. Pour améliorer la précision de la classification, nous ajoutons la détection de la négation comme une partie de notre algorithme. En outre, pour améliorer la performance de notre approche, quelques modifications innovantes sont appliquées. Il est intéressant de mentionner que notre approche ouvre la voie à nouveaux développements en ajoutant plus de lexiques de sentiment et ensembles de données à l’avenir.

Ultrasound-guided central venous catheterization ---‘‘Syringe-Free’’ approach

Background and objectives Central venous catheterization of the internal jugular vein is a commonly performed invasive procedure associated with a significant morbidity and even mortality. Ultrasound-guided methods have shown to significantly improve the success of the technique and are recommended by various scientific societies, including the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The aim of this report is to describe an innovative ultrasound-guided central line placement of the internal jugular vein. Technique The authors describe an innovative ultrasound-guided central line placement of the internal jugular vein based on an oblique approach – the “Syringe-Free” approach. This technique allows immediate progression of the guide wire in the venous lumen, while maintaining a real-time continuous ultrasound image. Conclusions The described method adds to the traditional oblique technique the possibility of achieving a continuous real-time ultrasound-guided venipuncture and a guide wire insertion that does not need removing the probe from the puncture field, while having a single operator performing the whole procedure.

Bioremediation of phosphates in seawater: approach for recirculating marine aquaculture effluents

Marine Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) produce great volume of wastewater, which may be reutilized/recirculated or reutilized after undergoing different treatment/remediation methods, or partly discharged into neighbour water-bodies (DWW). Phosphates, in particular, are usually accumulated at high concentrations in DWW, both because its monitoring is not compulsory for fish production since it is not a limiting parameter, and also because there is no specific treatment so far developed to remove them, especially in what concerns saltwater effluents. As such, this work addresses two main scientific questions. One of them regards the understanding of the actual (bio)remediation methods applied to effluents produced in marine RAS, by identifying their advantages, drawbacks and gaps concerning their exploitation in saltwater effluents. The second one is the development of a new, innovative and efficient method for the treatment of saltwater effluents that potentially fulfil the gaps identified in the conventional treatments. Thereby, the aims of this thesis are: (i) to revise the conventional treatments targeting major contaminants in marine RAS effluents, with a particular focus on the bioremediation approaches already conducted for phosphates; (ii) to characterize and evaluate the potential of oyster-shell waste collected in Ria de Aveiro as a bioremediation agent of phosphates spiked into artificial saltwater, over different influencing factors (e.g., oyster-shell pre-treatment through calcination, particle size, adsorbent concentration). Despite the use of oyster-shells for phosphorous (P) removal has already been applied in freshwater, its biosorptive potential for P in saltwater was never evaluated, as far as I am aware. The results herein generated showed that NOS is mainly composed by carbonates, which are almost completely converted into lime (CaO) after calcination (COS). Such pre-treatment allowed obtaining a more reactive material for P removal, since higher removal percentages and adsorption capacity was observed for COS. Smaller particle size fractions for both NOS and COS samples also increased P removal. Kinetic models showed that NOS adsorption followed, simultaneously, Elovich and Intraparticle Difusion kinetic models, suggesting that P removal is both a diffusional and chemically rate-controlled process. The percentage of P removal by COS was not controlled by Intraparticle Diffusion and the Elovich model was the kinetic model that best fitted phosphate removal. This work demonstrated that waste oyster-shells, either NOS or COS, could be used as an effective biosorbent for P removal from seawater. Thereby, this biomaterial can sustain a cost-effective and eco-friendly bioremediation strategy with potential application in marine RAS.

Customer relationship management model - A strategic and analytical approach for Amorim Turismo

Field lab: Entrepreneurial and innovative ventures

A literary approach to teaching english language in a multicultural classroom

Literature is not generally considered as a coherent branch of the curriculum in relation to language development in either native or foreign language teaching. As teachers of English in multicultural Indian classrooms, we come across students with varying degrees of competence in English language learning. Although language learning is a natural process for natives, students of other languages put in colossal efforts to learn it. Despite their sincere efforts, they face challenges regarding pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. Indian classrooms are a microcosm of the larger society, so teaching English language in a manner that equips the students to face the cutthroat competition has become a necessity and a challenge for English language teachers. English today has become the key determinant for being successful in their careers. The hackneyed and stereotypical methods of teaching are not acceptable now. Teachers are no longer arbitrary dispensers of knowledge, but they are playing the role of a guide and facilitator for the students. Teachers of English are using innovative ideas to make English language teaching and learning interesting and simple. Teachers have started using literary texts and their analyses to explore and ignite the imagination and creative skills of the students. One needs to think and rethink the contribution of literature to intelligent thinking as well as its role in the process of teaching/learning. This article is, therefore, an attempt at exploring the nature of the literary experience in the present-day classrooms and the broader role of literature in life.