Understanding inter-firm networks and types of innovation in SMEs:a social network perspective

Innovation is one of the key drivers for gaining competitive advantages in any firms. Understanding knowledge transfer through inter-firm networks and its effects on types of innovation in SMEs is very important in improving SMEs innovation. This study examines relationships between characteristics of inter-firm knowledge transfer networks and types of innovation in SMEs. To achieve this, social network perspective is adopted to understand inter-firm knowledge transfer networks and its impact on innovation by investigating how and to what extend ego network characteristics are affecting types of innovation. Therefore, managers can develop the firms'network according to their strategies and requirements. First, a conceptual model and research hypotheses are proposed to establish the possible relationship between network properties and types of innovation. Three aspects of ego network are identified and adopted for hypotheses development: 1) structural properties which address the potential for resources and the context for the flow of resources, 2) relational properties which reflect the quality of resource flows, and 3) nodal properties which are about quality and variety of resources and capabilities of the ego partners. A questionnaire has been designed based on the hypotheses. Second, semistructured interviews with managers of five SMEs have been carried out, and a thematic qualitative analysis of these interviews has been performed. The interviews helped to revise the questionnaire and provided preliminary evidence to support the hypotheses. Insights from the preliminary investigation also helped to develop research plan for the next stage of this research.

Fuzzy Modeling and Control Based Virtual Machine Resource Management

Virtual machines (VMs) are powerful platforms for building agile datacenters and emerging cloud systems. However, resource management for a VM-based system is still a challenging task. First, the complexity of application workloads as well as the interference among competing workloads makes it difficult to understand their VMs’ resource demands for meeting their Quality of Service (QoS) targets; Second, the dynamics in the applications and system makes it also difficult to maintain the desired QoS target while the environment changes; Third, the transparency of virtualization presents a hurdle for guest-layer application and host-layer VM scheduler to cooperate and improve application QoS and system efficiency. This dissertation proposes to address the above challenges through fuzzy modeling and control theory based VM resource management. First, a fuzzy-logic-based nonlinear modeling approach is proposed to accurately capture a VM’s complex demands of multiple types of resources automatically online based on the observed workload and resource usages. Second, to enable fast adaption for resource management, the fuzzy modeling approach is integrated with a predictive-control-based controller to form a new Fuzzy Modeling Predictive Control (FMPC) approach which can quickly track the applications’ QoS targets and optimize the resource allocations under dynamic changes in the system. Finally, to address the limitations of black-box-based resource management solutions, a cross-layer optimization approach is proposed to enable cooperation between a VM’s host and guest layers and further improve the application QoS and resource usage efficiency. The above proposed approaches are prototyped and evaluated on a Xen-based virtualized system and evaluated with representative benchmarks including TPC-H, RUBiS, and TerraFly. The results demonstrate that the fuzzy-modeling-based approach improves the accuracy in resource prediction by up to 31.4% compared to conventional regression approaches. The FMPC approach substantially outperforms the traditional linear-model-based predictive control approach in meeting application QoS targets for an oversubscribed system. It is able to manage dynamic VM resource allocations and migrations for over 100 concurrent VMs across multiple hosts with good efficiency. Finally, the cross-layer optimization approach further improves the performance of a virtualized application by up to 40% when the resources are contended by dynamic workloads.

Ocularcentrism and its others: A framework for metatheoretical analysis

There is a contemporary scepticism towards vision-based metaphors in management and organization studies that reflects a more general pattern across the social sciences. In short, there has been a shift away from ocularcentrism. This shift provides a useful basis for metatheoretical analysis of the philosophical discourse that informs organizational analysis. The article begins by briefly discussing the vision-generated, vision-centred interpretation of knowledge, truth, and reality that has characterized the western philosophical tradition. Taking late 18th-century rationalism as the high-point of ocularcentrism, the article then presents a metatheoretical framework based on three trajectories that critiques of ocularcentrism have subsequently taken. The first exposes the limits of the metaphor by, paradoxically, taking it to its limits. The second trajectory seeks to displace the primordial position of the ocular metaphor and replace it with an alternative lexicon based on other human senses. Last, the third trajectory describes how the Enlightenment ocular characterization of the visual and mental worlds has effectively been inverted in the postmodern moment.

Non-Pharmacological Approaches for Pain Management in Sickle Cell Disease: Development of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention

Background: Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a genetic hematological disorder that affects more than 7 million people globally (NHLBI, 2009). It is estimated that 50% of adults with SCD experience pain on most days, with 1/3 experiencing chronic pain daily (Smith et al., 2008). Persons with SCD also experience higher levels of pain catastrophizing (feelings of helplessness, pain rumination and magnification) than other chronic pain conditions, which is associated with increases in pain intensity, pain behavior, analgesic consumption, frequency and duration of hospital visits, and with reduced daily activities (Sullivan, Bishop, & Pivik, 1995; Keefe et al., 2000; Gil et al., 1992 & 1993). Therefore effective interventions are needed that can successfully be used manage pain and pain-related outcomes (e.g., pain catastrophizing) in persons with SCD. A review of the literature demonstrated limited information regarding the feasibility and efficacy of non-pharmacological approaches for pain in persons with SCD, finding an average effect size of .33 on pain reduction across measurable non-pharmacological studies. Second, a prospective study on persons with SCD that received care for a vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC; N = 95) found: (1) high levels of patient reported depression (29%) and anxiety (34%), and (2) that unemployment was significantly associated with increased frequency of acute care encounters and hospital admissions per person. Research suggests that one promising category of non-pharmacological interventions for managing both physical and affective components of pain are Mindfulness-based Interventions (MBIs; Thompson et al., 2010; Cox et al., 2013). The primary goal of this dissertation was thus to develop and test the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a telephonic MBI for pain catastrophizing in persons with SCD and chronic pain.

Methods: First, a telephonic MBI was developed through an informal process that involved iterative feedback from patients, clinical experts in SCD and pain management, social workers, psychologists, and mindfulness clinicians. Through this process, relevant topics and skills were selected to adapt in each MBI session. Second, a pilot randomized controlled trial was conducted to test the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of the telephonic MBI for pain catastrophizing in persons with SCD and chronic pain. Acceptability and feasibility were determined by assessment of recruitment, attrition, dropout, and refusal rates (including refusal reasons), along with semi-structured interviews with nine randomly selected patients at the end of study. Participants completed assessments at baseline, Week 1, 3, and 6 to assess efficacy of the intervention on decreasing pain catastrophizing and other pain-related outcomes.

Results: A telephonic MBI is feasible and acceptable for persons with SCD and chronic pain. Seventy-eight patients with SCD and chronic pain were approached, and 76% (N = 60) were enrolled and randomized. The MBI attendance rate, approximately 57% of participants completing at least four mindfulness sessions, was deemed acceptable, and participants that received the telephonic MBI described it as acceptable, easy to access, and consume in post-intervention interviews. The amount of missing data was undesirable (MBI condition, 40%; control condition, 25%), but fell within the range of expected missing outcome data for a RCT with multiple follow-up assessments. Efficacy of the MBI on pain catastrophizing could not be determined due to small sample size and degree of missing data, but trajectory analyses conducted for the MBI condition only trended in the right direction and pain catastrophizing approached statistically significance.

Conclusion: Overall results showed that at telephonic group-based MBI is acceptable and feasible for persons with SCD and chronic pain. Though the study was not able to determine treatment efficacy nor powered to detect a statistically significant difference between conditions, participants (1) described the intervention as acceptable, and (2) the observed effect sizes for the MBI condition demonstrated large effects of the MBI on pain catastrophizing, mental health, and physical health. Replication of this MBI study with a larger sample size, active control group, and additional assessments at the end of each week (e.g., Week 1 through Week 6) is needed to determine treatment efficacy. Many lessons were learned that will guide the development of future studies including which MBI strategies were most helpful, methods to encourage continued participation, and how to improve data capture.

Social Media Strategies in the Retail Sector: Analysis and Recommendations for Three Multi-National Retailers

During the last twenty years (1995-2015), the world of commerce has expanded beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar high street to a global shop front accessible to billions of users via the Worldwide Web (WWW). Consumers are now using the web to immerse themselves in virtual shop fronts, using Social Media (SM) to communicate and share product ideas with friends and family. Retail organisations recognise the need to develop and adapt their strategies to respond to the increasing use of SM. New goals must be set in order to identify how companies will integrate social media into current practices. This research aims to suggest an advisable and comprehensive SM strategy for companies operating in the global retail sector, based on an exploratory analysis of three multi-national retail organisations' existing SM strategies. This will be assessed in conjunction with a broader investigation into social media in the retail industry. From this, a strategy will be devised to improve internal and external communication as well as knowledge management through the use of social media. Findings suggest that the use of SM within the retail industry has dramatically improved collaboration and communication processes for organisations as they are now able to converse better with stakeholders and the tools are relatively simple to integrate and implement as they benefit one another.

Auditoría integrada de Información + Conocimiento: aplicación en un caso de estudio

Se presentan los resultados de la aplicación de una metodología integradora de auditoría de información y conocimiento, llevada a cabo en un Centro de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente de la provincia de Holguín, Cuba, conformada por siete etapas con un enfoque híbrido dirigida a revisar la estrategia y la política de gestión de información y conocimiento, identificar e inventariar y mapear los recursos de I+C y sus flujos, y valorar los procesos asociados a su gestión. La alta dirección de este centro, sus especialistas e investigadores manifestaron la efectividad de la metodología aplicada cuyos resultados propiciaron reajustar la proyección estratégica en relación con la gestión de la I+C, rediseñar los flujos informativos de los procesos claves, disponer de un directorio de sus expertos por áreas y planificar el futuro aprendizaje y desarrollo profesional.

Sistemas curriculares para la gestión de información y conocimiento institucional. Estudio de caso

La organización del conocimiento en el contexto de las Ciencias de la Información tiene como esencia la información y el conocimiento debidamente documentado o registrado. La organización del conocimiento como proceso, envuelve tanto la descripción física como de los contenidos de los objetos informacionales. Y el producto de ese proceso descriptivo es la representación de los atributos de un objeto o conjunto de objetos. Las representaciones son construidas por lenguajes elaborados específicamente para los objetivos de la organización en los sistemas de información. Lenguajes que se subdividen en lenguajes que describen el documento (el soporte físico del objeto) y lenguajes que describen la información (los contenidos).A partir de esta premisa la siguiente investigación tiene como objetivo general analizarlos sistemas de Gestión de Información y Conocimiento Institucional principalmente los que proponen utilizar el Currículum Vitae del profesor como única fuente de información, medición y representación de la información y el conocimiento de una organización. Dentro delos principales resultados se muestra la importancia de usar el currículo personal como fuente de información confiable y normalizada; una síntesis de los principales sistemas curriculares que existen a nivel internacional y regional; así como el gráfico del modelo de datos del caso de estudio; y por último, la propuesta del uso de las ontologías como principal herramienta para la organización semántica de la información en un sistema de gestión de información y conocimiento.

The potential contributions of concept maps for learning website to assessment for learning practices

The purpose of this paper is to examine the promising contributions of the Concept Maps for Learning (CMfL) website to assessment for learning practices. The CMfL website generates concept maps from relatedness degree of concepts pairs through the Pathfinder Scaling Algorithm. This website also confirms the established principles of effective assessment for learning, for it is capable of automatically assessing students' higher order knowledge, simultaneously identifying strengths and weaknesses, immediately providing useful feedback and being user-friendly. According to the default assessment plan, students first create concept maps on a particular subject and then they are given individualized visual feedback followed by associated instructional material (e.g., videos, website links, examples, problems, etc.) based on a comparison of their concept map and a subject matter expert's map. After studying the feedback and instructional material, teachers can monitor their students' progress by having them create revised concept maps. Therefore, we claim that the CMfL website may reduce the workload of teachers as well as provide immediate and delayed feedback on the weaknesses of students in different forms such as graphical and multimedia. For the following study, we will examine whether these promising contributions to assessment for learning are valid in a variety of subjects.

Capital Intelectual e Desempenho Organizacional no Sector Farmacêutico Português

Segundo o paradigma económico vigente, os intangíveis são hoje os principais factores de produção que criam riqueza no meio empresarial, devendo ser entendidos pelos gestores como factores críticos de sucesso. O conjunto de intangíveis que criam valor organizacional e sustentam a vantagem competitiva constituem o capital intelectual. Se no meio académico, o capital intelectual é visto como um motor do desenvolvimento económico, no âmbito da sociedade do conhecimento, já no meio empresarial apesar do reconhecimento da sua importância estratégica, poucos conseguem defini-lo e identificá-lo, não sabendo mesmo como tirar proveito dele. Acresce ainda o facto de o principal entrave poder estar relacionado na dificuldade em medir e representar o valor gerado por este recurso intangível. A generalidade dos autores que se dedica ao estudo do capital intelectual sustenta a existência de uma relação entre este e o desempenho organizacional, numa óptica de criação e manutenção de vantagens competitivas sustentáveis. Este trabalho apresenta um estudo exploratório realizado no âmbito da indústria farmacêutica portuguesa, com o objectivo de investigar, por um lado, a presença dos três elementos do capital intelectual: capital humano, capital estrutural e capital relacional e, por outro, o seu inter-relacionamento dentro do contexto farmacêutico português. Por fim, pretende-se investigar até que ponto o capital intelectual contribui para o sucesso das organizações analisadas. / According to the prevailing economic paradigm, intangibles are now the main factors of production that are creating wealth in the business world and they should be seen by managers as crucial factors of success. The intangible assets that create organisational value and sustain a competitive edge constitute intellectual capital. In academia intellectual capital is viewed as a driving force for economic development, in the context of the knowledge society, but in the corporate world, although recognised for its strategic importance few people can define it and identify it, or even know how to exploit it. The chief obstacle may be related to the difficulty in measuring and representing the value engendered by this intangible resource. Most authors involved in studying intellectual capital believe that it is related to organisational performance in terms of creating and retaining sustainable competitive advantages. This work is an exploratory study of the Portuguese pharmaceutical industry and it set out, first, to inquire into the presence of the three elements of intellectual capital, human capital, structural capital and relational capital, and also to examine their interrelations within the Portuguese pharmaceutical context. A final objective was to ascertain the part played by intellectual capital in the success of the organizations studied.

Redes Interorganizacionais: um estudo sobre partilha e utilização do conhecimento em organizações da Rede Associativa Empresarial da Região Centro de Portugal

Tese de doutoramento em Psicologia, na especialidade de Psicologia das Organizações, do Trabalho e dos Recursos Humanos

Gestão da informação: um estudo de caso em um instituto de pesquisa tecnológica

Each two years the amount of available information in the world double. This is the Information Age, where the success depends on what one knows, not on what one has. A new economy appears with the capacity to generate, to store, to process and to apply effectively the knowledge, based on information, determining the companies productivity and competitiveness.The objective of this work is to understand the information management model of a technological research institute - CTGÁS (Gas Technology Center). The research has been done focused on the 5 main processes and the 15 support processes of the organization value chain , aiming to understand the information management in the organization based on Davenport´s Information Management model (1998). Therefore, it was necessary to identify how the necessary information for the organizational processes accomplishment are determined, obtained, distributed and used by the organization. The research can be classified as descriptive, regarding to its aims, and as a case study, related to the research ways. Interviews with the managers of the organization value chain processes have been carried through, with the objective to identify how they perceive the Information Management process that circulates in the organizational processes. Complementarily, a documentary research has been carried through, associated to the direct observation and procedures and actions follow up, involving the Information Management. The data treatment and analysis have been done from the authors theoretical support and from the managers interviews analysis, documents and processes observed by the researcher in the organization. It was noticed that the organization has raised its level of information needs that are not difficult to be determined and are satisfactorily obtained and distributed, although the majority of them are not structuralized, automatized or even classified regarding to its confidence. These peaces of information have good quality and are important, however they reflect a medium dependence on external and informal information, besides being used only in its great majority for people to know what and how to do something

A long-term energy efficiency prediction model for the Brazilian automotive industry

According to law number 12.715/2012, Brazilian government instituted guidelines for a program named Inovar-Auto. In this context, energy efficiency is a survival requirement for Brazilian automotive industry from September 2016. As proposed by law, energy efficiency is not going to be calculated by models only. It is going to be calculated by the whole universe of new vehicles registered. In this scenario, the composition of vehicles sold in market will be a key factor on profits of each automaker. Energy efficiency and its consequences should be taken into consideration in all of its aspects. In this scenario, emerges the following question: which is the efficiency curve of one automaker for long term, allowing them to adequate to rules, keep balancing on investment in technologies, increasing energy efficiency without affecting competitiveness of product lineup? Among several variables to be considered, one can highlight the analysis of manufacturing costs, customer value perception and market share, which characterizes this problem as a multi-criteria decision-making. To tackle the energy efficiency problem required by legislation, this paper proposes a framework of multi-criteria decision-making. The proposed framework combines Delphi group and Analytic Hierarchy Process to identify suitable alternatives for automakers to incorporate in main Brazilian vehicle segments. A forecast model based on artificial neural networks was used to estimate vehicle sales demand to validate expected results. This approach is demonstrated with a real case study using public vehicles sales data of Brazilian automakers and public energy efficiency data.

A MODEL FOR EVALUATING IMPACT OF BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Business Process Management (BPM) is able to organize and frame a company focusing in the improvement or assurance of performance in order to gain competitive advantage. Although it is believed that BPM improves various aspects of organizational performance, there has been a lack of empirical evidence about this. The present study has the purpose to develop a model to show the impact of business process management in organizational performance. To accomplish that, the theoretical basis required to know the elements that configurate BPM and the measures that can evaluate the BPM success on organizational performance is built through a systematic literature review (SLR). Then, a research model is proposed according to SLR results. Empirical data will be collected from a survey of  larg and mid-sized industrial and service companies headquartered in Brazil. A quantitative analysis will be performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to show if the direct effects among BPM and organizational performance can be considered statistically significant. At the end will discuss these results and their managerial and cientific implications.Keywords: Business process management (BPM). Organizational performance. Firm performance. Business models. Structural Equation Modeling. Systematic Literature Review.

Análisis del énfasis en la innovación en la implantación del "Middle-Up-Down Management Model": Un estudio evolutivo en las empresas manufactureras del País Vasco. Aspectos metodológicos y empíricos

Nos encontramos en un momento en el que la competitividad empresarial está fundamentada en el desarrollo de las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (TIC), la innovación y las personas. Concretamente, en el País Vasco, que cuenta con un importante número de empresas manufactureras, la globalización, los procesos de deslocalización y de cambio organizacional han forzado aprestar una atención especialmente estratégica al desarrollo de la innovación y de la gestión del conocimiento como fundamentos para el incremento de su capacidad competitiva. El estudio que aquí presentamos analiza, desde un punto de vista evolutivo, la influencia que ejerce el énfasis realizado por las empresas manufactureras vascas en la innovación y en la implantación de sistemas de gestión que favorezcan la generación de nuevo conocimiento. Sistemas de gestión que deberán estar acordes con las propuestas de Nonaka y Takeuchi (1995); Nonaka et al. (2003) y sintetizadas en el llamado Middle-up-down Management Model. Para este análisis, hemos partido de una importante investigación realizada por las doctoras Aramburu, Sáenz1 y Rivera, de la Universidad de Deusto, de San Sebastián, sobre la Medición de la capacidad de aprendizaje organizativo y valoración de su incidencia en los resultados económico-financieros en las empresas manufactureras del País Vasco (2005).

Gestão da Informação e Gestão do Conhecimento: análise das publicações do grupo de trabalho 4 no Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Ciência da Informação 2005-2014

Este estudo se baseia em duas áreas afins, a área da Gestão da Informação (GI) que busca gerir a informação registrada e a Gestão do Conhecimento (GC) que procura formas de gerir o capital intelectual dos indivíduos. Na busca por compreender sobre as duas áreas do conhecimento, procurou-se analisar os trabalhos presentes no Grupo de Trabalho 4 do Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação (ENANCIB). Devido a este fato, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo principal investigar como a Gestão da Informação e Gestão do Conhecimento são abordadas nos trabalhos apresentados no ENANCIB, tendo por objetivos específicos identificar os trabalhos sobre GI e GC do GT4, a análise de autoria e co-autoria presente nos mesmo, realizar a averiguação das palavras-chave utilizadas, e a investigação de aspectos de abordagem da GI e GC. Para a consecução dos objetivos foi utilizado o método exploratório-descritivo, pois foi realizada a descrições dos contextos dos trabalhos para descobrir as relações existentes entre seus componentes. Como resultado, conclui-se que embora a GI e a GC sejam abordadas em muitos trabalhos, há muitos trabalhos no qual não se é possível ter uma identificação sobre a abordagem de ambas as áreas. Quanto à autoria dos trabalhos, Marta L. P. Valentim é a autora com maior número de apresentações por evento, no que tange a co-autoria há a predominância de dois autores por trabalho. No que se relaciona as palavras-chave encontradas nos trabalhos, observou que a palavra mais comum é GI. E os aspectos em que GI e GC são abordadas são variados, salientando a sua forte presença em organizações.