From Job Characteristics to Job Satisfaction of Foreign Workers in Taiwan's Construction Industry: The Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among job characteristics, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction of foreign workers in Taiwan. Overall, 440 Thailand foreign workers were recruited and structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. The results of this study supported all proposed hypotheses. Job characteristics had a positive effect on job satisfaction of foreign workers. However, the results showed an indirect effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction via organizational commitment. Moreover, the findings suggested that job autonomy is better compared to other job characteristics. This study contributes to the existing literature by stressing the importance of such relationships in the cross‐cultural management enterprises, particularly those concerning foreign workers.     

Assimilating New Technologies: The Role of Organizational Culture

A technology may have met all the necessary user requirements, had buy-in from senior management, and yet be a resounding failure because the crucial role of organizational culture was overlooked. Like most social issues, organizational culture is amorphous, difficult to measure and quantify. This article helps IS managers analyze their own organization's culture to discover the role it will play in adopting a new technology.     

The Relationship between Coworker Incivility,Emotional Exhaustion,and Organizational Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Emotional Exhaustion

The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between coworker incivility, emotional exhaustion, and organizational outcomes measured by job satisfaction, job performance, and turnover intention. Working with a sample of 286 retail bank employees in South Korea, structural equation modeling is employed to test four hypotheses drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory and affective events theory (AET). According to the analyses, while employee incivility positively affects emotional exhaustion, emotional exhaustion has a negative effect on job satisfaction and job performance. In addition, emotional exhaustion has a positive impact on turnover intention among organizational employees. These results imply that to better understand the relationship between coworker incivility and organizational outcomes, it is necessary to consider emotional exhaustion as an important mediating variable. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed, together with its limitations and future research directions.     

Construction safety training via e-Learning: Learning effectiveness and user satisfaction

In Taiwan, promoting knowledge of “Labor Safety” which relates to life and work right is very important. Safety training and learning effectiveness become essential issues of adult learning. To reduce the costs of educational training, enterprises have also started to aggressively introduce e-learning education training. Unlike the construction industry, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of e-learning and conventional learning. This study tested the effectiveness of the safety education to prevent falls by different learning modes used to assess safety behavior and learning effectiveness during the education training period. According to the average pass rate, satisfaction degree of course and total number of unsafe behavior, the e-learning mode improves learning effectiveness. Additionally, when the e-learning mode is introduced in the construction safety education training, the labor can use the teaching material more independently and multimedia system, such as animated teaching materials, case teaching, and repeated course learning, to reduce the error rate of operation, property loss rate, and light (heavy) injury. Under this condition, the e-learning mode is positively associated with the learning effectiveness of construction safety education training. High learning effectiveness promotes safe behavior during construction operations.     

Learning styles assessment and theoretical origin in an E-learning scenario: a survey

The performance of the learners in E-learning environments is greatly influenced by the nature of the posted E-learning contents. In such a scenario, the performance of the learners can be enhanced by posting the suitable E-learning contents to the learners based on their learning styles. Hence, it is very essential to have a clear knowledge about various learning styles in order to predict the learning styles of different learners in E-learning environments. However, predicting the learning styles needs complete knowledge about the learners past and present characteristics. Since the knowledge available about learners is uncertain, it can be resolved through the use of Fuzzy rules which can handle uncertainty effectively. The core objective of this survey paper is to outline the working of the existing learning style models and the metrics used to evaluate them. Based on the available models, this paper identifies Felder–Silverman learning style model as the suitable model for E-learning and suggests the use of Fuzzy rules to handle uncertainty in learning style prediction so that it can enhance the performance of the E-learning system.     

Effects of Interactivity in Educational Games: A Mediating Role of Social Presence on Learning Outcomes

Networked interactivity is one of the essential factors that differentiate recent online educational games from traditional stand-alone CD-based games. Despite the growing popularity of online educational games, empirical studies about the effects of networked interactivity are relatively rare. The current study tests the effects of networked interactivity on game users' learning outcomes by comparing three groups (online educational quiz game vs. off-line educational quiz game vs. traditional classroom lecture). In addition, the study examines the mediating role of social presence in the context of educational games. Results indicate that networked interactivity in the online educational quiz game condition enhances game users' positive evaluation of learning, test performance, and feelings of social presence. However, there was no significant difference between the off-line educational quiz game and the lecture-based conditions in terms of learning outcomes. Further analyses indicate that feelings of social presence mediate the effect of networked interactivity on various learning outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Job satisfaction and visual display unit (VDU) usage: an explanatory model

This study explores the relationship between job salisfaction and the daily usage of visual display units (VDUs). A negative correlation is found to exist between job satisfaction and utilization of the VDU. Workers who have utilized the VDU alone for data entry were more satisfied with their jobs than those workers who had used the key punch for data entry and then switched to the VDU, although they said they preferred the VDU over the key punch. The following model was found to be statistically significant:

Job satisfaction =f(-VDU Usage + Supervisor intervention+ Team membership+ job utility—performance of the task)     

Job satisfaction and visual display unit (VDU) usage: an explanatory model

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between job salisfaction and the daily usage of visual display units (VDUs). A negative correlation is found to exist between job satisfaction and utilization of the VDU. Workers who have utilized the VDU alone for data entry were more satisfied with their jobs than those workers who had used the key punch for data entry and then switched to the VDU, although they said they preferred the VDU over the key punch. The following model was found to be statistically significant:

Job satisfaction =f(-VDU Usage + Supervisor intervention+ Team membership+ job utility—performance of the task)     

Open Innovation and Firm Performance: The Mediating Role of Social Capital

This article examines the role of social relations and networks in open innovation settings. Building on extant open innovation literature as well as on social capital theory, we develop a model that conceptualizes social capital as a mediator between the implementation of open innovation instruments and firm performance. In doing so, this paper adds to the understanding of the role of structure and content of social relations in open innovation contexts as well as of sustainable side‐effects of open innovation. In particular, we argue that apart from a direct effect of open innovation instruments on firm performance, there is also a mediated relationship between these variables. More precisely, we propose that the implementation of open innovation instruments strengthens an organization's social capital, which is, in turn, positively related to firm performance.     

Learning and communication via imitation: an autonomous robotperspective

This paper proposes a neural network architecture designed to exhibit learning and communication capabilities via imitation. Our architecture allows a “protoimitation” behavior using the “perception ambiguity” inherent in real environments. In the perspective of turn-taking and gestural communication between two agents, new experiments on movement synchronization in an interaction game are presented. Synchronization is obtained as a global attractor depending on the coupling between agents' dynamics. We also discuss the unsupervised context of the imitation process and present new experiments in which the same architecture is able to learn perception-action associations without any explicit reinforcement. The learning is based on the ability to detect novelty or irregularities in the communication rhythm     

The Role of Organizational Reality in Implementing Technology: Field Study

As this field study indicates, the social structures of an organization can influence how well those in the organization take to new technology. This was apparently the case at a boiler manufacturer that implemented an automated system for recording hours spent on labor. the structurational theory of technology is used to explain why the manufacturer was successful in its implementation of the new system.     

School Innovative Management Model and Strategies: The Perspective of Organizational Learning

Abstract

Along with knowledge-based economy coming, knowledge and innovation have been the core elements of national competitive power. Education plays an important role to improve individual or organizational creativity and innovational power. School innovational management is conducive to promoting creativity education. Additionally, it helps schools to acquire competitive power so as to develop constantly. This study discusses the related concepts and content of learning school and school innovative management; analyzes the impact factors of school organizational learning; and establishes the model of school innovative management based organizational learning. From the perspective of organizational learning, the study presents the strategies of school innovative management using for reference for China's schools.     

Tailoring as Collaboration: The Mediating Role of Multiple Representations and Application Units

In this paper we see tailoring as indirectlong-term collaboration between developers and users:initiated by developers when they build softwaresystems, and responded to by end users when they latertailor the systems. We have identified two features weconsider important when supporting this kind ofcollaboration: multiple representations andapplication units. Their main benefit is that they canenhance communication between developers and users,hence making it easier for users to do the tailoring.We present two tailorable systems we have built totest these ideas. One of the systems (ECHOES) is acollaborative system based on multiplerepresentations, and the other system (BasicDraw) isan individual productivity tool based on multiplerepresentations and application units. We discusslessons learned from the two projects and suggestdirections for future work, including identifying somechallenges that need to be overcome in order to bringend-user tailoring out of the prototyping laboratoryand into user organizations.     

B2B E-Commerce Adoption in Iranian Manufacturing Companies: Analyzing the Moderating Role of Organizational Culture

The objective of this research is to examine the factors affecting Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce (B2B EC) adoption within technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, and to test how such effects are moderated by organizational culture. Using a survey questionnaire, 320 responses were received from managers and owners of manufacturing companies in Iran. PLS-SEM technique was used for analysis. B2B EC adoption in manufacturing companies was found to be affected by cost of adoption, top management support, competitive pressure, and government support; and organizational culture was found to negatively moderate the relationship between top management support and B2B EC adoption. Managers, owners, and policy makers can use these findings to facilitate the adoption of B2B EC. Previous research have not analyzed the moderating role of organizational culture; these findings contribute to the e-commerce literature by filling this gap. The results indicate that the TOE framework provides a strong base for the study of B2B EC in developing countries. The results also show that this framework is able to integrate moderating variable into the theoretical model.     

Organizational Learning Mechanisms and Creative Climate: Insights from an Italian Fashion Design Company

This paper investigates the relationship between different types of organizational learning mechanisms and creative climate. In the context of an action research study, this paper focuses on insights from a survey that was administered to all the employees of the Product Design and Development unit of the company. The results demonstrate that the three different types of organizational learning mechanisms considered in the study (cognitive, structural and procedural mechanisms) are associated with creative climate. The study generates new scientific knowledge about the role of organizational learning mechanisms and provides specific recommendations for organizations that aim to enhance creative climate.     

The Role of Modular Robotics in Mediating Nonverbal Social Exchanges

This paper outlines the use of modular robotics to encourage and facilitate nonverbal communication during therapeutic intervention in dementia care. A set of new socially interactive modular robotic devices called rolling pins (RPs) has been designed and developed to assist the therapist in interacting with dementia-affected patients. The RPs are semitransparent plastic tubes that are capable of measuring their orientation and the speed of their rotation; at a local level, they have three types of feedback: red, green, and blue light, sound, and vibration. The peculiarity of the RPs is that they are able to communicate with each other or with other devices equipped with the same radio communication technology. The RPs are usually used in pairs, as the local feedback of an RP can be set depending not only on its own speed and orientation but also on the speed and the orientation of the peer RP. The system is not used as a therapeutic tool per se but as a facilitator and a mediator of social dynamics during normal therapy to counteract social isolation that can result in dementia through the loss of social skills. An experiment is reported that shows that by using the RPs, the patients participated in the activity by coordinating their behavior with the therapist and imitating the same interaction patterns generated by the therapist.      

Teamwork and Organizational Innovation: The Moderating Role of the HRM Context

Evidence is accumulating on the role of teams in shaping a variety of business outcomes, but our knowledge on the effect of teamwork on organizational innovation is still evolving. This study examines whether the extent to which two staff groups are organized in teams (production staff and management/administrative staff) affects organizational innovation and whether human resource management (HRM) systems, which can be of facilitating or constraining nature, enhance the teamwork/innovation relationships. Hypotheses were tested with lagged and longitudinal data derived from 18 to 45 organizations from the UK manufacturing sector. Results suggest that the more widespread the use of teamwork in organizations, the higher the level of organizational innovation. Furthermore, this effect depends, particularly for production teams, on the overall quality of the HRM systems that exist in their organizations. Teamwork/innovation relationships are further moderated (for management and administrative teams) by an HRM practice that provides teams with time for thoughtful reflection. Thus, HRM systems can be of more or less facilitating or constraining nature for teams in organizations.     

The Role of Organizational Factors in Realizing ERP Benefits

Today, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems are one the fastest growing segments of the business-software industry. They offer a single system linking all corporate operations, including planning, manufacturing, sales, vendor relations, inventory control, human resources, and accounting. Companies around the world spent billions of dollars and expended untold man-hours installing vast ERP systems.     

E-learning adoption of academicians: a proposal for an extended model

From the beginning of the e-learning technology era, many concerns arose regarding the use of e-learning in everyday academic processes. Thus, in recent years, a number of studies were conducted on e-learning acceptance, mostly with the use of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) Model. Current study investigates the determinants of acceptance of academic e-learning technologies with the use of proposed modified UTAUT model. The basic UTAUT model was supplemented by the examined new determinants: system interactivity and the area of scientific expertise. Therefore, the paper contributes to UTAUT theory, applied in e-learning, by utilising empirical research with a modified UTAUT model including these two new variables. This study confirmed the hypotheses related to the effects of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and system interactivity on behavioural intention to use e-learning technologies, and also stated that the area of scientific expertise does not have a direct impact on the intention to use e-learning technologies. The research model has been tested in an academic environment in Turkey.     

The Role of Organizational and Individual Characteristics in Technology Acceptance

The roles that users' individual and organizational characteristics play in technology acceptance were examined. Perceived work group characteristics was considered an organizational characteristic; attitude toward change and job stress were considered individual characteristics. User satisfaction with system characteristics was considered a consequence of technology acceptance. Data were collected from a sample of 236 Korean expatriates in information technology (IT) industries who were assigned to work in the United States. Perceived work group characteristics, attitude toward change, and job stress were related to one of the technology acceptance variables, perceived ease of use of the IT system. Ease of use was, in turn, related to perceived usefulness of the IT system, the other technology acceptance variable. Both perceived ease of use and usefulness were related to user satisfaction.