Casting for service innovation: The roles of frontline employees

The purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of frontline employees (FLEs) in service innovation processes and how they contribute to these roles. In the literature, FLEs are argued to play an important role in service innovation; however, neither the potential types of roles nor what taking on these potential roles means to FLEs, have previously been studied. This study investigates FLEs' actions in different types of service innovation processes. Based on analyses of eight different service business units, FLEs are identified as having either of two sets of roles: (1) leading roles as idea creators, developers and implementers, or (2) supporting roles as problem reporters, advisors and executors. The analysis provides managers with guidelines which can help them to better utilize FLEs as contributors to service innovation, either as leading or supporting actors. These imply different management challenges, which are discussed. Advice on how to tackle these challenges is given on the basis of the findings.     

The interaction effects of proactive personality and empowering leadership and close monitoring behaviour on creativity

In today's hurried information‐oriented business environment, it is crucial to examine under what conditions individuals may perform for creativity. Taking an interactional perspective, this study investigates how the interactions of proactive personality and empowering leadership or close monitoring behaviour may influence employee creativity in opposite directions. Data from 163 samples indicate that proactive personality promotes creativity, while close monitoring behaviour lowers creativity. Furthermore, the study shows that proactive employees are likely to engage in creativity when their leaders demonstrate high levels of empowering leadership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Communication and Context: Collective Tacit Knowledge and Practice in Japan’s Workplace ba

In contrast to Schumpeter’s “perennial gale of creative destruction” (Schumpeter 1976: 84), government–coordinated economic development in post–1945 Japan has owed more to informal (but binding) “rules of the game” (North 1990) that situate working, learning and innovation within the spaces delineated by tightly bounded company–as–family workplace organisations or ‘ba’ (which roughly means ‘place’ or ‘interaction field’). Horizontal keiretsu groupings, together with fixed trading–patterns in supply and distribution chains, continue to support an interlocking ‘steady state’ economic structure in which new technologies tend to emerge from existing organisations. Shared experience within workplace ba generates tacit knowledge that is held in common by colleagues and retained as a potent tool for shaping future practice. It plays a vital role in facilitating ‘friction free’ communication amongst insiders, who can act as a group to ostracise and retaliate against agents who break their code. Long–term obligations link salaried male employees to their workplace ba. Consequently, autonomous boundary–spanning communities of practice, together with industry–university collaboration and other transient associations with outsiders, lack legitimacy. Cook and Brown’s (1999) pluralist epistemology is used to compare Western interpretations of Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge (Gibbons et al 1994) with the privileged role that Japan’s workplace ba accord to insider collective–tacit knowledge, which we tentatively call ‘Mode 3’ knowledge.     

Mitigating the harmful effects of technostress: inducing chaos theory in an experimental setting

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the role of users’ proactive personality when they mitigate the adverse impacts of ICT's (information and communication technologies’) technostress in an experimental setting. Further, this study examines genuinely two types of individuals’ proactive personality, i.e. confront and transform. Both types can handle ICT's technostress creators by different attitudes and behaviours. This article contributes to a novelty by inducing chaos theory. This inducement laid in the experimental setting that the users had been in a chaotic situation. Results of this research show that users’ proactive personality mitigates the negative impact of ICT's technostress on their performance and satisfaction. This study found that the user's proactive personality, rested in a chaotic situation, does mitigate greatly. This research finds that users’ performance and satisfaction are higher to the proactive personality verging to the transform than that of confront. It implies that information system managers should consider the ICT user's characteristics. Besides, it means that ICT's developer should make users do their innovativeness.     

Proactive or reactive IT leaders? A test of two competing hypotheses of IT innovation and environment alignment

When does it benefit a firm to take a lead in innovation with information technology (IT)? How should a firm align its IT innovation with a dynamic industry? In addressing these questions we present a typology of IT Innovation and Environment Alignment (ITIEA) based on a firm's IT innovation strategic orientation and the industry environment. The traditional ‘fit’ perspective predicts that a firm that matches its IT innovation with a dynamic environment would obtain performance benefits. In contrast, the ‘options’ perspective suggests that a firm that takes advantage of a stable environment to proactively pursue IT innovation and develop IT capability as real options would obtain performance advantage. We employ a quasi-experiment design to test these two competing hypotheses using archival data of IT leaders over a time frame of 6 years. We perform a longitudinal analysis of the performance change trajectories of proactive and reactive IT leaders over time. The results indicate a general support for the ‘options’ perspective that proactive IT leaders that lead in innovation with IT in relatively stable environments are found to consistently outperform reactive IT leaders in overall performance, allocative efficiency, and cost efficiency in management process. However, interestingly, the results also show a partial support for the ‘fit’ perspective that reactive IT leaders that emphasize intensive deployment of IT innovation in dynamic environments are found to obtain a cost advantage in production and operation process over time. The findings offer practical implications for managers to better engage in IT innovations to create and sustain competitive advantage. Synthesizing options thinking and dynamic capability perspective, we provide a framework to better understand IT innovation, dynamic environment, and performance outcomes. The findings also shed useful light on whether, when, and how to innovate with IT for sustained competitive advantage.     

Knowledge Sharing and Innovative Work Behaviour in Healthcare: A Micro‐Level Investigation of Direct and Indirect Effects

This study presents a micro‐level investigation that provides new insights into how employees' knowledge sharing affects their own innovative work behaviours (IWBs). Our study posited three mechanisms linking an individual's knowledge sharing behaviours to his or her own IWBs: (i) a direct effect whereby the act of sharing elicits a recombination and translation of knowledge that facilitates innovation; (ii) an indirect effect whereby knowledge sharing creates social conditions (i.e., reciprocation with new knowledge) for innovation; (iii) a distal effect whereby the antecedents of knowledge sharing also promote innovation. We tested these hypotheses on 155 employees in four palliative care organizations. Our results provide original evidence that employees who share knowledge also engage more in creating, promoting and implementing innovations. This study reveals a direct, unmediated link between knowledge sharing behaviours and IWBs. Our evidence suggests that it is the act of knowledge recombination and translation embedded in knowledge sharing that exerts the most positive effect on IWBs. We discuss how this result indicates that sharing knowledge ignites transformation and exploitation capabilities that help sharers innovate their own work practices.     

Individual empowerment of agile and non-agile software developers in small teams

ContextEmpowerment of employees at work has been known to have a positive impact on job motivation and satisfaction. Software development is a field of knowledge work wherein one should also expect to see these effects, and the idea of empowerment has become particularly visible in agile methodologies, in which proponents emphasise team empowerment and individual control of the work activities as a central concern.ObjectiveThis research aims to get a better understanding of how empowerment is enabled in software development teams, both agile and non-agile, to identify differences in empowering practices and levels of individual empowerment.MethodTwenty-five interviews with agile and non-agile developers from Norway and Canada on decision making and empowerment are analysed. The analysis is conducted using a conceptual model with categories for involvement, structural empowerment and psychological empowerment.ResultsBoth kinds of development organisations are highly empowered and they are similar in most aspects relating to empowerment. However, there is a distinction in the sense that agile developers have more possibilities to select work tasks and influence the priorities in a development project due to team empowerment. Agile developers seem to put a higher emphasis on the value of information in decision making, and have more prescribed activities to enable low-cost information flow. More power is obtained through the achievement of managing roles for the non-agile developers who show interest and are rich in initiatives.ConclusionAgile developers have a higher sense of being able to impact the organisation than non-agile developers and have information channels that is significantly differently from non-agile developers. For non-agile teams, higher empowerment can be obtained by systematically applying low-cost participative decision making practices in the manager–developer relation and among peer developers. For agile teams, it is essential to more rigorously follow the empowering practices already established.     

When guanxi meets structural holes: Exploring the guanxi networks of Chinese entrepreneurs on digital platforms

In this exploratory study, we investigate how Chinese entrepreneurs on digital platforms interact and leverage guanxi (a system of relationships and social network) to buffer the negative impacts of structural holes on knowledge orchestration. We develop our research model and formulate ten hypotheses by drawing on the literature. We adopt a mixed-methods research approach in which we use quantitative surveys to test the hypotheses, and qualitative interviews to explain why certain relationships are stronger in one stage of entrepreneurial development than the other. The study contributes to the literature on digital entrepreneurship in two ways. First, this study offers an initial understanding of the dynamics of guanxi networks for knowledge mobilisation and knowledge coordination across start-up and growth stages of Chinese entrepreneurs on digital platforms. Second, by drawing on the relevant literature, our findings extend the current understanding of knowledge orchestration of digital entrepreneurs and contribute to the literatures of structural holes theory and guanxi.     

The role of psychological factors in workplace safety

Workplace safety researchers and practitioners generally agree that it is necessary to understand the psychological factors that influence people's workplace safety behaviour. Yet, the search for reliable individual differences regarding psychological factors associated with workplace safety has lead to sparse results and inconclusive findings. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there are differences between the psychological factors, cognitive ability, personality and work-wellness of employees involved in workplace incidents and accidents and/or driver vehicle accidents and those who are not. The study population (N = 279) consisted of employees employed at an electricity supply organisation in South Africa. Mann–Whitney U-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted to determine the differences in the respective psychological factors between the groups. These results showed that cognitive ability did not seem to play a role in workplace incident/accident involvement, including driver vehicle accidents, while the wellness factors burnout and sense of coherence, as well as certain personality traits, namely conscientiousness, pragmatic and gregariousness play a statistically significant role in individuals' involvement in workplace incidents/accidents/driver vehicle accidents. Safety practitioners, managers and human resource specialists should take cognisance of the role of specifically work-wellness in workplace safety behaviour, as management can influence these negative states that are often caused by continuously stressful situations, and subsequently enhance work place safety.     

Acceptance of Corporate Blogs for Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing

ABSTRACT

This study investigates employees’ acceptance of corporate Web 2.0 applications for collaboration and knowledge sharing. Results show that altruism, managerial support, and perceived usefulness are good predictors of the intention to use corporate blogs as tools for collaboration and knowledge sharing. The study further explores differences between employees from companies with low and high adoption rates, and uses prediction-oriented segmentation to unveil two different paths to adoption of Web 2.0 collaborative tools in companies.     

Predicting Attitudes Toward Knowledge Sharing by E-Mail: An Empirical Study

Social influence factors in sharing knowledge by e-mail are important issues in developing and understanding successful knowledge management systems and human–computer interaction. This article investigates important factors in shaping attitudes toward knowledge sharing by e-mail, based on social influence theory and self-determination theory. An empirical test of the proposed model using an online survey was conducted with a sample of undergraduate college students who use group e-mails for class assignments (n?=?566). All social influence factors significantly influenced attitudes toward knowledge sharing by e-mail (R ² = .57). Information systems researchers and practitioners will be able to more fully understand the roles of social influence factors in developing and designing knowledge management.     

“StoryWeb”: A storytelling‐based knowledge‐sharing application among multiple stakeholders

The research objective of this paper is to develop a storytelling‐based knowledge‐sharing application that enables users to co‐create their own stories for both individuals and groups. To address this, a design science research methodology was applied for elucidating users' requirements. As empirical evidence, a case study was conducted on the children's book industry to synthesize a knowledge‐sharing design application named “StoryWeb”. Usability tests were conducted to reconfigure users' feedback and suggestions after two StoryWeb prototypes were developed. This study makes three main contributions. First, it empirically tests individual's or group's creativity and co‐creation by a view of knowledge sharing. Second, it methodologically applies a design thinking approach into a knowledge‐sharing study. Third, it also practically suggests feasible guidelines for the creativity and innovation research community on which features of storytelling‐based applications can be configured.     

Working with Guanxi: An Assessment of the Implications of Globalisation on Business Networking in China

Cross cultural literature has suggested China has a business culture based on family networks or guanxi connections underpinned by strong Confucian ethics. We argue that Chinese business may have distinctly national cultural attributes (that international businesses ignore at their peril) but we reassess the continuing significance of these historical cultural concepts. We query whether a system of networks consolidated during fifty years of state‐owned enterprises can still have application on the considerably larger scale of multinational corporate business of today’s China. Interview data collected from Australian expatriates in China in 2001 is used to assess the relevance of guanxi for effective international operations in China from the perspective of Australian expatriate managers.     

Gift or threat? An examination of voice of the customer: The case of MyStarbucksIdea.com

In Web 2.0 environment, the influence of customers’ voices is increasing. Many companies have built their online brand communities for listening to the diverse voices of the customer (VOC) and promoting customer’s engagement. The information obtained from these brand communities is exploited for organizational innovation. However, the VOC with negative contents could possibly present threats to a firm in an online context. In this study, we develop a research model that includes the types of customer expectations, opinion leader engagement, negative valence of VOC, interaction, and innovation. Subsequently, we empirically validate the effects of customer expectations on the interactions among community members and organizational innovation by using a dataset from MyStarbucksIdea.com. The results show that the effects of VOC on the interaction within a brand community and organizational innovation are different depending on the types of expectation in the VOC. Opinion leaders’ engagement positively affects the interaction among community members. Moreover, the negative valence of VOC affects the relationships between customer expectations and interactions, and results in a possible threat within an online brand community. The research results give some insight into managing the brand community and analyzing the VOCs so as to achieve organizational innovation.     

Mattering Matters: Agency,Empowerment, and Mobile Phone Use by Female Microentrepreneurs

This article attempts to enrich our understanding of the role that mobile phones play in the empowerment of women in the developing world. We adapt and explicate an innovative social psychological concept, “mattering,” embed it in the literature that examines the impact of mobile phones on social development outcomes, and consider the utility of mattering for the ICT4D community. Mattering is the perception that others are aware of, interested in, and depend on us. Based on a sample of 335 female microentrepreneurs in Chennai, India, we created a valid and reliable measure of mattering and its three dimensions. Mattering was predicted by (1) entrepreneurial expectations, an element of an individual's mindset; (2) social use of mobile phones; and (3) the perceived benefits of mobile phones for maintaining business networks. Findings suggest that mobile phone use plays a significant role in contributing to female entrepreneurs' perception that they matter.     

The effect of ethical leadership on employee social innovation tendency in social enterprises: Mediating role of perceived social capital

Although social innovation has gained prominence in policy, academic, and practitioner debates, there remains a lack of understanding of how leader aspects such as behavior and ethics contribute to fostering social innovation among employees in the social enterprise, owing primarily to a dearth of empirical research on this subject. The goal of this study is to empirically examine the effect of ethical leadership on the social innovation tendency among employees in social enterprises; also, employees' perceived social capital is hypothesized as a mediator through which the ethical leader is likely to influence their social innovation tendency. Using data collected from 189 employees associated with a variety of social enterprises, the results of structural equation modeling indicate that ethical leadership has both a direct and indirect effect on the social innovation tendency among employees, where the indirect effect of ethical leadership involves influencing the employees' perceived social capital, which subsequently influences their tendency for social innovation. Accordingly, the study offers key implications for social enterprise leaders aspiring to boost innovation in their endeavors aimed at achieving the enterprise's objective of creating positive social impact.     

Situational Awareness and OODA Loops: Coherent Knowledge-based Operations Applied: Last in a series of 4 articles

Let’s face it — leaders at all levels have it rough. Not only do they have to make decisions in the absence of complete information, they also were not put in position to explain losses and defeats. What can be done to improve the information set with which they have to work? Three actions will help: taking full advantage of employees’ knowledge, improving situational awareness, and using the observe–orient–decide–act (OODA) model. These actions are important core functions of Coherent Knowledge-based Operations (CKO).     

Charismatic leadership and tacit knowledge sharing in the context of enterprise systems learning: the mediating effect of psychological safety climate and intrinsic motivation

Drawing upon charismatic leadership and intrinsic motivation theory, we developed a theoretical model to examine the impact mechanism of leader charisma on individuals’ tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour in the context of an Enterprise Systems learning team. We conducted a survey-based field study to examine the theoretical model and hypotheses. A total of 153 questionnaires were distributed to employees from more than 20 branches of the Beidahuang Group in China and 117 valid questionnaires were returned. Results from partial least squares analysis suggest that leader charisma has a strong influence on psychological safety climate, which in turn has a positive impact on individuals’ intrinsic motivation and their tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour. Our research findings unpack the impact mechanism of charismatic leadership on tacit knowledge sharing, and provide guidelines for the team leader to exhibit charismatic leadership traits in order to promote a psychological safety climate and facilitate an effective knowledge sharing of enterprise systems.