The Influence of Individual Factors,Supervision and Work Environment on Creative Self‐Efficacy

In highly competitive global markets, organizations have to distinguish themselves with creative and innovative solutions to satisfy discerning customers. Creativity, an important precursor for innovation, provides organizations with a competitive advantage in a reinforcing loop of improved customer service, increased staff morale, increased retention of quality staff and further improvements in service ( Glisson & Durick, 1988 ; Anderson & College, 1992 ). Creative output comes from the performance of individuals with particular cognitive and personality traits ( Masten & Caldwell‐Colbert, 1987 ; Kirton, 1989 ) who are supported within a facilitative work environment ( Scott & Bruce, 1994 ; Amabile et al., 1996 ; Rice, 2006 ). Confidence in one's own ability or one's self‐efficacy is an important cognitive and social trait determining and sustaining work performance. Appropriate behaviours and performance standards are defined within the work environment and the ability and support received in meeting performance expectations enhance the individual's self‐efficacy ( Gist & Mitchell, 1992 ; Bandura, 1997 ). Both creativity and self‐efficacy have been associated with particular individual traits and environmental conditions in the workplace. While much has been written on these two concepts separately, less has been done to explore them as a single construct. This paper addresses the gap in the literature by linking creativity at work and occupational self‐efficacy. It reviews the literature on antecedent concepts and current research into creative self‐efficacy. In doing this, it provides the basis for further empirical exploration of possible linkages between creative self‐efficacy and individual and work environment variables. The contribution this paper makes is in the identification of specific variables that are significantly related to creative self‐efficacy. A model is proposed showing significant linkages between the identified variables.     

Scalable Height Field Self‐Shadowing

We present a new method suitable for general purpose graphics processing units to render self‐shadows on dynamic height fields under dynamic light environments in real‐time. Visibility for each point in the height field is determined as the exact horizon for a set of azimuthal directions in time linear in height field size and the number of directions. The surface is shaded using the horizon information and a high‐resolution light environment extracted on‐line from a high dynamic range cube map, allowing for detailed extended shadows. The desired accuracy for any geometric content and lighting complexity can be matched by choosing a suitable number of azimuthal directions. Our method is able to represent arbitrary features of both high‐ and low‐frequency, unifying hard and soft shadowing. We achieve 23 fps on 1024×1024 height fields with 64 azimuthal directions under a 256×64 environment lighting on an Nvidia GTX 280 GPU.     

Space‐in‐Time and Time‐in‐Space Self‐Organizing Maps for Exploring Spatiotemporal Patterns

Spatiotemporal data pose serious challenges to analysts in geographic and other domains. Owing to the complexity of the geospatial and temporal components, this kind of data cannot be analyzed by fully automatic methods but require the involvement of the human analyst's expertise. For a comprehensive analysis, the data need to be considered from two complementary perspectives: (1) as spatial distributions (situations) changing over time and (2) as profiles of local temporal variation distributed over space. In order to support the visual analysis of spatiotemporal data, we suggest a framework based on the “Self‐Organizing Map” (SOM) method combined with a set of interactive visual tools supporting both analytic perspectives. SOM can be considered as a combination of clustering and dimensionality reduction. In the first perspective, SOM is applied to the spatial situations at different time moments or intervals. In the other perspective, SOM is applied to the local temporal evolution profiles. The integrated visual analytics environment includes interactive coordinated displays enabling various transformations of spatiotemporal data and post‐processing of SOM results. The SOM matrix display offers an overview of the groupings of data objects and their two‐dimensional arrangement by similarity. This view is linked to a cartographic map display, a time series graph, and a periodic pattern view. The linkage of these views supports the analysis of SOM results in both the spatial and temporal contexts. The variable SOM grid coloring serves as an instrument for linking the SOM with the corresponding items in the other displays. The framework has been validated on a large dataset with real city traffic data, where expected spatiotemporal patterns have been successfully uncovered. We also describe the use of the framework for discovery of previously unknown patterns in 41‐years time series of 7 crime rate attributes in the states of the USA.     

Self‐calibration three‐dimensional light field display based on scalable multi‐LCDs

Approach to achieve self‐calibration three‐dimensional (3D) light field display is investigated in this paper. The proposed 3D light field display is constructed up on spliced multi‐LCDs, lens and diaphragm arrays, and directional diffuser. The light field imaging principle, hardware configuration, diffuser characteristic, and image reconstruction simulation are described and analyzed, respectively. Besides the light field imaging, a self‐calibration method is proposed to improve the imaging performance. An image sensor is deployed to capture calibration patterns projected onto and then reflected by the polymer dispersed liquid crystal film, which is attached to and shaped the diffuser. These calibration components are assembled with the display unit and can be switched between display mode and calibration mode. In the calibration mode, the imperfect imaging relations of optical components are captured and calibrated automatically. We demonstrate our design by implementing the prototype of proposed 3D light field display by using modified off‐the‐shelf products. The proposed approach successfully meets the requirement of real application on scalable configuration, fast calibration, large viewing angular range, and smooth motion parallax.     

Consistent Volumetric Discretizations Inside Self‐Intersecting Surfaces

Decades of research have culminated in a robust geometry processing pipeline for surfaces. Most steps in this pipeline, like deformation, smoothing, subdivision and decimation, may create self‐intersections. Volumetric processing of solid shapes then becomes difficult, because obtaining a correct volumetric discretization is impossible: existing tet‐meshing methods require watertight input. We propose an algorithm that produces a tetrahedral mesh that overlaps itself consistently with the self‐intersections in the input surface. This enables volumetric processing on self‐intersecting models. We leverage conformalized mean‐curvature flow, which removes self‐intersections, and define an intrinsically similar reverse flow, which prevents them. We tetrahedralize the resulting surface and map the mesh inside the original surface. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method with applications to automatic skinning weight computation, physically based simulation and geodesic distance computation.     

Reflecting on Connecting: Meta‐Analysis of Differences Between Computer‐Mediated and Face‐to‐Face Self‐Disclosure

Self‐disclosure is a key concept in computer‐mediated communication (CMC) theory and research, but disagreement exists about the impact of CMC, relative to face‐to‐face (FtF) communication, on self‐disclosure. We conducted a meta‐analysis of studies comparing self‐disclosure in CMC and FtF communication to summarize and clarify existing research. We also examined potential moderators of this difference—measure of self‐disclosure, study design (survey or experiment), interaction context (task or social), type of CMC (text‐based or video‐based), and interaction length. Overall, self‐disclosure was higher in FtF communication than in CMC. Measure of self‐disclosure, study design, and type of CMC moderated this difference. Findings suggest mixed support for predictions derived from key CMC theories and a need for CMC theory to more explicitly address self‐disclosure.     

Fast Soft Self‐Shadowing on Dynamic Height Fields

We present a new, real‐time method for rendering soft shadows from large light sources or lighting environments on dynamic height fields. The method first computes a horizon map for a set of azimuthal directions. To reduce sampling, we compute a multi‐resolution pyramid on the height field. Coarser pyramid levels are indexed as the distance from caster to receiver increases. For every receiver point and every azimuthal direction, a smooth function of blocking angle in terms of log distance is reconstructed from a height difference sample at each pyramid level. This function's maximum approximates the horizon angle. We then sum visibility at each receiver point over wedges determined by successive pairs of horizon angles. Each wedge represents a linear transition in blocking angle over its azimuthal extent. It is precomputed in the order‐4 spherical harmonic (SH) basis, for a canonical azimuthal origin and fixed extent, resulting in a 2D table. The SH triple product of 16D vectors representing lighting, total visibility, and diffuse reflectance then yields the soft‐shadowed result. Two types of light sources are considered; both are distant and low‐frequency. Environmental lights require visibility sampling around the complete 360 ° azimuth, while key lights sample visibility within a partial swath. Restricting the swath concentrates samples where the light comes from (e.g. 3 azimuthal directions vs. 16‐32 for a full swath) and obtains sharper shadows. Our GPU implementation handles height fields up to 1024 × 1024 in real‐time. The computation is simple, local, and parallel, with performance independent of geometric content.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Interaction Quality in Virtual End‐User Communities

Research has identified virtual communities as a valuable source of innovation. This study aims to provide an understanding of what makes some end‐user communities more successful in creating innovations than others. Specifically, we explore how the attractiveness of innovations is influenced by the quality of interaction between the community members. Additionally, we consider trust in benevolent behaviour and competition for reputation, as well as their interaction effect, as being possible antecedents of interaction quality. Drawing on data collected through a web‐based survey, this study explores the innovation activities of 127 virtual end‐user communities within the fields of sports, car and motorbike tuning and model building. The findings confirm that interaction quality is positively related to the innovativeness of virtual communities. As regards the antecedents of interaction quality, the analysis indicates that trust is a key prerequisite to co‐operative behaviour among the members of virtual communities. The level of competition, however, only affects interaction quality if a high level of trust is present among members. The results highlight the need to create an environment that facilitates interaction among the members of innovation communities. Furthermore, community managers should ensure that a minimum level of trust is established within the community before stimulating competition.     

Self‐similarity for accurate compression of point sampled surfaces

Most surfaces, be it from a fine‐art artifact or a mechanical object, are characterized by a strong self‐similarity. This property finds its source in the natural structures of objects but also in the fabrication processes: regularity of the sculpting technique, or machine tool. In this paper, we propose to exploit the self‐similarity of the underlying shapes for compressing point cloud surfaces which can contain millions of points at a very high precision. Our approach locally resamples the point cloud in order to highlight the self‐similarity of the shape, while remaining consistent with the original shape and the scanner precision. It then uses this self‐similarity to create an ad hoc dictionary on which the local neighborhoods will be sparsely represented, thus allowing for a light‐weight representation of the total surface. We demonstrate the validity of our approach on several point clouds from fine‐arts and mechanical objects, as well as a urban scene. In addition, we show that our approach also achieves a filtering of noise whose magnitude is smaller than the scanner precision.     

An Extended Privacy Calculus Model for SNSs: Analyzing Self‐Disclosure and Self‐Withdrawal in a Representative U.S. Sample

The privacy calculus established that online self‐disclosures are based on a cost‐benefit tradeoff. For the context of SNSs, however, the privacy calculus still needs further support as most studies consist of small student samples and analyze self‐disclosure only, excluding self‐withdrawal (e.g., the deletion of posts), which is essential in SNS contexts. Thus, this study used a U.S. representative sample to test the privacy calculus' generalizability and extend its theoretical framework by including both self‐withdrawal behaviors and privacy self‐efficacy. Results confirmed the extended privacy calculus model. Moreover, both privacy concerns and privacy self‐efficacy positively predicted use of self‐withdrawal. With regard to predicting self‐disclosure in SNSs, benefits outweighed privacy concerns; regarding self‐withdrawal, privacy concerns outweighed both privacy self‐efficacy and benefits.     

A Design Of Multiloop Predictive Self‐Tuning Pid Controllers

In this paper, a new design scheme of multiloop predictive self‐tuning PID controllers is proposed for multivariable systems. The proposed scheme firstly uses a static pre‐compensator as an approximately decoupling device, in order to roughly reduced the interaction terms of the controlled object. The static matrix pre‐compensator is adjusted by an on‐line estimator. Furthermore, by regarding the approximately decoupled system as a series of single‐input single‐output subsystems, a single‐input single‐output PID controller is designed for each subsystem. The PID parameters are calculated on‐line based on the relationship between the PID control and the generalized predictive control laws. The proposed scheme is numerically evaluated on a simulation example.     

Exploratory Study of Organizational Creativity in Creative Organizations

The creative industries represent an important and growing sector of the UK economy. This paper explores organizational creativity in firms within the creative industries. A questionnaire based on both Amabile's ‘Organizational Creativity’ model and Ekvall's ‘Creative Climate’ model was completed in ten firms in different sectors of the creative industries. Follow‐up interviews with five firms were also conducted, to compare the outputs from each model as well as the variation in responses from firms in different sectors. The results indicate that both models of organizational creativity are complementary, although not necessarily fully applicable in the creative industries. Specific differences between firms in the graphic design/branding sector and firms in product design were also observed.     

Exact and Robust (Self‐)Intersections for Polygonal Meshes

We present a new technique to implement operators that modify the topology of polygonal meshes at intersections and self‐intersections. Depending on the modification strategy, this effectively results in operators for Boolean combinations or for the construction of outer hulls that are suited for mesh repair tasks and accurate mesh‐based front tracking of deformable materials that split and merge. By combining an adaptive octree with nested binary space partitions (BSP), we can guarantee exactness (= correctness) and robustness (= completeness) of the algorithm while still achieving higher performance and less memory consumption than previous approaches. The efficiency and scalability in terms of runtime and memory is obtained by an operation localization scheme. We restrict the essential computations to those cells in the adaptive octree where intersections actually occur. Within those critical cells, we convert the input geometry into a plane‐based BSP‐representation which allows us to perform all computations exactly even with fixed precision arithmetics. We carefully analyze the precision requirements of the involved geometric data and predicates in order to guarantee correctness and show how minimal input mesh quantization can be used to safely rely on computations with standard floating point numbers. We properly evaluate our method with respect to precision, robustness, and efficiency.     

Input Shaping of the Synchronous Generator for Reduction of Self‐induced Oscillations

This article suggests the application of input shaping for the elimination of electromechanical oscillations arising from changes in the operating point of the synchronous generator. Poorly damped poles are the cause of electromechanical oscillations of the synchronous generator. Various power system stabilizers (PSS) are now used to reduce the electromechanical oscillations. Input shaping is a feedforward control and therefore does not require the measurement of electrical and mechanical quantities of the synchronous generator unlike the PSS. It is possible to apply the input shaping for the excitation system of synchronous generators with or without PSS.     

A New Approach To Optimal and Self‐Tuning Filtering,Smoothing and Prediction For Discrete‐Time Systems

A new approach to optimal and self‐tuning state estimation of linear discrete time‐invariant systems is presented, using projection theory and innovation analysis method in time domain. The optimal estimators are calculated by means of spectral factorization. The filter, predictor, and smoother are given in a unified form. Comparisons are made to the previously known techniques such as the Kalman filtering and the polynomial method initiated by Kucera. When the noise covariance matrices are not available, self‐tuning estimators are obtained through the identification of an ARMA innovation model. The self‐tuning estimator asymptotically converges to the optimal estimator.     

Trust‐based Leadership: Creative Lessons from Intelligent Horsemanship

Mostly unsubstantiated claims have been made that non‐traditional methods of horsemanship have much to offer as models for leadership. The claims include the achievement of rapid and efficient interactions in which trust is gained between the human and unridden foals, or even between human and horses with fear of human contact. A study has begun to explore the relationship between the so‐called ‘join‐up’ approach, and creative leadership. The basic principles of the two approaches have been compared and contrasted in pilot studies with managers on development courses. Preliminary results suggest that creative leadership, and the join‐up approach, have many features in common. A particularly significant similarity is that they are both trust‐based approaches, contrasting with more traditional approaches of human and horse management, in which the goals of the leader/trainer are achieved through reinforcement of power and through the exercise of coercive methods of maintaining dominance. The study raises deep ethical questions of how leaders deal with those over whom they have some power, and for whom they have responsibilities. We conclude that creative leadership, and trust‐based methods of horsemanship achieve involvement and cooperation by psychologically healthy means.     

Leader Self‐Reported Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Employee Creativity: An Exploratory Study

This research studies the relationship between six dimensions of leaders' emotional intelligence and two dimensions of employee creativity. A sample of 138 managers from 66 organizations reported on their own emotional intelligence and the creativity of their teams. Our results point out two main findings: (a) leaders' emotional intelligence explains significant variance of both creativity dimensions; (b) emotional intelligence dimensions with higher predictive power are self‐control against criticism and empathy. The findings suggest that emotionally intelligent leaders behave in ways that stimulate the creativity of their teams.     

Bubbling Up the Good Ideas: A Two‐Mode Network Analysis of an Intra‐Organizational Idea Challenge

Organizations have been experimenting with intraorganizational crowdsourcing (IOC), yet the mechanisms of IOC production remain an underresearched topic. Drawing on a 2‐mode ERGM, we examine structural mechanisms and individual‐level factors that shape the network structure of idea generation and selection yielded by an IOC idea challenge in a global IT corporation. Results show a Matthew effect leading to 1) highly centralized employee participation around a few “superactive” employees who engage with many ideas and 2) highly centralized idea popularity with a few ideas attracting most employee attention. We find support for shared affiliations among employee‐idea clusters in the first half of the participation, which is, however, less likely in the second half. We also find support for geographic homophily.     

Creative Hot Spots: A Network Analysis of German Michelin‐Starred Chefs

The Michelin Guide is a well‐respected source of information for the culinary consumer, and the stars awarded to the chefs by Michelin are powerful signs of culinary achievements. This study focuses on the career paths of Michelin‐starred chefs in Germany and aims at identifying the creative hot spots of the culinary domain. Through analysing the career trajectories of 262 chefs by means of social network analysis, it was found that the culinary network comprises a dense core, although some prolific chefs can be found at the periphery or even as isolates. Individual significance for the network – expressed as centrality – was found to be independent of the actor's star rating. Ties between chefs with different star ratings occur more often than between chefs with similar star ratings. The findings suggest that fewer ties are more beneficial for individual creative productivity and that knowledge transfers are more likely to happen between chefs with different levels of experience, skills and creative ability. Although creativity is still a personalized process, the acceptance and adaptation of the creative output is a social phenomenon, hence, this study underlined the suitability of social network analysis as a methodology for future studies of creative processes.     

The Antecedents of Exploitation‐Exploration and Their Relationship with Innovation: A Study of Managers' Cognitive Maps

Based on the resource‐based view (RBV) and the dynamic capabilities (DC) approach, in this work we carry out a thorough literature review in order to identify which organizational actions and resources act as the main antecedents of exploration and exploitation. Also, by using the cognitive maps technique, we analyse to what extent these antecedents are present in managers' cognitive maps when they develop exploration or exploitation strategies, as well as when they try to develop radical and incremental innovations. Our results show that, firstly, managers develop cognitive maps that match our theoretical proposals about the organizational resources and capabilities that can lead to exploitation and exploration. Secondly, regarding innovation, although the antecedents of exploitation are used by managers as the way towards incremental innovation, some antecedents of exploration are expected to facilitate not only radical but also incremental innovations. These results provide interesting points for reflection on the topics addressed and lead us to conclude that the antecedents of exploration and exploitation should not be seen as separate ways towards different types of innovation, but as sets of resources on which to build configurations that facilitate radical or incremental innovation.