A Business Model Innovation Typology

An effective business model is the core enabler of any company's performance. Business model innovation is not only becoming more and more important due to increasing and globalizing competition, but also an enormous challenge, both theoretically and practically. Although many managers are eager to consider more disruptive changes to their business model, they often do not know how to articulate their existing or desired business model and, even less so, understand the possibilities for innovating it. One of the steps toward developing more theoretical insight and practical guidelines is the identification of types and the development of a typology of business model innovations. Ten retrospective case studies of business model innovations undertaken by two industrial companies provide the empirical basis for this article. We analyzed the characteristics of these innovations as well as their success rates. The findings suggest that there are indeed various business model innovation types, each with its own characteristics and challenges.     

超越性别的女性生命体验——析老舍《月牙儿》的女性意识

从女性主义文学批评的角度来研读就会发现,《月牙儿》小说文本充满了女性意识。具体表现在文本的情绪化结构、女性话语表达、男性缺席结构、女性的自省以及性欲等方面。作家老舍从小生活在社会的底层,以其对贫困的独特理解,他所呈现的女性形象既在显示下层妓女生活悲惨境遇的同时,又表现了强烈的女性独立意识。主人公的独立精神被现实的黑暗所吞没使小说的悲剧性达到了高潮。     

论马克思理论的逻辑起点与出发点

马克思理论的逻辑起点是“本质的人”,出发点是“现实的人”。马克思理论的出发点和逻辑起点的区分,标志了马克思思维方式的彻底变革,为马克思理论的产生和形成奠定了科学的基础。同时,它对我们深化理解马克思理论和构建社会主义和谐社会来说有着极其重要的理论和实践意义。     

Making Sense of Organizational Change: Voices of Older Volunteers

The role of voluntary and community sector organizations in the delivery of public services is increasing and these changes bring new responsibilities and benefits to organizations that have the capacity to participate. There are concerns within the sector about the implications for citizenship and participation. The sector is highly dependent on volunteers yet little is known about how organizational change in response to new relationships with the statutory sector impact upon the commitment and well-being of people who volunteer. This paper addresses that gap in knowledge for older volunteers. Drawing upon collaborative research with a voluntary organization in the north of England, the authors explore the meanings and aspirations of volunteering for older people, and explain how and why changes associated with closer engagement with public service delivery and less grant dependency can be disempowering for them.

The Positive Effects of Easy Goals on Decision Quality and Risk Propensity in an MCPLP Task

In this study the potential performance benefits of easy goals were examined within the multiple cue probability learning paradigm (MCPLP). Specifically, the effects of varying levels of goal difficulty on performance and risk propensity (used to define a form of commitment) were investigated. With few exceptions, previous studies demonstrated support for difficult goals. In this study, contrary to the majority of past evidence, as goals became easier decision quality significantly improved. Moreover, risk propensity increased with easier goals and, as suggested by a post-hoc analysis, had more direct impact on decision makers’ behaviors than goal levels. Goal-related behavior in complex MCPLP tasks appears to significantly differ from the majority of goal evidence in other types of research due to the tendency for subjects to view complex task properties in the same context as goal levels.     

The Effects of Personality Type on Choices Made in Strategic Decision Situations*

Jung's personality-theory typology is used as a framework for exploring the effects of cognitive style on the type and radicalness of choices made in strategic decision situations. Extending the work of Haley and Stumpf [23], it is proposed that individuals with different personality-type preferences exhibit cognitive styles that are associated with specific biases in the pattern of choices they make. Through participation in an interactive behavioral simulation, 407 participants confronted over one hundred ill-structured decision situations and proposed whatever actions they perceived appropriate. The results support the hypothesized relationships that individuals with different personality-type preferences (i.e., sensing-thinking, intuition-thinking, sensing-feeling, and intuition-feeling) take patterns of actions that reflect specific biases (i.e., selective perception, positivity, social desirability, and reasoning-by-analogy, respectively). The implications of these findings for evaluating the likely effectiveness of strategic decisions and making senior-level staffing decisions are discussed.     

Towards an assessment for organizational participatory research health partnerships: A systematic mixed studies review with framework synthesis

Within the health sciences, organizational participatory research (OPR) is defined as a blend of research and action, in which academic researchers partner with health organization members. OPR is based on a sound partnership between all stakeholders to improve organizational practices. However, little research on the evaluation of OPR health partnership exists. This systematic mixed studies review sought to produce a new theoretical model that structures the evaluation of the OPR processes and related outcomes of OPR health partnerships. Six bibliographic databases were searched together with grey literature sources for OPR health partnership evaluation questionnaires. Six questionnaires were included, from which a pool of 95 OPR health partnership evaluation items were derived. The included questionnaires were appraised for the quality of their origin, development and measurement properties. A framework synthesis was performed using an existing OPR framework by organizing questionnaire items in a matrix using a hybrid thematic analysis. This led to our proposed Organizational Participatory Research Evaluation Model (OPREM) that includes three axes, Trust, Collective Learning and Sustainability (with specific dimensions) and 95 items. This model provides information to help stakeholders comprehensively structure the evaluation of their partnerships and subsequent improvement; thus, potentially helping to improve health organization practices.     

Hypothesis Testing of CNA Perceptions of Organizational Culture in Long Term Care

This commentary for the special issue on research that went wrong describes a study that explored factors that contribute to variability within Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) on organizational safety culture. We know from previous research that CNAs provide most direct care in nursing homes and that direct care workers often experience agency culture differently from agency management (Wolf et al., 2014). We were looking for factors that nursing homes could alter to improve the culture for CNAs, and thus, residents. We conducted a secondary analysis of data collected via a multi-component paper survey of CNAs employed in long term care. We used results from the Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture and primary shift, type of unit, and years as a CNA to identify modifiable characteristics that would explain variability in the perceptions of patient safety culture. The final sample included n = 106 from three nursing homes. Dimension scores were compared using bivariate tests appropriate to the scale and ordinal logistic regression. Despite support in the literature for the hypothesis, we found few significant differences on the total scale within groups. Differences in perceptions have implications for quality of care and the experiences of residents within nursing homes.     

Interactive profit-planning systems and market turbulence: A dynamic capabilities perspective

This article describes, theorizes and empirically investigates the concept of interactive profit-planning systems (PPS) through the lens of the dynamic capabilities logic. With this conceptualization: interactive PPS capabilities comprise budgeting, forecasting and results-reporting routines, in which top and middle managers interact to create knowledge for sensing, seizing, and business model reconfiguring (to manage strategic business change). Survey data from 331 Australian firms is analyzed employing partial least squares structural equation modeling. The data provides support for two hypotheses: (1) greater market turbulence strengthens the positive effect of interactive PPS capabilities on business unit performance; and (2) greater market turbulence strengthens the positive effect of flexibility values (of organizational culture) on interactive PPS capabilities. Our findings show that interactive PPS capabilities function according to the salient tenets of the dynamic capabilities logic, and clarify the beneficial roles of formal cybernetic control systems and the intertwined involvement of top and middle managers in using dynamic capabilities.     

Strategic Shared Leadership and Organizational Dynamic Capabilities

We propose that the purposeful sharing of strategic decisions and the process of making and taking those between the dominant coalition of an organization (Strategic Shared Leadership or SSL thereafter), initiated and supported by a focal strategic leader or small team, engenders Organizational Dynamic Capabilities (ODCs) though the transfer of individually-residing DCs within the SSL team, the transformation -co-creation of novel ones and their embeddedness-institutionalization within the organization. It also enhances organizational cognition which mediates the relationship by enriching co-created ODCs and their capacity to deliver reliably change through sensing, seizing and reconfiguring. Accordingly, SSL serves as a co-creator and key predictor of the emergence of ODCs. This helps address the challenges of DCs to marry stability with change, be predictable and to be capable of predicting.