bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Forgiveness in the Workplace
Authors: Rutigliano Nancy Kymn Harvin , Barkevich Sandra , Hurley Betty
Published: December 2016

All members of an organization—no matter where they reside on the organization chart—are fallible human beings. Mistakes, therefore, are inevitable. How mistakes are dealt with greatly impacts organizational culture, which is a major determinant of productivity and performance as well as satisfaction and loyalty. We make the case that forgiveness, while seldom discussed in the workplace or in leadership development programs, can be a major contributing factor to organizational success. Evidence will be provided that when mistakes are dealt with in an environment of forgiveness and as learning opportunities, the outcomes are more likely to be positive. Connections are made to employer and employee satisfaction as well as motivation, retention, and loyalty. We further show that forgiveness in the workplace promotes understanding, tolerance, and acceptance as well as the freedom to be creative, innovative, and to excel. Examples are provided from the literature and common situations at work as to how forgiveness can be effective in fueling success.
Fostering English Learners' Intercultural Competence and Multicultural Awareness in a Foreign Language University in Northeastern China
Authors: Qin Lili , Neimann Theresa D.
Published: December 2016

Strategic leadership needs to address the improvement of multicultural awareness of foreign language learners in China in order to enhance students' intercultural competence (IC). As part of strategic leadership and management this should be one of the foremost tasks of foreign language education in the context of globalization. An analysis of the following factors: needs of society, school, teacher and students with consideration to Taba's 7-step curriculum design theory, led the researchers to conclude that the implementation of a series of innovative intercultural communication (IC) courses, called 4-D (four-dimension) IC modules which included Intercultural Communication Theory module, Chinese Culture module, World Cultures module (cultures from different countries) and Comparative Methodologies of Chinese & Western Cultures module was the defining factor that led to multicultural awareness. The curriculum was oriented to multicultural awareness development and carried out in a foreign language university in northeastern China. The result demonstrated that student IC awareness increased comparatively slight, without the training of the above courses, while that of the students participating in the courses was significantly higher, which means the expected goal of upgrading the IC of foreign language talents has been achieved.
Leading for Team Adaptation in Global Virtual Teams
Authors: Chamakiotis Petros , Khan Zakia
Published: December 2016

There exists significant evidence in the relevant literature that global virtual teams (GVTs) have become ubiquitous in most sectors and have attracted both scholarly and practitioner interest. Despite this—and the fluid and dynamic character of GVTs—there exist gaps as to what team adaptation looks like in the GVT context and how leadership can be exercised to support it. The chapter presents an exploratory case study with members of GVTs in a global organization in the financial services industry. Drawing on interviews with selected participants, the chapter makes the following contributions: 1) It shows what GVT adaptation looks like, highlighting its heterogeneous character; 2) It identifies challenges GVT members face when trying to adapt; and 3) It explains how leadership can be exercised to support GVT adaptation. Recommendations for practitioners and educators are provided, and implications for future research discussed.
Managing People as a Leader
Authors: Keene Bonnie , Stelson Uta M.
Published: December 2016

Leadership is an all-encompassing term for individuals working with others. Whether someone is a leader or a manager, leadership is a critical component to the leader or manager role. Leadership is developed through constantly striving for higher levels of competency in communication, mediation, and motivation of others. However, those are not all the developments needed by a leader. He or she needs to have a vision and task management skills as well. This chapter will explore the difference in managers and leaders and the ways to effectively manage people by communicating, resolving conflicts, and motivating personnel.
Managing Portable Technologies for Special Education
Authors: Farmer Lesley S. J.
Published: December 2016

This chapter focuses on the management aspects of portable technologies for special education. Public education has a responsibility to insure that all students learn to the fullest feasible extent. Several pieces of legislation specifically address the academic needs of students with special needs. Part of that legal picture focuses on the role of technology. Increasingly, portable technologies provide multiple ways for students with special needs to have physical and intellectual access to information. Librarians are well positioned to manage those resources, and optimize their use by these student populations. Managers need to coordinate with stakeholders to ensure that collection development, instruction and other services support special education and align with policies at site, local, state and federal levels. Managers also need to ensure that library staff have the training to carry out these policies to optimize the impact of portable technologies for special education.
Navigating Organizational Change
Authors: Rutigliano Nancy Kymn Harvin , Wedderburn Nadine V. , Beckem II John M.
Published: December 2016

Organizational change is a critical process for the survival of any organization in the 21st century. Resistance to change, oftentimes presented by stakeholders within an organization, is a major impediment to the process and can lead to chaos. While being a driver of change, chaos complicates and often impedes transformation. Thus, while chaos necessitates highly dynamic change, resistance stands in the way of mobility. The goal of thriving through chaos and change poses challenges to leaders, managers, and an organization's many stakeholders, while also providing opportunities for learning and growth within the organization. Hence, a sophisticated approach aimed at eliminating, weakening, adapting or transforming different aspects of resistance serves the organization and its stakeholders with the benefits of acceptance, learning and growth. This chapter discusses factors that spark resistance to organizational change and presents opportunities to generate collective acceptance and promote learning among stakeholders.
Strategic Management from Within
Authors: Farmer Lesley S. J.
Published: December 2016

For managers to improve the organization strategically, they need to begin with self-management. What qualities exemplify effective managers? An individual effectiveness model employs four circles of self-assessment: self-perception, self-management, relationships, and effectiveness in group settings. How does one gain and use personal power? What is one's management style and decision-making practice? How does the work environment impact managers' action? Self-confidence and personal management success builds a reputation that attracts others to collaborate. Several self-assessment exercises are included.
The Impact of Improved Organizational Citizenship on Employee Retention
Authors: Gordon Kimberley
Published: December 2016

Organizational leaders sought to reduce turnover by developing a loyal and stable workforce. Workforce stability is frequently expressed in two terms: turnover and retention. Turnover references both the voluntary and involuntary departure of an employee from an organization. Conversely, retention refers to the rate at which employees chose to stay employed by the organization. The organization featured in this study sought to improve retention by boosting organizational citizenship in key peer leaders. The organization's leaders implemented a leadership development program to enhance organizational citizenship. The leaders hypothesized a significant difference would exist in retention rates between the year prior to the development program (2013) and the year immediately following the program (2015). This study compared employee turnover data to determine what – if any – trends occurred.
A Case Study of Strategic Leadership and Research in Practice
Authors: Brown Sidney L.
Published: December 2016

This chapter was developed to review the strategies of leadership preparation programs from two different institutions, one a Historically Black College/University (HBCU), and the other a Predominately White University (PWI) to explore the experiences of relationship building among the State Department of Education, the state legislature, local education agencies, school principals, graduate candidates, university faculty, two schools of education, and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) for the purpose of drawing implications for strengthening the training of school leaders. The focus is on a State Department of Education requirement that all seventeen Principal Preparation Programs re-designed their policies and procedures to meet new state standards of best practices adopted from consultation with the SREB. The final project was a designated SREB award (commendation) winning re-designed principal preparation internship program at the HBCU. The four key themes as descriptors of relationships between the two participating institutions: collaboration (subthemes include role definitions and interdependence), communication (subthemes include mentors' dispositions and power imbalance), creativity (subthemes include systems barriers and candidate placement), and critical thinking (subthemes include faculty qualifications and financial burdens). One critical factor that prevails throughout the literature and practical application is that designing and implementing excellent principal preparation/educational administrator programs is an international priority.
A Strategy
Authors: Ellington Linda
Published: December 2016

A starting point in exploring the strategic leader is to examine a 21C leader who will lead organizations through complex, global, competitive and undefined organizations. It may be time in the world's clock to reset the profile of strategic leaders; and if so, what does that look like and why do we care? This chapter is not only a view into the leader's development but the development of their organization across a variety of contexts. The strategic leader's competency to grow determines the organizational capacity to success. And yet, in the leader's quest for growth and success there may be a need to provoke a deeper understanding of their role in the process. The emerging challenges of chaos, complexity and ambiguity may affect the way leaders practice their craft; thus, the exploration into uncovering the need for the change of strategic leading itself.
Improving the Recruitment of Minority Populations in Clinical Trials
Authors: Akhtar Saliha , D'Abundo Michelle Lee
Published: December 2016

Clinical research trials are an important part of establishing evidence-based practice in the U.S. healthcare industry. The purpose of this chapter is to review how the recruitment of minority populations can be improved by creating a strategic shift toward community-based recruitment. The problem of insufficient minority recruitment is defined and contributing factors are reviewed. The relevancy of Lewin's change theory is explained from a staff and organizational perspective. Specific community-based change and leadership strategies that can be applied to clinical research organizations to create a strategic shift to increase minority recruitment are evaluated. Through making minority recruitment a strategic priority, staff and organizations can work with communities to resolve a salient issue in the U.S. healthcare industry.
Integrating Evidence-Based Practice in Athletic Training
Authors: Vorndran Brittany A. , D'Abundo Michelle Lee
Published: December 2016

Evidence-based practice (EBP) involves a health care professional using his or her own knowledge, the current research published, and the needs of the patient to make the best clinical decision. This has been a hot topic in many different branches of healthcare and recently athletic trainers have begun to embrace its importance. In December of 2015, athletic trainers (ATs) will need to have completed ten of their fifty continuing education units (CEUs) in EBP to maintain certification. While ATs recognize the significance of implementing EBP into clinical decision making, there are many barriers slowing the change. This chapter includes information about how EBP is currently being used by athletic training clinicians and educators, the barriers ATs perceive to using EBP, the importance of using EBP, and managing the transition needed to successfully adopt the use of EBP.
Leading Learning Communities with Creative Practice
Authors: Brown Susannah L. , Bird Jennifer Lynne , Musgrove Ann , Powers Jillian
Published: December 2016

Reflective leadership stories from various fields including, instructional technology, education and humanities guide the reader to reflect upon practice. Leadership theories that support personal growth, caring, interpersonal communication, problem solving, and creativity are discussed (Bass, 2008). Furthermore, the authors describe how creative leaders can use Communities of Practice (CoPs) as a mechanism to share and build knowledge, solve problems, and foster professional growth and development.
Quantitative Data Analysis for Quality Control in Strategic Management
Authors: Farmer Lesley S. J.
Published: December 2016

Data-driven decision-making and accompanying data analytic skills are increasingly important. Data analytics involves several steps: identifying the study's objective, determining the relevant data to collect, choosing the appropriate instruments to collect those data, analyzing that data, recommending appropriate actions, implementing them, and evaluating the implementation. Appropriately applying and analyzing statistics can be daunting, even for managing leaders. This chapter provides guidance in preparing data, matching the data with the appropriate statistical test, and making sense of the statistics. Library-based case studies illustrate how data analytics enables leaders to control and improve library processes.
Strategic Charismatic Leadership Communication
Authors: Norris Sharon E.
Published: December 2016

Leaders with the capacity to motivate others to work committedly toward the leader's goals are characterized as charismatic individuals. Charismatic leaders are strategic and persuasive in their communication, and they convey their vision in a manner that inspires others to join their cause and willingly engage in the leader's change efforts. In the rapidly changing organizational environment of the modern day, charismatic leaders not only capture follower attention but also give them confidence that things can change for the better. Strategic charismatic leadership communication holds the potential to turn the leader's vision into a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this chapter, a conceptual framework for the influence of strategic charismatic leadership communication as a self-fulfilling prophecy of the leader's vision is presented with leader distance and proximity, follower self-efficacy, value congruence, and similarity attraction between leader and followers as influential aspects of this important leader-follower relationship.
Strategic Leadership Competency Development
Authors: Putman Paul G.
Published: December 2016

Breaking down the broad concept of leadership into competencies can facilitate leaders becoming self-aware of education or development needs to increase their performance. Leadership competencies can be viewed in terms of workplace success as skills that can be developed (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2002; Northouse, 2015). Competencies help organizations set clear expectations about the types of behaviors, capabilities, mind-sets, and values that are important to those in leadership roles” (Conger and Ready, 2004, p. 43). This chapter provides an overview and introduction to competency models. It includes a description of adult learning theories applicable for competency development and effective andragogy (adult education). Included are criticisms regarding leadership competency models. The chapter also includes an example of an innovative leadership competency development approach. The chapter will close with a discussion and recommendations for future research.
Strategic Leadership in Higher Education
Authors: Starr-Glass David
Published: December 2016

In the complex and turbulent task environments of the millennium, strategic leadership is enjoying exceptional popularity and enthusiastic adoption. Higher education is currently facing significant difficulties and many have suggested that strategic leadership provides a viable solution for these problems. However, what advantages might strategic leadership really provide in higher education? This chapter looks in particular at the service-orientated nature of higher education, at some of the inherent challenges in utilizing strategic leadership in such a service-orientated environment, and at the extent to which this leadership approach might provide benefits and advantages in restoring the value proposition to the market-driven US higher education system.
Strategic Leadership in Higher Education
Authors: Norris Sharon E.
Published: December 2016

Higher education administrators face unprecedented changes that require not only faster decisions but also strategic ones. Unfortunately, institutionalization and isomorphic pressures weigh heavily on college and university administrators making it challenging for these individuals to envision the type of changes needed to formulate diverse strategies and lead the strategic change necessary in higher education. How many of today's higher education administrators have the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully lead their colleges and universities through the competitive, global, and technological advances that influence education today? The focus of this chapter will be on the need for strategic leadership in higher education, the outcomes that results when higher education administrators lack strategic leadership skills, and why it is important for administrators to develop associative thinking and collaborative innovation skills in order to successfully navigate the future.
Strategic Leadership in Higher Education
Authors: Alavi Nasim , Weiss-Randall Debra N.
Published: December 2016

The widespread adaptation of strategic leadership is a result of its successful synthesis of the short-term financial benefits of a conservative managerial approach and the long-term financial growth of an innovative visionary approach. Many have suggested strategic leadership as the approach of choice for the sector of higher education, which has been facing problems with student retention, financial and time pressures, and perceived loss of the value-added of a college degree. This chapter examines how the application of the strategic leadership approach can facilitate collaborative, engaging, authentic learning in institutions of higher education.
Strategic Leadership in Instructional Design
Authors: McDaniel Robin
Published: December 2016

The dynamic growth of distance education (DE) in the higher education poses a challenge for both leadership and instructional design strategies in post-secondary institutions. Curricular efficacy and sustainability are dependent upon institutions of higher education adapting to changes by implementing strategies that will work to address the increasing necessity for engaging curriculum for students in the DE environment. Strategic leadership (SL) skills, combined with instructional design (ID) strategy, may provide a pathway towards academic accomplishment for both students and instructors in the higher education sector. Instructional designers with strategic leadership skills may assist institutions in developing and implementing DE courses. The question is, how can instructional designers accommodate the needs of a diverse group of students in the growing technology-rich educational environment, and does strategic leadership play a role? If so, how can instructional designers act strategically to design and develop DE courses that encourage active learning and continued interest in educational attainment? The focus of this chapter is on how instructional designers can take on strategic leadership roles to enhance distance education curriculum and instruction for overall student engagement. For the purposes of this chapter, distance education is defined as learning that occurs over the internet. Discussion includes how integrating strategic leadership into the instructional design process in distance education courses may result in increased student and institutional effectiveness.
Strategic Leadership through the Prism of National Culture
Authors: Starr-Glass David
Published: December 2016

The increasing importance and practice of strategic leadership can easily be seen as a rational and logical response to growing complexity and volatility in the task environments that organizations confront. Undoubtedly, this is partially true, but a strategic leadership response is also supported and encouraged by the cultural assumptions, beliefs, and values embedded in many Western societies. It is not without significance that strategic leadership has become so widely adopted in national cultures that legitimize individualism, power distance, risk-taking, and future-orientated behaviors. These cultural dimensions support and encourage strategic leadership, but what happens when this leadership model is applied, or imposed, in different national cultural contexts? This chapter tries to answer this question by considering national culture and the perception of the strategic leadership construct.
Strategic Transformational Organizational Leadership
Authors: Gordon Robert
Published: December 2016

To assist leaders in achieving more successful decisions in business, leaders should understand current successful leadership strategies. The current literature lacks recent trend analysis of strategic transformational virtual organizational leadership, which would be helpful to organizational leaders to make better strategic decisions. To this end, leaders need to understand the current literature regarding successful strategies utilized in different organizations worldwide. Current (2013-2015) peer-reviewed articles about strategic transformational virtual organizational leadership business were studied to establish the direction of the recent global research. This chapter seeks to understand the strongest influencers to current effective strategic transformational virtual organizational leadership. This research utilizes a summative content analysis technique with multiple keyword searches and content evaluations to establish the trends found in the literature. The resulting research shows that strategic organizational virtual leadership includes transformational leadership, distributed leadership and performance measurement as strategies that support increased organizational effectiveness.
Strategically Logical and Ethical Decision-Making in Leadership and Management
Authors: Rodberg Sara
Published: December 2016

The contents of this report explain what strategically logical and ethical decision making is for leaders and managers and how to identify problems and apply logical and ethical decision making practices. Several methods included describe approaches to ethical and logical decision making and models that have been studied and revised to meet the needs of today's organizational structures. The models described include the Hill Model for Team Leadership, McGrath's Critical Leadership Functions, Control Theory, and the Leader-Participation Model of Decision Making. The purpose for this material involves the need to provide a comprehensive guide to understanding team dynamics as they pertain to the decision making process in leadership. Understanding the ethical and logical components of a team encourages leaders to make decisions that are involved with the sometimes complicated implementation of the decision and this material offers guidance for recognizing which decision making strategy best serves the organization's objectives.
The Role of Strategic Leadership in Building the Geocentric Culture of Global Corporations
Authors: Plakhotnik Maria S.
Published: December 2016

The purpose of the chapter is to discuss the role of strategic leadership in building and sustaining geocentric organizational culture. The geocentric organizational culture is a corporate culture of global corporations (Perlmutter, 1985). This culture has to go above and beyond different national cultures that employees bring with them and foster those beliefs and values that are “comprehensive and compelling” (Kets de Vries & Florent-Treacy, 2002, p. 299) to all employees. The chapter starts with an introduction to global companies and the geocentric culture. Then a review works around strategic leadership is followed by a discussion of the role of strategic leadership in building and sustaining the geocentric culture.
Impact of Overpopulation on Land Use Pattern
Authors: Garg Shivani
Published: December 2016

Overpopulation does not depend only on the size or density of the population, but on the ratio of population to available sustainable resources. It also depends on how resources are managed and distributed throughout the population. Overpopulation is one of the hazards and serious problem, which creates a great obstacle in the way of national development. It is estimated that growth in human population affect the global land use pattern available for agriculture, forest land cover, nearby area of different type of water bodies. The rapid increase of human population is putting extraordinary pressure on our natural resources available e.g. land, water, ecosystem services etc. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the various environmental implications of overpopulation and rural-urban migration which in turns affect the land use pattern of world. Deforestation and loss of ecosystems that sustain global atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide balance is also another implication.
Overpopulation and Its Association with Natural Disasters
Authors: Kaushik Geetanjali , Patil Satish S. , Singhal Poonam , Chel Arvind L.
Published: December 2016

With a population of over a billion, India is facing the challenges of overpopulation is making the country prone to natural disasters. focus of this chapter is the Indian Tsunami which occurred on 26th December 2004 in the Cuddalore district of State of Tamil Nadu and caused massive loss of life and devastation of property. From this case study it is evident that the first priority for India is to control its population growth so that the environment is protected from the adverse effects of overexploitation. Next is to establish a warning system which covers both its coasts on the east and west side and can readily alert the inhabitants with regard to a potential tsunami. Community based tsunami education, proper consideration to local culture during recovery and resettlement of communities, addressing basic issue of earthquake safety in buildings and establishment of a buffer zone on coast, all these measures would help in minimizing the impact of tsunami waves.
Human Overpopulation and Water Pollution
Authors: Sharma Gargi , Mutiyar Pravin Kumar
Published: December 2016

The increased human population is threatening the natural water resources by reducing flows and deteriorating quality. High levels contamination of fecal microbes in Indian water resources is one of the worst impact on natural environment. The incomplete sewage treatment in existing STPs is the root cause it, along with disposal of untreated sewage. Fecal microbes even after the secondary treatment demands the further reduction, hence, an alternative method of vertical flow constructed wetland was adopted to examine the efficiency of the system. The study was aimed to primarily to suggest the suitability and comparative performance of wetland species, P. australis and C. indica. Study revealed the importance of fibrous rooting system of C. indica which helps to enhance aerobicity within the system and cause the reduced number of microbes. The additive enhancement of physical mechanism as well as competition among microflora within the wetland system and excretions from roots of C. indica plant might have been the reason of the significant highest removal of microbial indicators.
Teacher Identity (Re)Construction within Professional Learning Communities
Authors: Gedik Pinar Kocabas , Ortactepe Deniz
Published: December 2016

The research on teacher professional identity mostly focused on the process of teacher professional identity formation, the characteristics of teacher professional identity according to the teachers themselves as well as the researchers, and the representation of professional identity through teacher narratives in written and spoken discourse (Beijaard et al., 2004). However, there is much to explore in teachers' tensions and emotions regarding the issues between teacher cognition, and personal and professional sides of teacher identity (Day & Leitch, 2001). In this chapter, we have reviewed the literature on teacher professional identity in relation to communities of practice, imagined identity, and imagined communities. Various definitions of emotions and tensions as well as their roles in teacher professional identity construction have been presented and relevant studies on teacher identity construction, emotions and tensions have been discussed.
E-Mentoring as a Professional Teacher Development Tool
Authors: Cetin Muzaffer , Sahinkarakas Sehnaz
Published: December 2016

This action research study was aimed at exploring how a collaborative e-mentoring platform can be used as a supplemental tool for professional teacher development, specifically on the issue of formative assessment practices. The platform consisted of a group of eight volunteer teachers working in locationally disadvantaged areas and the mentors. Five modules were prepared and implemented based on the needs of the teachers, and the data were collected constantly from various sources throughout the study. The analysis of data revealed two basic themes: Positive aspects and challenges of e-mentoring. Overall, the study revealed that most of the teachers believed in the importance of having professional development support through e-mentoring because it could break down the locational barriers between teachers. Although there were some difficulties such as the unique problems or heavy workloads of the teachers, it still had implications for broader expressions for professional development.
Collaborative Teacher Development on Teaching World Englishes
Authors: Atay Derin , Kurt Gökçe , Kaşlıoğlu Özlem
Published: December 2016

Teachers play a central role in shaping education. Educational innovations succeed or fail with the teachers who shape it (Lieberman & Pointer Mace, 2008); thus teachers' professional development process should be given utmost importance and organized in a way that supports and promotes their growth. Traditional INSET programs based on knowledge-transmission are found to be ineffective in reaching this aim. The present case-study introduces a collaborative INSET program, in which the participating pre-and in-service teachers tried to develop their understanding of World Englishes and integrate it into teaching under the guidance of university supervisors. Data collected by means of interviews revealed that this process enriched the knowledge of the participants and enabled them to look at the relevant issue from a critical perspective.
Empowering “Digital Immigrants”
Authors: Strause Shufang Shi , Tan Sophia
Published: December 2016

Contemporary research shows that a significant proportion of American K-12 teachers feel that they are inadequately prepared for the challenges of applying new and unfamiliar technology to existing curricula and using technology as part of their daily practice in classrooms (Tondeur et al., 2012). In this chapter, the authors examine how they motivate a group of in-service teachers to use emerging technology tools for teaching and learning through their educational technology courses. For a few semesters in their educational technology courses, the authors have experimented with different ways to help both pre-service and in-service teachers overcome their challenges. Through trial and error, the authors have found strategies to help these digital immigrants to “learn, unlearn, and relearn” (Toffler, 1973) their acquired misconceptions and habits regarding technology. This inquiry is a distillation of these strategies.
Setting New Standards for In-service Teacher Training
Authors: Çelik Servet
Published: December 2016

The top-down approach to teacher professional development that is typical in the Turkish context has been highly criticized in recent years as failing to meet the practical needs of classroom practitioners. Amid increasing calls for a more meaningful approach to in-service training, the author was called on to develop and present a seminar for Turkish teachers of English as a foreign language that would support their understanding of a newly designed English language teaching. With the need for responsive teacher training in mind, the author designed a program that would encourage teachers to share their experiences in the classroom and to highlight their concerns. Furthermore, the program would provide opportunities for ongoing interaction between the participants and the author in terms of feedback on the process, the impact of the program, and sharing of resources and other information. This chapter provides a detailed description of the training program, which was offered in two separate modules for elementary and secondary EFL teachers. The author hopes that the program may provide a useful model for teacher trainers and program designers in providing an actionable approach to teacher development.
Morphozoic, Cellular Automata with Nested Neighborhoods as a Metamorphic Representation of Morphogenesis
Authors: Portegys Thomas , Pascualy Gabriel , Gordon Richard , McGrew Stephen P , Alicea Bradly J.
Published: December 2016

A cellular automaton model, Morphozoic, is presented. Morphozoic may be used to investigate the computational power of morphogenetic fields to foster the development of structures and cell differentiation. The term morphogenetic field is used here to describe a generalized abstraction: a cell signals information about its state to its environment and is able to sense and act on signals from nested neighborhood of cells that can represent local to global morphogenetic effects. Neighborhood signals are compacted into aggregated quantities, capping the amount of information exchanged: signals from smaller, more local neighborhoods are thus more finely discriminated, while those from larger, more global neighborhoods are less so. An assembly of cells can thus cooperate to generate spatial and temporal structure. Morphozoic was found to be robust and noise tolerant. Applications of Morphozoic presented here include: 1) Conway's Game of Life, 2) Cell regeneration, 3) Evolution of a gastrulation-like sequence, 4) Neuron pathfinding, and 5) Turing's reaction-diffusion morphogenesis.
A Scalable Multiagent Architecture for Monitoring Biodiversity Scenarios
Authors: Rocha Vladimir , Brandão Anarosa Alves Franco
Published: December 2016

Recently, there has been an explosive growth in the use of wireless devices, mainly due to the decrease in cost, size, and energy consumption. Researches into Internet of Things have focused on how to continuously monitor these devices in different scenarios, such as environmental and biodiversity tracking, considering both scalability and efficiency while searching and updating the devices information. For this, a combination of an efficient distributed structure and data aggregation method is used, allowing a device to manage a group of devices, minimizing the number of transmissions and saving energy. However, scalability is still a key challenge when the group is composed of a large number of devices. In this chapter, the authors propose a scalable architecture that distributes the data aggregation responsibility to the devices of the boundary of the group, and creates agents to manage groups and the interaction among them, such as merging and splitting. Experimental results showed the viability of adopting this architecture if compared with the most widely used approaches.
Mase
Authors: Ralha Celia G. , Abreu Carolina G.
Published: December 2016

This chapter presents research carried out under the MASE project, including the definition of a conceptual model to characterize the behavior of individuals that interact in the dynamics of land-use and cover change. A computational tool for analyzing environmental scenarios of land change was developed, called MASE - Multi-Agent System for Environmental Simulation. MASE enables agent-based simulation scenarios and integrates the influence of socio-economic and political dynamics through the interaction of agents with rules of land-use and planning policies and the environmental physical and spatial variables. MASE simulator was extended to implement the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) model, called MASE-BDI. MASE and MASE-BDI are discussed including the conceptual model complexity and statistical techniques of map comparison to land change models. Two real cases of the Brazilian Cerrado validate quantitative and qualitative aspects of MASE and MASE-BDI simulators. Finally, the authors present some auto-tuning aspects of adjusting simulation parameters of MASE-BDI.
Taming of “Openness” in Software Innovation Systems
Authors: Gençer Mehmet , Oba Beyza
Published: December 2016

In large-scale Open Source Software (OSS) innovation ecosystems that incorporate firms, a variety of measures are taken to tame the potentially chaotic activities and align the contributions of various participants with the strategic priorities of major stakeholders. Such taming rests on the dual desires of this emergent community of firms to unleash the innovation potential of OSS and to drive it to a certain direction, and it emerges in the form of various organizational activities. By drawing on a sample of large-scale OSS ecosystems, we discuss that methods employed for taming are isomorphic, and overview the emerging strategic pattern for establishing systems of innovation. This pattern involves a related set of practices to balance virtues of OSS community while introducing corporate discipline. In contrast to approaches such as open innovation, which favor isolated reasoning, we present a systemic and historical perspective to explain the continuum in emergence and establishment of strategic patterns.
Innovation Implementation
Authors: Baporikar Neeta
Published: December 2016

Due to rapid evolution of technology, innovations are vital to most organizations (Choi & Chan, 2009, p. 245). Nevertheless, the results of innovations are in many cases not satisfying. Several studies have shown that an organization's failure to benefit from an adopted innovation can often be attributed to a deficient implementation process rather than to the innovation itself. Thus, the implementation process is a critical interface between the decision to adopt and the routine usage of an innovation. Ways and methods to implement innovation effectively have been under scholarship for some time now. Despite the number of studies which identify multiple causes of unsuccessful implementation processes, literature is lacking regarding the strategic facets of innovation implementation. Building on the derived knowledge of the underlying dynamics of innovation processes, through grounded theory and in-depth literature review, the present study aims to contribute to existing implementation literature by examining the strategic facets of innovation implementation.
Sustainable Development Challenges in Developing Countries
Authors: Yadav Vanita
Published: December 2016

India is a country with a population of 1.2 billion and around 400 million poor people remain excluded from the formal economy. India does not offer a social security number for its residents. Rather, there exist variant forms of identification documents. In 2009, the Government of Indian initiated the Aadhaar project to create biometric technology-enabled unique identities for Indian residents. In a short timespan span, the project has made remarkable progress by enrolling more than 600 million people. The objective of this paper is twofold: (1) to review the emerging literature on inclusive innovation and (2) to examine the case of Aadhaar Project in India, which aims to address the issue of poverty and inclusive development. Findings of the study reveal that the Aadhaar project has the potential to create an ecosystem of inclusive innovation and entrepreneurship, which can be beneficial for developing economies like India.
Online Advertising
Authors: Behboudi Mehdi , Mokhtari Hamideh
Published: December 2016

The purpose of this chapter is to provide some insights into advertisements on the Iranian websites. Firstly, in publisher side, is the ethic a matter of fact in accepting Internet advertisements to publish? Second, to provide a preliminary insight into the advertising of pleasant and objectionable products, which one is more? Third, what kind of the involvement (rational or emotional) used more to publish Internet advertisements? Content analysis was used to verify the data. In order to avoid the miscoding of contents, two researchers conducted the analysis and Intercoder reliability used to this goal. we found that (1) all 649 analyzed ads in Iranian websites are belonged to ethical ads and no unethical advertisement found at websites, (2) the majority of published advertisements are belonged to “high involvement product with rational appeal”, (3) the “objectionable product ads” at Iranian weblogs was more “pleasant product ads”. This study by analyzing 1400 advertisements gives managers some insights and solutions regarding to advertising on the Iranian Internet domains.
Applications Driven Information Systems
Authors: Lavassani Kayvan Miri , Movahedi Bahar
Published: December 2016

Advancements in organizational information systems and developments in business environments have brought important changes to the contemporary management practices and business models. Organizations have evolved beyond their specific and general environments towards business ecosystems. This study investigates the evolutions of organizational information systems and business environments in the contexts of business ecosystem. Based on an evolutionary study of organizational information systems and business ecosystem an ontological model is proposed for the adoption of new technologies in the real world designs with particular attention to the application of technology. We call for further empirical and conceptual research in understanding and exploring the role of business ecosystems in organizational operations and industrial ecosystems.
Implications of the Strategic Agency of Sociomaterial Configurations for Participation in Strategy-Making
Authors: Laine Pikka-Maaria , Parkkari Piritta
Published: December 2016

The aim of this chapter is to answer calls for more studies on the role of materialities in enabling or restricting the participation of larger numbers of people beyond managerial ranks in strategy-making. Drawing on sociomateriality as a practice philosophical perspective, the chapter studies strategy-making in a community-based organization and explores how human actions and materialities interweave to enhance the participation of rank-and-file members in strategy-making. The results show how different sociomaterial configurations gain strategic agency in different phases of a strategy-making process and the implications of these for participation in strategy-making. The authors argue that it is not sufficient to focus on technologies or other materialities as such, but it is also necessary to acknowledge the whole sociomateriality of practices. Furthermore, they also argue that participation in strategy could be seen as a dialectic process of exclusion and inclusion.
Comprehension of Technology in Parent-Child Activities Using Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain
Authors: Ger Tzu-Hsiang , Chu Yao-Ming , Chang Mei-Chen
Published: December 2016

The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of life creativity contests held by museums for elementary school children and their parents on the participants' conceptual cognition of water conservation technologies. A survey is designed to evaluate the change in the participants' conceptual cognition of the technologies, and includes questionnaires on water consumption habits in daily lives, understanding of the water resources in the Taiwan region, and uses of and opinions on water-saving devices. A method on which the assessment of the conceptual knowledge of the participants was based was a content analysis of the interviews. The findings of this study suggested: (a) the creativity contest provided diverse opportunities to improve the participants' cognitive concepts of water conservation; (b) this activity also has positively influenced the learning of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of water conservation technologies.
Blind Signal Detection Techniques for Spectrum Sensing in Satellite Communication
Authors: Khan Bilal Muhammad , Bilal Rabia
Published: December 2016

Modulated signals used in communication systems exhibits cyclic periodicity. This is primarily due to sinusoidal product modulators, repeating preambles, coding and multiplexing in modern communication. This property of signals can be analyzed using cyclostationary analysis. SCF (Spectral correlation function) of cyclic autocorrelation (CAF) has unique features for different modulated signals and noise. Different techniques are applied to SCF for extracting features on the basis of which decision of detecting a signal or noise is made. In this chapter, study and analysis of different modulated signals used in satellite communication is presented using SCF. Also comparison of several signal detection techniques is provided on the basis of utilizing unique feature exhibit by a normalized vector calculated on SCF along frequency axis. Moreover a signal detection technique is also proposed which identifies the presence of a signal or noise in the analyzed data within the defined threshold limits.
Radio Frequency Identification and Mobile Ad-Hoc Network
Authors: Kasemsap Kijpokin
Published: December 2016

This chapter explains the components of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID); the aspects of RFID; the barriers to RFID utilization; the privacy and security issues of RFID; the RFID applications in supply chain management; the RFID applications in the health care industry; the RFID applications in modern business; the Near Field Communication (NFC) in mobile devices; the overview of Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET); the security concern of MANET; and the advanced issues of MANET in the digital age. RFID and MANET become the growing components of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications and can be effectively utilized in global operations. The chapter argues that RFID and MANET have the potential to increase the efficiency of operations in various industries, improve asset visibility and traceability, decrease reliance on manual processes, reduce operation costs, and provide useful data for business analytics.