Mature Organization Research Articles

온톨로지를 이용한 개념형 소프트웨어 프로세스 데이터베이스 설계 및 구현

Ontology can be used as a formal and demonstrative knowledgebase that can express the thinking process of human. Software Development Process is a collection of ideal practices and procedural system that is performed by mature organization with high capability. Due to complexity of process, however, Software development Process often results in obstruction of introducing and improving simple process activity. While introducing and improving software development process, application of ontology to complex software development process is more approachable by showing deductive results of relationship between ISO/IEC 15504 and CMMI. In this paper, we demonstrate a methodology that utilizes the improved process database conceptually mapping between ISO/IEC 15504 and CMMI using ontology.

Losing innovativeness: the challenge of being acquired

PurposeThe aim of the paper is to explore how innovativeness and creativity in a small technology company changes after the company is acquired by a larger company.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical part of the article is based on interview and questionnaire data, with a focus on employees' perception of innovativeness and creativity, including their own innovativeness in relation to the possibilities offered within the organisational structure.FindingsThe results indicate that entrepreneurial spirit, innovativeness, and creativity in the case company were related to the lack of boundaries to and contact with customers. These driving forces could not be sustained when the organisation matured and was acquired by a larger company.Research limitations/implicationsMore research regarding the integration phase of acquisitions, and how it affects employees and innovativeness, is needed. Case‐based research should examine differences between companies that are repeatedly successful in integrating small technology companies into their organisational structure and those that are not. Employees' motivation as a key factor to innovativeness should be in focus and the research should also include employees that leave the acquired company as well as employees with the acquiring company.Practical implicationsAn acquisition strategy as a way for mature organisations to gain access to innovativeness and new resources and skills can easily fail. Even though the resources and skills of the two companies are complementary and the competencies of the acquired organisation are intact, efforts are needed to make the energies of the two organisations act in tandem. Thus, the pre‐ and post‐integration phases of an acquisition seem to be of paramount importance.Originality/valueVery few papers have studied how employees in an acquired company perceive incorporation into a large mature company. This article adds to research by examining how employees in a small, entrepreneurial company perceive innovation, creativity, and the innovative process three years after being acquired by a large, mature company.

Developing Absorptive Capacity in Mature Organizations

A considerable amount of research into how organizations absorb new knowledge was prompted by the work of Cohen and Levinthal. In a recent literature review Zahra and George identify two distinct elements of absorptive capacity (potential and realized). This article contributes to the study of managerial agency in the absorption of new knowledge and skills. Zahra and George’s model is extended to incorporate key roles associated with knowledge transfer, including gatekeepers, boundary spanners and change agents. Empirical data are drawn from a longitudinal study of a mature manufacturing firm based in North Wales. Change was initiated by the owner in response to the loss of the company’s major customer—the Ministry of Defence. The main change agent was a recently recruited middle manager who used his mass production experience to improve managerial communications and introduce more efficient working practices to the shopfloor.

Using cellular automata to simulate electronic commerce receptivity in small organisations

The focus of the research is to study the dynamics of electronic commerce propagation caused by organisational characteristics in small organisations. A model of opinion dynamics and verbalisation process for studying the receptivity of electronic commerce in small organisations in Slovenia is proposed. The methodology is based on cellular automata approach, diffusion theory, small organisations characteristics and studies on factors affecting electronic commerce introduction and usage in small organisations. The decision of an organisation whether to adopt electronic commerce or not is based on its attitude towards electronic commerce and impressions gathered from interactions with other organisations. Different characteristics of organisations were defined according to the data gathered by interviews and a survey. Several types of electronic commerce diffusion dynamics are evident from the data gathered. The most likely scenario of electronic commerce diffusion among small organizations in Slovenia predicts a decrease in organizations that are less mature in e-commerce and the increase in more mature organizations by 6–8% by the end of year 2006.

Unusual CT/MR features of putative ligamentum flavum ossification in a North African woman

To display the unusual spinal CT and MR findings in a 48-year-old North African woman presenting with two adjacent intracanalar mineralized epidural outgrowths exhibiting mature bone organization with "cortical" and "trabecular" areas and pseudoarthritic changes at their interface. An unusual form of ligamentum flavum ossification (LFO) was speculated, of which features are discussed under the light of the available literature.

KM your way to CMMI

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe two related fields – knowledge management (KM) and capability maturity model integrated (CMMISM) – and highlight their similarities.Design/methodology/approachThe KM framework used for this comparison is the one established and used at Israel Aircraft Industries, while the CMMISM source of information is none but the original document produced by the CMMISM product team at the Carnegie Mellon University, as well as papers published on the subject.FindingsKnowledge management is a rather young discipline promising to maximize innovation and competitive advantage to organizations that practice knowledge capture, documentation, retrieval and reuse, creation, transfer and share to its knowledge assets in a measurable way, integrated in its operational and business processes. The capability maturity model integrated deals with the ways an organization has to follow, in order to maintain well mapped processes, having well defined stages, because of the assumption that in mature organizations, it is possible to measure and relate between the quality of the process and the quality of the product. Though KM and CMMISM take different approaches to the achievement of competitive advantage, they seem to be supporting as well as dependent of each other.Originality/valuePractitioners as well as researchers in the field of knowledge management and in the implementation of the CMMISM standard will find comfort in realizing how mutually supportive are these two fields.

Corporate Entrepreneurship: How?

Most organizations find that their ability to identify and innovatively exploit opportunities decreases as they move from the entrepreneurial to the growth phase. However, the key to success in the highly competitive and dynamic environment that most companies presently operate in is to retain this ability. Therefore, companies need to adopt an entrepreneurial strategy — seeking competitive advantage through continuous innovation to effectively exploit identified opportunities — in order to sustain and grow under such circumstances. For such a strategy to succeed, companies should develop an enabling economic and political ecosystem that does not impede small or large scale redeployment of resources in new ways towards creative, entrepreneurial ends. Companies have a range of options to choose from to achieve this objective. At the one end of this option spectrum is ‘focused entrepreneurship’ wherein specific innovation initiatives are created with the rest of the organization insulated from them. At the other end is a managerial approach that leads to the creation of ‘organizationwide entrepreneurship.’ Entrepreneurship in such organizations is a shared value and drives managerial behaviour in conscious and subconscious ways and creates an entrepreneurial spirit organization-wide. Many mature organizations, unwilling to alter the status quo, tend to create focused initiatives that are mandated to identify and exploit new opportunities. While such focused initiatives may stimulate innovation, the very nature of their design erects barriers between the existing organization and the innovation effort. This makes it difficult for the organizations to access and leverage the existing capability base and to integrate new initiatives back into operational activity. Companies intent on developing and preserving entrepreneurship organization-wide, independent of their stage of growth, create an environment in which those who believe in the attractiveness of opportunities feel encouraged to pursue them. The top managements of such companies will design an organizational context conducive to autonomous generation of entrepreneurial initiatives, provide a sense of overall direction to these initiatives, and ensure that promising ventures receive necessary resources as they move through the uncertain development process wherein: money is neither offered nor seen as a primary motivator entrepreneurial contributions are rewarded with recognition and through provision of opportunities to engage in entrepreneurial activities on a bigger scale failure is considered normal and when failure occurs, the focus is on problem solving and learning from it rather than apportioning blame appropriate processes are used to capture knowledge created in the innovation process and routines developed to enable integration of such knowledge to create organizational rents. The contrast between patterns of focused and organization-wide entrepreneurship runs across every element of the organization starting with its mission and covering strategy, structure, systems, processes, and people skills and attitude. Institutionalizing the elements of entrepreneurship is crucial to building a sustaining competitive organization in today's business environment.

A requirements monitoring framework for enterprise systems

Requirements compliant software is becoming a necessity. Fewer and fewer organizations will run their critical transactions on software that has no visible relationship to its requirements. Businesses wish to see their software being consistent with their policies. Moreover, partnership agreements are pressuring less mature organizations to improve their systems. Businesses that rely on web services, for example, are vulnerable to the problems of their web service providers. While electronic commerce has increased the speed of on-line transactions, the technology for monitoring requirements compliance—especially for transactions—has lagged behind. To address the requirements monitoring problem for enterprise information systems, we integrate techniques for requirements analysis and software execution monitoring. Our framework assists analysts in the development of requirements monitors for enterprise services. The deployed system raises alerts when services succeed or fail to satisfy their specified requirements, thereby making software requirements visible. The framework usage is demonstrated with an analysis of ebXML marketplace specifications. An analyst applies goal analysis to discover potential service obstacles, and then derives requirements monitors and a distributed monitoring system. Once deployed, the monitoring system provides alerts when obstacles occur. A summary of the framework implementation is presented, along with analysis of two monitor component implementations. We conclude that the approach implemented in the framework, called ReqMon, provides real-time feedback on requirements satisfaction, and thereby provides visibility into requirements compliance of enterprise information systems.

De novo myofibrillogenesis in C2C12 cells: evidence for the independent assembly of M bands and Z disks

We studied the distribution of the giant sarcomeric protein obscurin during de novo myofibrillogenesis in C(2)C(12) myotubes to learn when it is integrated into developing sarcomeres. Obscurin becomes organized first at the developing M band and later at the mature Z disk. Primordial M bands consisting of obscurin, myomesin, and M band epitopes of titin assemble before adult fast-twitch sarcomeric myosin is organized periodically and nearly concurrently with primitive Z disks, which are composed of alpha-actinin and Z disk epitopes of titin. Z disks and M bands can assemble independently at spatially distant sites. As sarcomerogenesis proceeds, these structures interdigitate to produce a more mature organization. Fast-twitch muscle myosin accumulates in the myoplasm and assembles into A bands only after Z disks and M bands assume their typical interdigitated striations. The periodicities of M bands remain constant at approximately 1.8 microm throughout sarcomerogenesis, whereas distances between Z disks increase from approximately 1.1 microm in early sarcomeres to approximately 1.8 microm in more mature structures. Our findings indicate for the first time that primitive M bands self-assemble independently of Z disks, that obscurin is a component of these primitive M bands in skeletal muscle cells, and that A bands assemble only after M bands and Z disks integrate into maturing sarcomeres.

Overcoming the challenges in deploying user provisioning/identity access management backbone

This paper sets out to share BT's leadership and experience by determining the identity management opportunities and issues, then document the lessons learnt in previous deployments and recommend strategies for all types and sizes of organisation. Today's ICT environment has created a mixed approach to access management across sectors. Browser-based any time, anywhere, anyone access, coupled with the business need to access more systems and services across a changing infrastructure of distributed platforms and networked services, has changed the administrative landscape. Enterprises are being forced to add administrative support staff or invest in technology-driven process change. At the same time, users are undergoing significant change, creating new expectations in service quality. Moreover, regulatory bodies are demanding confirmation that processes granting access are controlled and documented. In this world of increasing demands, complexity and expectation, the service management tools, techniques and options available to improve user access management are as varied and numerous as the issues faced by management in their deployment. Identity management is widely heralded as an opportunity to improve the end user experience, reduce costs, improve security and deliver regulatory compliance — but is often misunderstood. Projects regularly fail to achieve the expected benefits. These failures are the result of expectations being inappropriately set, deployment of solutions turning out to be more complex or taking longer than expected, and/or products selected before required functionality has been determined. For the larger more mature organisations, or those organisations that are the amalgamation of mergers and acquisitions, the dilemma is where to start and what approach to take.

Balancing Losses and Growth: A Relational Perspective on Identity Formation in the Second Half of Life

Psychoanalysis has so far only to a limited extent examined specifically grown-up and mature organizations of the self. The Freudian contributions mainly examine the impact of losses on the second half of life. The Eriksonian approaches put greater emphasis of possible gains and adaptation, while less attention is paid to inner, subjective life. In contrast, the Jungian and transpersonal views emphasize possible increase in inner freedom and a more relativistic, holistic, and possibly spiritual or "worldcentric" view on existence. Within a relational psychoanalytic perspective on identity formation in the second half of life, these possible changes may be described as a mature widening of potential space, using Winnicott's terms. Relationships also may be more based on "being" than "doing." A perspective incorporating potentials for increased experiential depth and creativity must include attention to actual losses and suffering, conflicts involved in letting go of certain ambitions, and lifelong themes that may be actualized.

Action learning for strategic innovation in mature organizations: key cognitive, design and contextual considerations

This article lays out a model of action learning for catalyzing strategic innovation in mature organizations that are faced with a new competitive playing field. Central to this model is the development of a set of sophisticated cognitive capabilities—sensemaking, strategic thinking, critical thinking, divergent thinking, conceptual capacity and a malleable learning orientation. The learning design provides challenge, opportunity and support for overcoming organizational orthodoxy that can otherwise hamper innovation. Examples from the Chubb Global Executive Program are used to identify and discuss key cognitive, contextual, learning and design elements of this model.

Zebrafish Hsp70 is required for embryonic lens formation

Heat shock proteins (Hsps) were originally identified as proteins expressed after exposure of cells to environmental stress. Several Hsps were subsequently shown to play roles as molecular chaperones in normal intracellular protein folding and targeting events and to be expressed during discrete periods in the development of several embryonic tissues. However, only recently have studies begun to address the specific developmental consequences of inhibiting Hsp expression to determine whether these molecular chaperones are required for specific developmental events. We have previously shown that the heat-inducible zebrafish hsp70 gene is expressed during a distinct temporal window of embryonic lens formation at normal growth temperatures. In addition, a 1.5-kb fragment of the zebrafish hsp70 gene promoter is sufficient to direct expression of a gfp reporter gene to the lens, suggesting that the hsp70 gene is expressed as part of the normal lens development program. Here, we used microinjection of morpholino-modified antisense oligonucleotides (MOs) to reduce Hsp70 levels during zebrafish development and to show that Hsp70 is required for normal lens formation. Hsp70-MO-injected embryos exhibited a small-eye phenotype relative to wild-type and control-injected animals, with the phenotype discernable during the second day of development. Histological and immunological analysis revealed a small, underdeveloped lens. Numerous terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-fluoroscein nick-end labeling (TUNEL)-positive nuclei appeared in the lens of small-eye embryos after 48 hours postfertilization (hpf), whereas they were no longer apparent in untreated embryos by this age. Lenses transplanted from hsp70-MO-injected embryos into wild-type hosts failed to recover and retained the immature morphology characteristic of the small-eye phenotype, indicating that the lens phenotype is lens autonomous. Our data suggest that the lens defect in hsp70-MO-injected embryos is predominantly at the level of postmitotic lens fiber differentiation, a result supported by the appearance of mature lens organization in these embryos by 5 days postfertilization, once morpholino degradation or dilution has occurred.

INCUMBENCY AND THE DISRUPTIVE REGULATOR: THE CASE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES IN CALIFORNIA

For much of the past century, the automobile sector has been dominated by a handful of oligopolistic firms, protected through path dependencies and the build up of complementary assets. But that very dominance built upon years of experience and translated into the periodic release of incrementally innovative new car designs, may now be threatened by the actions of regulators in California and elsewhere, in mandating emission friendly cars. The biggest challenge in this area has been the demand for zero emission vehicles resulting from Californian regulations. Zero emission legislation mandates the use of technologies radically different from those used in the development of internal combustion engines. Such technology acts in a disruptive manner on the existing skills base of the automobile firms, negating some of the benefits of incumbency. With little or no experience of the systems needed to develop a viable electric vehicle — batteries, electric motors and controllers — the established automobile manufacturers have struggled with a strategic question: how to incorporate disruptive elements into a mature organisation. This paper explores the nature of the regulatory threat and the strategic responses generated by the automobile firms.

Effect of low-power pulsed laser on peripheral nerve regeneration in rats.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether low-power pulsed laser irradiation could affect the regeneration of a 10-mm gap of rat sciatic nerve created between the proximal and distal nerve stumps, which were sutured into silicone rubber tubes. After 8 weeks of recovery, pulsed laser-irradiated groups at frequencies of 5 kHz and 20 kHz both had significantly lower success percentages of regeneration (50% and 44%, respectively) compared to sham-irradiated controls (100%). In addition, qualitative and quantitative histology of the regenerated nerves revealed a less mature ultrastructural organization with a smaller cross-sectional area and a lower number of myelinated axons in both pulsed laser-irradiated groups than in controls. These results suggest that pulsed laser irradiation could elicit suppressing effects on regenerating nerves.

Community Innovation through Entrepreneurship: Grantmaking in Canadian Community Economic Development

This paper examines the relationships among community innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge, and grantmaking in the field of community economic development. The paper assesses the experience of the Community Economic Development Technical Assistance Program (CEDTAP), a bilingual grantmaker operating in rural and urban Canada, in combining small-grant funding with knowledge management methods to support community innovation. The CEDTAP experience illustrates how the multiple roles played by individual entrepreneurs and the social entrepreneurship of the local CED organization combine to drive the innovation process. Mature CED organizations are found to pursue innovation in order to achieve performance gains to better achieve their mission. While information technology is of some interest to these groups, they are increasingly active in applying new production technologies to strengthen their business enterprises. The CEDTAP experience highlights the potential of grantmakers to enhance their impact and reach through such knowledge-management tools as electronic portals, action-research and mutual learning within thematic clusters of grantee projects. The paper calls for practitioners and scholars to better understand the nature of, and interrelationships among, community innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge and grantmaking in community economic development.

Product derivation in software product families: a case study

From our experience with several organizations that employ software product families, we have learned that, contrary to popular belief, deriving individual products from shared software assets is a time-consuming and expensive activity. In this paper we therefore present a study that investigated the source of those problems. We provide the reader with a framework of terminology and concepts regarding product derivation. In addition, we present several problems and issues we identified during a case study at two large industrial organizations that are relevant to other, for example, comparable or less mature organizations.

The human adult cardiomyocyte phenotype.

Determination of the phenotype of adult human atrial and ventricular myocytes based on gene expression and morphology. Atrial and ventricular cardiomyocytes were obtained from patients undergoing cardiac surgery using a modified isolation procedure. Myocytes were isolated and cultured with or without serum. The relative cell attachment promoting efficiency of several reagents was evaluated and compared. Morphological changes during long-term culture were assessed with phase contrast microscopy, morphometric analysis and immunocytochemistry or RT-PCR of sarcomeric markers including alpha-actinin, myosin light chain-2 (MLC-2) and the adhesion molecule, cadherin. The isolation method produced viable rod-shaped atrial (16.6+/-6.0%, mean+/-S.E.; n=5) and ventricular cells (22.4+/-8.0%, mean+/-S.E.; n=5) in addition to significant numbers of apoptotic and necrotic cells. Cell dedifferentiation was characterized by the loss of sarcomeric structure, condensation and extrusion of sarcomeric proteins. Cells cultured with low serum recovered and assumed a flattened, spread form with two distinct morphologies apparent. Type I cells were large, had extensive sarcolemmal spreading, with stress fibers and nascent myofibrils, whilst type II cells appeared smaller, with more mature myofibril organisation and focal adhesions. Characterization of the redifferentiation capabilities of cultured adult cardiac myocytes in culture, provides an important system for comparing cardiomyocytes differentiating from human stem cells and provides the basis for an in vitro transplantation model to study interaction and communication between primary adult and stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes.

Complex Acts of Knowing: Paradox and Descriptive Self‐Awareness

We are reaching the end of the second generation of knowledge management, with its focus on tacit-explicit knowledge conversion. Triggered by the SECI model of Nonaka, it replaced a first generation focus on timely information provision for decision support and in support of BPR initiatives. Like BPR it has substantially failed to deliver on its promised benefits. The third generation requires the clear separation of context, narrative and content management and challenges the orthodoxy of scientific management. Complex adaptive systems theory is used to create a sense-making model that utilises self-organising capabilities of the informal communities and identifies a natural flow model of knowledge creation, disruption and utilisation. However the argument from nature of many complexity thinkers is rejected given the human capability to create order and predictability through collective and individual acts of freewill. Knowledge is seen paradoxically, as both a thing and a flow requiring diverse management approaches. The Cynefin Centre Membership of the Centre, which focuses on action research in organisational complexity is open to individuals and to organisations. It focuses on high-participation action research projects seeking new insights into the nature of organisations and markets using models derived from sciences that recognise the inherent uncertainties of systems comprised of interacting agents. However, the Centre is not about attempting to apply physical or biological models to organisations wholesale without attention to the uniquely human capacities of free will, awareness and social responsibility. It is about engaging human organisational complexity in its many manifestations, including the ancient collective and emergent patterns of narrative, ritual, negotiation of identity and truth, self-representation and knowledge exchange. The Centre is not about consultants or academics conducting multiple interviews or observations and deriving static hypothesises and models based on their outside "expertise". It is about creating focused dynamic interactions between traditional and unexpected sources of knowledge to enable the emergence of new meaning and insight. The Centre is based on a model of networked intelligence, creating a broad and loosely structured coalition of academics, industrial and governmental organisations to create new insight and understanding for its members into the complexity of managing in a new age of uncertainty. The basis of all Centre programmes is to look at any issue from multiple new perspectives and to facilitate problem solving through multiple interactions among programme participants. Programmes run on a national, international and regional basis and range from investigation of seemingly impossible or intractable problems to pragmatic early entry into new methods and tools such as narrative databases, social network stimulation and asymmetric threat response.

The significance of structural dynamics for a theory of neurosis and personality disorders

Following the psychopathological approach of Janzarik (structural dynamics), this paper develops a two-dimensional theory for the understanding of neuroses and personality disorders. The dynamic dimension serves to describe the symptomatology between the two poles of anxiety and depression. The structural dimension differs according to the maturity of the personal identity between mature neurotic personality organization on the one hand and severe personality disorder on the other.