Organizational Problem Solving Research Articles

Management relevance in a business school setting: A research note on an empirical investigation

In this research note, we address wicked problems within the context of business schools. Our aim is to understand if business schools fully reflect the needs of business. To achieve this, we assess the mission, vision, and stated strategies of the top 200 global business schools to determine if the MBA curriculum addresses wicked problems. From our findings, we demonstrate that the MBA curriculum does not address the nature of wicked problems or provide the intellectual and interdisciplinary frameworks to educate managers on serious competitive issues in a global context. In addition to challenging many premises of the MBA curriculum, we outline several areas of opportunities to assist business schools in adapting to the evolving needs of business and organizational problem-solving.

효과적인 빅데이터분석 기획 접근법에 대한 융합적 고찰

Abstract Big data analysis is a means of organizational problem solving. For an effective problem solving, approaches to problem solving should take into account the factors such as characteristics of problem, types and availability of data, data analytic capability, and technical capability. In this article we propose three approaches: logical top-down, data driven bottom-up, and prototyping for overcoming undefined problem circumstances. In particular we look into the relationship of creative problem solving with the bottom-up approach. Based on the organizational data governance and data analytic capability, we also derive strategic issues concerning the sourcing of big data analysis. Key Words : Big data planning, Data Convergence, Top-down approach, Bottom-up approach, Prototyping approach,Data governance * The research was supported by the 2014 Hannam University Research Fund.Received 5 November 2014, Revised 8 December 2014Accepted 20 January 2015Corresponding Author: Kyoo-Sung Noh (SunMoon University)Email: ksnoh@sunmoon.ac.krⒸ The Society of Digital Policy & Management. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is ISSN: 1738-1916 properly cited.

The influence of transformational leadership on organizational creative problem solving capacity

In order to successfully operate and remain in contemporary turbulent marketplace, organizations need to foster their employees' creativity, because it is a prerequisite of organizational innovation. As creativity is a precursor of innovation, and as innovation is an example of creative solutions implementation, there arenumerous situations which require creative behavior of employees and that can be labeled as 'problems'. Therefore, creative problem solving turns out to be relevant in understanding of creativity. The aim of this paper is to offer an answer to the question - how transformational leadership influences the improvement of the capacity for creative problem solving within the organization. On the basis of the relevant literature, but also numerous practical examples of successful companies, we realized that transformational leaders foster a creative attitude of the employees and help them to build capacity for creative problem solving. Also, we realized that many studies have neglected the psychological conditions under which this exchange takes place. As creative problem solving requires extensive and strenuous cognitive processes, we assumed that the role of psychological safety is necessary because employees need to feel free during proposing new creative solutions.

Report of the 2013-2014 Argus Commission: Diversity and Inclusion in Pharmacy Education

INTRODUCTION The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Argus Commission is comprised of the five immediate past AACP presidents and is annually charged by the AACP President examine one or more strategic questions related pharmacy education, often in the context of environmental scanning. President Peggy Piascik charged the 2013-14 Argus Commission with a broad examination of the issue of and specifically with identifying responses the following question: How can we more effectively address and serve the in our membership at both the institutional and individual level and prepare our learners serve an increasingly diverse population of consumers? The Commission examined issues of and inclusion from five distinct but related perspectives. These included: 1) societal diversity; 2) the applicant pipeline; 3) current students; 4) pharmacy faculty, and; 5) AACP and its member institutions. The analysis included an examination of trends over a period of approximately ten years plus projections related specific demographic parameters. The work of the Argus Commission benefited from several recent publications. Navigating Diversity and Inclusion in Veterinary Medicine (1) provides a comprehensive analysis of demographic trends and issues interpreted for the veterinary profession, many of which apply equally this analysis. The American Council on (ACE) released in June 2013 the fourth monograph in their series on in higher education. Matter of Excellence: A Guide Strategic Diversity Leadership and Accountability in Higher Education (2) provides substantive guidance on policy and practice in the academy. The Commission's discussions were also influenced by the contributions in the literature of Scott Page (3) and colleagues who have written about the value proposition of diverse working groups, including the construct of of thought and perspectives. This is a theme that will be central the Argus Commission report and recommendations. THE CASE FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION In The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies (3), Scott Page first defines terms related and then differentiates cognitive (e.g., thought, perspective) from identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender). He then provides the evidence supporting the subtitle that suggests is stronger than homogeneity in multiple contexts. In his introduction he emphasizes that diversity does not translate magically into benefits. He notes that must be relevant, collegial and understood more deeply by those working bring the benefits of and inclusion into the community, schools, workplace and society in general. Diversity requires commitment from all levels of leadership. He contends that in many situations trumps individual ability and that cognitive has a stronger evidence base than identity diversity. In the introduction of Matter of Excellence (2), the authors challenge the higher education community face the imperatives of a new reality in which is no longer simply a question of moral and social responsibility, but a matter of achieving excellence and gaining competitive advantages in the world we live in today: a matter of improving organizational creativity, learning, problem solving, and institutional effectiveness--of sustainability and relevance in a twenty-first century knowledge economy. The monograph offers higher education institutions a clear and compelling roadmap for building into the infrastructure of the organization at every level. It calls for efforts involving senior leaders, chief officers, deans, department chairs, students, faculty, alumni and others work toward a common goal: to move beyond the cycle of crisis, action, relaxation, and disappointment that has been repeated so frequently on college and university campuses. …

Dynamic capabilities, expert and entrepreneurial learning

This article focuses on how managers sense and seize opportunities for learning and developing dynamic capabilities in organisations. An approach of building process theory from cases traces learning events in the technological innovationapproaches of three securities custodians facing an increasingly dynamic market. The article extends and elaborates the dynamic capability learning framework (Lecler, 2013) which proposes that managers recognise learning opportunitiesthrough two types of learning, expert and entrepreneurial, with variants for technological and organisational problem solving. The concept of entrepreneurial learning is further elaborated to help explain differences in the learning patternsfound. Distinctive characteristics of the two types of learning are proposed pertaining to opportunity recognition and realisation, and the problem solving strategy. The framework helps to analyse data in terms of four learning patterns: expert honing and aligning, and entrepreneurial shaping and configuring. Further, entrepreneurial learning is suggested to facilitate dynamic capability development in a highly dynamic environment.

Administrative staff members’ job competency and their job satisfaction in a Korean research university

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of administrative staff's job competency on their job satisfaction in a Korean research university. We conceptualized job satisfaction into three subcomponents: satisfaction in the job field, in the workplace, and with the actual task. In the regression analysis, we included demographics, inner motivation, work environments, and nature of work (e.g. clarity of task) factors as the predictors of job satisfaction. We included job competency as a main research variable in the model. This study found that the administrative staff's interpersonal skills affect their overall job satisfaction, and that each dimension of job competency (organizational understanding, problem solving, interpersonal skills, ICT skills, and global competency) has a different impact on the different dimensions of job satisfaction (job field, workplace, and job task).

Rhythms of Learning -- Radical and Incremental Innovation Projects and Problem-solving in the Automotive Industry

This paper studies effects of interaction and communication patterns on learning in radical and incremental New Product Development (NPD) projects. It presents results of a multiple longitudinal case study of project meetings and data exchange along a technological transition path in four sequential car development projects. To gain in depth insights, data were analyzed on project level and on problem-solving level by means of a mixed-method approach. We contribute to the literature on organizational learning and problem-solving in NPD by deriving propositions based on three rhythmic patterns identified. First, we identify that effective project-to-project learning requires communication and interaction overlap, and is moderated by project newness. Second, successful projects form a wave-shaped rhythm of communication defined by changing amplitudes and frequencies. In effective learning, communication follows a decaying oscillation. Third, we observe that interaction is best described as an s-shaped curve, reflecting phases of high and low intense artifact generation. In combination, identified patterns serve as reference values to evaluate project performance and allow managerial intervention.

Organizational Architecture & Problem Solving: A Topic Modeling Approach to New Problem Attention

This study examines how the organizational architecture shapes the problems that decision makers attend to. Using a unique data set of organizational changes at Motorola over a 23- year period, and a topic modeling approach to identifying and measuring problem attention, we examine how the structural differentiation and attentional integration of the firm’s business units affect attention to new technology problems. Our primary thesis is that organizational attention to problems is conditioned by the organizational design choices of the firm, and that attention to new problems requires greater coupling between units. We find that the greater the differentiation within a business unit, the fewer new problems topics attended to, but that overlapping diagnostic frames or redundant charter space increases the number of topics attended to. Our study contributes to attention-based theories of firm and to the emerging literature on organizational design.

Modeling Relational Events

Sequences of relational events underlie much empirical research on organizational relations. Yet relational event data are typically aggregated and dichotomized to derive networks that can be analyzed with specialized statistical methods. Transforming sequences of relational events into binary network ties entails two main limitations: the loss of information about the order and number of events that compose each tie and the inability to account for compositional changes in the set of actors and/or recipients. In this article, we introduce a newly developed class of statistical models that enables researchers to exploit the full information contained in sequences of relational events. We propose an extension of the models to cater for sequences of relational events linking different sets of actors. We illustrate the empirical application of relational event models in the context of a free/open source software project with the aim to explain the level of effort produced by contributors to the project. We offer guidance in the interpretation of model parameters by characterizing the social processes underlying organizational problem solving. We discuss the applicability of relational events models in organizational research.

Creative Problem Solving and Knowledge Sharing in Organizations

Creative Problem Solving and Knowledge Sharing in Organizations

Problemsourcing: Local Open Innovation for R&D Organizations

IntroductionHow do R&D organizations harness the benefits of open forms of organizing for innovation, yet promote their traditional mission to provide excellent and useful scientific services and maintain their research capabilities? Crowdsourcing, whereby the "wisdom of the crowd" is harnessed for organizational problem-solving, is one form of open innovation that has

Problemsourcing: Local Open Innovation for R&D Organizations

IntroductionHow do R&D organizations harness the benefits of open forms of organizing for innovation, yet promote their traditional mission to provide excellent and useful scientific services and maintain their research capabilities? Crowdsourcing, whereby the "wisdom of the crowd" is harnessed for organizational problem-solving, is one form of open innovation that has

What is distinctive about museum pedagogy and how can museums best support learning in schools? An action research inquiry into the practice of three regional museums

It seems uncontroversial to claim that museums are unique places of interest with the potential to inspire learners, yet what this means and how it is managed are complex questions. Museum educators’ work is currently shaped by accountability requirements typically expressed as visitor targets. Centralised teaching and learning initiatives are presented as ‘good practice’. In opposition to these factors, the action research inquiry discussed here set out to enable the participants to research and reflect upon the challenges of their individual contexts, and to develop ideas for practice that were ‘bespoke’. Deliberation on particular predicaments raised important issues, such as the relationship between schools and museums; the educational value of museums to schools; and the distinctive nature of museum pedagogy. A group of museum educators began with the question: ‘How can we support teachers in integrating learning in a museum, with the school curriculum, to help raise pupil attainment’? The paper tells the story of the project and includes reflections on the use of action research as a method of personal professional development and organisational problem-solving.

The dual network structure of organizational problem solving: A case study on open source software development

We reconstruct the dual network structure generated by the association between 72 contributors and 737 software bugs engaged during a full development cycle of the free/open source software project Epiphany. Estimates of structural parameters of Exponential Random Graph Models for two-mode networks reveal the structural logics shaping activities of collaborative problem solving. After controlling for contributor-specific and software bug-specific characteristics, we find that contributors (“problem solvers”) tend to distribute their activity over multiple software bugs. At the same time, however, we find that software bugs (“problems”) tend not to share multiple contributors. This dual tendency toward de-specialization and exclusivity is sustained by specific local network dependencies revealed by our analysis which also suggests possible organizational mechanisms that may be underlying the puzzling macro-structural regularities frequently observed, but rarely explained, in the production of open source software. By combining these mechanisms with the influence of contributors characterized by different levels of involvement in the project, we provide micro-level evidence of structural interdependence between “core” and “peripheral” members identified exclusively on the basis of their individual level of contribution to the project.

Asking for Help: A Relational Perspective on Help Seeking in the Workplace

In the context of the complexity of today’s organizations, help seeking behavior is considered as an important step to problem solving and learning in organizations. Yet, help seeking has received less attention in organizational literature. To increase the potential impact of help seeking on learning, it is essential to understand which mechanisms affect help seeking. The present study questioned whether the characteristics of the relationships that employees have in the workplace are related to help seeking behavior. This study draws on a social network perspective to investigate the employees’ relationships within their professional network. In particular, the role of accessibility, awareness of expertise, trust, and hierarchy in help seeking was explored. Results indicated that the perceptions of the help provider’s expertise, accessibility and trust were positively associated with the likelihood to seek help, frequency by which help is sought, and perceived quality of the help. Moreover, employees seem more likely to seek help upward from higher status individuals and less likely downward from lower status individuals. Employees perceived the help of higher status individuals as more useful and constructive. These results highlight the importance of investing in the strength of relationships, ensuring the accessibility of expertise and fostering a work environment, in which employees trust and respect each other. Furthermore, the results suggest valuable and promising avenues for future research and practice.

Creative Problem Solving Style and Individuals' Advice Network Formation and Creative Performance

To increase understanding of the relationship between creative problem solving and social networks in organizations, creativity is discussed as a sequential four stage cognitive process and an argu...

A Novel Resource Scheduling Algorithm for Computational Grid

Grid is an emerging technology for enabling resource sharing and coordinated problem solving in dynamic multiinstitutional heterogeneous virtual organizations. However, the management of resources and computational tasks is a critical and complex undertaking as these resources and tasks are geographically distributed. A suitable and efficient scheduling algorithm is needed to schedule user tasks to heterogeneous resources distributed in the grid. We propose a genetic algorithm to solve the scheduling problems in computational grid. The proposed algorithm uses the optimal searching technique of genetic approach and takes different computing capabilities of nodes into consideration. The simulation result shows that proposed algorithm yields better performance when compared with other traditional heuristic approaches. General Terms Algorithm, Distributed Computing.

A Comprehensive Approach to Identifying Intervention Targets for Patient-Safety Improvement in a Hospital Setting

Despite differences in approaches to organizational problem solving, healthcare managers and organizational behavior management (OBM) practitioners share a number of practices, and connecting healthcare management with OBM may lead to improvements in patient safety. A broad needs-assessment methodology was applied to identify patient-safety intervention targets in a large rural medical center. This included a content analysis of descriptions of managers' follow-up actions to error reports for nine types of the most frequently occurring errors. Follow-up actions were coded according to the taxonomy of behavioral intervention components developed by Geller et al. (1990). Two error types were identified as targets for intervention, and the outcome of this assessment process indicated a clear need to apply OBM interventions at the management level and thus have a hospital-wide benefit to patient safety. Future implications for using a system-wide approach to identifying and classifying responses to medical error are discussed.

Relational Embeddedness, Uncertainty and the Propensity of Organizations to Collaborate

Building on behavioral theories of organizational problem-solving we argue that operational and competitive uncertainties have opposite implications for the propensity of organizations to collaborate. Specifically, we predict that operational uncertainty increases the permeability of organizational boundaries to collaboration, while competitive uncertainty reduces it. This happens because problems posed by operational and competitive uncertainties evoke different principles of partner selection. We also argue that the value of embedded ties is contingent on the specific type of uncertainty that organizations may be facing. Specifically, we predict that embedded ties are less likely to be established between organizations facing higher levels of operational uncertainty, but more likely to be established between organizations facing higher levels of competitive uncertainty. This happens because the value of embedded ties depends on the organizational ability to assess the value of solutions that partners may be offering. We test these predictions in an analysis of interorganizational collaboration within a regional community of hospitals and report empirical results that are broadly supportive of theoretical expectations. These findings are important because they reveal a systematic connection between behavioral theories of organizational problem-solving and the global structure of interorganizational networks.

Using eight trigrams (BaGua) approach with epistemological practice to vitalize problem-solving processes: A confirmatory analysis of R&D managers

Eight trigrams (BaGua) is a philosophy that has played an essential role in Chinese life. The purpose of the present study is to extend the theory to organizational problem-solving, so that individuals can engage in creative problem solving and justification to discover the most effective approaches. Questionnaires were returned by 259 research and development managers, and were analyzed using the SEM statistical method. The results indicate that the interaction among each trigram in the model of BaGua was significantly correlated. Most of the hypotheses were supported. The more an individual interacted with others, with data and with devices, the higher the problem sensitivity and evaluation performance. Despite the finding that the Tui trigram was not significantly related to the Ken trigram, all other trigram elements significantly affected each other. This finding is discussed in terms of the confirmatory situation and the conceptualization of epistemology in problem-solving.