Browsing by Subject "Innovation"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Coping with organizational change: a multidimensional perspective
    (2011-03-10) Bussell, Stephen L.; Goering, Elizabeth M.; Parrish-Sprowl, John; Sandwina, Ronald M.
    This paper introduces a unified model for organizational change that is designed to help change analysts think through the decision-making process. Most organizational leaders do not manage change effectively because they fail to acquire the minimum amount of information necessary to make a sound decision. In large part, this deficiency is a result of considering only a small part of the organization’s total change reality, which can be expressed in terms of the following four categories: 1) Environment creates change, 2) Organization responds to environmental change, 3) Organization initiates new changes, and 4) Organization changes environment. Through the principle of diagnostic communication, leaders can adjust to the incoming changes [categories 1 and 2]. Through the principle of rhetorical communication, they can create effective outgoing changes [categories 3 and 4]. Through the principle of dialogical communication, they can achieve a strategic balance between too much conformity, which results from diagnostic communication in isolation, and too much non-conformity, which results from communication in isolation. By understanding and communicating about change from this multi-dimensional perspective, organizational leaders, both designated and non-designated, can learn to appreciate the extent to which they influence and are influenced by the larger cultural environment of which they are a part.
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    Exploring the Manifestation of Empathy within Engineering Innovation and Design
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2016-04-08) Hess, Justin L.; Fila, Nicholas D.
    The study of empathy within engineering has potential to improve the education of innovative and ethically-oriented engineers through the application of empathically guided engineering principles and processes. However, the collective understanding of the role of empathy within engineering is minimal. Hence, the purpose of these two distinct but aligned investigations was to understand how empathy manifests within engineering innovation and design. Specifically, the guiding research questions included: (1) “In what manner and to what extent does empathy predict innovative behavioral tendencies?”, and (2) “In what ways does empathy manifest throughout design?” To address the initial research question, we disseminated two validated instruments (the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Innovative Behavioral Scales) to students at a large, public, mid-western university. Through a series of multiple regression analyses, we found that that cognitive empathy types (e.g., perspective-taking, fantasy) showed a more pronounced relationship with innovative behavioral tendencies (e.g., questioning, idea networking, observation) than affective empathy types (e.g., empathic concern, personal distress). To address the second research question, we thematically analyzed a set of critical events extracted from eight videos that featured nine STEM students who participated in a three-week service-learning course at the same university. Through our analysis, we found four categories with 12 underlying themes that represented empathically-oriented techniques designers utilized to develop a user-centric empathic understanding, as well as how these informed their creation of design criteria, outcomes, and evaluation of those outcomes. Taken together, the results indicate that empathy is highly salient within engineering, and that emphasizing this salience throughout engineering programs and organizations could change broader societal images to demonstrate the relevance of empathy to engineering design and innovation. This, in turn, might attract more empathically-inclined students to engineering.
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    Indiana Consortium for Innovation in Biomedical Imaging
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2016-04-08) Hutchins, Gary D.; Holland, Mark R.
    The Indiana Consortium for Innovation in Biomedical Imaging (Indiana-CIBI) has been established to leverage the biomedical imaging strengths of several major academic institutions throughout Indiana. This initiative provides the environment, infrastructure, and resources necessary for establishing one of the premier translational, research and educational imaging networks in the United States. The Indiana-CIBI will facilitate the identification of crucial clinical problems and unmet research needs; stimulate the development of innovative solutions; and help translate optimized patient care services into practice at partner health-care delivery facilities. The objectives of the Indiana-CIBI include: Providing national leadership in translation from concept to practice. Encouraging targeted problem-driven technology development. Nurturing innovation and progress through facile access to advanced resources. Focusing Indiana state-wide interdisciplinary partnerships in the development of new, innovative imaging technologies and the utilization of imaging resources. Cultivating investigator engagement and channeling intrinsic motivation. The stated objectives of the Indiana-CIBI define the operational model for the consortium. Key steps in the innovation-focused process include: 1) Identification of critical clinical or biomedical research needs by physician or biomedical investigator(s); 2) Creation of innovative solutions through innovation incubator teams, imaging innovation marathons, and crowdsourcing solicitations; 3) Translation to practice through a large medical physics/radiology network; and 4) Translation to advanced core services through the Indiana-CTSI core resource network. Critical success factors for the Indiana-CIBI include tight integration within academic health care facilities, consolidation of fragmented resources, and expansion of critical support resources, eliminating the need to duplicate some types of services across multiple sites in Indiana. For further information regarding the Indiana Consortium for Innovation in Biomedical Imaging and its programs please contact Mark Holland or Gary Hutchins at incibi@iupui.edu. The Indiana-CIBI is supported, in part, by contributions from the IUPUI Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.
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    Musings and reflections from first-year department chairs; an extension of the NCA
    (Academic Chairpersons Conference, 2017) Urtel, Mark G.; Jowers-Barber, Sandra; Smith, Stacey
    Come and engage in conversation with 3 beginning chairs who participated in the 2016 NCA as they muse about the good, bad, and ugly of their first year. Hear about how challenges were overcome and opportunities were created to help them become better leaders.
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    Uncovering Talents and Interests in At-risk Urban Youth: Co-designing a path to self-fulfillment
    (2015) Smerdel, Jennifer; Napier, Pamela
    The designer’s role has evolved greatly over the past few decades. We are no longer asked to simply create a poster or a web page, but to solve complex problems towards socially relevant topics. Through utilizing a people-centered approach to better understand complex socio-material interactions, designers are able to create meaningful change in organizations, communities, and individuals lives. This new role has opened up the door to the possibilities of how designer’s can create a significant impact on a large scale as well as on an individual level. By seeking to create a change, design researchers identify groups who can be best served with a people-centered approach. This includes those who do not have an active voice in our society and therefore are potentially forgotten. One such group is that of at-risk urban youth. At-risk urban youth are defined as "adolescents who face disadvantage determined by a level of poverty, social, and family conditions whilst living in an urban community, which hinders their personal development and success (UN-HABITAT, 2003). This can lead to a decreased sense of self-fulfillment, which is exacerbated by a lack of opportunities. The path to self-fulfillment can be reached by bringing to fruition one’s deepest interests and capacities or talents, and by giving at-risk urban youth the opportunity to uncover these, an actionable plan for their future can be developed. By employing a co-design approach, youth collaborated with one another while working with creative tools and methods. Co-design is a process in which designers and non-designers work collaboratively in the design development process to create holistic solutions to problems (Sanders & Stappers, 2008). This research explored how a participatory design approach, such as co-design, can be applied in the development of a process for at-risk urban youth to uncover their latent talents and interests and develop an actionable plan for them to fulfill their future goals. Engaging youth in the process helped to identify, select, and iterate on appropriate co-design tools and methods in order to enhance the inherent creativity in youth and guide them toward the path to self-fulfillment. With the help of at-risk urban youth, this thesis produced a new process, along with facilitation guidance tools, to help solve this social issue. In a rapidly transforming world, at-risk urban youth can be considered as the forgotten generation of our time. By challenging ourselves to rethink and redesign the process in which youth are accessing their future goals and bringing them to fruition, we are able to pave the way for future social innovation.