Browsing by Subject "innovation"
Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Cartoon Network's Naughty Sister Station: Innovations of the Adult Swim Network in American Late Night Television Programming(2012-01-10) Mireles, Lucas; Jowett, Garth; Houk, Keith R.; Reed, JohnThis research is intended to focus on the relevance and efficacy of the Adult Swim network in late night adult-oriented television programming. Through an active historical case study, it will set out to identify the Adult Swim network as a constructive agent for the resurgence of mainstream adult-oriented animation shows and the diffusion of Adult Swim’s particular innovative television form onto other American television networks.Item Characterizing the Effects of Noise and Domain Distance in Analogous Design(2012-07-16) Lopez, RicardoIdea generation is one of the major initial steps of the design process. Designers frequently use analogies to explain concepts, predict potential problems, and generate ideas. Analogous design can stimulate idea generation and lead to novelty and creativity. At present, there is little research that explores analogous design under the presence of irrelevant information, 'noise', or the effects of using analogies from semantically distant domains. An "Analogies and Noise" experiment extends previous findings which indicate that the use of two analogues instead of one can enhance analogous transfer. It tests whether this holds true for increased numbers of analogies. This study hypothesizes that analogue transfer improves with increasing number of example analogues and deteriorates under the presence of noise. The experiment evaluated this hypothesis by presenting designers with a design problem and a set of analogues and noise. Improvement was primarily measured by the rate of participants identifying the relevant high level principle (HLP). The results indicate that: (1) recognition of HLPs deteriorates under noise (2) increasing numbers of analogues under noise initially improves HLP recognition; however, once many items are present, designers are overwhelmed and the HLP recognition rate decreases (3) using two analogues is optimal for design and (4) noise cannot be defined as all those items without a functional feature relevant to the problem. A "Distant Domains" pilot experiment explores the use of distant-domain analogies. This study hypothesizes that distant domain analogies lead to more abstraction resulting in more creative designs. The experiment presented participants with a predetermined set of analogues then asked them to solve a problem. The set contained analogies from the problem domain and from a domain of varying distance. The following patterns were observed: (1) the number of emergent features peaked with near-domain analogies and decreased thereafter (2) the mean total number of ideas increased with increasing domain (3) designers deemed analogies from distant domains as 'less useful' and solutions generated using distant domains as 'less effective' and 'less practical'. These trends warrant future experimentation with an increased sample size.Item Essays on Firm Growth and Survival as a Fortune 500 Firm(2011-10-21) Vadakkepatt, Gautham GopalIn this dissertation, I develop frameworks and models capturing the effects of marketing capital and R and D capital on firm growth and sustained membership in the Fortune 500 cohort. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and industrial organization theories, in the first essay, I develop hypotheses on the relationships among a firm's marketing capital, R and D capital, key firm-specific and industry-specific factors and survival as a Fortune 500 firm. I test these hypotheses using a proportional hazard model on a uniquely compiled large panel data set of manufacturing Fortune 500 firms over a 25-year period. The results show that while both marketing and R and D capitals have significant and direct positive associations with survival as a Fortune 500 firm, the moderating effects of industry growth on the relationships between marketing capital and survival as a Fortune 500 firm and between R and D capital and survival as a Fortune 500 firm is asymmetric. It is positive for marketing capital but negative for R and D capital. Thus, to retain firms? position on the Fortune 500 list, managers may want to consider investing more in marketing (R and D) when industry growth is high (low). In the second essay, I examine the effect of advertising capital and R and D capital, their complementarities, and their interactions with the environmental contingency factors of dynamism, munificence, and complexity on sales growth, profit growth, and market value growth. Using dynamic panel data analysis of 185 firms over an eight year period (2000-2007), I uncover a nuanced understanding of how advertising and R and D capital affect these performance measures. My results show that both R and D capital and advertising capital directly affect sales growth, but neither has a direct impact on profit growth. Furthermore, R and D capital has a direct impact on market value growth. I also find that while the interaction of advertising capital and R and D capital does not directly affect sales growth or market value growth, it has a positive direct impact on profit growth. Finally, I find that environmental contingencies matter. For instance, environmental dynamism negatively (positively) moderates the relationship between R and D (advertising) capital and sales growth.Item Factors determining the adoption or non-adoption of precision agriculture by producers across the cotton belt(Texas A&M University, 2006-04-12) Lavergne, Christopher BernardThe purpose of this study was to determine factors influencing cotton producer adoption of Precision Agriculture in the cotton belt according to members of the American Cotton Producers of the National Cotton Council. The National Research Council??s Board on Agriculture defines Precision Agriculture (PA) as ??a management strategy that uses information technologies to bring data from multiple sources to bear on decisions associated with crop production.?? For the purpose of this study, Precision Agriculture technologies included yield monitors, global positioning units, variable rate applicators, and similar components. Many studies have found that adoption of Precision Agriculture can be profitable for agricultural producers. However, the fact that Precision Agriculture is relatively new and unproven hinders rapid adoption by agricultural producers. According to the National Research Council Board of Agriculture widespread adoption relies on economic gains outweighing the costs of the technology. This study attempted to find the factors associated with adoption of these technologies in the cotton belt. The sample population consisted of cotton producer representatives from the leading cotton-producing states. A Delphi approach was utilized to establish a consensus of cotton producer perceptions of the advantages of adopting Precision Agriculture technologies. Advantages included more accurate farming (i.e., row spacing, reduced overlap, and cultivation). Barriers to adoption were also documented, questioning employee capability to operate equipment, learning curve, technology complexity, and uncertain return on investment.Item Increasing creative fluency in organizational environments: A comparison of the relative impact between environmental factors(2009-05-15) Wurtz, WilliamChanges brought about primarily by accelerating information technology have elevated innovation to the forefront of organizations? strategic concerns as the only sustainable competitive advantage. Innovation in turn requires organizational environments where creativity is supported and fostered. The vital initial step in an effective change effort to bring about more creative organizational environments is to conduct an assessment. However, no new creativity assessment instrument has been developed in over two decades. This study presents the findings from a new organizational creativity assessment instrument, supplemented with data from a qualitative data-collection process involving in-depth interviews with a few representative employees from each organization. The development of the instrument draws upon recent creativity literature, primarily theoretical and anecdotal, resulting in 28 questionnaire items. Each item represents a potential environmental influence of creativity in a particular organization. One subset is physical or tangible environmental factors, such as the building where people work, as well as less tangible factors, such as ?management response.? The instrument was administered in four different organizations in four different industries in an effort to begin to determine the utility of the instrument (n = 81). The results from the different organizations, including straightforward statistical tests, facilitated comparisons of differences in the amount and type of creativity supports between organizations. The qualitative data provided a check of confirmatory detail to the quantitative results, as well as providing rich contextual detail. A factor analysis was conducted on the overall results in order to determine if there was a possible underlying structure to the multitude of variables included in the survey instrument. The analysis revealed five factors, Creativity Management Process, Cultural Support Mechanisms, Organizational Inputs, Discussion Stimuli, and Organizational Helpfulness. Overall, the major conclusion is that the instrument is a potentially useful tool warranting further development and refinement and, ultimately, a full test of its validity and reliability. Also, the qualitative data added valuable context to understanding an organization?s creativity culture, as well as providing confirmatory support for the survey findings. An additional finding is that physical aspects of the environment were not recognized as significant factors in influencing organizational creativity.Item Modeling Second Order Impacts of Healthcare Innovation(2014-08-13) Edwardson, NicholasAny single health service organization today is likely engaged in dozens of concurrent, often times unrelated change initiatives. Each of these change initiatives is likely supported by evidence that demonstrates the innovation?s intended, first order impact. However, very little attention has been paid to the unintended, second order impacts of innovation. In this dissertation we introduce a model to provide a framework for inquiring about this very type of non-immediate impact. Next, using three innovations currently being implemented in the healthcare industry?training primary care residents to perform in-office colonoscopies, Studer Group?s ?Evidence Based Leadership,? and implementation of electronic health records in a hospital-integrated pediatric network?we model the innovations? second order impacts within the context of our second order impact conceptual model. Cost effectiveness analysis, multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA), and two-level fixed effects modeling are used to across the three interventions. Results from the primary care residency intervention support further investment in colorectal cancer screening training for primary care residents. Results from the Studer Group?s ?Evidence Based Leadership? intervention demonstrate mixed results across change interventions and across categories of tenure, suggesting receptivity towards change and organization tenure is highly dependent upon the nuances of a specific change intervention. Finally, results from the implementation of the electronic health record demonstrate improved charge capture. We conclude that this further probing of popular innovations in the industry is warranted for multiple reasons. For one, it is entirely possible that social scientists and economists are prematurely ?moving on? to other innovations as soon they have published results from an initial round of inquiry. However, as we will demonstrate in our model, it is conceivable that after the ?lights have dimmed? on an innovation?s initial glow, the artifacts of the innovation could very well continue to disrupt structures and processes long after its implementation. If these latent disruptions adversely affect the organization, one could argue that any initial positive impacts were likely overstated. Conversely, if these latent disruptions go on to produce additional benefit to the organization one could argue that any initial positive results were actually understated.Item Outreach Beyond the Basics: Finding Innovative Ways to Connect Users to Digital Collections Assets(2017-05-25) Ames, Eric; Baylor UniversityCreating engaging digital collections goes beyond robust metadata and user-friendly interfaces. Connecting our collections to user groups means finding new ways to make the raw data relevant in unexpected ways. This session will explore ways the Baylor University Digital Projects Group has created programming, outreach opportunities and graduate-level courses based on its Digital Collections. Attendees will learn the process for creating public events (a concert and an art exhibit), a multi-disciplinary collaboration (a Civil War game/app for middle school students) and a graduate course on digitization and archival technology. Curator of Digital Collections Eric S. Ames has been at the center of planning and executing each of these projects and will share tips and strategies for mining existing digital assets for unique outreach opportunities.Item Technology Characterization Models and Their Use in Designing Complex Systems(2011-08-08) Parker, Robert ReedWhen systems designers are making decisions about which components or technologies to select for a design, they often use experience or intuition to select one technology over another. Additionally, developers of new technologies rarely provide more information about their inventions than discrete data points attained in testing, usually in a laboratory. This makes it difficult for system designers to select newer technologies in favor of proven ones. They lack the knowledge about these new technologies to consider them equally with existing technologies. Prior research suggests that set-based design representations can be useful for facilitating collaboration among engineers in a design project, both within and across organizational boundaries. However, existing set-based methods are limited in terms of how the sets are constructed and in terms of the representational capability of the sets. The goal of this research is to introduce and demonstrate new, more general set-based design methods that are effective for characterizing and comparing competing technologies in a utility-based decision framework. To demonstrate the new methods and compare their relative strengths and weaknesses, different technologies for a power plant condenser are compared. The capabilities of different condenser technologies are characterized in terms of sets defined over the space of common condenser attributes (cross sectional area, heat exchange effectiveness, pressure drop, etc.). It is shown that systems designers can use the resulting sets to explore the space of possible condenser designs quickly and effectively. It is expected that this technique will be a useful tool for system designers to evaluate new technologies and compare them to existing ones, while also encouraging the use of new technologies by providing a more accurate representation of their capabilities. I compare four representational methods by measuring the solution accuracy (compared to a more comprehensive optimization procedure's solution), computation time, and scalability (how a model changes with different data sizes). My results demonstrate that a support vector domain description-based method provides the best combination of these traits for this example. When combined with recent research on reducing its computation time, this method becomes even more favorable.Item Tools for innovation and conceptual design(Texas A&M University, 2004-11-15) Karuppoor, Srinand SreedharanThe ability to design is the distinguishing characteristic of an engineer. Recent research has increased our understanding of both the engineering design process and effective means for teaching that process to neophyte design engineers. In that spirit, a design methodology was developed at the Institute for Innovation and Design in Engineering (IIDE), Texas A&M University. At the core of this approach is a design philosophy based on the cognitive skills of Abstraction, Critical Parameter Identification, and Questioning. This philosophy along with the design process is taught in the senior undergraduate design and graduate design courses. The goal of the methodology is not only to teach the design process to novice designers but also to instill in them the design philosophy that would enable them to perform design effectively and innovatively in any area of specialty. In this dissertation the design philosophy along with its role in the design methodology is explained. The Need Analysis and the Conceptual Design stages of the IIDE methodology are elaborated. The weaknesses in these stages are identified and addressed, by developing and incorporating design methods and techniques that fit the spirit and framework of the IIDE design methodology. The Object Function Method was developed to address certain aspects at the Need Analysis stage. There was need for an effective concept searching method within the Concept Design stage of the IIDE design methodology. This is addressed by the development of new search techniques and methods for effective concept discovery during concept searching. The usage and application of these methods and techniques is explained in detail along with examples. Additionally, this dissertation contains the results of a study conducted with two groups of senior design students, those who have been through the process and those who have not, to evaluate the effectiveness of applying the IIDE design philosophy and performing the Need Analysis and Conceptual Design stages for the given design challenge. The goal of the study was to investigate the relationship, if any, between the degree to which these aspects of the design methodology were followed and the quality of the resulting design solutions produced.