Search results

This study explores the dynamics of implementing management innovation, focusing on a case of innovation in human resource management within a large Japanese firm. It aims to understand how innovators perceive and react to employees’ evolving responses to management innovation and how these perceptions and reactions influence innovation implementation.

The study employed a single-case study design because it was suitable for exploring complex phenomena within their real-life context. It involved an in-depth analysis of a firm undergoing management innovation through participant observation, interviews and analysis of company documents.

The study identified a multi-phase process of management innovation at the research site, characterized by initial resistance followed by gradual acceptance of the innovation. Innovators’ strategies to manage and respond to employee feedback and adaptation of the innovation process were crucial in the eventual acceptance of management innovations. Despite achieving a degree of acceptance, cultural and structural challenges persisted, highlighting the complex interplay between innovation, organizational culture and employee responses.

This research contributes to the management innovation literature by illuminating the intricate dynamics of implementing management innovation. It extends existing theories of innovation implementation by demonstrating the significance of managing recipient perceptions through strategic communication and the importance of cultural and contextual sensitivities in management innovation.

Human performance, particularly that of the warfighter, has been the subject of a large amount of research during the past few decades. For example, in the Medline database of medical and psychological research, 1,061 papers had been published on the topic of “military performance” as of October 2003. Because warfighters are often pushed to physiological and mental extremes, a study of their performance provides a unique glimpse of the interplay of a wide variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on the functioning of the human brain and body. Unfortunately, it has proven very difficult to build performance models that can adequately incorporate the myriad of physiological, medical, social, and cognitive factors that influence behavior in extreme conditions. The chief purpose of this chapter is to provide a neurobiological (neurochemical) framework for building and integrating warfighter performance models in the physiological, medical, social, and cognitive areas. This framework should be relevant to all other professionals who routinely operate in extreme environments. The secondary purpose of this chapter is to recommend various performance metrics that can be linked to specific neurochemical states and can accordingly strengthen and extend the scope of the neurochemical model.