Allan Ya-Huan Wu, Victoria Janine Little and Brian Low
This paper aims to increase understanding of how firms can more effectively identify valuable and profitable innovations in the pharmaceutical industry and to identify the issues…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to increase understanding of how firms can more effectively identify valuable and profitable innovations in the pharmaceutical industry and to identify the issues and challenges posed by current managerial decision-making practices.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study of a single project is presented: a drug in-licensing decision made by a team of three managers in a large Australian pharmaceutical firm. Using participant-observation, interviews and archival analysis, the authors followed the managers as they identified and evaluated 122 late-stage anti-diabetic drug variants for further development.
Findings
The managers used decision heuristics to arrive at a short list of three drugs from a choice set of 122. While the process was ostensibly rational and systematic, there was evidence of data quality issues, misleading mental models and cognitive bias. The authors concluded a high probability of accepting a poor candidate or rejecting a stronger candidate (i.e. making Type I and II errors).
Research limitations/implications
This paper focuses on initial market and technology evaluation stage only (i.e. not commercialization) and is a single case study design; therefore, care should be taken in generalizing to other decisions or other contexts. This paper highlights the need for further research integrating organizational decision-making and open innovation from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
Practical/implications
This paper raises awareness of potential decision-making pitfalls and includes a detailed audit framework to support improved managerial decision processes and double rather than single loop learning.
Social/implications
The findings support better decision-making and therefore supports higher quality drug selection and development, leading to improved population health outcomes.
Originality/value
Multi-disciplinary, draws attention of marketing and new product development scholars to open innovation research. It adds to knowledge about open innovation practices at the project level. It also provides an extended model of market opportunity analysis for high technology markets.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of the substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition (SAMR) model as a research method via a project that aimed…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of the substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition (SAMR) model as a research method via a project that aimed to investigate pre-service teachers' negotiation of data-rich environments.
Design/methodology/approach
The project that underpins this paper saw the author working with a group of seven pre-service teachers through an online learning community on WhatsApp to explore their understanding of increasingly complex computational topics associated with the “Implications and Impacts” component of the digital technologies curriculum.
Findings
The knowledge and experiences of the pre-service teachers suggest considerable unexplored potential through the alignment of the SAMR model in online learning communities.
Originality/value
The paper draws attention to a range of opportunities associated with prompting discussion about increasingly complex topics in online learning communities. The adoption of the SAMR model offers a framework in education and the social sciences. It stresses the affordances enabled due to the personalized, ubiquitous and situated nature of the method. Unique contributions include the interpretive and critical approaches discussed in terms of research methods. The paper may be of value to researchers who are interested in a scaffolded means to engage with participants through an online learning community.
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The purpose of this scoping rapid review was to identify and analyse existing qualitative methodologies that have been used to investigate K-12 teachers' lived experiences of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this scoping rapid review was to identify and analyse existing qualitative methodologies that have been used to investigate K-12 teachers' lived experiences of adult cyber abuse as a result of student content “going viral” to propose a novel methodological stance incorporating the Australian Online Safety Act 2021.
Design/methodology/approach
A search of Google Scholar was conducted using keywords and phrases related to cyber trauma, teachers, qualitative methods and the Online Safety Act. Inclusion criteria for the review were: (1) published in English, (2) focused on teachers' experiences of online abuse and cyberbullying associated with viral posts and (3) employed a qualitative inquiry methodology. Full-text articles were obtained for those that met the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and analysed using a PRISMA flowchart and inductive thematic analysis.
Findings
This methodology is considered to be justified, as the eSafety Commissioner's Safety-by-Design principles do not have any legal or regulatory enforceability, whereas the Online Safety Act 2021 provides the Australian eSafety Commissioner an avenue to drive greater algorithmic transparency and accountability.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this review informed the development of a novel methodological stance for investigating Australian teachers' lived experiences of adult cyber abuse associated with viral posts. It provides a methodological positioning to support trauma informed qualitative research into adult cyber abuse, informed by the work of the eSafety Commissioner and the Online Safety Act.
Originality/value
Cybertrauma is described as “any trauma that is a result of self- or, other-directed interaction with, mediated through, or from any electronic Internet/cyberspace ready device or machine learning algorithm, that results in impact now or the future” (Knibbs, 2021). It may result from the tracking of movement through various mobile phone features and applications such as location sharing, non-consensual monitoring of social media, and humiliation or punishment through the sharing of intimate images online, through to direct messages of abuse or threats of violence or humiliation. These actions are further perpetuated through automated searches, insights and recommendations on social media (i.e. engagement metrics promote memes, Facebook posts, Tweets, Tiktoks, Youtubes and so on). This is a novel methodology, as it not only considers direct cybertrauma but also automated forms of cybertrauma.
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Janine Williams and Jayne Krisjanous
The rapidly increasing practice of “sharing” and “liking” religious and spiritually inspiring content on social media platforms suggests it is engaging for consumers, but it is…
Abstract
Purpose
The rapidly increasing practice of “sharing” and “liking” religious and spiritually inspiring content on social media platforms suggests it is engaging for consumers, but it is unclear why. This study aims to investigate consumer interpretations of spiritual content on social media in relation to participatory roles.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative in-depth interviews and thematic analysis are used. Members of social networks actively engaged in social media posting were identified through researcher networks and snowballing.
Findings
The social media space facilitates enhanced consumer agency in the consumption of spiritual messages which are readily accessible in this secular context. Three levels of interpretive meaning for consumers, conditional on the perceived sender motivations and temporality of receipt and related to participatory roles are identified. Despite being widely disseminated and immersed in the profane, some participants receive spiritual inspiration, which helps them achieve self-transcendence. Others receive inspiration through affirmation of their values and identity; however for a few, inspirational messages are met with scepticism and are not meaningful. Social media facilitates consumers’ ability to provide others with positive inspiration, however, this is not always their intent.
Originality/value
This work contributes unique insight regarding consumption of spirituality in a social media environment highlighting the importance of sender mediation and temporal context with implications for spiritual meaning and online engagement with spiritual content. A unique typology relating interpretive meaning to participatory roles is presented.
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Janine Aldous Arantes and Mark Vicars
The purpose of this paper is to examine how automation in the ever-changing technological landscape is increasing integrated into, and has become a significant presence in, our…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how automation in the ever-changing technological landscape is increasing integrated into, and has become a significant presence in, our personal lives.
Design/methodology/approach
Through post qualitative inquiry, the authors provide a contemplation of automation and its effect on creativity, as a contemporary expression of dis/locations, the simulacrum, performative work and a toxic digital presence in socio-cultural-technical spaces.
Findings
The authors discuss how we behave, contribute, explore, interact and communicate within and across automated digital platforms, has salience for understanding and questioning the ways that dominant discourses in the contemporary construction and enactment of subjectivity, creativity and agency are being modulated by the machine.
Originality/value
This paper offers a nuanced consideration of creativity, by considering the way creativity is being performed and situated within the effects of automation and its role in dis/locations, performative work and its potential as a the simulacrum in socio-cultural-technical spaces.
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During the mid 1990s, it was predicted that the library as physical place was doomed. A dualism emerged – the virtual library vs library as place – and it was assumed that the…
Abstract
Purpose
During the mid 1990s, it was predicted that the library as physical place was doomed. A dualism emerged – the virtual library vs library as place – and it was assumed that the virtual library would prove to be the most popular. In 1995, the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, produced four scenarios presenting alternative library futures in the twenty‐first century, specifically the year 2010. Only one of these scenarios predicted a reinterpretation and corresponding revitalisation of “library as place”. The author initiated and led this process in 1995 and revisited these scenarios in 2010 with a view to comparing current practices in library design with the attributes described in this lone scenario; the aim of this paper is to focus on this scenario.
Design/methodology/approach
Library leaders in Australia, many of whom participated in the 1995 scenario development process, are interviewed, along with a number of architects specialising in contemporary library design. This qualitative process is complemented by an international literature search. Three library sectors are surveyed – collecting institutions, academic and public libraries.
Findings
Fifteen years on the dualism between virtual and physical is less stark; a convergence has occurred that would have been unthinkable then. A hybrid has emerged with digital and place‐based notions of a library holding equal currency. Interviewees confirm that “library as place” has never been so popular. This trend is international and emerges from the inter‐weaving of the digital, social and aesthetic that has generated new loci for solitary and collective learning and interaction.
Originality/value
The paper asks questions about what has happened to unsettle predictions conceived in the mid 1990s; what is happening now in terms of new modes of learning and knowledge exchange; and what kind of library spaces and uses can be expected in the future.
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Barbara Pocock, Sara Charlesworth and Janine Chapman
This paper aims to explore recent changes in Australia's work‐family policies and programs and their implications for gender (in)equality.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore recent changes in Australia's work‐family policies and programs and their implications for gender (in)equality.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors critically assess a suite of new work/family‐related policies, including the introduction of a government‐funded national paid parental leave scheme, a limited right to request flexible working conditions, and the extension of state and federal anti‐discrimination legal protections for workers with family responsibilities.
Findings
The analysis suggests a lack of coherence and integration between various work/family related policies and the need for a wider range of reforms, particularly in relation to domestic work and care. It is found that the gendered use of flexibility rights, like the new right to request, do not necessarily improve gender equality and may work to entrench it in the face of strong gendered workplace and societal norms and practices around work and care. As a consequence women workers and mothers – who have been constructed as the work/family problem to be “fixed” – are left even more rushed and pressed for time.
Originality/value
This empirically‐informed analysis shows the power of the broader gender political and normative context and the limits of modest and piecemeal policy reform in relation to work‐family issues – even where economic conditions remain relatively positive. The paper concludes that without robust, multi‐faceted and integrated policy reform around work and family, in which gender equality outcomes are a central objective, policy reforms will fail to achieve a more equal sharing of paid and caring work between men and women, and greater equality between women and men more generally.
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Anjum Naweed, Joshua Trigg, Matthew Allan and Janine Chapman
The rail driver workplace is full of challenges for effective health management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how known barriers in rail driving may be overcome by…
Abstract
Purpose
The rail driver workplace is full of challenges for effective health management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how known barriers in rail driving may be overcome by seeking enablers of positive health status and lifestyle.
Design/methodology/approach
Five focus groups were conducted with 29 rail drivers from four rail organisations across three Australian states. Transcribed data were analysed using directed content analysis and thematic coding to develop health enabler themes and categories.
Findings
Formal initiatives to manage health were piecemeal. Efforts to maintain health involved countering deteriorative, and promoting restorative, health factors. Themes systematically illustrated work environmental, adaptational, and autonomous features of health management. Participants expressed many different approaches to enabling positive health status, and how these connected to known barriers.
Research limitations/implications
Discussion of personal health issues within the rail industry is considered a taboo topic by some, therefore participants who took part in this study data may be more representative of health-conscious drivers.
Practical implications
Occupational health in rail can be enabled in multiple ways, including: improving social support, scheduling certainty, and cross-communication around health behaviours; increasing flexibility and environmental support for health behaviours; and directly promoting dietary control and physical activity engagement. Given the diversity and global representativeness of rail systems found within Australia, the findings have international application.
Originality/value
This study uses a strength-focussed approach to highlight multiple leverage points for organisational rail-driver health interventions across three levels of the system, helping improve health intervention efficacy despite the intractable nature of their environments.
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While holistic studies devoted to the information behavior of humanist scholars have begun to appear more frequently in the literature, there has been, until quite recently, a…
Abstract
While holistic studies devoted to the information behavior of humanist scholars have begun to appear more frequently in the literature, there has been, until quite recently, a persistent tendency to consolidate humanists rather than attend to the variant gestalts, material working conditions, and values that might distinguish one from another. This chapter is a response to recent calls for more finely granulated descriptions of specific humanist disciplinary practices. It offers a close examination of the information behavior of theatre researchers, both academics and practitioners. For reasons that the chapter explores, theatre researchers constitute a user group that has been profoundly neglected. Using both quantitative and qualitative data obtained through a survey of listserv members of the American Society for Theatrical Research and the Theatre Library Association, the chapter examines the impact of theatre culture on theatre research practices. Moreover, inspired by Brenda Dervin's “Sense-Making Methodology,” this chapter offers the embedded perspective of a researcher who is herself a theatre scholar as well as a practicing librarian. The chapter ranges widely, illustrating its findings with, for example, published rehearsal memoirs, statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, white papers produced by the National Endowment of the Arts, performance theory texts. Topics covered include the history of theatre studies as an academic discipline, the multiple job-holding/unemployment culture of practitioners such as actors and directors, the differences in focus and methodology that distinguish practitioners from scholars, the marginalized status of dramatic literature in university English departments. Several themes that emerged through analysis of qualitative data are discussed: the contrast between scholarly rigor and the tendency of the practitioner to “satisfice,” the conflicting claims of text and artifact, the impact of geography and teaching-intensive institutional affiliation on researchers’ access to resources. The author concludes that it is not only inadvisable and inaccurate to generalize behaviors across humanistic disciplines; it is equally inaccurate to assume that all researchers within the same discipline will manifest the same characteristics, or even that the same researcher will apply the same strategies to all projects. The only generalization about the information behavior of the theatre researcher that can be made is that it is highly task and context dependent.