Aim/Purpose: This study examines differences in credit and noncredit users’ learning and usage of the Plant Sciences E-Library (PASSEL, http://passel.unl.edu), a large international, open-source multidisciplinary learning object repository. Background: Advances in online education are helping educators to meet the needs of formal academic credit students, as well as informal noncredit learners. Since online learning attracts learners with a wide variety of backgrounds and intentions, it is important understand learner behavior so that instructional resources can be designed to meet the diversity of learner motivations and needs. Methodology: This research uses both descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. The descriptive statistics address the research question of how credit learners differ from noncredit learners in using an international e-library of learning objects. Cluster analysis identifies high and low credit/noncredit students based on their quiz scores and follow-up descriptive statistics to (a) differentiate their usage patterns and (b) help describe possible learning approaches (deep, surface, and strategic). Contribution: This research is unique in its use of objective, web-tracking data and its novel use of clustering and descriptive analytic approaches to compare credit and noncredit learners’ online behavior of the same educational materials. It is also one of the first to begin to identify learning approaches of the noncredit learner. Findings: Results showed that credit users scored higher on quizzes and spent more time on the online quizzes and lessons than did noncredit learners, suggesting their academic orientation. Similarly, high credit scorers spent more time on individual lessons and quizzes than did the low scorers. The most striking difference among noncredit learners was in session times, with the low scorers spending more time in a session, suggesting more browsing behavior. Results were used to develop learner profiles for the four groups (high/low quiz scorers x credit/noncredit). Recommendations for Practitioners: These results provide preliminary insight for instructors or instructional designers. For example, low scoring credit students are spending a reasonable amount of time on a lesson but still score low on the quiz. Results suggest that they may need more online scaffolding or auto-generated guidance, such as the availability of relevant animations or the need to review certain parts of a lesson based on questions missed. Recommendation for Researchers: The study showed the value of objective, web-tracking data and novel use of clustering and descriptive analytic approaches to compare different types of learners. One conclusion of the study was that this web-tracking data be combined with student self-report data to provide more validation of results. Another conclusion was that demographic data from noncredit learners could be instrumental in further refining learning approaches for noncredit learners. Impact on Society: Learning object repositories, online courses, blended courses, and MOOCs often provide learners the option of moving freely among educational content, choosing not only topics of interest but also formats of material they feel will advance their learning. Since online learning is becoming more prolific and attracts learners with a wide variety of backgrounds and intentions, these results show the importance of understanding learner behavior so that e-learning instructional resources can be designed to meet the diversity of learner motivations and needs. Future Research: Future research should combine web-tracking data with student self-report to provide more validation of results. In addition, collection of demographic data and disaggregation of noncredit student usage motivations would help further refining learning approaches for this growing population of online users.

Aim/Purpose: This study examines the influence of Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), and Facilitating Conditions (FC) on the use of smart phones for mobile learning by postgraduate students in University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Background: Due to the low level of mobile learning adoption by students in Nigeria, three base constructs of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model were used as factors to determine smart phone use for mobile learning by the postgraduate students in the University of Ibadan. Methodology: The study adopted a descriptive survey research design of the correlational type, the two-stage random sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 217 respondents, and a questionnaire was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics (frequency counts, percentages, mean, and standard deviation), test of norm, and inferential statistics (correlation and regression analysis) were used to analyze the data collected. Contribution: The study empirically validated the UTAUT model as a model useful in predicting smart phone use for mobile learning by postgraduate students in developing countries. Findings: The study revealed that a significant number of postgraduate students used their smart phones for mobile learning on a weekly basis. Findings also revealed a moderate level of Performance Expectancy (???? =16.97), Effort Expectancy (???? =12.57) and Facilitating Conditions (???? =15.39) towards the use of smart phones for mobile learning. Results showed a significant positive relationship between all the independent variables and use of smart phones for mobile learning (PE, r=.527*; EE, r=.724*; and FCs, r=.514*). Out of the independent variables, PE was the strongest predictor of smart phone use for mobile learning (β =.189). Recommendations for Practitioners: Librarians in the university library should organize periodic workshops for postgraduate students in order to expose them to the various ways of using their smart phones to access electronic databases. Recommendation for Researchers: There is a need for extensive studies on the factors influencing mobile technologies adoption and use in learning in developing countries. Impact on Society: Nowadays, mobile learning is increasingly being adopted over conventional learning systems due to its numerous benefits. Thus, this study provides an insight into the issues influencing the use of smart phones for mobile learning by postgraduate students from developing countries. Future Research: This study utilized the base constructs of the UTAUT model to determine smart phone use for mobile learning by postgraduate students in a Nigerian university. Subsequent research should focus on other theories to ascertain factors influencing Information Technology adoption and usage by students in developing countries.

Technology has transformed education, perhaps most evidently in course delivery options. However, compelling questions remain about how technology impacts learning. Adaptive learning tools are technology-based artifacts that interact with learners and vary presentation based upon that interaction. This paper compares adaptive learning with a conventional teaching approach implemented in a digital literacy course. Current research explores the hypothesis that adapting instruction to an individual’s learning style results in better learning outcomes. Computer technology has long been seen as an answer to the scalability and cost of individualized instruction. Adaptive learning is touted as a potential game-changer in higher education, a panacea with which institutions may solve the riddle of the iron triangle: quality, cost and access. Though the research is scant, this study and a few others like it indicate that today’s adaptive learning systems have negligible impact on learning outcomes, one aspect of quality. Clearly, more research like this study, some of it from the perspective of adaptive learning systems as informing systems, is needed before the far-reaching promise of advanced learning systems can be realized.

Aim/Purpose : An important objective of any firm is escalation of its performance and the achievement of competitive advantages. Supply chain agility plays a prominent role to enhance the level of firm’s performance. Moreover, information technology (IT) plays a foundational role in supply chain management practices. Hence, this study proposes the relationship between IT integration as the competency of IT and firm’s market performance both directly and through mediating role of supply chain agility. Background: Many studies have been done to date on the impact of supply chain agility on overall firm’s performance. However, the effect of an agile supply chain on firm’s market performance per se needs to be studied. Furthermore, there is a gap in the literature about the effect of IT competency such as IT integration on firm’s market performance both directly and through mediating role of supply chain agility. Recommendation for Researchers: The first direction this study gives to researchers is to consider the different factors which have significant effect on the agility of supply chain, particularly the IT related ones. The second direction is about the study on the effect of IT competencies and supply chain agility on each category of firm’s performance separately instead of considering it as a one construct. Impact on Society : Although this is a conceptual study, it can highlight the importance of IT competency not only in our daily life, but also in our businesses and industries. Future Research: This study only proposes some relationships based on theory and literature. Future researchers can test these proposed relationships in different contexts and compare the results. Furthermore, this study proposes the relationships for large manufacturing sector in developing countries. The model could be tested for SMEs as well. In addition, the proposed theoretical model in this study might be tested in both developing as well as developed countries to compare the results which will be contributed to the body of knowledge.

Aim/Purpose: This paper examines the impact of the transformational, servant, and paternalistic leadership styles on employee performance at the middle and senior levels. Background: Transdisciplinary research promotes the integration and development of various sciences. It provides more choices for leaders to adopt ways and practical activities to promote enterprise development. Complexity leadership theory emphasizes that effectively functioning organizations need distinct forms of leadership to work together. Leaders rely on different leadership practices in an emergent collaborative context, and finding an optimal balance is challenging. Many scholars have attempted to explore which leadership styles have a more significant impact on employees by distinguishing and defining types of leadership styles and explaining the process by which they influence employee behavior and performance. Various scholars have further explored and empirically demonstrated the impact of these three types of leadership styles (transformational, servant, paternalistic)on employee performance. While transformational and servant leadership have their roots in the West, paternalistic leadership has roots in China. Few scholars have conducted comparative studies on their positive impact on employee performance. How do these three leadership styles affect employee performance at the middle and senior levels in the Chinese context? Which combination of middle and senior leadership styles performs best? These are the second area that this paper will attempt to explore. Methodology: This study constructs a three-tier model at the senior, middle, and grassroots levels. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data. SPSS 22.0 and Amos were used for data analysis. Contribution: Through its construction of a three-tier model (senior, middle, and grassroots levels), the paper explores the combined effect of three leadership styles (transformational, servant, and paternalistic) on grassroots employees. It explores the impact of senior leaders across levels on grassroots employee performance, which is expected to provide a valuable addition to theories on leadership styles. It is also instructive to examine which leadership style performs better and what middle and senior leadership configurations are more conducive to driving beneficial employee behavior and, ultimately, corporate growth. Findings: The transformational, servant, and paternalistic leadership styles, both at the top and middle levels, have a significant positive relationship with employee performance; the middle leadership style plays a positive mediating role between the top leadership style and employee performance. In terms of impact on employee performance, transformational leadership shows the best results at both the top and middle levels, with paternalistic leadership second and servant leadership at the same level. Regarding which middle and senior leadership style pairing is the best, the sample is relatively small, and the gap between various pairing combinations is not evident from the data. If the sample size is enlarged, the coefficient will likely expand year-on-year. Therefore, we can assume that the pairing effect of top servant leadership and middle transformational leadership is the best, top paternalistic leadership and middle transformational leadership is the second-best, and the combination of top paternalistic leadership and middle-level servant leadership leaders is the weakest. Recommendation for Researchers: This paper extends the study of top and middle leadership’s combined effect on employee performance as a positive response to the call for multi-layer or cross-layer analysis in leadership research. The findings further enrich the literature on leadership style-related theories. The middle leadership style plays a positive mediating role between the top leadership style and employee performance. The trickle-down effect is further verified, i.e., the top leadership will have a permeating influence on employees through the middle leadership, and the top’s influence on the middle is generally more significant than the influence on grassroots employees. However, the difference between the influence of the middle leadership on the grassroots and that of the top on the grassroots is not apparent, which is inconsistent with the trickle-down effect that the middle leadership communicates more with the grassroots and has more influence on the grassroots, and further verification is needed. All three types of leaders positively affected employee performance, with the best being transformational leadership, paternalistic leadership, and servant leadership. This finding is consistent with some scholars and inconsistent with some scholars. The interested scholars can do further research. The better performance of diverse pairings in middle and senior leadership combinations is consistent with previous research suggesting that leadership styles have their own strengths and can be complementary. This paper further provides a comparative study of multiple leadership styles to validate the recognition and adaptability of leadership styles and further explain the complex relationship between leadership styles and employee job performance. Scholars can conduct comparative research on other leadership styles, and there may be different results. Future Research: Because of the cross-sectional data taken, the findings’ generalizability still needs further validation. There are many types of leadership styles, and there are other types of leadership styles that can be explored comparatively, perhaps leading to different findings. From another point of view, various leaders have their strengths, and they are not mutually hindering. More research is needed on team formation in a variety of contexts. Organic organizational structure enables knowledge creation and integration through the process of organizational learning through deep and continuous social interaction or dialogue. So we can further examine the influence process of leaders on employees from how to give full play to their advantages, such as improving shared leadership and shared communication.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the role of psychological ownership for safety in boosting employee performance and the impact of Perceived Organizational Support for Safety (POSS) on workers’ well-being, considering the psychological aspects associated with workplace safety and exploring the mediating effect of employees’ commitment. Background: It is widely recognized that promoting workplace safety goes beyond purely physical measures and must also consider the psychological aspects associated with safety management. However, while some studies have shown the direct effect of POSS and Safety Ownership on safety outcomes, very few studies have explored the underlying mediating mechanism, as well as their impact on distal outcomes, such as well-being and performance. Methodology: The cross-sectional study was conducted on a convenience sample of a metal mechanic enterprise’s employees through an online self-assessment questionnaire. Contribution: This study contributes to understanding the mechanisms through which psychological ownership for safety, organizational support for safety, and psychological factors related to safety collectively influence organizational outcomes. Findings: Two indirect significant effects are described. The first is between POSS and well-being, and the second significant relation is between psychological ownership for safety and job performance. When employees perceive that their organization cares about safety, they will experience a stronger sense of commitment and, in turn, they will be more satisfied in the work context, and they will improve their job performance. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should take a transdisciplinary approach to enable the integration of knowledge and perspectives from different fields that are essential to understanding the full range of implications and applications of safety management. Future Research: It could be interesting to investigate a different point of view on safety (e.g., top management or health and safety officers) and explore concerns about how to successfully communicate and transfer safety climate during remote working activities.

Shuoyan LIU,Chao LI,Yuxin LIU,Yanqiu WANG, Vol.E107-D, No.11, pp.1468-1471
Escalators are an indispensable facility in public places. While they can provide convenience to people, abnormal accidents can lead to serious consequences. Yolo is a function that detects human behavior in real time. However, the model exhibits low accuracy and a high miss rate for small targets. To this end, this paper proposes the Small Target High Performance YOLO (SH-YOLO) model to detect abnormal behavior in escalators. The SH-YOLO model first enhances the backbone network through attention mechanisms. Subsequently, a small target detection layer is incorporated in order to enhance detection of key points for small objects. Finally, the conv and the SPPF are replaced with a Region Dynamic Perception Depth Separable Conv (DR-DP-Conv) and Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (ASPP), respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model is capable of accurately and robustly detecting anomalies in the real-world escalator scene.
Publication Date: 2024/11/01

Do firms learn from their failed innovation attempts? Answering this question is important because failure is an integral part of exploratory learning. In this study, we explore whether and under what circumstances firms learn from their small failures in experimentation. Building on organizational learning literature, we examine the conditions under which prior failures influence firms' R&D output amount and quality. An empirical analysis of voluntary patent expirations (i.e., patents that firms give up by not paying renewal fees) in 97 pharmaceutical firms between 1980 and 2002 shows that the number, importance, and timing of small failures are associated with a decrease in R&D output (patent count) but an increase in the quality of the R&D output (forward citations to patents). Exploratory interviews suggest that the results are driven by a multi-level learning process from failures in pharmaceutical R&D. The findings contribute to the organizational learning literature by providing a nuanced view of learning from failures in experimentation.

Psychological empowerment has been studied extensively over the past few decades in a variety of contexts and appears to be especially salient within dynamic and complex environments such as healthcare. However, a recent meta-analysis found that psychological empowerment relationships vary significantly across studies, and there is still a rather limited understanding of how empowerment operates across levels. Accordingly, we advance and test a multi-level model of empowerment which seeks to better understand the unique and synergistic effects between unit and individual empowerment in hospital units. Analysis of data involving 544 individuals in 78 units, collected from multiple sources over three different time periods, revealed that unit empowerment evidenced a synergistic interaction with individual-level psychological empowerment as related to individuals' job performance, as well as an indirect effect on performance via individual empowerment, while controlling for previous performance levels. Notably, these effects were significant at relatively high, but not at relatively low levels of unit empowerment. Furthermore, we found that unit voice climate increased unit empowerment and thereby enhanced individual psychological empowerment. These findings suggest that, in complex and dynamic environments, empowering work units is an important means by which leaders can enhance individuals' performance.

We develop and test a theoretical model that explores how individuals appraise different types of stressful job demands and how these cognitive appraisals impact job performance. The model also explores how charismatic leaders influence such appraisal and reaction processes, and by virtue of these effects, how leaders can influence the impact of stressful demands on their followers' job performance. In Study 1 (n = 74 U.S. Marines), our model was largely supported in hierarchical linear modeling analyses. Marines whose leaders were judged by superiors to exhibit charismatic leader behaviors appraised challenge stressors as being more challenging, and were more likely to respond to this appraisal with higher performance. Although charismatic leader behaviors did not influence how hindrance stressors were appraised, they negated the strong negative effect of hindrance appraisals on job performance. In Study 2 (n = 270 U.S. Marines) charismatic leader behaviors were measured through the eyes of the focal Marines, and the interactions found in Study 1 were replicated. Results from multilevel structural equation modeling analyses also indicate that charismatic leader behaviors moderate both the mediating role of challenge appraisals in transmitting the effect of challenge stressors to job performance, and the mediating role of hindrance appraisals in transmitting the effect of hindrance stressors to job performance. Implications of our results to theory and practice are discussed. Keywords: stress, leadership, job performance, multilevel modeling

Previous academic and popular literature has raised important debates concerning the contradictory incentives of international firms to reduce their environmental impacts and offer transparent environmental information about their operations. As an exhaustive review of this literature reveals mixed and partial evidence, we compared the individual corporate environmental performance and disclosure of the 100 most international non-financial firms in the world to those of 16,023 firms in their industries and a group of matched pairs of firms for three different years. Our results show that although the top international firms have a much better record of environmental disclosure than the firms within their industries and the matched pairs, the top international firms also show worse environmental performance than their peers. The results suggest that the top international firms seek legitimation for their environmental activities by means of voluntary disclosure.

We extend the knowledge-based perspective to consider the impact of spin-out founders on knowledge transfer to new ventures. We argue that existing theory largely ignores the founder's role as team catalyst who mobilizes a team and transmits the team's knowledge to a new venture. We address this gap by building theory on the role of a spin-out founder as a facilitator of co-mobility, and whose impact on firm outcomes is mediated by the size and organizational experience of the recruited team. The support for our hypotheses, through use of linked employee-employer US Census data from the legal services industry, has theoretical and practical implications for the knowledge-based view and human resource strategies for both existing and entrepreneurial firms.

Using data from 607 subjects organized in 161 teams (84 laboratory teams and 77 organizational field teams), we examined how leader humility influences team interaction patterns, emergent states, and team performance. We developed and tested a theoretical model arguing that when leaders behave humbly, followers emulate their humble behaviors, creating a shared interpersonal team process (collective humility). This collective humility in turn creates a team emergent state focused on progressively striving toward achieving the team's highest potential (collective promotion focus), which ultimately enhances team performance. We tested our model across three studies wherein we manipulated leader humility to test the social contagion hypothesis (Study 1), examined the impact of humility on team processes and performance in a longitudinal team simulation (Study 2), and tested the full model in a multistage field study in a health services context (Study 3). The findings from these lab and field studies collectively supported our theoretical model, demonstrating that leader behavior can spread via social contagion to followers, producing an emergent state that ultimately affects team performance. Our findings contribute to the leadership literature by suggesting the need for leaders to lead by example, and showing precisely how a specific set of leader behaviors influence team performance, which may provide a useful template for future leadership research on a wide variety of leader behaviors.

Drawing on theories of behavioral decision making and situational strength, we developed and tested a multilevel model that explains how the performance outcomes of personal initiative tendency depend on the extent of alignment between organizational control mechanisms and proactive individuals' risk propensities. Results from a sample of 383 middle managers operating in 34 business units of a large multinational corporation indicated that risk propensity weakens the positive relationship between personal initiative tendency and job performance. This negative moderating effect was further amplified when middle managers receive high job autonomy but was attenuated in business units with a strong performance management context. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on proactivity, risk taking, and organizational control.

Studies suggest that category-spanning organizations receive lower evaluation and perform worse than organizations focused on a single category. We propose that (1) these effects are contingent on clients' theory of value and that as clients expect more sophisticated services, they tend to value category spanners more positively and (2) the evaluation of producers mediates the relationship between category spanning and performance. We test our hypotheses using original data on corporate legal services in three markets (London, New York City, and Paris) over the decade 2000-2010. We find that (1) category spanners receive a better evaluation, and more so when their categorical combination is more inclusive and (2) evaluation mediates significantly the relationship between category spanning and performance. This study enriches our understanding of how audiences apprehend a whole market category system and why organizations span categories.

Female corporate leadership has drawn increasing attention from academia and practitioners. We contribute to the literature by examining the impact of CEO succession with gender change—i.e., a male CEO succeeded by a female or vice versa. We propose that due to gender differences in executive leadership positions, CEO succession with gender change may amplify the disruption of the CEO succession process and thus adversely affect post-succession firm performance and increase the likelihood of successor early departure. Using data from 3,320 CEO successions in companies listed in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 1997 to 2010, we find evidence to support this argument. We also find that the negative (positive) impact of male-to-female succession on firm performance (the likelihood of successor early departure) may be weakened by positive organizational attitudes toward female leadership as indicated by the presence of other female leaders on the firm's board of directors and/or top management team, and the successor's inside origin.

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