1,721,025 research outputs found
A Good idea Is Not Enough: Understanding the Challenges of Entrepreneurship Communication
Full text linkThis paper addresses a less-investigated issue of innovations: entrepreneurship communication. Business and marketing studies demonstrate that new product development processes do not succeed on good technical invention alone. To succeed, the invention must be appropriately communicated to a market and iterated through dialogue with potential stakeholders.
We explore this issue by examining communication-related challenges, abilities and barriers from the perspectives of innovators trying to enter an unfamiliar, foreign market. Specifically, we summarize results of a set of studies conducted in the Gyeonggi Innovation Program (GIP), an entrepreneurship program formed by a partnership between the University of Texas at Austin and Gyeonggi-Do Province in South Korea. Through the GIP, Korean entrepreneurs attempt to expand domestically successful product ideas to the American market. The study results demonstrate that these innovators must deal with a broad range of challenges, particularly (1) developing deeper understanding of market needs, values, and cultural expectations, and (2) producing pitches with the structure, claims and evidence, and engagement strategies expected by American stakeholders. These studies confirm that a deeper understanding of successful new product development (NPD) projects requires not only a culturally authentic NPD process model, but also communication-oriented research.
The GIP approach offers insights into good programmatic concept and effective methods for training engineers to become entrepreneurs. Yet we also identify potential improvements for such programs. Finally, we draw implications for studying entrepreneurship communication.IC2 Institut
“Coworking is about community” but what is “community” in coworking?
Full text linkCoworking spaces are shared working environments in which independent knowledge workers gather. Coworking is consistently described in terms of community and collaboration—yet these terms are defined inconsistently in the coworking literature. This study reviews the literature on coworking to better examine how community relates to collaboration. To anchor a more systematic analysis of community in coworking, the authors introduce Adler and Heckscher’s typology of communities; apply it to a study of six coworking spaces in the United States, Italy, and Serbia; and develop the typology to better understand coworking
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Innovation in developing countries : a case study of Ecuador and its new innovation initiatives
Full text linkEcuador declared 2015 to be the “year of innovation” and is investing greatly in innovation initiatives to attract existing, international technology to Ecuador as well as improve research and development to create new, domestic technologies. This is significant, because discussion on innovation initiatives in developing countries primarily focuses on the transfer of existing technologies (international technology transfer) to countries even though developing countries, such as Ecuador, are now also focused on creating new technologies (domestic technology transfer). This report assesses the Ecuadorian case, which may inform other developing countries that are also incorporating hybrid innovation strategies. This report shows that the three challenges to innovation in developing countries are policy, innovation systems, and talent. While Ecuador has an ambitious vision, the country faces challenges in moving innovation from a plan to a reality. As the Ecuadorian case emerges, the author recommends that developing countries refrain from enacting one-size-fits-all innovation strategies, take advantage of existing resources at the regional level, and significantly invest in capacity building programs over infrastructure projects. This report combines over 30 in-country interviews with professionals involved with the national innovation system, a survey of relevant literature on innovation initiatives in developing countries, and an evaluation of Ecuador’s new innovation policy and program documents. Additionally, as a research assistant for IC2 Institute, a think and do tank that supports the development of innovation, the author adds her perspective on programmatic experience in other countries.Global Policy Studie
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Role-play work and contested authority in policy and legal writing : a case study of domestic partner benefit advocacy
Full text linktextRhetoricians have long been interested in public policy discourse. However, studies have yet to apply the micro-lens of writing process to this context. One consequence is that, while studies of policy discourse point to the complexity of this area, they do not investigate the writing behaviors this complexity inspires. Secondly, while studies of writing process in other areas of rhetoric allow us to theorize process, our theories are typically based on more structured writing environments—such as the classroom, academic discipline, and professional workplace. As a consequence, we know less about invention and other writing processes in more unpredictable, explicitly contested settings.
To address these gaps, this dissertation presents a process-based case study of collaborative writing within the context of policy and legal discourse. The case study tracks the year-long work of a group of advocates who attempted to establish Domestic Partner Benefits (DPB) at a large public university. Due to legal restrictions, the writers could not assume a clear authority as they attempted to write a policy proposal together. In meetings in which they invented ideas, a prominent behavior emerged in their talk, what this dissertation refers to as role-play work. Role-play work is a theory of rhetorical invention in which writers propose roles for themselves and their audiences, develop arguments from within those roles, and try to identify how they might be recognized or misrecognized as a consequence of assuming roles.
Tracing patterns in the writers’ talk, this dissertation describes role-play work at three critical junctures: in the early stages, when the group lacks legal resources, during a tumultuous hunger strike in which the institution delivers its interpretation of the law, and during the group’s later writing process, when the group has a working understanding of a legal argument they can propose. This dissertation analyzes how writers use role-play to engage authoritative discourse that manifests at each stage: first, to imaginatively co-construct what might be authoritative, next, to confront authority-as-articulated, and finally, to understand the nuance of a potentially authoritative argument. Findings presented in this dissertation may be relevant to scholarship in professional and technical communication, collaborative writing and invention, writing process research, policy discourse, discourse analysis, and queer studies.Englis
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Employee Perception of Enterprise Social Media For Collaboration and Voice
Full text linkToday’s prevalent use of social media in employees’ personal lives has led to the introduction of enterprise social media platforms in organizations (Rode, 2016; Treem et al., 2015). These enterprise social media platforms are designed, among other things, for organization-wide collaboration and to create more open dialogs between senior leaders and staff (Bennett, 2009; Prohaska, 2011; Treem et al., 2015). This study seeks to understand employee perception of enterprise social media platforms that provide the opportunity for collaboration and for giving employees a voice to influence an organization’s operations. My initial hypothesis is that employees do not embrace attempts to incorporate enterprise social media platforms as a way to work together and achieve joint goals within their organization or influence work-related matters.Human Dimensions of Organization
Introduction to Special Issue on the Rhetoric of Entrepreneurship
Full text linkIntroduction to a special issue of the Journal of Business and Technical Communication on the rhetoric of entrepreneurship. The author introduces basic definitions and concepts from the field of entrepreneurship, then identifies three issues linking rhetoric to entrepreneurship: rhetoric and identity; rhetoric, culture, and community; and rhetoric and persuasion.IC2 Institut
“I Think You Should Explore the Kinky Market”: How Entrepreneurs Develop Value Propositions as Emergent Objects of Activity Networks
Full text linkFinal published version available: https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2017.1294606Successful value propositions can be productively analyzed as emergent cocreated objects: co-created at the intersection of multiple activities with varying interests and cycles, and thus incrementally revised to address cross-activity tensions. These objects are also represented across multiple genres; entrepreneurs must keep these different representations coherent during the co-creation process. Drawing on a nine-month qualitative study of 50 firms enrolled in entrepreneurship training, I illustrate this process of co-creating value propositions and keeping them coherent. The author concludes by suggesting necessary theoretical extensions to improve how we study emergent cocreated objects.Writin
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Business Sustainability Practices through Media Based Stakeholder Engagement: Maximizing Positive Social Impacts Via Locally Produced Educational Media for Young Citizens
Full text linkIn the present shifting role of business, especially post Covid-19, companies operating in developing countries can maximize the impacts of their social investment strategies in communities by addressing early-childhood capabilities development. Research shows that early childhood intervention can determine the reaching of full developmental potential by children, and as thus can have major impacts on the overall development of a nation. For this reason, it is recommendable to invest in programs that support the learning and development of the youngest stakeholders in a project area, children—especially of early childhood age, defined as a child’s first few years of life.
Based off my experience working in education / outreach over many years, I have come to understand that messaging can be strengthened and broadened through supplementary educational materials such as locally-produced short-form video format because it is easily shareable, economically sound, and effective. Furthermore, incorporating local talent for the development and production of creative media can help secure adults’ collaboration and engagement, as well as assure the materials are culturally contextualized and appropriate for the age group. Through this investment in creative educational media production, both children and adults can engage, learn, and benefit from socially and culturally meaningful messages, in form and content.
After a literature review to provide background and evidence for the problem and solution, I use an auto-ethnography and case study as evidence for solutions. I also include practical reflections on how to proceed in stakeholder engagement in countries where companies operate, in beneficial combination for all parties involved. The practical proposal is the use of locally produced short-form educational videos, which have an impactful and cost-efficient way to bolster stakeholder learning, especially where access to physical infrastructure and trained teachers may fall short. My personal field-work experience in a water quality research project in Peru, and recent field-work to develop stakeholder engagement materials in a liquified natural gas (LNG) development project in northern Mozambique, provide evidence to the value of investing in locally produced educational media. I, further, reflect on the importance of remembering to provide sufficient care and attention to an often-overlooked stakeholder-group, children. I urge that to maximize educational investments, a focus on early childhood is required for social and economic impacts on society as a whole.
This paper’s front-end brackets and contextualizes both field experiences, to later contextualize policy, theory, finance, and sustainability frameworks, the SDGs, and how it all relates. Its second part focuses on soft-infrastructure and human-capabilities investment opportunities, child development, value of investing in education, and the power of video media as a learning tool. It concludes with ways to create locally produced successful learning media and reasons to invest in local artistic production of educational tools.
As a final part of the paper, I have included appendices which focus on practical field-based take-aways. In Appendix A, I further describe the two projects I conducted, and some takeaways from those individual projects. Appendix B, contains methodological recommendations for producing educational vided, and finally, Appendix C is a photo-journal of the narrated experiences.Human Dimensions of Organization
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Keep the Doors Open: A Case for Preserving Individual and Institutional History
No full textThere are several churches across the United States that are called Mount Pleasant Baptist Church but the subject of this capstone is Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in New Kent County, Virginia. One cannot visit a website to find any information about its 127-year-old history or the people who form this church. In this thesis/capstone I ask the question, “What is Mount Pleasant Baptist Church’s story?” then take an oral history approach to find answers. Oral history interviews seek to find lived experiences that are not necessarily found in standard historical documents. The Mount Pleasant Baptist Church Oral History Project brings to light the struggle that the church faces today: to keep the church’s doors open with limited resources. This capstone presents eight narratives that arose from semi-structured interviews with individuals who have a deep connection to the church. Using a multidisciplinary approach to argue that the importance of gathering, organizing and sharing institutional memory will serve as an invaluable tool to help a younger generation care for this historic Black church.Human Dimensions of Organization
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Scaling Change Labs: A Response to “From Mediated Actions To Heterogenous Coalitions: Four Generations Of Activity-theoretical Studies Of Work And Learning”
Full text linkThe final published version of the article is available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1840594In “From Mediated Actions To Heterogenous Coalitions: Four Generations of
Activity-Theoretical Studies of Work and Learning,” Engeström and Sannino
discuss the fourth generation of activity theory as involving heterogeneous
coalitions that are involved in intertwined learning cycles. They offer Change
Laboratory interventions as a way to properly address learning in such
coalitions. Here, I critically review this argument as offering a de facto public
policy approach. I conclude by suggesting three ways to adapt Change Labs
for this new scale of analysis.Englis
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