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Creative Ideas (creative + idea)
Selected AbstractsMotivating Creativity and Enhancing Innovation through Employee Suggestion System TechnologyCREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2001James F. Fairbank Research has found that employee suggestion systems are a useful way to obtain and utilize employees' creative ideas. To be effective, employees must be motivated to think creatively and to participate in the suggestion system. Unfortunately, motivating employees to participate is a common weakness of suggestion systems. Motivating employees involves more than simply offering rewards to submitters if their suggestions are put to use. According to expectancy theory, rewards will only motivate behaviour if the rewards are valued, if they are closely linked to successful performance, and if employees believe that they can perform successfully. This paper applies expectancy theory to the problem of motivating employees to participate in a suggestion system. We describe suggestion system technology that will increase employees' motivation to think creatively and participate in the system. [source] Benchmarking Innovation: A Short ReportCREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2000Zoe Radnor A project is reported that benchmarked ,best practice' mature organisations, with a base in the United Kingdom, on the processes and practices that they perceive underpinned successful innovation projects. The majority of organisations had director level personnel involved in the innovation process but only three had active involvement of the top management. However, the majority saw the greatest level of innovation being obtained through the use of cross-functional teams. Five key innovation supports were identified during the benchmarking exercise. These were top management support for, and involvement in the process; the appointment of an innovation champion or sponsor; rewards for innovative behaviours and ideas; and finally a positive attitude to building on creative ideas, irrespective of their source. It is suggested that benchmarking can play a role in identifying best-practice innovation structures and procedures. [source] Factors associated with middle and secondary students' perceived science competenceJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 6 2007Ronald A. Beghetto The aim of the present study was to gain a better understanding of students' perceived science competence by examining potentially related beliefs and perceptions in a diverse sample of middle and secondary students (N,=,1289). Results of hierarchical regression analysis showed that students' perceived science competence was related to: (a) students' age, gender, and ethnicity; (b) students' mastery and performance,approach goals; (c) students' self-perceptions of their ability to generate creative ideas (i.e., creative self-efficacy); and (d) students' perceptions of teacher support and press (i.e., challenging academic demands). Of all these factors, creative self-efficacy was found to have the strongest positive relationship with students' perceived science competence. Implications for subsequent research are discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 800,814, 2007 [source] Creativity and Picture BooksLITERACY, Issue 2 2000Judith Graham Where authors and illustrators exercise rigorous constraint with their texts, with neither replicating the work that the other can portray more effectively, they are at their most creative and they make picture books to which readers are repeatedly drawn because of the inherent and deeply satisfying challenges offered. Moreover, the allure is not just to children; teachers find that such texts draw from them their most creative ideas for ways of working with children. Three picture books are examined in terms of their strengths and potential activities. Conclusions are drawn which seek to justify the sharing of such picture books in terms of imaginative empowerment and lasting messages about reading. [source] Finding and solving problems in software new product developmentTHE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2002Willow A. Sheremata New product development is notoriously difficult, and software new product development particularly so. Although a great deal of research has investigated new product development, projects developing new software products continue to have problems meeting their goals. In fact, one line of research proposes new product development is difficult because it must solve an ongoing stream of complex problems. I integrate this line of research with two others to develop a conceptual framework of new product development as a process of finding and solving problems. From this framework, I develop four hypotheses that predict the probability projects developing new products will attain their development schedule and product quality goals. More specifically, I hypothesize that projects that generate access to, and integrate, large quantities of creative ideas, in-depth knowledge, and accurate information, should increase their probability of attaining schedule and product quality goals. Projects developing new products should both generate and integrate this "knowledge" to solve the problems that stand between them and their goals. However, how projects find problems also matters. Projects that search to identify problems earlier, rather than later, should also increase their probability of meeting schedule and product quality goals. To test these hypotheses I gathered data on 33 projects that tried to develop new software products from 23 firms, through interviews and questionnaires. Results from regression analyses support three out of four hypotheses. The projects that had high levels of both knowledge generation and integration had a significantly higher probability of attaining their product quality goals, but not their schedule goals. In contrast, projects that merely searched to find problems had a higher probability of attaining both goals. Moreover, projects that not only generated and integrated knowledge to solve problems, but also searched to find them, had the highest probability of attaining their product quality goals. This study illustrates the usefulness of modeling new product development as a bundle of problems to be found and solved. These results suggest that projects that combine practices to implement high levels of both knowledge generation and integration,not just one or the other,increase their chances of meeting product quality goals. This in turn suggests that focus on any single process or practice may be misplaced. Moreover, proactive search for problems may increase projects' chances of meeting both schedule and product quality goals. In fact, search for problems was highly significant in this study, which suggests the way projects identify problems deserves further study. Although these prescriptions are preliminary, this study suggests they can help projects,and their managers,embody their visions in products and deliver those products to market. et. [source] Dilemmas in the quest for inclusionBRITISH JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, Issue 1 2005Klaus Wedell In 1995, on the occasion of his ,retirement', Professor Klaus Wedell wrote a leading article for BJSE entitled ,Making inclusive education ordinary'. Last October, Professor Wedell, also known to BJSE's readers as the author of the regular ,Points from the SENCo-Forum' column, delivered the Gulliford Lecture at Birmingham University. Here he makes the text of his lecture accessible to a wider audience. In this article, Professor Wedell places some of the ideas he discussed in 1995 in a contemporary context. He explores the systemic rigidities that create barriers to inclusion; he offers creative ideas for new ways to approach the challenges of inclusion; and he argues persuasively for much greater flexibility, at a range of levels, in order to facilitate change, development and innovation. Building on these themes, Professor Wedell summarises a series of implications for policy and practice. These concern teaching and learning; staffing and professional expertise; and grouping and locations for learning. In concluding his article, Professor Wedell calls on the Government to consider in more depth the issues that are raised by moves towards inclusion , particularly those issues that concern the individual learner in relation to the shared curriculum. This article will be of interest to anyone who recognises these and other tensions in the movement towards inclusion. [source] | |||||||||||||