Mary Mathew

DEFINITION OF INNOVATION REVISITED: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON INDIAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

In spite of increased attention and resulting vibrancy within the field of innovation, earlier research has not yielded a widely accepted consensus regarding how to define innovation. Without a good working definition, we still lack good measures of innovation. One of the greatest obstacles in understanding innovation has been the lack of a meaningful measure. The present study is carried out to find a generic definition of innovation in Information Technology organisations. We also did a comparative study between innovative and less innovative organisations with respect to the way these organisations define innovation. Results showed that there are differences between these two groups of organisations with respect to the way these organisations define innovation. Finally, the implications of findings on these organisations are discussed.

Intellectual property management practices

The increased competitive environment has driven organizations to bank more upon their intangible assets than on their traditional assets in order to sustain their competitive advantage. This requires organizations to gear up their intellectual property (IP) management practices. Organizations need to have clear-cut commercialization policies with respect to their IP portfolios. Deployment strategies of licensing, cross licensing, selling out, donating, using for mergers and acquisitions, and maintaining for core competency, infringement monitoring can lead to considerable revenue income. Six case studies conducted in Bangalore, India, highlight the practices followed by some of the organizations leading in their industry in this regard.

Differences in Occupational Commitment amongst Scientists in Indian Defence, Academic, and Commercial R&D Organizations

Occupational commitment is referred to as the psychological link between an individual and his occupation that is based on an affective reaction to that occupation. Thus a person with higher occupational commitment strongly identifies and has positive feelings towards his occupation. It has been observed that R&D professionals have a very distinctive nature in their career orientations, value systems, and reward preferences. In R&D organizations, due to complexity of tasks, the employee and the employer often do not understand the nature of the job performance and therefore commitment to occupation is seen as an important contributing factor. Hence, this study addresses the following research questions: How does occupational commitment differ with the different types of R&D organizations? How do personal demographic, job satisfaction, and personality variables influence occupational commitment of different types? This study empirically examines the relationship among the personal characteristics of R&D scientists across three types of R&D organizations: A government commercial organization A government defence organization A government academic organization. The objective is to find out the influence of age, occupational tenure, job satisfaction, and occupational commitment on the five factor model of personality. A questionnaire of job satisfaction followed by the neo five factor personality inventory and occupational commitment questionnaires were administered on a sample of 126 R&D professionals. The results of the analysis revealed that: Occupational commitment of scientists does differ in these different R&D organizations. Occupational tenure is much higher for the scientists of the government commercial R&D organization and the government academic R&D organization compared to the scientists of government defence R&D organization. Job-satisfaction is the highest amongst the scientists of the government defence R&D organization followed by the scientists of the government academic R&D organization. Personality scores of the scientists also differ across these three organizations. Occupational tenure and age are not related to personality. Affective commitment is shown to have a positive and significant relationship with conscientiousness for scientists of the government academic R&D organization. Affective commitment is explained by occupational tenure and extraversion while continuance commitment is explained by job satisfaction and agreeableness in the government commercial R&D organizations. Extraversion (factor of personality) emerged as the strongest predictor of affective commitment in the presence of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. For managers of R&D organizations, it is important to note that in the information-enabled world of today, occupational commitment rather than organizational commitment is likely to be the key variable in deciding whether to stay or leave.

Interactive and collaborative behaviour of software product‐development teams

Purpose – This paper aims to describe a study of interactive and collaborative behaviours of software product development teams across horizontal, geographical and value chain boundaries. The objective is to understand the influence of boundary on these behaviours.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a questionnaire‐based study of 63 software product‐development teams.Findings – The study shows, that interactive behaviour is used more by teams as compared to collaborative behaviour while developing software products. The interactive behaviour is not influenced by the boundary crossed, while collaborative behaviour is influenced by the boundaries crossed.Originality/value – The study is relevant for practitioners and researchers. Collaboration is considered important for product development, but the study shows that it is not used extensively. Researchers can look into why low level of collaborative behaviour has been exhibited.

COMPETENCIES FOR ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION POTENTIAL: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ON INDIAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) ORGANIZATIONS

This study examines competencies that contribute to innovation in Indian Information Technology organizations (n = 42). These competencies were conceptualized and measured in this paper. Their measurement is described. A cluster of low and high potentially innovative organizations, based on measures from an earlier study by the authors, is used to understand the competencies in the context of innovation. An organizational innovation potential score categorized organizations as innovative (high) and less innovative (low) organizations. Logistic regression was done to assess the competencies of low and high innovative organizations. Results showed that product breadth competency, innovation adaptability competency, new business development competency and organizational learning competency contribute to organizational innovation potential. The paper discusses research and managerial implications.

Potential for opportunity recognition: differentiating entrepreneurs

The potential for opportunity recognition (ORP) is a skill that single out successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful ones. The entrepreneurs with high ORP were differentiated from the entrepreneurs with low ORP on the factors that influence their ORP. It was also found that the factors influencing ORP differed with the degree of potential to recognising opportunities. The ORP of entrepreneurs with high potential to recognise opportunities was influenced by bonding social capital, power motivation and level of education attained. Whereas, the ORP of entrepreneurs with low potential to recognise opportunities was influenced by their cognitive style. The implications of this study on mentoring of entrepreneurs are discussed.

Post-absorptive glucose lowering in normal healthy individuals: an epidemiological observation.

Post-absorptive glucose lowering (PALG) is observed in individuals with glucose intolerance and in healthy individuals. We report a prevalence of about 23% among healthy Asian Indians. Individuals with PALG are characterized by leaner phenotype, low body fat percentage, increased insulin sensitivity and higher fasting glucose levels.

International human resource management in the Indian information technology sector: A comparison of Indian MNCs and affiliates of foreign MNCs in India

The information technology (IT) sector has gained prominence since 1990. However, studies on the human resource management (HRM) policies and practices of multinational corporations (MNCs) have been few and far between. In this paper we study the Indian IT sector using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. For the quantitative research design, we used structured measurement tools developed by the Global HRM Project. Data were collected from 36 IT MNCs of Indian and foreign origin (U.S. and European) located in Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. We tested four hypotheses that were verified using the Mann–Whitney test of mean rank. We assessed the flow of HRM practices and the differences in HR practices between Indian and foreign MNCs. For the qualitative design we used an unstructured approach to gather secondary data sources and used anecdotal data gathered over a decade through our interactions with the Indian IT industry. We used the narrative style to show past and current Indian business culture, level of technology, and implications for foreign direct investment in the Indian IT sector. We state two qualitative hypotheses for this part of the research study. We find the current business culture and level of technology of Indian IT MNCs moderately similar to those of foreign MNCs, and more so U.S. MNCs. We find no differences between Indian and foreign MNCs in HRM practices. We assume that the unexpected similarity in international human resource management (IHRM) practices is probably due to: (1) the nature of information technology, (2) closing levels of R&D between Indian and foreign MNCs, and (3) similar business cultures of Indian and foreign MNCs. IT-intensive global organizations are likely get a step closer to global IHRM standardization.

A survey of Singaporean Chinese investors in mainland China and their knowledge of the Chinese language

Focuses on business investments by Singaporean Chinese in Mainland China vis‐a‐vis the impact of the knowledge of the Chinese language, culture etc. on business success. The literature has shown four critical factors namely culture, guanxi, negotiation and communication as important facilitators for business investments in China. Chinese language, however, further moderates their influence on business investments. To explore the association between the Chinese language and the four critical factors, a sample t‐test was conducted. Additionally, the profile of Singaporean business investors in Mainland China was surveyed. The research provices insights for Singaporean and global business investors who are looking at Mainland China as a potential business opportunity.

The Dynamics Between Forward Citations and Price of Singleton Patents

In recent years, business practitioners are seen valuing patents on the basis of the market price that the patent can attract. Researchers have also looked into various patent latent variables and firm variables that influence the price of a patent. Forward citations of a patent are shown to play a role in determining price. Using patent auction price data (of Ocean Tomo now ICAP patent brokerage), we delve deeper into of the role of forward citations. The successfully sold 167 singleton patents form the sample of our study. We found that, it is mainly the right tail of the citation distribution that explains the high prices of the patents falling on the right tail of the price distribution. There is consistency in the literature on the positive correlation between patent prices and forward citations. In this paper, we go deeper to understand this linear relationship through case studies. Case studies of patents with high and low citations are described in this paper to understand why some patents attracted high prices. We look into the role of additional patent latent variables like age, technology discipline, class and breadth of the patent in influencing citations that a patent receives.