Scott David Williams

Motivating Creativity and Enhancing Innovation through Employee Suggestion System Technology

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.

Yes, You Can Teach Business Ethics: A Review and Research Agenda

In the face of continuing doubt as to the value of teaching business ethics, evidence is reviewed suggesting that the endeavor is a worthy one. Specifically, we examine three common concerns raised by various stakeholders as to the viability of teaching business ethics. We conclude that these concerns are not well founded. Next, we describe three major goals from the literature related to teaching ethics: enhancing ethical awareness and sensitivity, promoting moral development, and appreciation of and skill handling complex ethical decision making. Third, we consider the empirical evidence to date addressing these goals. Finally, we consider directions for future research and offer several testable research propositions.

Increasing employees’ creativity by training their managers

As pressures on organizations to adapt and solve problems creatively increase, employee creativity will become an increasingly important concern. The pressures on businesses and government organizations to adapt to new technologies and external threats require resourcefulness and creativity. Several training interventions have been shown to be effective in enhancing the participants’ creativity. In addition, a number of managerial behaviors seem to affect subordinates’ creativity. However, the topic of training managers to boost their subordinates’ creativity has been virtually ignored. This paper examines the research on creativity training, management training, and the managerial behaviors that affect subordinates’ creativity. Appropriate methods of management training intended to enhance subordinates’ creative performance are suggested.

Personality and self-leadership

Abstract Self-leadership is being heralded by its proponents as a substitute for leadership in organizations. Self-leadership training interventions teach employees strategies for maximizing intrinsic motivation and improving self-direction. However, some trainees are likely to benefit more from self-leadership interventions than others. In order to determine which employees would benefit most, more must be known about how personality affects self-leadership. The purpose of this article is to identify the personality factors that are most likely to moderate self-leadership effectiveness.

Evaluating outdoor experiential training for leadership and team building

Advocates of outdoor experiential training (OET) fervently believe in its efficacy, but often have difficulty mustering “hard data” on the business results attributable to OET. OET adherents tend to rely on testimonials of how it promotes leadership and team development. Return on investment (ROI) analysis is perhaps the best way to demonstrate the impact of OET. ROI calculations treat leadership and team development training expenditures as an investment and evaluate the financial returns to an organization relative to that investment. This paper outlines a model by which the ROI of OET can be calculated, and encourages research in this area.

Self‐esteem and the self‐censorship of creative ideas

Creative processes halt when those who generate creative ideas self‐censor them. Self‐censorship may become a greater concern in performance management as organizations of the future are likely to face growing pressures to be creative, innovative, and adaptive. Self‐censorship was addressed in early research on managing the performance of brainstorming groups, and may have broad implications for creative performance in many facets of today’s organizations. This paper re‐examines the research on self‐censorship in view of recent management and social psychology research in an effort to better understand how the self‐esteem motive and a lack of self‐concept clarity cause self‐censorship. Person‐focused and feedback‐focused strategies to reduce self‐censorship are described, and directions for future research are suggested.

Evaluating ethical decision‐making models: a review and application

Purpose – The paper seeks to evaluate the prescriptive value of ethical decision‐making models.Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores various types of models in the ethics literature in concert with knowledge from the decision sciences literature to develop a tentative list of evaluative criteria that might be applied to prescriptive models. It then applies these criteria to one prescriptive model from the ethics literature, developed by Petrick and Quinn, in an attempt to demonstrate the value of more comprehensive evaluation. It closes by considering future research aimed at the evaluation of ethical decision‐making models as well as research needed to validate the Petrick and Quinn model.Findings – This critique finds that the Petrick‐Quinn judgment integrity model satisfies most of the criteria discussed in the ethical decision‐making literature. The primary opportunities for refining the Petrick‐Quinn model as a prescriptive framework for ethical decision making are: articulating the operat...

Internal diffusion: the conceptualizing innovation implementation

Purpose – The management literature has extensively discussed innovation diffusion as an essential part of corporate and economic competitiveness. However, most work centers on diffusion external to the organization. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding post adoption innovation implementation.Design/methodology/approach – Research concerning diffusion inside the firm has focused almost exclusively on innovation creation as opposed to implementation. Although current definitions of innovation often make clear the internal/external distinction, the authors propose that it could be made more meaningful by further delineating the components of internal innovation diffusion. To that end, prominent innovation research is synthesized to explore innovation implementation.Findings – A systematic review of the literature suggests three main types of influences on implementation: organizational, innovation, and human. Each represents unique challenges for innovation implementation.Pr...

Innovators and Imitators in Novelty-Intensive Markets: A Research Agenda

The phenomenon of demand for novelty is defined and explored as a unique and under-examined aspect of certain markets. Demand for novelty is the portion of demand not explained by practical utility or marketing effects - it is the demand for the new and unique. We explore markets characterized by high demand for novelty and how they differ from typical markets. Primarily, this involves the central role of novelty in the product or service value proposition as well as rapid growth rates and product or service obsolescence. Within this context, we consider the dynamics of innovating and imitating and suggest several ways that first mover competition is unique in markets with high demand for novelty. From the perspective of the knowledge-based theory of the firm, we consider the implications of organizational learning and knowledge and decision making as they relate to new product development routines, improvisation, and top management team decision making. We conclude by considering several avenues for future empirical research.

African American Males in the Front Door but out the Back Door: Monitor Discharges

While every instance of race‐based employment discrimination is important, this study finds that managers need to devote extra attention to the discharge of male, African American employees. During the past three decades, efforts to create fair procedures and promote perceptions of fair treatment have focused on hiring activities, the “front door”. However, this study of actualemployment discrimination claims finds that discrimination against African American menmay be particularly acute in the realm of employee discharge, the “back door”. In addition, this study suggests that the employees’ immediate supervisors should be trained and monitored in order to reduce this form of racial discrimination.