Job Design and the Employee Innovation Process: The Mediating Role of Learning Strategies

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to examine whether employee learning strategies is a mechanism through which job design affects the employee innovation process. In particular, we test whether work-based learning strategies mediate the relationship between job design characteristics (job control and problem demand) and key components of the innovation process (idea generation, idea promotion, and idea implementation).

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were collected from a survey of 327 employees in a UK manufacturing organization.

Findings

Structural equation modeling confirmed the mediating role of learning strategies in the relationship between job design and idea generation. The effects of job control on idea generation were mediated by work-based learning strategies and the effects of problem demand on idea generation were partially mediated by work-based learning strategies. Problem demand also had a direct relationship with idea generation and idea promotion. The findings provide support for the general idea that learning is a mechanism thorough which job design affects outcomes.

Implications

The results of the study show practitioners that creating jobs with high control or high problem demand can help to promote the employee innovation process; and that this is partly due to the role that such jobs play in stimulating the use of learning strategies at work.

Originality/Value

This article develops and tests a new theoretical model that explains how learning is a route through which job design influences employee innovation.     

GABA, glutamate, dopamine and serotonin transporters expression on memory formation and amnesia

Notwithstanding several neurotransmission systems are frequently related to memory formation, amnesia and/or therapeutic targets for memory alterations, the role of transporters γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA, GAT1), glutamate (neuronal glutamate transporter excitatory amino acid carrier; EACC1), dopamine (DAT) and serotonin (SERT) is poorly understood. Hence, in this paper Western-blot analysis was used to evaluate expression changes on them during memory formation in trained and untrained rats treated with the selective serotonin transporter inhibitor fluoxetine, the amnesic drug d-methamphetamine (METH) and fluoxetine plus METH. Transporters expression was evaluated in the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and striatum. Data indicated that in addition of memory performance other behavioral parameters (e.g., explorative behavior, food-intake, etc.) that memory formation was recorded. Thus, memory formation in a Pavlovian/instrumental autoshaping was associated to up-regulation of prefrontal cortex GAT1 and EAAC1, striatal SERT, DAT and EACC1; while, hippocampal EACC1, GAT1 and SERT were down-regulated. METH impaired short (STM) and long-term memory (LTM), at 24 or 48h. The METH-induced amnesia down-regulated SERT, DAT, EACC1 and GAT1 in hippocampus and the GAT1 in striatum; no-changes were observed in prefrontal cortex. Post-training administration of fluoxetine improved LTM (48h), which was associated to DAT, GAT1 (prefrontal cortex) up-regulation, but GAT1 (striatum) and SERT (hippocampus) down-regulation. Fluoxetine plus METH administration was able to prevent amnesia, which was associated to DAT, EACC1 and GAT1 (prefrontal cortex), SERT and DAT (hippocampus) and EACC1 or DAT (striatal) up-regulation. Together these data show that memory formation, amnesia and anti-amnesic effects are associated to specific patters of transporters expression.     

Memory conformity for confidently recognized items: The power of social influence on memory reports

Memory conformity occurs when one person's memory report influences another's. Memory conformity is more likely to occur when the information comes from a credible source, and when internal evidence is weak. Here, we investigate whether there are situational variations in how heavily participants weigh internal cues to accuracy when confronted with conflicting information from a partner. The results show that even confidently held memories are subject to influence from external sources, and that social influence is exaggerated when the source is seen to be highly credible.     

Religion and Organ Donation: The Views of UK Faith Leaders

This article reports the findings from the one-to-one interviews with the main UK faith and belief leaders which were commissioned by the Organ Donation Taskforce as part of its evidence gathering. Interviews were arranged with the main faith and belief organisations within the UK. Interviews covered a range of issues related to organ donation. Although some faith groups had some reservations regarding organ donation, interviews with these leaders demonstrated that none of these faith groups have reached a consensus against organ donation. The interviewees stated that the majority opinion in their faith or belief group is to permit organ donation, with some actively supporting it. Interviewees were keen to stress that there is a broad spectrum of opinion on organ transplantation within each faith and belief group and that consequently it is difficult to speak on behalf of an entire group. One complication mentioned by interviewees is that as organ transplantation is a relatively new medical procedure, there is no explicit reference to it in many original religious texts. Consequently, positions on the receipt and donation of organs are based on interpretation. It was felt that a much greater level of engagement is needed, as organ donation is currently not a priority for many faith and belief groups.     

Gait and risk of falls associated with frontal cognitive functions at different stages of Alzheimer's disease

ABSTRACT The decline in frontal cognitive functions contributes to alterations of gait and increases the risk of falls in patients with dementia, a category which included Alzheimer's disease (AD). The objective of the present study was to compare the gait parameters and the risk of falls among patients at different stages of AD, and to relate these variables with cognitive functions. This is a cross-sectional study with 23 patients with mild and moderate AD. The Clinical Dementia Rating was used to classify the dementia severity. The kinematic parameters of gait (cadence, stride length, and stride speed) were analyzed under two conditions: (a) single task (free gait) and (b) dual task (walking and counting down). The risk of falls was evaluated using the Timed Up-and-Go test. The frontal cognitive functions were evaluated using the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) and the Symbol Search Subtest. The patients who were at the moderate stage suffered reduced performance in their stride length and stride speed in the single task and had made more counting errors in the dual task and still had a higher fall risk. Both the mild and the moderate patients exhibited significant decreases in stride length, stride speed and cadence in the dual task. Was detected a significant correlation between CDT, FAB, and stride speed in the dual task condition. We also found a significant correlation between subtest Similarities, FAB and cadence in the dual task condition. The dual task produced changes in the kinematic parameters of gait for the mild and moderate AD patients and the gait alterations are related to frontal cognitive functions, particularly executive functions.     

Surface feature congruency effects in the object-reviewing paradigm are dependent on task memory demands

Perception of object continuity depends on establishing correspondence between objects viewed across disruptions in visual information. The role of spatiotemporal information in guiding object continuity is well documented; the role of surface features, however, is controversial. Some researchers have shown an object-specific preview benefit (OSPB)—a standard index of object continuity—only when correspondence could be based on an object’s spatiotemporal information, whereas others have found color-based OSPB, suggesting that surface features can also guide object continuity. This study shows that surface feature-based OSPB is dependent on the task memory demands. When the task involved letters and matching just one target letter to the preview ones, no color congruency effect was found under spatiotemporal discontinuity and spatiotemporal ambiguity (Experiments 1–3), indicating that the absence of feature-based OSPB cannot be accounted for by salient spatiotemporal discontinuity. When the task involved complex shapes and matching two target shapes to the preview ones, color-based OSPB was obtained. Critically, however, when a visual working memory task was performed concurrently with the matching task, the presence of a nonspatial (but not a spatial) working memory load eliminated the color-based OSPB (Experiments 4 and 5). These results suggest that the surface feature congruency effects that are observed in the object-reviewing paradigm (with the matching task) reflect memory-based strategies that participants use to solve a memory-demanding task; therefore, they are not reliable measures of online object continuity and cannot be taken as evidence for the role of surface features in establishing object correspondence.     

Group Status and Hierarchy Legitimacy Effects on Effort Versus Ability Attributions for Ingroup and Outgroup Failures

Previous research has shown that people have a tendency to explain various outcomes in ways that favour their ingroup. However, there is also some evidence that this tendency may be moderated by perceptions of group status and hierarchy legitimacy. In this study, we experimentally test the combined effects of group status and hierarchy legitimacy on effort and ability attributions for ingroup and outgroup failures. It was predicted that participants assigned to an illegitimately low status condition would attribute ingroup but not outgroup failure more to a lack of effort than ability. Conversely, participants assigned to a legitimately high status group were expected to attribute ingroup but not outgroup failure more to a lack of effort than ability. Results supported these predictions and also showed outgroup failure was attributed more to a lack of effort than ability when ingroup status was either legitimately low or illegitimately high. We conclude that intergroup attributions are constrained by perceptions about relative group status and the legitimacy of the status hierarchy.     

Review Essay: The Ethical and the Epistemological

In this review of Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process, I suggest that Irwin Hoffman's claim that his proposed paradigm of constructivism is revolutionary becomes more comprehensible and substantial if we realize that constructivism not only is an epistemological stance but is a profoundly ethical and even theological position that sees construction as construction in the face of death. The pronounced dialectical approach Hoffman is espousing and developing enables us to see the underside of uncertainty not only as epistemological complexity but as the ever present potential for moral fallibility and guilt.