Intrafirm diffusion of new technologies: an empirical application

Research on the diffusion of new technologies has centred on the study of the interfirm rate of diffusion, paying much less attention to intrafirm aspects. This paper attempts to overcome this gap in the literature by analysing the factors that influence the speed with which a new technology, the ATM, is fully adopted. The data over which the hypotheses are tested belongs to the Spanish savings banks market. The results show that the rate of intrafirm diffusion is explained by innovation, firm and market characteristics. In testing our hypotheses we make use of both traditional methods and survival analysis techniques.     

Efficient online index maintenance for contiguous inverted lists

Search engines and other text retrieval systems use high-performance inverted indexes to provide efficient text query evaluation. Algorithms for fast query evaluation and index construction are well-known, but relatively little has been published concerning update. In this paper, we experimentally evaluate the two main alternative strategies for index maintenance in the presence of insertions, with the constraint that inverted lists remain contiguous on disk for fast query evaluation. The in-place and re-merge strategies are benchmarked against the baseline of a complete re-build. Our experiments with large volumes of web data show that re-merge is the fastest approach if large buffers are available, but that even a simple implementation of in-place update is suitable when the rate of insertion is low or memory buffer size is limited. We also show that with careful design of aspects of implementation such as free-space management, in-place update can be improved by around an order of magnitude over a naïve implementation.     

Preprint policies among 14 academic publishers

The objective of this study was to assess how 14 large and established scientific publishers have adopted the use of preprints and how their policies changed in a one-year period between June 2017 and June 2018, if any. The core search was performed using the Sherpa/RoMEO database. Of all publishers (2516, now 2553) listed in the RoMEO database, 80.3% of the publishers examined allow self-archiving, but only half of the publishers (47.3%) allow the archiving of preprints in February of 2018, while this percentage increased to 48% in June 2018. These data were practically constant over a one-year period even as the number of preprint servers has increased. Several exceptions exist among journals within each of the tested Sherpa/RoMEO-indexed publishers, and in some cases, a reversal in policy was observed, i.e., from allowing to no longer allowing the archival of preprints.     

Striving 2.0: Faculty Collaboration and Advocacy as Strategies for Overcoming Post-Striving Organizational Priorities

Innovative Higher Education - A case study at a large, public research university was conducted to understand how post-striving environments, defined by those universities that achieved very high...     

Understanding the Formation, Functions, and Challenges of Grassroots Leadership Teams

This study examined the nature, characteristics, and challenges of grassroots leadership teams and the role of these factors in promoting cognitive complexity in order to provide insight into collective forms of bottom-up change. The study is framed by the literature on leadership teams. Using interviews from a case study conducted at five higher education campuses, we explored two types of leadership teams (sense-making and problem-solving) across different initiatives. The results from this study extend the literature on bottom-up change, leadership, and grassroots teams.     

Through the Looking Glass (Self): The Impact of Wearable Technology on Perceptions of Face-to-Face Interaction

Advancements in wearable technology have allowed for extradyadic social cues to be inserted directly (albeit conspicuously) into face-to-face interactions. The current study simulated a fictitious “Looking Glass” program that (a) autodetects (via facial recognition) one’s partner and (b) displays that person’s last 12 social media posts on a pair of Google Glass. In a randomized case/control experiment, nonwearers were more likely to perceive Glass wearers as physically attractive and socioemotionally close, while feeling lower self-esteem and having higher mental and physical demand with the conversation. Open-ended data suggested Glass wearers to be less attentive to the conversation, and Glass-present conversations were less on topic. These data, while preliminary and based on a small sample of users, hold implications for future application and research on cyborgic face-to-face interactions.     

“Morning fog,spider webs,and escaping from Alcatraz”: Examining metaphors used by public safety employees and their families to help understand the relationship between work and family

This study examines public safety employees’ (PSEs) (police officers and fire fighters) experiences with work and family as well as the experiences of their family members. Past research concerning work–family has typically concentrated on white-collar professions, rather than the non-standard workforce, which includes PSEs. Moreover, research has not considered the perspective of family members who openly strive to share equally in managing the relationship between work and family. Using interviews and focus groups, this study focuses on metaphors that were employed by PSEs and their family members with regard to how they articulate the relationship between work and family. Previous research has relied upon constructs and metaphors that have been created by scholars and researchers (i.e., balance, conflict, segmentation). Rather than imposing these past constructs on participants, this study allows participants to craft their own way of describing work and family. Theoretical and practical implications are offered as well as directions for future research.     

A new look at the professional training of secondary school mathematics teachers

Typical patterns followed in American colleges and universities in the preparation of mathematics teachers are inadequate for at least four reasons: some mathematics courses are perceived by students as irrelevant, the preparation is often not in step with societal changes, little attention is given to developing a solid understanding of mathematics content which is particularly important for secondary teachers, and insufficient emphasis is placed on the big ideas and unifying themes which pervade all of mathematics. This article discusses the reasons for these shortcomings and suggests a possible remedy involving the design of a program based on the intersection of certain needs of a secondary teacher and certain mathematics courses studied by prospective teachers.