Deploying information technologies for organizational innovation: Lessons from case studies

Organizations must innovate if they are to survive in today's fiercely competitive marketplace. In this paper, we explore how leading organizations are using emerging technologies to enable novel forms of ideation that can radically increase the sheer volume of ideas they explore. In addition, we outline how organizations use technologies to cost effectively manage this increased volume of ideas by optimizing generation, mobilization, advocacy and screening, experimentation, commercialization, and even the diffusion and implementation of ideas. Critical to this is the management of knowledge during the innovation process.     

Anorexia athletica in pre-professional ballet dancers

Competitive sport has been under increasing discussion as a possible favourable factor in the development of eating disorders among children and adolescents. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of sport-specific eating disorders, in line with the concept of anorexia athletica. This prospective field study included one experimental group and two control groups (disease and healthy). Fifty-two pre-professional ballet dancers aged 13-20 years were tested for clinical eating disorders, anorexia athletica criteria, eating disorder related psychopathology and self-concept, and were compared with 52 patients with anorexia nervosa and 44 non-athletic controls of the same age. The study was conducted using semi-structured interviews as well as self-report questionnaires. A clinical eating disorder diagnosis was made in 1.9% of the ballet dancers versus 0% of the high school students; anorexia athletica was diagnosed in 5.8% of the dancers versus 2.3% of the students. Ballet dancers scored lower than patients with anorexia nervosa with regard to eating disorder related psychopathology and higher than the patients with regard to self-concept. We conclude that more sensitive tools to differentiate between sport-specific (eating) patterns, anorexia athletica and clinically relevant eating disorders are needed, especially for aesthetic sports such as ballet. It remains an important goal to identify athletes with symptoms of anorexia athletica irrespective of their physique and/or sport.     

Absorptive capacity: a proposed operationalization

The concept of absorptive capacity has already been considerably studied from a theoretical perspective, but few, if any, attempts at operationalizing the concept have been studied in ways that would allow its full assessment. The more specific focus provided by the four dimensions identified in some recent literature – acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation – opens up some promising avenues for operationalizing the concept. This exploratory research studies and describes case studies of ten innovative companies using a cross-sectional research design. In the first part of the article, we re-examine the concept of absorptive capacity in terms of dynamic capabilities and provide a review of the relevant literature. The second part describes the work accomplished to operationalize the concept of dynamic capability and analyses the possible relationship between the business strategies adopted by the companies studied and their particular strategic capacity.     

The association of ABO blood groups with extent of coronary atherosclerosis in Croatian patients suffering from chronic coronary artery disease

Aim:

The aim of study was to: 1) examine the relationship between ABO blood groups and extent of coronary atherosclerosis in patients with chronic coronary artery disease (CAD), 2) compare ABO blood groups distribution in CAD patients and general population, 3) examine possible differences in traditional risk factors frequency in CAD patients with different ABO blood groups.

Materials and methods:

In the 646 chronic CAD patients (72.4% males) coronary angiograms were scored by quantitative assessment using multiple angiographic scoring system, Traditional risk factors were self reported or measured by standard methods. ABO blood distribution of patients was compared with group of 651 healthy blood donors (74.6% males).

Results:

Among all ABO blood group patients there was no significant difference between the extent of coronary atherosclerosis with regard to all the three scoring systems: number of affected coronary arteries (P = 0.857), Gensini score (P = 0.818), and number of segments narrowed > 50% (P = 0.781). There was no significant difference in ABO blood group distribution between CAD patients and healthy blood donors. Among CAD patients, men with blood group AB were significantly younger than their pairs with non-AB blood groups (P = 0.008). Among CAD patients with AB blood group, males < 50 yrs were significantly overrepresented when compared with the non-AB groups (P = 0.003).

Conclusions:

No association between ABO blood groups and the extent of coronary atherosclerosis in Croatian CAD patients is observed. Observation that AB blood group might possibly identify Croatian males at risk to develop the premature CAD has to be tested in larger cohort of patients.