Technologically Reflective Individuals as Enablers of Social Innovation

Perception of hypotheticality in technology-based business ideas: effects on Opportunity Beliefs from a Construal Level Theory perspective

This research investigates how entrepreneurs perceive the hypothetical nature of technologies (based on situations that are often imagined or theoretical) as a foundation for entrepreneurial endeavors and how this perception influences the formation of business Opportunity Beliefs. Drawing on the Construal Level Theory, we explore the relationship between the perceived hypotheticality of technologies and Opportunity Beliefs. Two experimental studies are conducted to examine these relationships, with Study 1 (n = 177 entrepreneurs) focusing on the perception of innovative technologies as more distant or hypothetical, and Study 2 (n = 404 entrepreneurs) delving into how the perceived distance to technology influences Opportunity Beliefs. The results indicate that entrepreneurs view more innovative technologies as more hypothetical and that hypotheticality mediates the relationship between the perceived degree of innovation and Opportunity Beliefs. We find evidence that Entrepreneurs tend to view the feasibility and fit/alignment of business opportunities more favorably when they perceive the psychological distance (hypotheticality) of the opportunity as closer rather than more distant. However, the difference this difference is nonsignificant in how they evaluate the desirability of the opportunity in any psychological distance. These results provide insight into the cognitive processes of entrepreneurs and offer implications for understanding how entrepreneurs perceive and evaluate business opportunities.

Environmental corporate social responsibility practices and firm innovation: Complementarities and empirical evidence from Spanish firms

This study examines the complementarity effect of combining different types of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) practices on firm innovation. We apply the complementarity approach to test whether the adoption of different ECSR practices (i.e. practices for fewer materials per unit produced [materials], less energy per unit produced [energy], or decreasing environmental impact [impact]) generates super-additive effects on firms' innovation, measured by innovations type: adoption, new-to-the-market, and new-to-the-firm innovation. We use data from the Spanish Community Innovation Survey for the period 2009-2014. The results show that the best combination of ECSR practices depends on the innovation type. For innovation adoption, all possible combinations of the three practices produce super-additive effects; however, the complementarity patterns differ for new-to-the-market and new-to-the-firm innovations. For new-to-the-market innovation, energy practices appear to be a key factor in fostering innovation when combined with materials or impact practices. For new-to-the-firm innovation, the combination of these three ECSR practices shows complementarity effects. These findings provide useful insights for the design of corporate social responsibility strategies.

A managers' work engagement framework for the digital tasks

Unlike much research on work engagement, there is not much literature focused on managers that discuss their job demands and resources related to digital challenges in today's organizations. Grounded in the JD-R model and considering the current digital world context, we build four research propositions and offer a work engagement framework that considers the boundary conditions of digital managerial tasks. Our conceptual framework relates the new job demands and resources to digital managerial tasks: digital adoption tasks and digital business model tasks. This conceptual article has theoretical and practical implications for organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and strategic management scholars and practitioners interested in studying managers' work engagement and digital managerial tasks.

The impact of corporate support programs on environmental and social innovation: empirical insights from the food and beverage industry

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of corporate support programs on managers' environmental and social innovation behaviors. To offer a more comprehensive understanding of these relationships, the moderating role of technological reflectiveness and business moral values is also accounted for.

Design/methodology/approach

A scenario-based experimental study to test the impact of corporate support programs on environmental and social innovation behaviors is also adopted. After running a pretest to verify the effectiveness of alternative scenarios through 100 respondents with managerial experience residing in the UK and EU countries, we collected data from a sample of 220 senior managers of firms from the Australian food and beverage industry for the main study. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Dunnett's test to investigate direct relationships and the PROCESS Model to test the moderating role of technological reflectiveness and business moral values were used.

Findings

The findings reveal time provision, budget provision and advice provision as salient forms of corporate support programs that positively impact managers' environmental and social innovation behaviors. It is found that technological reflectiveness positively moderates the link between time provision and managers' social innovation behavior and negatively moderates the link between advice provision and managers' social innovation behavior. Furthermore, it is found that business moral values positively moderate the relationships between time and budget provisions and managers' environmental innovation behavior and between budget and advice provisions and managers' social innovation behavior.

Originality/value

The authors contribute to innovation and operations management research by adopting a behavioral operations management perspective and empirically analyzing the influences of managers' technological reflectiveness and business moral values on the relationship between organizational corporate support programs and managers' environmental and social innovation behavior in the context of the food and beverage industry.

Empathy in occupational therapy students: a cross-sectional study at a Spanish university

INTRODUCTION

Empathy is an important interpersonal skill and a fundamental component in the professional-patient relationship, being the basis for implementing person-centred practice. In several studies, a decrease in empathy levels throughout training in medicine, nursing or dentistry, among others, has been shown. There are few studies on the occupational therapy branch of healthcare. The aim was to determine the degree of empathy perceived by students of occupational therapy at a Spanish university, as well as to analyse the differences between empathy levels according to the different degree courses and gender.

METHODS

A descriptive cross-sectional study was designed with a sample of 221 occupational therapy students from a Spanish university. The Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Profession Student's Spanish version (JSPE-HPS-S) were used as outcome measures.

RESULTS

According to the results found, high level of empathy was found on all dimension of the IRI (69.84 (9.80)) and the JSPE-HPS-S (122 (94-140)). Although high levels of empathy among occupational therapy students are observed in all degree courses, no significant differences were found between them. Statistically significant differences and a moderate effect size (r) were found between the variables according to the gender of the participants, with females showing greater empathy in the overall scores of the IRI as well as in the JSPE-HPS-S (p=0.002, r=0.212; p=0.001, r=0.327, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

Empathy is an essential competence for the development of quality occupational therapy practice. According to the results and although occupational therapy students showed high levels of empathy, it is important to pay attention to the evolution of empathy and to provide students with learning experiences that prevent its possible decline.

Institutional conditions and social innovations in emerging economies: insights from Mexican enterprises’ initiatives for protecting/preventing the effect of violent events

Latin-American countries are characterised by societal problems like violence, crime, corruption, the informality that influence any entrepreneurial activity developed by individuals/organisations. Social innovations literature confront “wicked problems” with strong interdependencies among different systems/actors. Yet, little is known about how firms use innovation to hedge against economic, political or societal uncertainties (i.e., violence, social movements, democratisation, pandemic). By translating social innovation and institutional theory approaches, this study analyses the influence of formal institutions (government programs and actions) and informal institutions (corruption, extortion and informal trade) on the development/implementation of enterprises’ technological initiatives for protecting/preventing of victimisation. By using data from 5525 establishments interviewed in the 2012/2014 National Victimisation Survey of the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), our findings shows that formal conditions (government programs) and informal conditions (corruption, extortion and informal trade) are associated with an increment in the number of enterprises’ social innovations. Our findings also contribute to the debate about institutional conditions, social innovations, and the role of ecosystems’ actors in developing economies. A provoking discussion and implications for researchers, managers and policymakers emerge from this study.

Empathy and the Development of Affective Skills

Empathy, the most important human attribute that matters in every aspect of life, is essential in health care. Provision of patient-centered care requires empathic health care practitioners. The correlation between empathy of health care providers and improved patient adherence, satisfaction, and treatment outcomes is well-established. Scholarly evidence shows positive correlations between empathy and affective domains and confirms that soft skills are grounded in empathy. Empathic students have stronger affective skills and are capable to acquire, develop, reinforce, and display strong affective behaviors, abilities, and attitudes. As an innate quality, empathy is malleable. The level of empathy can be influenced by educational interventions inculcated into students during the entire curriculum, including both didactic and experiential training. The effectiveness of educational methods may be strengthened by activities that help students enhance empathy and achieve required affective skills. Empathy and the empathy-based affective skills essential in patient-centered care should be routinely and deliberately taught, modelled, and assessed across the continuum of health care curricula.