The purpose of this study was to test a model of the organizational innovation process that suggests that the strategy-structure causal sequence is differentiated by radical versus incremental innovation. That is, unique strategy and structure will be required for radical innovation, especially process adoption, while more traditional strategy and structure arrangements tend to support new product introduction and incremental process adoption. This differentiated theory is strongly supported by data from the food processing industry. Specifically, radical process and packaging adoption are significantly promoted by an aggressive technology policy and the concentration of technical specialists. Incremental process adoption and new product introduction tends to be promoted in large, complex, decentralized organizations that have market dominated growth strategies. Findings also suggest that more traditional structural arrangements might be used for radical change initiation if the general tendencies that occur in these dimensions as a result of increasing size can be delayed, briefly modified, or if the organization can be partitioned structurally for radical vs. incremental innovation. In particular, centralization of decision making appears to be necessary for radical process adoption along with the movement away from complexity toward more organizational generalists. This suggests that a greater support of top managers in the innovation process is necessary to initiate and sustain radical departures from the past for that organization.research and development: innovation, organizational studies

In this paper we explore the relationships between some of the various concepts and scales that have been used to characterize innovative attitudes and behaviours. A sample (N = 123) of undergraduate and graduate business students with full-time jobs or the equivalent provided questionnaire data to test two initial hypotheses. It was found that four attitude-value scales which have been used to measure change values, innovation orientation, readiness for change, and innovativenesss, are intercorrelated significantly when no distinction is made between the respondents' intentions to be innovative and respondents' actual innovative behaviour. Innovative and change attitudes, as measured by these same four scales, do consistently predict multiple innovative intentions and behaviours but not, as expected, single behaviours or single intentions. The single best predictor in a multiple regression of the combined multiple innovative intention-behaviour measure was found to be a creative scale (R2 = 0.43, p < 0.01). The innovative behaviour scale was tentatively called attitude toward being innovative. A factor analysis of this scale revealed dimensions related to innovative behaviour in organizations : the innovator, the preserver of the status quo, and the unchallenged, dissatisfied person.Two other hypotheses were also tested. The first was that the perceived organization risk-taking climate would moderate the relationship between these attitude measures. This hypothesis was not supported by the overall results. However, moderate support was found for the hypothesis that the more formal authority a person has in an organization, the greater the consistency between change attitudes and innovative behaviours as measured by self-report methods.

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This study examines the effect of four national television advertisements for product category leader brands. These ads were developed expressly for black consumers. Through the use of cultural values, responses to ethnic or subculturally oriented marketing communication was measured. Two hundred and seventy one black and white respondents were drawn from a large urban, mid‐western city and a midsize deep‐south city. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine the differences between responses to each advertisement by black versus white respondents. The study confirmed the results that black respondents display a more positive affect toward a commercial message featuring black actors than do comparable whites.

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Evaluating the extent to which air quality regulations improve public health--sometimes referred to as accountability--is part of an emerging effort to assess the effectiveness of environmental regulatory policies. Air quality has improved substantially in the United States and Western Europe in recent decades, with far less visible pollution and decreasing concentrations of several major pollutants. In large part, these gains were achieved through increasingly stringent air quality regulations. The costs associated with compliance and, importantly, the need to ensure that the regulations are achieving the intended public health benefits underscore the importance of accountability research. To date, accountability research has emphasized measuring the effects of actions already taken to improve air quality. Such research may also contribute to estimating the burden of disease that might be avoided in the future if certain actions are taken. The Health Effects Institute (HEI) currently funds eight ongoing studies on accountability, which cover near-term interventions to improve air quality including (1) a ban on the sale of coal, (2) replacing old wood stoves with cleaner ones, (3) decreasing sulfur content in fuel, (4) measures to reduce traffic, and (5) longer term, wide-ranging actions or events (such as complex changes associated with the reunification of Germany). HEI is also funding the development of methods and research to assess regulations that are implemented incrementally over extended periods of time, such as Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, which reduces sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants in the eastern United States.

Current European air pollution levels, which are in most places well below air quality limit values, still have deleterious health effects. The report discusses ways to move forward with air quality legislation to improve public health.

Although much has been written to document the existence of the keycommunicator role, relatively little attention has been directed toward determining the factors that motivate an individual to assume the role and to maintain the behaviors that define the role. The purposes of the study reported here were to identify key communicators within a sample of R &D laboratories; to explore those factors which motivate individuals to assume and maintain the role of key communicators; and to derive implications for further study of the characteristics of key communicators in R &D laboratories. Three U.S. government laboratories engaged in applied research and development participated as research sites in the field study. The factors that motivated those identified as key communicators to assume and maintain the role varied. All of those interviewed reported that the role was intrinsically rewarding, but those in supervisory positions looked upon it as part of theirjob requirements. The personal costs involved in maintaining the role were viewed by the respondents to be insignificant when weighed against the perceived social and organizational benefits derived from performance in the role of key communicator.Previous studies of the communication behavior of scientists and engineers have indicated that a few key individuals play a critical role in linking researchers within the laboratory with the external information environment. The individuals who function in this linking role Downloaded from 337 have been diversely called &dquo;gatekeepers,&dquo; &dquo;key communicators,&dquo; &dquo;communication stars,&dquo; and &dquo;linking persons.&dquo; Efforts to describe the linking-person role and identification of individuals who assume and maintain the role abound in the literature (Allencommunicators have been described as differing from their colleagues in two important respects. First, they read much more, especially the &dquo;harder&dquo; scientific literature, and their readership of professional and scientific journals is significantly greater than that of the average researcher. Second, they maintain broader, more diverse, and longer term relationships with experts in the field located outside of the immediate working environment. In this way, the key communicator acts as a linking person mediating between his organizational colleagues and research efforts in other organizations and effectively couples his work group to the scientific and technical activity of the larger scientific community.Although much has been written to document the existence of the key communicator role, relatively little attention has been paid to the factors that motivate an individual to assume the role and to maintain the behaviors that define the role.The purposes of this study were: 1. To identify key communicators within a sample of R&D laboratories; 2. To explore those factors that motivate individuals to assume and maintain the role of key communicators; 3. To derive implications for further study of the characteristics of key communicato...