In today’s competitive market, it is essential to be innovative and creative for an industry to sustain. Industry need to introduce new products to the market. Engineering idea generation plays a vital role in the development of new products. This research study is focused on the engineering idea generation. The representations of ideas have an important impact on the idea generation process. Design concepts may be represented in a variety of forms like sketches, physical models or computer based models. The goal of this research is to understand how these various representations affect design cognition. In this thesis, three studies showing the effects of two different representations in the idea generation process are presented. The first study focuses on the effects of physical models in engineers’ design cognition. This preliminary study investigates two different hypotheses: (1) Physical models supplement and improve designer’s mental models and (2) Physical models induce design fixation. The results show that physical models supplement the designer’s mental models but fail to enhance them. No evidence of design fixation is observed. The second and third studies investigate the effects of computer-based idea generation software on design cognition. The research questions investigated in this study are: (1) How does the use of this software tool assist design cognition? (2) How can the software interface be improved so that designers can generate ideas more easily? To answer these questions, a between-subjects idea generation experiment is conducted. In the experiment, the participants are asked to generate ideas to solve a design problem with and without the software. The results show that participants who generated ideas with the help of the software tool have less quantity of ideas compared to the control group. This may be due to the design fixation induced by the concepts presented. In the third study, the opinions of the participants for the improvements of the software interface are collected. Results show that participants do not have any preference of one way of clustering the concepts over the other. The results of this study also provide creative input for the future improvement of the software.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

This thesis occupies itself with the background of the idea of czechoslovakian state through the outlook of national revival and perspective of T. G. Masaryk. The goal is to inquire how the individual components change in time between 19th and beginning of 20th century. For that purpose methods of analysis and comparison of primary texts of authors who occupied themselves with the topic are used. Contribution of this work is in looking at the problem through the lenses of contemporary documents. Main finding is that some of the arguments on which the idea of czechoslovakian state lays are not very solid.

In previous research, attention is given to the travel and translation of ideas in order to capture how ideas flow and by whom. External actors, so called carriers, promote certain ideas and discard others, further playing a significant part in the institutionalization of ideas. The multitude of different carriers, their different promotion techniques and interconnectedness call for the need to study them in relation and differentiation to one another. Through a qualitative content analysis of documents, interviews and videos, we present a case study on carriers promoting the current idea of a circular fashion system. The investigated carriers are consultants, media, academia, NGO/NPOs and gurus. Alongside the previously identified sequential and parallel modes of translation, we find carriers promoting the travel of an idea jointly. Among the carriers studied, the findings reveal evidence of (1) linkages through cross-referencing, and (2) collaboration through funding, assignment and co-writing. Coupling the notion of blurred boundaries between carriers with ecologies of translation, the study finds carriers situating in different contexts and constellations, forming hybrids and hierarchies. Providing such evidence of a more complex scenery, we argue that the landscape in which carriers promote an idea is best understood as constituting webs.

The primary aim of this study is to attempt to provide a means of restoring evangelical preaching in Xhosa churches. I will attempt to answer the question, How can the evangelical preaching be restored in Xhosa churches in the Western Cape? From personal observation, it is clear that in contemporary Xhosa evangelicalism, preaching is totally misunderstood. To put more bluntly, there are no clear criteria from biblical theology for preaching in Xhosa churches. Indeed so much is happening in the name of preaching that offers no substance whatsoever. In the first two chapter’s of this study, the focus is on the problem that the Xhosa church is experiencing and how preaching is understood and practiced in this community. Chapter three examines the causes of the problem and how to deal with those causes. On a practical note, it is shown that sermon analyses are inevitable for further consideration of the problem. Moreover, the chapter examines various attempts that have been made in response to the problem. In Chapter four, an investigation of the views of biblical theology on the subject of preaching is carried out. The chapter dwells into what the Bible offers on the subject of preaching and this is meant to serve as a foundation for the restoration of evangelical preaching in Xhosa churches. In the light of Chapter four, Chapter five argues for expository preaching as a possible means of responding to the crisis which the Xhosa church is experiencing. At the same time chapter five seek to state the case for expository preaching. Finally, Chapter Six provides the most effective material for Xhosa preachers in the process of exploring and constructing expository sermons. / Dissertation (MA(Theol))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

Idag råder det en osäkerhet kring idéutveckling och brister i litteraturen rörande kunskap kring idéer i början av utvecklingsprojekt har identifierats. Tidigare forskning inom området fokuserar mestadels på idéer under fasen innan projektinitiering, det vill säga Fuzzy Front End. Detta examensarbete fokuserar därför på hanteringen av idéer i början av utvecklingsprojekt.Målet var att kartlägga det nuvarande sättet att arbeta med idéer, samt de idéutvecklingsmetoder som används i början av produkt- och kunskapsutvecklingsprojekt på Sandvik Coromant. Arbetet syftade till att bringa klarhet i och bygga kunskap kring tidig idéhantering då brister upptäckts, men även att förbättra hanteringen av idéer i början av projekt och på så sätt fostra innovation. Fem stycken större projekt som använt sig av faciliterade idégenereringsworkshops i början av projektet deltog i studien. Intervjuer samt en valideringsworkshop genomfördes med målet att undersöka utvecklingen av idéer tidigt i projekt. Skillnader mellan avfärdade idéer och vidarerutvecklad idéer i utvecklingsprojekt undersöktes, liksom tron på avfärdade idéer och deras utveckling.Resultaten visade att mognaden av avvisade idéer och vidareutvecklade idéer sker vid olika tidpunkter under projektets gång samt inom olika kärnelement. Vidare indikerade resultaten att idéer som syftar till att lösa delproblem under projektets gång inte mognar i samma utsträckning inom alla kärnelement, vilket teorin hävdar att en produktidé gör. Inga skillnader kunde identifieras gällande dokumentation samt spridning av idéer mellan avvisade idéer och idéer som gått vidare. Inte heller upptäcktes det några skillnader gällande tron på avvisade idéer eller idéer som gått vidare i början av projekten / Today, there is an uncertainty regarding idea development, and a lack of knowledge in the existing literature regarding early idea maturation in development projects has been found. While previous research within the area of innovation mainly investigating ideas within the Fuzzy Front End, this master thesis focus on the management of ideas in the early phases of development projects.This master thesis strives to map the current way of working with ideas and methods used to develop ideas in the beginning of product and knowledge development projects at Sandvik Coromant. The aim is to shed light upon the gap regarding early idea development, with the long-term objective to improve the management of ideas in the beginning of projects to foster innovation. Five larger projects, that have used facilitated idea generation workshops, were selected to be part of the study. Interviews and a validation workshop were conducted in order to examine the development of ideas early in the projects. The differences between rejected ideas and further developed ideas, the belief in, and the fate of rejected ideas in development projects were investigated.The findings showed that the maturation of rejected and further developed ideas occurs at different times of the projects, as well as in different core elements. Further, the result indicates that ideas aiming to solve sub-problem in development projects do not mature to the same extent in all core elements comparing to earlier research on maturation of product ideas. There were no differences found between rejected and further developed ideas regarding documentation and the spreading of ideas. Neither did the belief in an idea in the beginning of the projects differ between the rejected and the further developed ideas.

The image of employees as an internal source of knowledge has grown as a result of the increasingly competitive business climate. An increased interest in employee ideas has led to more small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)engaging in idea management to promote innovation. Despite extensive research, many SMEs still struggle to structure and manage idea management in a successful way. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to identify which challenges cause this struggle and to propose recommendations on how these can be solved. With access to employees at all levels of a manufacturing SME, a total of 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed to understand prevailing circumstances. The result shows the main challenges inidea management for manufacturing SMEs, which involve organizational factors, undeveloped processes, and the inability to communicate. The findings indicate and present three different recommendations to overcome the identified challenges to improve idea management and promote innovation. Itis recommended that manufacturing SMEs takes these challenges and recommendations in consideration to foster idea management. / Bilden av anställda som en intern kunskapskälla har växt till följd av det allt merkonkurrensfyllda affärsklimatet. Ett ökat intresse för anställdas idéer har medfört att fler små och medelstora företag (SMEs) engagerar sig i idéhantering för att främja innovation. Trots omfattande forskning har många SMEsfortfarande svårigheter med att strukturera upp och hantera idéhanteringen på ett framgångsrikt sätt. Därför är syftet med studien att identifiera vilka utmaningar som ligger bakom detta, och föreslå lösningar på hur dessa kan överkommas. Med tillgång till anställda på alla nivåer inom ett tillverkande SME,genomfördes och analyserades sammanlagt 16 semistrukturerade intervjuer för att förstå rådande omständigheter. Resultatet visar de främsta utmaningar med idéhantering för tillverkande SMEs, vilket involverar organisatoriska faktor, outvecklade processer och oförmågan att kommunicera. Slutsatsen indikerar och presenterar tre olika rekommendationer för att övervinna de identifierade utmaningarna för att förbättra idéhantering och främja innovation. Det rekommenderas att tillverkande SMEs överväger dessa utmaningar och rekommendationer för att främja idéhanteringen.

The goal of risk communication is to inform people about the risks they face and to encourage them to take appropriate action in response to that threat. To achieve this goal, risk communication scholars continuously examine the messages surrounding crises and disasters, and engage in message-testing to evaluate theory-driven message designs. Recent communication scholarship recommends that messages should including instructing information (Coombs, 2012), and should take into consideration established pedagogy based on instructional communication research (Sellnow & Sellnow, 2010). This dissertation continues to build on research which applies instructional communication scholarship to risk communication messaging. Using message-testing, this dissertation examined the utility of the IDEA model a message design for earthquake early warnings.

Even though that business plans are created every day, and that there is many literature on them, there is very little known on the process of the business plan development itself. Using a qualitative research method called autoethnography, this thesis explored the business plan development process. The main findings of this thesis were that there are four main themes or problems that can be associated with this process: problems regarding the data search and data collection; emotions; time constraints and the attractiveness of the idea.

This is an enterpretivist cultural study on how the lively idea of assessment is enacted by the art teachers, students and administrators in Denton school art education, North Texas, the United States. This ethnographic research aims to extend understanding on assessment as vivid cultural and social dynamics that both reflects and enlivens varied and interconnected values promoted and shared among the people involved. Through a perspective of the culture of assessment, this study is expected to facilitate insights on art education as lived, purposeful experience bearing suggestions on a certain social environment and historical implications. Such insights as sought further illuminate specific understandings on art education in different cultural societies, such as China. From a Chinese native viewpoint, the researcher broadens her horizons on connection and independence important for informative performance of art education in the discourses of modern nation and schooling, as well as globalization. It is hoped that this study will interest other art educators, teachers, and researchers to make multiple and continuous efforts in further exploring the culture of assessment with cultural and historical consciousness and knowledge.