Much recent discussion has highlighted the challenges posed by what have variously been called “disruptive”, “discontinuous”, “breakthrough” and “radical” innovations. Although the labelling may vary, the underlying themes appear to be consistent. In particular it is clear that under conditions in which the dominant “rules of the game” change as a result of emergent or shifting markets, major movements at the technological frontier, dislocations in the regulatory environment etc, even organizations with well-developed innovation capabilities get into difficulties. This is less a matter of particular technological, market or political stimuli than of the limitations of the repertoire of organizational responses available to the firm. This resurfaces a long-running concern with managing innovation in two different modes, namely “exploitation” and “exploration”. This thesis reports the results of exploratory research into specific aspects of the organizational culture within the Research and Development (R&D) setting of a small mature UK based company, Cerulean. In doing so it also identifies and discusses key management interventions for developing an innovation culture that facilitates radical product innovation. Cerulean designs and manufactures quality control instrumentation and has in the past been very successful with radically new products. In recent years this propensity for “radicalness” has declined and the company now wishes to regain this capability. A grounded research methodology and a participative action research approach was utilised to surface issues that clearly illustrated both the presence and intensity of aspects of organisation culture that enabled and inhibited radical product innovation. Participative analysis of the data identified nine emerging themes and key constructs of an innovation culture that was found to influence “radicalness” in new product development ventures. The interrelationships between the themes were discussed in the context of current theoretical perspectives in the field of innovation management. This led to the development of a conceptual model that incorporates two “ideal” archetypal forms of innovation culture. A composite instrument was developed based on existing evaluation tools and used to assess the innovation culture. First use of the instrument indicated areas of opportunity in developing a radical innovation culture. Further participative analysis of the emergent themes and the assessment and evaluations of the extant innovation culture, resulted in a series of management interventions to stimulate the development of a culture to facilitate radical product innovation. The design of the interventions was also informed by the literature and other organizations, part of a national Discontinuous Innovation Forum (DIF) undergoing similar ambitions. The proposed interventions comprise a series of linked management actions in the form of a plan to shift the innovation culture of the company closer to a desired radical innovation culture.

ABSTRACTTitle: The Effect of Customer Preferences Dynamism on Incumbent Firms:The Case of Nokia in the Mobile Phone industry.Authors: Adnan Kandeel kandeeladnan@gmail.comDinsel Sali dinsel08@yahoo.comFaculty: Department of Management and EngineeringDate: 27th of May 2013Background: The study of the dynamism of customer preferences’ effect onincumbent firms offers in-depth understanding of the active roleof customers in affecting the position of incumbent firmswhich has been neglected in the vast majority of literaturethat examined the declining position of incumbent firms.Aim: The aim of this thesis is to examine the dynamism of customerpreferences’ effect on incumbent firms.Definitions: Incumbent firm: the dominant firm in an industry.Customer preferences: the collection of attributes including explicitand implicit attributes of a certain product.Preference stereotypes: the implicit prejudgement by customers about a certain product that can not be ascribed to an explicit attribute.Methodology: A qualitative approach where online historical data from 1100 NokiaMobile phone user reviews for 11 years were collected, profiled, andthen analyzed.Completion and results: Incumbent firms are affected by the dynamism of explicit andimplicit preferences through their effect on radical and incrementalinnovation. Furthermore, preference stereotypes can affect incumbentfirms’ ability to impact the change of product meanings throughradical innovation and investment in technology.Keywords: Incumbent firms, Customer preferences dynamism, Radical innovation

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Computing the structure of a finite-dimensional algebra is a classical mathematical problem in symbolic computation with many applications such as polynomial factorization, computational group theory and differential factorization. We will investigate the computational complexity and exhibit new algorithms for this problem over the field \mathbb{F}_{q}(y), where \mathbb{F}_{q} is the finite field with q elements. In this thesis we will present new efficient probabilistic algorithms for Wedderburn decomposition and the computation of the radical.

Part¢¹¡GStudies of Electroorganic Reactions toward the Syntheses of Isoquinoline Alkaloids, and its possible mechanism. Part ¢º: Application of Radical Cyclization Reactions toward the Syntheses of Alkaloids, and other derivatives.

The rise of medical expenses is a common problem in the whole- wide world. All those countries implementing National Health Insurance have been anxiously looking for solutions, and clinical pathway has been found to be the most effective tool to control the growth of medical expense and maintain the quality of healthcare. This study focuses on the development and implementation of clinical pathway of breast cancer who underwent modified radical mastectomy, and investigate the impact of implementation of clinical pathway on the control of the length of stay, inpatient medical care expenditures, healthcare quality, and patient¡¦s medical satisfaction. The 90 patients of MRM before implementation ( July 1999 to Sep. 2000 ) and 80 patients after implementation ( Jan. 2001 to Feb. 2002 ) are taken as the targets of this study. The major findings of the study are listed as follows: 1. Clinical pathway can reasonably control the length of stay. 2. Clinical pathway can reduce inpatient medical care expenditures. 3. Clinical pathway can improve healthcare quality. 4. Clinical pathway can improve patient¡¦s medical satisfaction. 5. Clinical pathway can influence doctor¡¦s partial practice pattern. Finally this study concludes that clinical pathway is an instructive tool for hospital management. Based on the results and discussion from the study, we suggest the implementation of clinical pathway cones best in conjunction with the impact of case payment; besides, the quality of medical care should be assured under the controlled medical cost.

Application of radical reactions in the organic synthesis for the formation of carbon-carbon bond has dramatically increased over the last fifteen years by virtue of their high degree of chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivity. The present thesis entitled "Radical Cyclisation based Approaches to 9-pupukeanone and Lignan Precursors" describes the application of radical reactions in the synthesis of isotwistane carbon framework present in pupukeananes, and b-arylmethylbutyrolactones, established precursors of various types of lignans. For convenience, the results are presented in two chapters, & ( I ) Radical annulation approach to chiral analogues of 9-pupukeanones; (2) Synthesis of (+-)-enterolactone and lignan precursors; and an appendix entitled 'Chiral synthons from (R)- carvone'. In each Chapter the compounds are sequentially numbered (bold and double underlined), and references are marked sequentially as superscripts and listed at the end of the Chapter. All the figures were obtained by direct xerox of the originaltNMR and muss spectra, and in some of them uninformative areas have been cut to save the space.

Martin Heidegger was not only one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century but also a supporter of and a contributor to one of the most discriminatory ideologies of the recent past. Thus, "the Heidegger's case" gives us philosophers an opportunity to work on discrimination from a philosophical perspective. My aim in this essay is to question the relationship between freedom and discrimination via Heidegger's philosophy. I will show that what bridges the gap between Heidegger's philosophy and a discriminatory ideology such as the National Socialist ideology is Heidegger's conceptualization of freedom with the aid of a monolithic understanding of history--one that refuses to acknowledge the plurality and heterogeneity in the socio-historical existence of human beings. Accordingly, I will claim that the Heideggerian freedom depends on the social, if not literal, murder of the marginalized segments of a given society. However, I will refuse to conclude that Heidegger's philosophy is a Nazi philosophy and that it should never be appropriated as long as we want to purify our thoughts from discriminatory ideas. Rather, I will re-appropriate Heidegger, against Heidegger, to read and interpret Michel Foucault's and Judith Butler's philosophies. My aim here is to construct a social ontology that may justify anti-discriminatory policies. More specifically, through my Heideggerian readings of Foucault and Butler, I will argue that one's freedom is dependent on the cultural resuscitation of socially, and sometimes literally, murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities.

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Computing the structure of a finite-dimensional algebra is a classical mathematical problem in symbolic computation with many applications such as polynomial factorization, computational group theory and differential factorization. We will investigate the computational complexity and exhibit new algorithms for this problem over the field \mathbb{F}_{q}(y), where \mathbb{F}_{q} is the finite field with q elements. In this thesis we will present new efficient probabilistic algorithms for Wedderburn decomposition and the computation of the radical.