Browsing by Subject "Flexibility"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Engaging the dialectic: managerial resistance to change and innovation in corporate America.
    (2012-07) Chermack, Kelly
    This dissertation examines the implementation of FREE, an innovation-based, organization-wide workplace flexibility initiative. Through FREE, the company experienced a massive re-structuring to how, when, and where work was done. From its very inception in the company, the FREE concept critiqued and criticized current norms and assumptions about work in corporate America. During FREE training sessions, managers, in particular, began to oppose and resist the rollout. Evident from fieldwork and ethnographic observations of these training sessions, a dialectic model of change fostered a dialectic model of resistance. Resistance emerged at three levels of abstraction: macro, meso, and micro. Analyses indicate that through the operation of these dialectic processes, managers resisted the very idea of changing work on a grad scale, changes in actual work practices, and/or the change agents. In addition, this resistance prompted changes to the change implementation process and FREE, itself, began to change. This dissertation suggests that resistance to change is rooted in conceptualizations of identity and representations of the self in and out of the organization. This work also proposes that resistance to change bears a significant impact on the implementation of the change, so much so that the implementation adapted over time.
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    How Choices Between Flexibility And Persistence During Idea Search Processes Contribute To Creativity
    (2022-09) Wu, Yihan
    Creative problem solving is a dynamic process during which individuals need to constantly navigate toward their goal through an ill-defined solution path. Theoretical and empirical endeavors suggest that individuals need both flexible and persistent approaches to succeed in creative tasks, yet little work has given attention to how to measure flexibility and persistence during the ideational search process. Three studies were devoted to this question.(a) The first study presents new process-based measures of flexibility and persistence and validates how well they can predict creative performance in several typical laboratory-based creativity tasks and in an ecologically valid complex design task. (b) The second study introduces an instructional intervention to examine the effects on creative performance when participants are given external prompts to shift more frequently or to dwell longer. The findings suggest that – after controlling for pre-existing dispositional differences in divergent-thinking ability across conditions – participants who had the autonomy to choose when to shift (flexible approach) or to dwell (persistent approach) performed better, or similarly to, participants who were externally prompted to shift more frequently or to dwell longer. (c) Building on the emerging literature on the context adaptivity account of metacontrol biases towards either flexibility or persistence, Study 3 tested how varying task contexts shape an individual's tendencies toward flexibility versus persistence. It revealed both interindividual metacontrol biases and intraindividual variation in response to changing task-related constraints. Together, this work enriches our understanding of how an individual's choices between flexibility and persistence during the creative problem-solving process, and their subsequent performance, are guided both by individual differences and environmental factors such as task contexts and task goals.
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    Individual differences in flexibility of delay and saving behavior: relations to executive function
    (2014-05) Lee, Wendy S.C.
    Delay of gratification is a complex decision-making behavior that is influenced by many contextual variables, such as cultural values, prior experience, and social trust. Research has shown that children's delay behaviors are sensitive to these variables, which can explain seemingly irrational behavior. It also suggests that immediate consumption does not always indicate poor impulse control. However, previous studies have examined only group differences, which neglect important individual differences in the ability to modify delay behavior. In two studies, we examined children's ability to adapt their delay and saving behavior according to the context and recent experience. It was predicted that children's ability to switch their behavior would be related to greater executive function. In Study 1 (N = 140), 3.5- and 4.5-year-old children were categorized as delayers or non-delayers based on a baseline delay choice task. In a second administration of the task, a risk of losing treats was associated with children's preferred choice (i.e., delaying or not delaying), encouraging children to switch their behavior. Children were again categorized as delayers or non-delayers. In Study 2 (N = 142), 3.5- and 4.5-year-old children were categorized as savers or spenders based on a baseline saving task where children could save marbles from a small marbles game for a later big marbles game. Children were then unable to play with the big game either because they had no marbles or because the big game was unexpectedly broken. In a second administration, children were again categorized as savers or spenders. In both studies, children who changed categorization across the two administrations, indicating a switch in behavior (e.g., delayer to non-delayer, spender to saver) scored higher on a measure of set-shifting. The results demonstrate that children can use the context and past experience to successfully adapt their delay and saving behaviors, and that executive function skills may be important in facilitating flexibility in these behaviors.
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    Remember when: the search for episodic-like memory in animals.
    (2009-09) Meyers-Manor, Julia E.
    Episodic memory refers to the rich detailed memories of events within a spatiotemporal context. It contrasts with semantic memory which includes context-free representations of facts and general knowledge. Given the frequency and severity of episodic memory deficits in humans, it would be useful to have animal models of episodic memory to better understand and treat the loss of episodic memory in humans. Some researchers have proposed that animals lack the capacity for episodic memory because of the lack of evidence for conscious self-representation in animals. However, many animal researchers have risen to the challenge and devised experiments to test various elements, features, and properties of episodic memory. The literature on episodic memory in animals is reviewed. Then three experiments examined pigeons’ memory for what events occur, where they occur, and when they occur. Two additional experiments tested the flexibility of these what-where-when memories. In Experiment 1, it was shown that pigeons had the ability to track the key location that they had to peck in order to get one of two food outcomes, which changed based on the time of day (morning or afternoon). In Experiment 2, pigeons failed to show that they could use flexibility of the what-where-when memory found in Experiment 1 in a new transfer-ofcontrol procedure. Experiment 3 and 4 examined the use of what-where-when memories in tracking food outcomes, but used how long ago events occurred rather than the time of day. The pigeons were able to use knowledge of how long ago events occurred to choose the keylight location that predicted good food rather than “rotten” or “unripe” food. Finally, in Experiment 5, the pigeons were tested on their ability to flexibly apply knowledge of “ripening” and “rotting” foods from Experiments 3 and 4 to new keylights. As in Experiment 2, the pigeons in Experiment 5 failed to show any evidence of flexibility in their what-where-when memories. Despite the results of Experiment 2 and 5, the experiments generally suggest that pigeons seem to have the basic elements required for episodic memory but may lack some of the flexibility to express those memories.