Nottingham Trent University

About: Nottingham Trent University is a education organization based out in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 4702 authors who have published 12862 publications receiving 307430 citations. The organization is also known as: NTU & Trent Polytechnic.

The Nominal Group Technique: an aid to Brainstorming ideas in research

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a technique called the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) for possible use in the types of market research or management research where it is desirable to generate as many ideas as possible.Design/methodology/approach – The benefits of the NGT were researched in a literature review. After this, qualitative research among research practitioners who have used the technique in Australia was conducted. One focus group of five researchers and three in‐depth interviews were conducted. Some of these responses are presented verbatim, in this paper, to order to illustrate the positive evaluations of the technique by researchers.Findings – The research practitioners in this research were generally very positive about the NGT as a technique for idea generation. The conclusion from the research reported on in this paper is that the use of techniques such as Brainstorming, and the NGT have very beneficial roles to play in management and market research.Practical...

Voltage-programmable liquid optical interface

Abstract: Recently, there has been intense interest in photonic devices based on microfluidics, including displays1,2 and refractive tunable microlenses and optical beamsteerers3,4,5 that work using the principle of electrowetting6,7. Here, we report a novel approach to optical devices in which static wrinkles are produced at the surface of a thin film of oil as a result of dielectrophoretic forces8,9,10. We have demonstrated this voltage-programmable surface wrinkling effect in periodic devices with pitch lengths of between 20 and 240 µm and with response times of less than 40 µs. By a careful choice of oils, it is possible to optimize either for high-amplitude sinusoidal wrinkles at micrometre-scale pitches or more complex non-sinusoidal profiles with higher Fourier components at longer pitches. This opens up the possibility of developing rapidly responsive voltage-programmable, polarization-insensitive transmission and reflection diffraction devices and arbitrary surface profile optical devices. Voltage-programmable liquid surface profiles with large amplitudes resulting from dielectrophoresis are demonstrated. The oil interface formed can be ultrastable and static, or rapidly switchable, as shown in the case of a modulated diffraction grating. The scheme provides the possibility for responsive and polarization-insensitive transmission and reflection devices, and for optical interfaces with arbitrary surface profiles.

Product and process innovation in manufacturing firms: a 30-year bibliometric analysis

Abstract: Built upon a 30-year dataset collected from the web of science database, the present research aims to offer a comprehensive overview of papers, authors, streams of research, and the most influential journals that discuss product and process innovation in the manufacturing environment. The dataset is composed of 418 papers from more than 150 journals from the period between 1985 and 2015. Homogeneity analysis by means of alternating least squares (HOMALS) and social network analysis (SNA) are used to accomplish the objectives listed above through the keywords given by authors. Initially, the paper highlights and discusses the similarity between the topics debated by the main journals in this field. Subsequently, a wide-range map of topics is presented highlighting five main areas of interests; namely, performance, patent, small firm, product development, and organization. A SNA is also performed in order to validate the results that emerged from HOMALS. Finally, several insights about future research avenues in the manufacturing field are provided.

Innovative behaviour: how much transformational leadership do you need?

Abstract: Studies on the effects of transformational leadership on employee innovative behaviour have yielded mixed results. The authors argue that one possible explanation for these mixed findings is that researchers have assumed a linear relationship between these constructs. In contrast, they suggest that the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour is non-linear. Specifically, the authors argue that the positive effects of transformational leadership on innovative behaviour will be stronger at low and high levels of transformational leadership. Moreover, they examine whether the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour is mediated by knowledge sharing within and between teams. The authors undertake a constructive replication by testing these hypothesized relationships in two studies: (1) a multi-actor team-level study conducted in the USA, and (2) a longitudinal employee-level study of teachers in the Netherlands. Results of both studies reveal that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour, and that the indirect relationship is curvilinear. The authors link these findings to leader substitution theory, proposing that employees turn to their peers and other parties when there is an absence of effective leadership.