Eric W Stein

Pennsylvania State University | Penn State · Department of Management and Organization

This article identifies the potential environmental effects large-scale indoor farming may have on air, water, and soil. We begin with an overview of what indoor farming is with a focus on greenhouses and indoor vertical farms (eg, plant factories). Next, the differences between these 2 primary methods of indoor farming are presented based on their...

Designing Creative High Power Teams and Organizations: Beyond Leadership sheds light on how ordinary teams and organizations can be transformed to unleash creativity, improve performance and promote innovation. The book examines the critical success factors to developing high performance teams through the implementation of robust methods of selecti...

Fostering Creativity in Self and The Organization: Your Professional Edge helps individuals, and their organizations, learn to maximize creative potential. The book explodes the myth that creative people are born rather than developed through practice and hard work. All people are creative and have the ability to be innovative, not just artists, mu...

The purpose of this research was to develop a model for decision-makers to rank various renewable and non-renewable electricity production technologies according to multiple criteria. The model ranks electric power plants using wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, hydropower (i.e., renewable sources), nuclear, oil, natural gas and coal in terms of fou...

This study examines the relationship between creativity and innovation at the individual level and how knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between these two constructs. A survey was conducted that measured individual creativity, innovativeness, and four types of knowledge sharing: explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge e.g., experience, kno...

This work explores the concept of improvisation as a framework for understanding real-time dynamic decision making (RTDDM) and systems support for it. The contexts for RTDDM and those in which agents improvise are remarkably similar according to several parameters. The foundations of improvisation are built on management theory, practice, and educa...

The purpose of this work is to elaborate an empirically grounded mathematical model of the magnitude of consequences component of “moral intensity” (Jones, Academy of Management Review 16(2),366, 1991) that can be used to evaluate different ethical situations. The model is built using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) (Saaty, The Analytic Hier...

This article adds to our understanding of the field of knowledge management as an evolving body of concepts, relationships, strategies, and practices. Using qualitative research methods, we examined the activities of a community of practice for knowledge management professionals operating in a large metropolitan U.S. city. Through the analysis, we...

This chapter adds to our understanding of knowledge management as an evolving body of concepts, relationships, strategies and practices. Using qualitative research methods, we examined activities of a community of practice for knowledge management professionals operating in a large metropolitan U.S. region. Accordingly, we produced an organizing fr...

This chapter adds to our understanding of knowledge management as an evolving body of concepts, relationships, strategies and practices. Using qualitative research methods, we examined activities of a community of practice for knowledge management professionals operating in a large metropolitan U.S. region. Accordingly, we produced an organizing fr...

A Community of Practice (CoP) is an organizational form receiving increasing attention as a structure for sense making, knowledge management and learning. The central question addressed in this article is how and why these communities form and grow over time. These questions are explored through a qualitative analysis of a CoP formed to help knowle...

A Community of Practice (CoP) is an organizational form receiving increasing attention as a structure for sense making, knowledge management and learning. The central question addressed in this article is how and why these communities form and grow over time. These questions are explored through a qualitative analysis of a CoP formed to help knowle...

A Community of Practice (CoP) is an organizational form receiving increasing attention as a structure for sense making, knowledge management and learning. The central question addressed in this article is how and why these communities form and grow over time. These questions are explored through a qualitative analysis of a CoP formed to help knowle...

A community of practice (CoP) is an organizational form that promotes sense making, knowledge management, and learning. It is important to understand how and why these communities form and grow over time. These questions are explored in a qualitative analysis of a knowledge management (KM) community of practice. This case study includes a descripti...

A community of practice (CoP) is an organizational form that promotes sense making, knowledge management, and learning. It is important to understand how and why these communities form and grow over time. These questions are explored in a qualitative analysis of a knowledge management (KM) community of practice. This case study includes a descripti...

This paper outlines the application of a knowledge-based expert system to assist the furnace production staff in diagnosing and correcting Electron Beam (EB) guns, which are used to melt titanium. The characteristics of a titanium melting facility, its business objectives, and the responsibilities of its furnace operators are reviewed. Alternative...

This paper describes the implementation of a knowledge-based system to support the work processes required to administer ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) policies and procedures. The system helps staff at an institution of higher learning rapidly, accurately, and consistently determine the appropriate accommodations for students with disabilit...

Theorizing about communication media attitudes and behaviors has drawn upon multiple theories (e.g., media richness, social influence). But these theories have often been pitted against each other rather than considered as complementary in more comprehensive studies. Furthermore, previous research has tended to focus more on newer communication med...

This article describes the design, development, implementation and impact of an expert system used in Quality Assurance in the food industry. The knowledge base of the system was developed by a non-programmer in a high level production rule language. The introduction of the system led to improved decision-making at the plant level and improved repo...

Higher-order organizational learning occurs when a company adopts new principles, assumptions, and paradigms, which often turn into competitive advantage. Systems development and implementation offer an opportunity for higher-order organizational learning that is rarely exploited. Advanced information systems, in particular expert systems (ES) and...

Media richness theory has become one of the most cited, yet controversial, theories of media choices in organizations. In this paper, we refine and extend media richness theory by more precisely characterizing its key construct, the concept of message equivocality. We identify two sources of message equivocality, personal nature and ambiguity. We t...

Expert systems are not generally used for tasks involving the analysis of perceptual information such as the inspection of parts coming off an assembly line. However, a human-machine system consisting of an expert system and a human inspector together can provide an economical and effective solution to this problem. This paper discusses the design,...

Preservation of organizational memory becomes increasingly important to organizations as it is recognized that experiential knowledge is a key to competitiveness. With the development and widespread availability of advanced information technologies (IT), information systems become a vital part of this memory. We analyze existing conceptualizations...

The notion of corporate or organizational memory has been discussed for over a quarter of a century. A major objective of this work is to review the conceptual foundations of organizational memory drawing from information systems research, management science, economics, systems theory, political theory, organizational behavior, decision making, and...

We have developed an application-based approach to introductory courses in computer science. This approach follows an apprenticeship model of learning, where students begin by reading, studying, and extending programs written by experienced ...

This research demonstrates a means to examine organizationally situated expertise. Theoretically grounded in a constituency-based view of expertise, experts were identified systematically using a form of network analysis. Following identification, experts were compared to nonexperts in terms of education, experience, job characteristics, cooperativ...

The purpose of this work is to introduce a systematic method for identifying expertise (knowledge identification). The technique, borrowed from the social sciences and known as network analysis, may be used to identify human experts as well as documented sources of knowledge within organizational settings. Network analysis is simple to administer,...

The purpose of this research was to deepen our understanding of organizational memory, a concept related to issues in organizational learning, planned change, organizational communication, human expertise, and management information systems. The work addresses several questions: How is learning embedded socially and technically in organizations? Wh...

Planning meetings are usually viewed as a means for accomplishing tasks, creating plans, exchanging information, or analyzing material. Although a large part of this article includes a description of work that resulted from planning meetings, the value of the meetings should not be overlooked. Working together on common problems at the hospital reg...