The Global Research Journal Call for Papers

The nature of research has become more global with open access journals that can be accessed through the Internet form any place in the world. Reading such journals helps executives and academics to update their information and thought processes. It keeps them up –to-date on new ideas and concepts. The Global Research Analysis is seeking unpublished scholarly articles and research.

Global Research Analysis (Multi-Subject Journal):

The Global Research Analysis is a double-reviewed monthly print-in published journal. The aim of the journal to become a serious vehicle for inspiring and disseminating research papers, articles, case studies, review articles etc in all subject areas by the academicians, research scholars, corporate and practitioners with substantial experience and expertise in their respective fields. This journal is kept wide to provide platform for diversity of intellectual pursuit from all corners of the society for enrichment and enhancement of the group readers. The Journal is published on 15TH of the month.

Manuscript Submission:

Research paper prepared in MS word template with double – column in single spaced typed pages should be submitted electronically as attachment at E-mail Id of Journals mentioned below. The manuscripts in all the subject areas are welcome. Moreover, submitted manuscript must not be previously accepted for publication elsewhere.

Email:

gra@theglobaljournals.com

Submission Date:

July 10^th, 2013

Web Address:

Global Journal Homepage

Read Articles

Editor:

Global Research Analysis:

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*This web post is not an endorsement of any journal or webpage*

Identifying and Fostering Creative Individuals in the Workplace

The creative personality can be a benefit for companies that seek to find new avenues to develop market niches and exploring those niches for higher revenue. Creativity is a cognitive process that allows people to see the novelty within information and focus on that novelty to find new and unique solutions. Fostering creativity in the workplace has many benefits for organizational goal attainment. Creative employees should be nurtured as they can provide positive benefits for years as their solutions are converted to financial benefits.  

The creative personality is unique when compared to the general population. They are strong at creative problem-solving, remote association tests, ideation fluency, and creative works (Martinsen, 2011). Creative people are often tested by a variety of different assessments that help identify their unique abilities. The tests help recognize the way in which their thinking processes operate and the creative outputs that are drawn from these processes. 

This does not mean that all creative people need to be tested to be identified. Generally, people can be discovered by their ability to use divergent thinking to solve problems from multiple perspectives and their ability to take complex data and break it down to elemental meanings and rules that can be used for understanding. In any given situation they can see multiple answers and solutions to problems when primed with relevant information and offered opportunities to solve these complex problems.

Creative individuals are hardwired a little different than the rest of us. Their neurobiological foundations offer opportunities for fast paced neural transmitter systems that foster speed and additional activations between concepts (Chavez-Eakle, et. all 2012).  It is this connection between wide ranging ideas where new paths and methods can be identified and explored. Many of us simply cannot make the same wide reaching connections because it requires logical deductions that include many layers of detailed information. 

The speed of their brains can be faster than the logical understandings of others. This occurs when creative individuals can intuitively find an answer to a complex problem but must go back and pull out the details bit by bit so others can understand it. People who make much smaller connections will need to follow the long chain of information which could take them a considerable amount of time to understand. This is why others get lost in their train of thought and abandon it. 

Since it takes considerable time and effort to understand the concepts others often lose interest and cut the conversation short. Some might simply make quick assumptions that the creative person has little idea what they are talking about even though their thought processes are valid and logical. It is a difficult balance between giving the answer that others cannot logically follow or boring them to death with the details. Due to the constraints of the social environments they are often misunderstood.

Such creative development doesn’t happen in a vacuum and often relies on various life events to foster it. The nature (i.e. biological) is enhanced by the nurture (i.e. life events) to culminate into higher forms of adaptations. People who are creative have learned throughout their lifetimes to overcome obstacles and have the self-efficacy to see tasks through to their completion. Without the right environmental challenges the Ferrari that sits inside their heads never puts the pedal to the metal. A considerable amount of self-belief must occur to move beyond normal constructive methods into realms of the unknown where great discoveries are found.

There are a number of factors that separate creative students from other students long before they make their way into the working world. According to a study of 1,300 creative Chinese adolescents by Qian, et. al (2010) creative individuals have unique internal, external and self factors.  Internal factors included self-confidence, norm-doubting, internal motivation, and persistence. External factors included curiosity, risk-taking, openness and independence. Self-factor includes self-acceptance. Such individuals simply see the uniqueness in a number of situations and have the motivation and risk-taking behavior to make things happen.

Successful innovators are not just good on paper, they are also important to entrepreneurship and overall successful business development. Such individuals express need for achievement, locus of control, creativity, innovative and also strategy to grab market opportunities (Halim, 2011). These entrepreneurs must be motivated to achieve, rely on their own abilities, find creative solutions and be able to devise unique strategies. Without the ability to use their creativeness they will not be able to find those market openings that help develop new products and services for the benefit of their organization and others.

Today’s business world relies heavily on finding solutions to customer problems. Fostering creativity in both education and employment gives competitive advantages to those organizations that do so. The modern capital doesn’t rely on tangible products but on unique uses for those tangible products that find solutions to market problems. The creative and entrepreneurial spirit fosters higher levels of organizational and strategic development due to its unique nature to turn novelty into practical form. 

A study by IBM’s Institute for Business Value surveyed 1,500 executives about creative individuals. They indicated that communication skills, pro-activity, problem-solving, curiosity, and risk taking are essential elements of a creative and motivated person (Glei, 2013). Such people experience themselves finding problems before others, making effort, putting solutions together, and willing to take a risk when necessary. They can be selected through observation, interviews, or past experiences. Asking the right questions and seeing such individuals for what they are makes all the difference to organizations in the long-run. 

Creativity is often beneficial in the high technology environments but can be put to good use in many places. As your organization conducts interviews for their next creative candidate use situation questions, problem-solving questions, what if questions, and complex problems in order to find the creative side of the candidate. Once hired keep an eye out for that creative potential that is trying to find the right environment to come out.  The environment is one of the largest factors in connecting creativity to an appropriate path that won't be stifled by the self-interest of others before full fruition.

Chavez-Eakle, et. al. (2012). The multiple relations between creativity and personality. Creativity Research Journal, 24 (1). 

Glei, J. (2013). The top five qualities of producing creatives (and how to identify them). 99u. Retrieved June 27^th, 2013 from http://99u.com/articles/6736/the-top-5-qualities-of-productive-creatives-and-how-to-identify-them

Halim, et. al. (2011). The measurement of entrepreneurial personality and business performance in Terengganue Creative Industry. International Journal of Business & Management, 6 (6). 

Martinsen, O. (2011). The creative personality: a synthesis and develop of the creative person profile. Creativity Research Journal, 23 (3). 

Qian, M. et. al. (2010). A model of Chinese adolescents’ creative personality. Creativity Research Journal, 22 (1).

Throwing Ourselves Two Million Years into Human Advancement

Divisions of Labor were born with the human ability to throw a projectile.  Research has taught us that as people learned the ability to throw sticks, stones, rocks, and weapons the social nature of life began to change. Where humans were limited in their food supply, the ability to throw objects created more efficient hunting that led to increased calorie intake. Researchers recently published the interesting findings on human development in the journal Nature.

The shoulder has developed in such as way to maintain elastic energy so that when it is released it can produce the fastest motion possible. Other species cannot do this. Where chimpanzees can throw 20 mph the human can often achieve up to 100 mph. This makes the projectiles much faster than the natural speed in the environment. This faster speed creates higher levels of food and nutrition obtainment which fosters population growth. 

The division of labor occurred because food was a commodity that could be bartered and traded. As hunters brought back more food people obtained more nutrition and had larger families, became bigger in size, and were able to focus on other activities. Where animals constantly seek food for survival humans developed the ability to collaborate and collectively share food for the betterment of all. 

Throwing also encouraged the ability to hunt from a distance creating greater spatial awareness that could have led to other projectile concepts that fostered the ideas that led to modern space flight. The more efficient humans became the freer they were to pursue other life activities. Do you think you would have the time to read this article if you were out foraging for dinner? 

The researchers looked through archeological evidence to see when humans actually developed this ability. The problem is that there is a gap somewhere in the transitional development. This means that it may also be a learned function of using the body in a new way. They cannot say with high levels of surety how the skill came into being other than it seemed to show up around 2 million years ago. Without the ability to master projectiles and the resources it harnessed we cannot be sure we would be as developed as we have. 

The Journal Article in Nature

BBC

NPR

Boston Globe

Alternative System for Assessing Student Graduation

Student data and success rates are a hot topic for university administrators. States and universities are seeking methods of accurately tracking data to better determine a whole host of issues ranging from legislature to funding. Six educational associations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have been working on an alternative system they believe will be more accurate in its reflection of higher education graduation rates. 

New methods of tracking student success rates have been developed through using a sign-up service called the Student Achievement Measure (SAM). Some universities may be attracted to the alternative methods of tracking student success rates. The National Student Clearinghouse will keep track of posted data for transfer students, two-year colleges and part-time students. 

Some universities and states have argued that reliance on the Federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System is not as accurate as once thought. Students that start at one college but finish at another are left out of the total data mix and this skews graduation rates. States are seeking better methods of tracking and using student data to adjust their own policies. 

Part of the reason this has become such a concern is that the older methods of enrolling a student in one university and expecting them to stay there throughout their entire educational process is unlikely. Students are more transient, work full-time jobs, and may take courses online when compared to fifty years ago. Focusing only on enrollment and graduation from the same university leaves out a larger percentage of people that bounce in, out, and transfer as they complete their degrees. 

The advantage of a more comprehensive system is that it can influence both state and federal legislation as it offers a more comprehensive picture of graduation rates and the educational experience. For example, students who are first generation college students may not have the same financial resources as other families. Their educational approach may include a number of transfers and a few semesters out of school where such students deal with life issues. The traditional tracking system would simply drop them. With a new system it is possible to track the entire educational process and reflect more accurately their educational paths.

Another issue is that government funding is increasingly being tied to these federal statistics. Those universities that have an important role in serving non-traditional students may appear in a negative light only because the right information is not being collected. Non-traditional students are more likely unable to stop working, move into a dormitory, and have wealthy parents who finance their education while paying their bills. This means their successes will not be tracked, understood, or counted if they don’t fit under a traditional tracking model.

Student Achievement Measure

Chronicle of Higher Education

Inside Higher Education

Association Now

Using Customer Profiles to Enhance Service and Product Marketing

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Understanding the unique and rich data that comes from their core customer base helps in creating services that truly meet the needs of those customers as well as marketing the most relevant programs to the most interested parties. It creates a higher level of sales and satisfaction spurred by the interconnectivity of customers and the organization. The customer’s needs are better fulfilled with the offering of products and services they are actually interested in. Precisely how this is done is a process that can be learned and adapted.

With the advancement of the Internet and e-commerce the use of social research to understand customer behavior becomes possible. With the increase in customer data it is possible to create greater data mining and clustering of customer profiles to understand buying patterns and behaviors (Prasad & Malik, 2011). It is through the development of higher levels of data analysis that services can become more effective and beneficial. 

Let us look at an example. Analysis of a large database finds that customers who bought airplane tickets also purchased beach related products. Yet what if these customers were also found to purchase more outdoor gear and spent a greater amount of money on outdoor activities? It would be possible to build a customer profile based upon their exploratory and thrill seeking behavior. 

In order to understand unique social purchasing behaviors requires the categorization and analysis of profile customers. It requires a method of making meaning out of the historical data (i.e. purchases over time) being presented. Qian et. al. (2006 suggests the following:

• 1.)    Standardize profiles
• 2.)    Screen out uninteresting profiles
• 3.)    Using basic functions to categorize profiles
• 4.)    Apply algorithms to the categorizations
• 5.)    Identify unique profiles for further analysis

Once the profiles are standardized it is possible to categorize their behavior into clusters. These clusters are used for additional analysis and the determining of patterned behavior. That patterned behavior indicates that there are latent psychological functioning occurring and it would be beneficial to use multiple analysis methods to better highlight their behavioral thought processes. 

This process is fairly accurate and can lead to better marketing techniques based upon profile attributes and responses to previous marketing (i.e. previous purchases).  One simply needs to draw connections between the different sets of data and tests that were conducted over time. A study by Leung (2009) found that out of 1,500 profiles analyzed that 91.73% of customer profiles were segmented correctly. 

High levels of accuracy and a process for separating and analyzing consumer behavior is a benefit that organizations should not ignore. The use of more pin pointed marketing techniques further encourages efficient use of company resources by ensuring that products are actually of interest to the customer. Social research techniques can help identifying latent psychological functions that further enhance organizational profits.

Leung, C. (2009). An inductive learning approach to market segmentation based upon customer profile attributes. Asian Journal of Marketing, 3 (3). 

Prasad, P. & Malik, L. (2011). Generating customer profiles for retail stores using clustering techniques. International Journal on Computer Science & Engineering, 3 (6). 

Qian, Z. et. al. (2006). Churn detection via customer profile modeling. International Journal of Production Research, 44 (14).