Background: Our online learning resources on Understanding and Applying Workplace Innovation were designed around a case-based instructional design, to facilitate customization for particular work contexts and knowledge domains. In a previous test of these ideas, we were able to identify case stories for students and professionals in Accountancy in each of the workplace innovation activities – Job Crafting, Innovation Adaptation, etc. – included in our pedagogical ‘gentle on-ramp’ of increasing complexity, uncertainty, and impact in innovation activities.
Rapid technological innovations are changing the jobs that Science students are employed in after completing their education. Therefore, employers are looking for applicants with skills beyond the specialised competencies that can be acquired in their Science subjects… Higher education institutions have an important role to play…[to ensure] graduates with the skills and knowledge for future jobs.
Albina et al, 2024
In this post, we follow up on that past work with an exploration of what case stories of employee innovation might be available as illustrations or practice exercises of interest to Science students. We know these are valued by employers, for example, in the study cited in the adjacent text box, researchers found employers of Science graduates (in two European countries) listed Innovation competencies as one of their top priorities for the generic Power Skills sought in new hires (along with related competencies like “Adapting to changes” and “Ability to manage uncertainty”).
In looking for case stories, our initial focus was on the career opportunities suggested for graduates of the Integrated Science (iSCI) program at McMaster University where Kyla – a WINCan Student Research Intern for Summer 2024 – is enrolled as an undergraduate. However, we have tried to look for case stories that would resonate with students in other Science programs (at McMaster or elsewhere).
Illustration Case Stories
In the online learning resources for Understanding and Applying Workplace Innovation, there are illustration case stories which students study as examples of the concepts discussed and practice case stories with which student interact to test their knowledge. In instructional design parlance, the practice case stories include Self-Assessed Questions:
A question to which the student is required to respond before proceeding further, and
Suggestions about key points which they could have included in their responses .
We were able to identify example case stories in Science work domains for all four of the workplace innovation activities referenced in the online course modules:
Job Crafting
A recent doctoral dissertation [Corson 2023] explored how Job Crafting address the traditional disparities in men’s and women’s sense of inclusion and authentic belonging in STEM work domains:
In the context of women’s historical exclusion from STEM fields, men must be motivated to act with agency in enacting non-performative inclusive behaviors toward women, so women feel authentic belonging in these spaces. The aim of inclusion-based initiatives should be on motivating majority-group members (e.g. men in STEM) to enact inclusive behaviors toward minority-group members (e.g. women in STEM), and these behaviors should in turn lead to women’s feelings of authentic belonging in STEM spaces. (p. 97)
The premise developed in the dissertation is that Cognitive Job Crafting – i.e., on the purpose and meaning of the job – can be used to include an explicit role as Includer for employees who have a high sense of inclusion in the workplace, and that the resulting Job Crafting on Task and Relationship crafting can produce positive results in enhancing authentic belonging for all.
There are two studies comparing job attitudes and experiences from a mix of male and female respondents in STEM work domains and the research culminates in a Job Crafting for Inclusion Activity: Motivating Allyship. An illustrative case story could easily be constructed from the responses to the free-form survey questions in the studies.
It could also be possible to develop an exercise for students to engage in Job Crafting for Inclusion within the institutional teaching and learning environment, providing a practice case. However, there would be concerns around the logistics (how much time would such an exercise) and the validity (since students would not be making their own choices about the aims or methods of the Job Crafting) which led to our selection of this case story as an illustration case. We are also keen to see how such a case story would affect learners’ understanding of our recent framing of Inclusive Workplace Innovation.
Innovation Adaptation
To our surprise, finding a practice case study about Innovation Adaptation in a Science work domain proved challenging. There were few studies of improving work processes through innovation adaption in and the studies of improving products or services in scientific workplaces tended to require detailed scientific knowledge beyond what we could expect from a mixed group of Science students.
However, since many of the career roles listed for Science graduates involve Healthcare – and our approach to Systematic Innovation Adaptation is based on research in healthcare – we were able to find a case story in which the context and methods would be easy to understand [Lal et al 2020].
We report on the results of an adaptation study of Horyzons, a digital health innovation originally developed and tested in Australia. Horyzons is designed to prevent relapses and support recovery in young people receiving services for first-episode psychosis (FEP). The aim of this study is to assess the initial acceptability of Horyzons and adapt it in preparation for pilot testing in Canada.
The ”digital health adaptation framework developed by our team” shared many properties with the Systematic Innovation Adaptation approach presented in our online learning resources. Both the patient population of young people and the timeframe during the COVID pandemic will be familiar to our learners. The results of the process were also mostly non-technical in nature:
Patients and clinicians appreciated the strengths-based approach and social media features of Horyzons. However, participants expressed concerns related to implementation, especially in relation to capacity (e.g., site moderation, crisis management, internet speed in rural locations). … community resources, volume of text, universal accessibility (e.g., for individuals with limitations in vision), and optimization of platform accessibility through mobile devices. Additional aspects of the innovation were flagged for adaptation during the final stages of preparing it for live implementation [in Canadian pilot trials]. These included terms of use, time zone configuration to reflect local time and date, safety and moderation protocols, the need help now feature, and the list of trigger words to flag posts indicative of potential risk.
References:
Abina, A.; Salaj, A.; Cestnik, B.; Karaliˇc, A.; Ogrinc, M.; Lukman, R.; Zidanšek, A. (2024). Challenging 21st-Century Competencies for STEM Students: Companies’ Vision in Slovenia and Norway in the Light of Global Initiatives for Competencies Development. Sustainability, 2024, (16), p. 1295.
Corson, C. (2023). Certain That I Belong in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM): Women's Authentic Belonging and Men's Inclusion Actions Through Job Crafting (Doctoral dissertation, The Claremont Graduate University).
Lal, S., Gleeson, J., Rivard, L., D'Alfonso, S., Joober, R., Malla, A., & Alvarez-Jimenez, M. (2020). Adaptation of a digital health innovation to prevent relapse and support recovery in youth receiving services for first-episode psychosis: results from the Horyzons-Canada phase 1 study. JMIR formative research, 4(10), e19887.