Business Commons^™

The Ambience Of Innovation: A Material Semiotic Analysis Of Corporate And Community Innovation Sites, Reed Stratton

Theses and Dissertations

There are unprecedented opportunities in professional and technical writing (PTW) and rhetoric research thanks to a contemporary expansion of rhetorical studies beyond the linguistic/symbolic and into the material, accounting for the rhetorical contributions of “nonhumans” (Latour Reassembling the Social). Material rhetoric frameworks such as Thomas Rickert’s ambient rhetoric and Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, provide fertile grounds for PTW/rhetoric research that explores the diffusion of “rhetoric into material space” (Rickert xii) which has especially exciting implications for the study of place and how it embodies values and rhetorically shapes acting, thinking, and the entire spectrum of “human flourishing” (Rickert xii).

This …

Innovation As Everyday Action: A Case Study Of Organizational Discourse And The Local Meaning Of Innovation, Jennifer C. Batra

Open Access Theses

This study describes and explicates the nuanced nature of commonly adopted buzzwords such as innovation by analyzing how innovation is defined and embedded structurally within a single organization. Working to uncover how the individual construction of a local definition of innovation within the global context of a quasi-academic organization changes as organizational priorities and practices evolve over time, I present the varied framings of innovation at the micro, meso, and macro levels, through two research phases (a) the definition phase and (b) the practice phase over the course of one year.

This thesis project is situated within a single Mid-Western …

Entrepreneurial Marketing: A Historical Exploration And Implications For Practice, Sofia Victoria Ramos

Selected Honors Theses

In an increasingly turbulent market, marketers are having difficulty predicting consumer demands, and academics are finding that traditional marketing theory is no longer highly effective in making educated marketing decisions. With the growth of Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM) research over the past several decades, researchers have found these practices to be effective not only for SME’s but also for larger firms. Because of this, researchers are offering Entrepreneurial Marketing theory as a solution for all firms seeking a competitive advantage in a volatile market. Entrepreneurial Marketing, which is the innovative, opportunity seeking approach most entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) …