Resilience in the Goal Hierarchy: Strategy Change as a Form of Perseverance

Is it possible to enhance neural and cognitive function with cognitive training techniques? Can we delay age-related decline in cognitive function with interventions and stave off Alzheimer's disease? Does an aged brain really have the capacity to change in response to stimulation? In the present paper, we consider the neuroplasticity of the aging brain, that is, the brain's ability to increase capacity in response to sustained experience. We argue that, although there is some neural deterioration that occurs with age, the brain has the capacity to increase neural activity and develop neural scaffolding to regulate cognitive function. We suggest that increase in neural volume in response to cognitive training or experience is a clear indicator of change, but that changes in activation in response to cognitive training may be evidence of strategy change rather than indicative of neural plasticity. We note that the effect of cognitive training is surprisingly durable over time, but that the evidence that training effects transfer to other cognitive domains is relatively limited. We review evidence which suggests that engagement in an environment that requires sustained cognitive effort may facilitate cognitive function.

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FORMAÇÃO DA ESTRATÉGIA EM CONDIÇÕES DE ELEVADA INFLUÊNCIA GOVERNAMENTAL: UMA ANÁLISE LONGITUDINAL DA FUNDAÇÃO DE APOIO À PESQUISA CIENTÍFICA E TECNOLÓGICA DO ESTADO DE SANTA CATARINA – FAPESC

Revista de Negócios ◽

10.7867/1980-4431.2007v12n2p103-119 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 103

Author(s):

Maurício Fernandes Pereira ◽

Karla Simoni Oening

Keyword(s):

Strategic Behavior ◽

The State ◽

Santa Catarina ◽

Strategy Formation ◽

Environmental Selection ◽

Strategy Change ◽

History Of ◽

Direct Administration ◽

Governmental Politics

This research analyzes the process of strategy formation in the Foundation of Support to the Scientific and Technological Research of the State of Santa Catarina - FAPESC, a body of the government’s direct administration structure in the State of Santa Catarina, with the purpose of understanding how its construction occurs: if in a deliberate way, anticipated and rational; or, as an emergency, in consequence of the interactions of the agents present in the organizations’ routine. By way of a case study of longitudinal, historical and biographical character, and based in the procedures proposed by the Direct Research (MINTZBERG, 1979; MINTZBERG; McHUGH, 1985), the history of the institution was retrieved in the period comprised between the years of 1990 and 2005. The data has disclosed that, in adapting itself strategically, beyond the predominance of a planned and sistemic strategic behavior, the institution suffered an intense influence from the governmental politics of the State and this, associated with the low power to influence the environment with high environmental determinism, reduced the importance of the management scienter in the success of the company indicating that mechanisms of environmental selection operate to the detriment of the adaptation. Key words: Strategy. Change and adaptation. Formation of the strategy.

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