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The purpose of this paper is to present an environmental psychological case study regarding an office design change. The employees of the researched company had the chance to decide whether to stay in the classic open office set-up or to switch to a shared desk supplemented by a one-day-a-week home office possibility. The authors examined the development of participants’ territorial behaviour and place attachment.

The given organizational situation is a quasi-experimental design; the variables were examined via questionnaire in a longitudinal model. Quantitative measurement was supplemented with focus group discussions.

The degree of personalization (a type of territorial behaviour) decreased significantly not only among those who lost their permanent workstations – as we expected – but also in the entire population. Workplace attachment stagnated for the entire population, but workstation attachment showed a significant decrease among those who switched to the shared desk.

The limitations and the advantages are also followed by the nature of a case study: high ecological validity with relatively low sample size.

Redesigning an office is never just an economic or interior design issue, but a psychological one. This paper provides practical environmental psychological insights into implementing office designs without permanent individual workstations.

This paper presents the environmental psychological background of shared desk design implementation. The authors point out the significance of repressing personalization behaviour and as per the authors’ knowledge, they are the first to introduce the concept of workstation attachment.

This qualitative study explores how trailing spouses form their relationships before and after a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic and what patterns can be observed. It explores their significant relationships with friends and extended family, focusing on dynamics and change.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with seven trailing spouses in Malaysia: before the pandemic, in the beginning and at the end of the first year of the pandemic. The authors used longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis (LIPA).

Being aware of the limits of resources emerged as a key factor in how trailing spouses develop and maintain relationships with friends and extended family. The fact that the pandemic changed the dynamics of their social networks illuminates how crucial these relationships or their absence are in their adjustment and readjustment process. Children play a significant role in these relationships.

Comparative research into the friendships and relationships of different groups of trailing spouses in various locations could capture more specificity of the relationship dynamics.

The explored patterns can promote a better understanding of the relationship dynamics of trailing spouses' networks, which can, in turn, support and facilitate both adjustment and repatriation processes. They can help explain how and what kind of social networks best support trailing spouse transition during a time of crisis or adjustment. These findings could be incorporated into intercultural training programs.

No current study that the authors know of has explored trailing spouses' relationship dynamics in a longitudinal study before and during a crisis.

On a global level, the ageing population is increasing which will undoubtedly result in an increased demand for care facilities and more complex care requirements. Individuals living in permanent residential care facilities can often be subjected to a number of unnecessary stresses due to feelings of institutionalisation, with a change of surrounding and loss of possessions leading to confusion and exacerbation of pre-existing dementia problems. It is believed that creating environments that are as comfortable and homely as possible can help to relieve negative emotions and improve the quality of life of the individuals. This paper aims to investigate this issue.

This study brought together care home residents, interior designers and textile manufacturers to research pattern design and colour preferences for bedding for residents in a care home. Results were implemented in the design and building of a new care home in Dornbirn, Austria, with the intention that residents will feel happier in surroundings they prefer.

Following collection and analysis of results, it was seen that both residents and non-residents tended to prefer patterns that were representative of the era when they were young, perhaps because of the positive feelings they experienced during these times, and the positive memories the familiar patterns evoked of these times. Respondents preferred colour schemes that were bright and vibrant and linked these colours to feelings of happiness. Respondents did not like the muted colour schemes, which could have been related to reduced colour sensitivity with age, rendering the paler schemes dull and drab.

While the authors acknowledge that case study was carried out in Austria and reflected the thoughts and opinions of Austrian citizens, the research methodology is easily transferrable to other countries and areas of research.

Using techniques developed mainly in subjective well-being and “happiness” studies, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the applicability of these and related methods for understanding and evaluating the emotional responses experienced within the live music event environment.

The concept of “experience” is debated and set within the context of music events designed to create a specific type of emotional experience for the attendees. The main tools for researching experiences over a time period are considered focusing on the “experience sampling method” (ESM) (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) and the “day reconstruction method” (Kahneman et al., 2004). These methods are critiqued in terms of their usefulness and practicality as research tools in the study of audience emotions.

A revised method was then developed and a small-scale trial undertaken at a live music event, the results of which are presented and discussed. A conceptual model illustrating the interconnectedness of experience is introduced as an example of the application of the data gathered through this method to theory development. The paper concludes by reflecting on both the methodological appropriateness and practicality of ESMs as a way of gathering valuable data on the emotions engendered by events.

An obstacle yet to be overcome is using this data to predict attitudinal and behavioural change related to arts marketing goals. However, studies in other areas have clearly shown that emotional response is a significant indicator of future behaviour suggesting that the potential is there.

The trialled method provides a useful starting point for better understanding the complexity of emotional effects triggered at live music events.

The paper concludes that an adaptation of these methods has the potential to provide much needed rich and credible data on the feelings and emotional reactions triggered by different elements of a live event.

In the redesign process of assembly components that need adaptation to robotic assembly, designers can find support from structured methodologies for innovation, such as the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ). This paper aims to illustrate the authors’ methodology for redesigning gas hobs components for adaptation to robotic assembly.

A designer approaching a redesign task of an assembly component of any kind for adaptation to robotic assembly must consider, first of all, the features and limitations of existing robotic assembly systems; the generation of new design ideas that best fit the requirements may result to be a very challenging task. Here, the TRIZ methodology has proven useful for generating design ideas and finding the best solution.

The authors’ methodology approaches the challenges of redesign tasks for robotic assembly adaptation, which exploits knowledge of automatic and robotic assembly systems and the TRIZ method for innovation; it has proven useful in the redesign, checks and prototyping of gas hobs components.

This paper shows how the TRIZ methodology can be integrated into the redesign process and its impact on an industrial environment. The work’s main value is to provide a set of steps to help the designers change their design components approach that is necessary but not still implemented to optimize the use of the automation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between image congruence, tourist satisfaction and intention to revisit in marathon tourism. The results show that both affective image congruence (AIC) and cognitive image congruence (CIC) have a positive influence on tourist satisfaction and intention to revisit in the context of marathon tourism. The results also reveal that demographic and behavioural characteristics have a significant impact on revisiting intentions; and past experience of marathon tourism controls the relationship between image congruence and tourist satisfaction.

Purpose – To examine how Black mayors in majority-White cities successfully incorporate the interests of African-Americans into their overall agenda for the city and the said effectiveness of this strategy electorally.Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing data from elite interviews and local newspaper articles, we apply the theory of targeted universalism to the governing approach of Jack Ford.Findings – Mayors of color often come into office with the dual responsibility of being an advocate for their respective racial group and a leader for the city as a whole. Jack Ford, the first African-American to be elected as mayor in Toledo, Ohio, took this challenge on gladly, but with mixed success. We find that Jack Ford used his powers as mayor to improve social conditions for Blacks in Toledo, yet also faced challenges in trying to better their economic opportunities. Moreover, he failed to parlay these particularistic efforts into a second electoral victory. In this case, a targeted universalistic policy approach to advancing Black interests had limited effectiveness. The single mayoral term of Jack Ford suggests that Black executives must walk a fine line between their (assumed or expected) racial empowerment role and their duty to advance the various interests that exist among residents of their city. Hence, we find that in order to have lasting electoral success Black mayors must be acutely aware of what is expected of them by the various constituencies they serve and govern accordingly.Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.Practical implications – The chapter includes implications for the development of an effecting Black mayoral governing strategy wherein the mayor can successfully advocate for the advancement of black interests in majority-White cities with specific policy proposals and programmatic developments.Originality/value – This chapter fulfills an identified need to study the governance of Black mayors in medium-sized cities and their representation of Black interests in the majority White municipal context.

In this chapter, we underscore the enduring importance of research on work, workers, labour markets, and the places and spaces of work. We then examine the particular and valuable contributions that come from ethnographic research in providing detailed studies of work, particularly when these are situated and interpreted in their wider socio-political contexts. We discuss the key dimensions of ethnography before overviewing the contributions to the volume. The volume presents cutting-edge ethnographic research on contemporary worlds of work and the experiences of workers from a range of contexts including an alternative community, working online, the gig economy, and the hospitality industry. Alongside novel empirical chapters, the collection includes the reflections of ethnographers with regards to, for example, the experience as a young female management researcher working amongst journalists in a media firm, personal feelings of precarity within and beyond the field, and how to navigate the challenges of researching inequalities ethnographically.