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The purpose of this paper is to provide sound understanding of the mutual interactions of the major leaf spring design parameters and their effects on both the stress behavior of the designed leaf and the steering behavior of the vehicle.

Finite elements analyses have been performed referring to the design of a high performance monoleaf spring used for the suspension of the front axle of a serial heavy truck. Design parameters like eye type, eye lever, spring rate and arm rate difference have been parametrically examined regarding the stress performance and their influence on the wheel joint kinematics. The effect of each design parameter is exhibited both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Eye lever and eye type affect significantly the wheel joint kinematics and therewith the steering behavior of the vehicle. Spring rate and arm rate difference affect solely the stress performance of the leaf spring.

Design engineers may use the outcomes of this research as a guide to achieve optimal leaf spring design ensuring its operational strength in conjunction with accurate steering performance of the vehicle.

The international literature contains only few, mostly qualitative data regarding the effect of single design parameters on the leaf spring and the corresponding axle kinematics. The present work contains a comprehensive and systematic study of all major leaf spring design parameters, and reveals their effect on both the stress behavior and the steering behavior of the vehicle qualitatively and quantitatively.

This study aims to examine the relationship between concrescent conversation environment (CCE), psychological safety and team effectiveness. Although CCE has been known to influence team outcomes, little is known about how it influences them. Integrating the social constructionist and social psychology perspectives, this study argues that CCE ignites a climate of psychological safety resulting in “joint-action” necessary for positive team outcomes.

Survey data were collected from 301 team members from US firms operating in different industries. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS.

The study establishes CCE as an antecedent to psychological safety and demonstrates that psychological safety mediates the relationship between CCE and team effectiveness.

This is one of the initial studies to show how verbal behaviors socially construct team dynamics in the shape of psychological safety to influence team outcomes. In doing so, the authors advance the theory pertaining to the role of social exchanges in team processes and outcomes.

The results provide insights on how managers can improve team outcomes by influencing the conversational environment of the team to elicit feelings of psychological safety. The results also suggest that managers must focus on relational outcomes as well, along with performance outcomes.

From a social constructionist perspective, team development is built upon the verbal behaviors of the members as they pursue tasks. However, the extant group dynamics literature undervalues conversations’ role in team processes and outcomes. This is the first study that examines the link between a team's conversational environment, psychological safety and team outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a supplementary definition of quality and quality‐building in business. This supplementary definition is the outcome of a predominantly inductive research approach that has been delimited to the conceptual explanation of the main concern and its recurrent solution of those involved in the operation and management of businesses.

Classic grounded theory (CGT) has been used as the methodology. The main hallmark of CGT is concept and theory generation directly from data, while delimiting to the most important and problematic for those being studied. A rethinking of existing concepts takes place during one of the last stages of a CGT study. During this stage, the concepts of the generated theory are conceptually compared to the literature.

When the building blocks of the generated CGT of business and management were compared to the existing literature, the generated concept of “confidence‐building” emerged as a close conceptual synonym to “quality‐building”. Confidence‐building is understood as the application of certain trust‐building techniques (“saming”, transparency, distinguishing) that facilitate the modification or maintenance or prevention of people's behaviour (i.e. own, employees', customers', suppliers', etc. behaviour) in such a manner that the company's survival or growth is sustained.

This kind of analysis has not been done before. One implication of this rethought quality concept is that all issues pertaining to people relationships in business become an inseparable part of the quality issue – as well as issues like HRM, marketing, organisational adjustments and strategic decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to show that he growing importance of “sustainable design” and reducing the environmental impact of products has seen the development of a relatively new practice based around “user focused” design principles.

Called “User Centered Design for Sustainable Behavior” or “Design for Behavioral Change”, this approach applies user insights in the creation of innovative solutions that will influence user behavior to reduce the social and environmental impact of products during use.

Essentially, by understanding the user, it becomes possible to use design to effectively nudge users towards more sustainable product use. And, the results of this approach are product like Unilever's development of the washing powder tablet, the Wattson from DIYKyoto and most recently the ECO pedal system from Nissan.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of complex adaptive systems (CAS) from the perspective of managing organizations, to describe and explore the management principles in a case study of an organization with unconventional ways of management and to present a tentative model for managing organizations as CAS – system management. There is a need for the development of knowledge, metaphors and language for management of the new forms of organizing, for example, value networks, which are evolving as a response to the increased demand for efficiency, flexibility and innovation.

The frame of reference is based on a literature review of the area of CAS and an inductive and interactive approach is used to identify the management principles in the case study.

A classification of the components of a CAS is suggested and described as properties of, and approaches for, managing CAS. The identified management principles in the case study are: a clearly formulated mission, delegation of responsibility and authority, diversity and competition, and follow‐up and feedback. As a result of analyzing the frame of reference and the case study, a tentative, conceptual model for managing organizations as CAS – system management – is presented including; metaphor, components and approaches.

The case study contributes to the empirical body of knowledge of organizing and management. The tentative model is a contribution to the ongoing discussion about managing organizations as CAS.

Given the decline in traditional modes of authority, teachers are increasingly reliant upon their professional authority for ensuring orderly and disciplined classrooms. Rather than being vested in teachers generally, by virtue of their specific role, in loco parentis, professional authority is largely acquired through the demonstration of the individual teacher's expertise. Such expertise incorporates subject and pedagogical knowledge, together with skill in relation to classroom interpersonal dynamics. A key difficulty in relation to interpersonal management is that much of the knowledge involved is tacit and thus not easily made explicit. The chapter examines this issue and identifies some key teacher interpersonal behaviors that can be identified and practised by the novice.

THE FUNDAMENTAL principles governing the behaviour of aircraft during steering manoeuvres on the ground are now well known and documented, but one particular aspect of the problem has not, to the writer's knowledge, been dealt with in the literature. This article examines this feature and describes methods for evaluating its effect on the overall steering power requirements and system behaviour. The influence of tyre characteristics is also examined.

This paper aims to provide introductory conceptual tools for studying political power in a complex multi-level environment. In particular, it is intended to answer the question of how concepts provided by cybernetics and general systems theory (GST) could serve to foster the study of political power.

The objective is realized through a reconsideration of a set of the basic concepts of cybernetics, GST and political science. Two system identification models – black box and white box – along with Marian Mazur’s concept of steering are used to deconstruct the classic definition of power formulated by Max Weber. Next, a two-phase procedure for empirical power analysis is proposed. Rudimentary in its scope, the article shows a path of more comprehensive and transformative analyses of key notions.

It seems that system identification models help uncover structural and functional aspects of political power, which aids the process of analysis of different mechanisms of political power.

The article supports the argument for a conceptual isomorphism between cybernetics and political science. The value of the proposed approach is derived from the combination of two features. First, two aspects of system operation – functional and structural – help to focus research attention on different problems of political power analysis. Second, the interrelation and interdependence of both aspects of systems operation serve as a practical means in the analysis of communication and behavior of actors in the political power processes.