Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present a two-dimensional (2D) model of the base force element method (BFEM) based on the complementary energy principle. The study proposes a model of the BFEM for arbitrary mesh problems.

The BFEM uses the base forces given by Gao (2003) as fundamental variables to describe the stress state of an elastic system. An explicit expression of element compliance matrix is derived using the concept of base forces. The detailed formulations of governing equations for the BFEM are given using the Lagrange multiplier method. The explicit displacement expression of nodes is given. To verify the 2D model, a program on the BFEM using MATLAB language is made and a number of examples on arbitrary polygonal meshes and aberrant meshes are provided to illustrate the BFEM.

A good agreement is obtained between the numerical and theoretical results. Based on the studies, it is found that the 2D formulation of BFEM with complementary energy principle provides reliable predictions for arbitrary mesh problems.

Due to the use of Lagrange multiplier method, there are more basic unknowns in the control equation. The proposed method will be improved in the future.

This paper presents a new idea and a new numerical method, and to explore new ways to solve the problem of arbitrary meshes.

The paper presents a 2D model of the BFEM using the complementary energy principle for arbitrary mesh problems.

The purpose of this paper is to leverage the lessons learned from three published studies on volume flexibility in the capital goods industry to demonstrate the effective use of methodological triangulation in operations management research.

The paper uses lessons learned from three published studies to address several issues that researchers encounter when using methodological triangulation. It also develops a coherent framework for developing a research strategy that uses methodological triangulation.

In demonstrating the use of triangulation, the paper documents several tradeoffs that researchers face including: outlining a triangulation strategy; considering the strengths and weaknesses of different data sources; assessing convergent, complementary divergent and meta inference; and paying attention to errors of inference during the triangulation process.

As with every research method, methodological triangulation has limitations that can be amplified by method specific issues and assumptions related to across‐method generalization and inference.

Provides a detailed example of why and how researchers make critical decisions on the appropriate use of methodological triangulation.

This work will assist future researchers who use triangulation to better position their work and to make informed choices that ultimately lead to more complete theories. This work would also be on interest to practitioners interested in keeping up with academic literature.

The purpose of this paper is to set the scene for this special issue by synthesising the vast array of literature to examine what constitutes mixed methods research, and the associated strengths and risks attributed to this approach.

This paper takes the form of a literature review. The authors draw on extensive methods research from a diverse range of social science disciplines to identify and explore key definitions, opportunities and risks in mixed methods studies. They review a number of accounting studies that adopt mixed methods research approaches. This allows the authors to analyse variance in how mixed methods research is conceptualised across these studies and evaluate the perceived strengths and limitations of specific mixed methods design choices.

The authors identify a range of opportunities and challenges in the conduct of mixed methods research and illustrate these by reference to both published studies and the other contributions to this special issue.

With the exception of Modell's work, there is sparse discussion of the application and potential of mixed methods research in the extant accounting literature.

This study aims to propose and validate a model for e-Learning success based on students’ experiences in the “new normal.” To achieve this goal, this study focused on answering three research questions: (1) What are the students’ experiential factors that impact e-Learning? (2) How do these experiential factors affect e-Learning success? (3) In what ways does a multimethod provide a comprehensive perspective and an in-depth understanding of students’ e-Learning experiences in the new normal?

This study applied a mixed-methods sequential approach using exploratory, confirmatory and complementary studies. First, this study undertook a text-mining exploratory analysis of the review data to extract e-Learning topics. Then, based on the Information Systems (IS) success model, this study identified an integrated framework drawn from the results of the text-mining analysis. Second, this study proposed an e-Learning, experience-based success model and corresponding hypotheses and conducted a confirmatory study with surveys to validate the model. Third, this study conducted in-depth interviews to better identify the phenomenon of interest.

The five factors extracted from the first stage are system quality, lecture content, teaching quality, online interaction and achievement. This study subsequently confirmed the significant relationships between the e-Learning success factors in the second stage based on the IS success model. Finally, a complementary study identified the importance of interactivity for e-Learning success in the new normal.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to develop an e-Learning success model using a comprehensive mixed-methods approach.

This paper aims to explain, first of all, signal modeling steps using Poincaré, and then considering the occurred events, concept of information applying Poincaré section and information approach, the brain pattern variations in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases will be diagnosed. A kind of representation of electroencephalogram (EEG) signal, namely, complementary plot, in which the main characteristic is special attention to asymmetry and symmetry coexist in natural and human processes, is introduced. In this paper, a new model is provided whose variations of patterns are similar to EEG’s when the transformation parameter is changed. A significant difference between ASD and healthy cases was also observed, which could be used to distinguish between various types of systems.

Complementary plot method is one of the most proper representations for Poincaré section of complex dynamics, because, as it was said about its characteristics, it has a qualitative approach toward signal (Sabelli, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2005, Sabelli et al., 2011). Considering the special conditions of this representation, here, intersection with a circle y² + x² = r² will be used; the important fact is, on the contrary to previous representations in which circular section had energy concept, here circular section considers phases. For finding trajectory intersection points, after calculating the sin and cosine of each term of EEG, plotting them in XY plane and drawing a chord between successive points of presentation transitions, then its intersections with the assumed circle are determined. But considering the sampling frequency, chords and Poincaré section, in this space, a minimum error – as the threshold – should be assumed in the program.

Natural and human processes are biotic (life-like) and creative (Sabelli and Galilei), and studying coexisting opposites by calculating the sine and cosine of each term in heartbeat intervals, weather variables and integer biotic series or random walk reveals an astonishingly regular mandala pattern; these patterns are not generated by random, periodic or chaotic series (Sabelli, 2005). This paper shows that in EEG of ASD children, mandala-like patterns of concentric rings are emergent in all situations (baseline – watching animation with voice and without voice) and electrode site (C3 and C4), but not in healthy individuals. The authors take the relation between sine and cosine functions as a mathematical model for complementary opposition, because it involves reciprocity and orthogonality sine and cosine are natural models for information. In fact, trigonometric analyses of empirical data to be described in this paper suggest expanding the concept of co-creative opposition to include uncorrelated opposites and partial opposites, i.e. partial agonists and partial antagonists that are neither linear nor orthogonal. Using Poincaré sections, it is shown that the difference in information and creativity of the data is the distinctive characteristic in ASD and healthy cases. Creation is the generation of novelty, diversity and complexity in complex systems.

This paper is an original paper based on cybernetic approaches for studying the variations of ASD children.

The article proposes a new method of strategic analysis. The method was called the grey portfolio analysis method. The presented method is complementary to the popular BCG matrix. The use of the grey portfolio analysis method enables to make a dynamic portfolio analysis for data with a high level of uncertainty.

First, the article presents current problems related to the application of portfolio methods in strategic management, in particular with reference to the BCG matrix. Second, the basics of grey numbers, operations with them and the way of acting in the grey portfolio analysis method are presented. Finally, the developed method is presented in a case study concerning an IT enterprise, whose portfolio includes cloud computing services.

In the article, a new method of a strategic analysis based on the BCG matrix was presented. It combines grey methodologies of decision making with a grey prognostic model in the context of a strategic analysis. Due to this fact, a dynamic approach to the issues of portfolio methods is possible.

The article fits the current need related to the development of new expert systems supporting strategic management in enterprises.

An introduced method is new and innovative in the area of portfolio methods. Its originality results from the fact that it eliminates a static nature of the BCG matrix through the use of grey prognostic models. What is more, when grey numbers are used, a problem of uncertainty of information, which appears, is solved at a methodological level.

To address three issues of survey-based methods (i.e. the absence of behaviors, the reference inequivalence, and the lack of cross-cultural interaction), the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of using the behavioral experiment method to collect cross-cultural data as well as the possibility of measuring culture with the experimental data. Moreover, challenges to this method and possible solutions are elaborated for intriguing further discussion on the use of behavioral experiments in international business/international management (IB/IM) research.

This paper illustrates the merits and downside of the proposed method with an ultimate-game experiment conducted in a behavioral laboratory. The procedure of designing, implementing, and analyzing the behavioral experiment is delineated in detail.

The exploratory findings show that the ultimate-game experiment may observe participants’ behaviors with comparable references and allow for cross-cultural interaction. The findings also suggest that the fairness-related cultural value may be calibrated with the horizontal and vertical convergence of cross-cultural behaviors (i.e. people’s deed), and this calibration may be strengthened by incorporating complementary methods such as a background survey to include people’s words.

The behavioral experiment method illustrated and discussed in this study contributes to the IB/IM literature by addressing three methodological issues that are not widely recognized in the IB/IM literature.

Being innovative and bringing new products to the market fast is important for firms to stay competitive. Customers are important for providing input to product developments in industrial markets. The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of how firms use Voice of the Customer (VoC) in product development and how VoC can complement other customer involvement methods.

The paper is based on a qualitative case study of a global leading and innovative firm, a maker of tools for the automotive industry. The study provides detailed insight into the implementation of VoC for product development.

The process of customer involvement in product development through VoC is explored. The study shows that by using the VoC method, firms can gather knowledge for input to product development projects while developing relationships with a larger number of customers. The findings point out that VoC can be modified to focus on customer needs related to product development as well as marketing efforts requiring cross-functional collaboration. The VoC method is suitable for combining with other customer involvement methods such as project involvement and pilot testing. Through VoC, firms have the chance to benchmark across industries and regions.

The paper provides insights into the VoC process of customer involvement aimed at product development. The case study provides an illustration of how an industrial firm uses VoC in product development. The paper points out the importance of managing external (customer) involvement in product development and internal (cross-functional) collaborations.

A set of questions that firms can ask themselves before embarking on customer involvement has been developed. The paper shows that customers can be involved at a number of points in time, have a wide range of roles and contribute different knowledge. VoC is suitable for combining with other customer involvement methods.

The contribution of the paper consists of a case study illustrating how customer involvement in product development can be achieved through VoC. A number of customer involvement methods for product development are discussed for combining with VoC, showing how different methods are complementary in product development.

This study aims to demonstrate how critical realism (CR) can be used in spirituality at work (SAW) research and to provide a practical example of CR in SAW research.

CR is a philosophical meta-theory that allows the stratification of spirituality into different levels of reality, advocates for research methods matching the ontology of the level investigated and provides complementary methods of exploring this phenomenon’s causal power in social contexts. The authors present a study where CR was used to explain how and why SAW influences ethics in organisational contexts.

The results demonstrate that CR provides a useful approach to bridging the positivist-interpretivist difference in SAW research. Moreover, a CR approach helped explain the underlying conditions and causal mechanisms that power SAW to influence ethical decision-making and behaviour in the workplace.

While CR has been applied in the management literature, negligible SAW research has used this approach. That which exists is either conceptual or does not discuss methods of data analysis, or describe how critical realist concepts resulted in their findings. This paper addresses that lacuna. CR also provides value, as an alternative approach to SAW research, in that it allows the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods as complementary, not confrontational methods while providing a more integrated and deeper view of SAW and its effects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers of visitation intention, including demographic, psychographic (animosity, national attachment and consumer ethnocentrism) and image factors on tourist decision-making in a situation of bilateral conflict between the destination country and the source country, that is, the USA and Russia, respectively.

The data were collected at two different points in time from two different samples but analyzed with the same research question in mind. To increase the robustness and validity of findings, three analytical approaches from the repertoire of statistics and data mining techniques such as hierarchical linear regression, logistic regression and decision tree analysis were applied to two independent samples of tourists with different demographic profiles. This multiple methods research employs a complementary design, as methods used have equal importance and are applied concurrently.

The paper obtained generally consistent results across methods and samples: general animosity, destination image and country image are the most influential factors in the tourists’ decision-making to visit a destination country with which their own country has strained bilateral relations.

Destination image is highly important in all analyses and is more favorable than country image. It indicates some degree of separation of the two images in the respondents’ mind, which indicates that marketing a country as a tourist destination on a not-so-friendly tourism market may still be effective. Results also tentatively indicate that for young adults, patriotic feelings matter more in their decision-making, while for more mature tourists, ethnocentric tendencies play a more important role.

The paper examines the influence of general and situational animosity, national attachment, and consumer ethnocentrism on visitation intentions in a situation of conflict between the two nations and, thus, expands the empirical evidence accumulated to date on tourist behavior in conflict. The paper acts on the premise that if a connection between any two variables truly exists, it should be able to withstand variations in samples, timing of data collection and measurement, thus, leading to more robust findings.