Search results

This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.

An intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.

Fox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.

Recent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.

This paper aims to introduce a model using a digital twin concept in a cold heading manufacturing and develop a digital visual management (VM) system using Lean overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) tool to enhance the process performance and establish Fourth Industrial Revolution (I4.0) platform in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

This work utilised plan, do, check, act Lean methodology to create a digital twin of each machine in a smart manufacturing facility by taking the Lean tool OEE and digitally transforming it in the context of I4.0. To demonstrate the effectiveness of process digitisation, a case study was carried out at a manufacturing department to provide the data to the model and later validate synergy between Lean and I4.0 platform.

The OEE parameter can be increased by 10% using a proposed digital twin model with the introduction of a Level 0 into VM platform to clearly define the purpose of each data point gathered further replicate in projects across the value stream.

The findings suggest that researchers should look beyond conversion of stored data into visualisations and predictive analytics to improve the model connectivity. The development of strong big data analytics capabilities in SMEs can be achieved by shortening the time between data gathering and impact on the model performance.

The novelty of this study is the application of OEE Lean tool in the smart manufacturing sector to allow SME organisations to introduce digitalisation on the back of structured and streamlined principles with well-defined end goals to reach the optimal OEE.

Smart manufacturing (SM) lies at the core of Industry 4.0. Uniform adoption of SM across business partners is crucial to exploit its value creation potential. However, firms' willingness to invest in SM is limited by insufficient or inconclusive evidence on its performance-related benefits. To close this gap, this paper develops and tests a model linking SM adoption to firms' financial performance. Improvements along the four dimensions of operational performance (i.e. cost quality, delivery and flexibility) mediate this relation.

This study follows an empirical research approach. In particular, survey data from 234 automotive component suppliers are analyzed via covariance-based structural equation modeling to explore the link between SM adoption and operational performance. Survey data are then matched with secondary data from balance sheets of 81 firms to investigate the impact of SM on financial performance via partial least square structural equation modeling.

Findings highlight that adoption of SM results in improvements in cost, quality, delivery performance, thus suggesting that SM is a mean to overcome performance trade-offs. Improvements in operational performance enabled by SM do not give rise to superior financial performance, thus implying that SM might support firms in maintaining the competitive position in the market, but could be insufficient to generate higher margin.

Results have implications for SM research and for manufacturing executives engaged in the adoption of SM, as they provide a detailed analysis of the impact of SM on operational performance and clarify the effect that SM adoption has on financial performance.

South Africa had formally introduced a policy of inflation targeting (IT) in February 2000. By December 2001, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, after reading the latest statistics, was concerned with the disappointing economic data. Economic activity had slowed drastically, to the point that the country appeared to be heading for a recession. The gloomy statistics forced the governor to consider whether the country had pursued the right policy. Persistently high unemployment, one legacy of the apartheid era, meant that South Africa did not have the luxury of waiting for new policies to bear fruit. With the inflation forecast to exceed the mandated target, the governor would have to tighten monetary policy, which would further restrict investment. Was it is time for South Africa to change course?

This paper seeks to demonstrate the pedagogical potential of incorporating virtual reality (VR) and primary sources in social studies education. It seeks to highlight how VR can enhance student engagement, foster critical thinking and provide immersive contextualization for historical events. Despite acknowledging challenges, this paper advocates for the purposeful adoption of VR technology in the classroom to enrich the teaching and learning of history.

This paper explores the integration of virtual reality and primary sources in social studies education by providing a detailed lesson plan that could be used as a model for this type of teaching, as well as other resources and opportunities to do so. It highlights the potential of VR to enhance engagement, historical thinking and historical empathy.

Integrating virtual reality and primary sources can support student engagement, critical thinking and historical empathy. There are also challenges that can be mitigated through careful planning.

This paper provides teachers with a pedagogical model and resources for integrating VR and primary sources, along with challenges and methods for mitigating those, in their secondary social studies classroom.

This paper offers a unique model for combining virtual reality and primary sources for secondary social studies educators. It provides an example lesson plan exemplifying its application and emphasizing VR’s potential to support teaching and learning.

This study aims to unravel a potential determinant of employee engagement in family firms. In particular, we focus on the role of the CEO by studying the influence of CEO transformational leadership on employee engagement. Moreover, we look into the potential mediating psychological safety might play in this relationship.

Based on an extensive literature review, we propose that there will be a significant positive relationship between family firm CEOs’ transformational leadership and the level of employee engagement. We argue that psychological safety will serve as an underlying mechanism explaining this positive relationship. We empirically tested our research model using quantitative data collected through a questionnaire, completed by 508 employees from Belgian family firms.

The results confirm the positive relationship between CEOs’ transformational leadership and employee engagement. Moreover, these results show that the degree of psychological safety mediates this relationship.

This study forms a significant contribution to family firm literature. Until now, even though existing studies on employee engagement in general are numerous, we had little to no knowledge of the factors influencing employee engagement taking into account the unique context of family firms. With this study, we take an important step in this matter. In addition, this study also contributes to the general literature on employee engagement, since previous studies on the impact of leadership on employee engagement tended to focus on the role of the immediate supervisors and not the CEO.

The purpose of this study is to adapt the incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (ISPH) method with artificial intelligence to manage the physical problem of double diffusion inside a porous L-shaped cavity including two fins.

The ISPH method solves the nondimensional governing equations of a physical model. The ISPH simulations are attained at different Frank–Kamenetskii number, Darcy number, coupled Soret/Dufour numbers, coupled Cattaneo–Christov heat/mass fluxes, thermal radiation parameter and nanoparticle parameter. An artificial neural network (ANN) is developed using a total of 243 data sets. The data set is optimized as 171 of the data sets were used for training the model, 36 for validation and 36 for the testing phase. The network model was trained using the Levenberg–Marquardt training algorithm.

The resulting simulations show how thermal radiation declines the temperature distribution and changes the contour of a heat capacity ratio. The temperature distribution is improved, and the velocity field is decreased by 36.77% when the coupled heat Cattaneo–Christov heat/mass fluxes are increased from 0 to 0.8. The temperature distribution is supported, and the concentration distribution is declined by an increase in Soret–Dufour numbers. A rise in Soret–Dufour numbers corresponds to a decreasing velocity field. The Frank–Kamenetskii number is useful for enhancing the velocity field and temperature distribution. A reduction in Darcy number causes a high porous struggle, which reduces nanofluid velocity and improves temperature and concentration distribution. An increase in nanoparticle concentration causes a high fluid suspension viscosity, which reduces the suspension’s velocity. With the help of the ANN, the obtained model accurately predicts the values of the Nusselt and Sherwood numbers.

A novel integration between the ISPH method and the ANN is adapted to handle the heat and mass transfer within a new L-shaped geometry with fins in the presence of several physical effects.

The case examines the development and launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on JUST Capital's socially responsible corporate ranking methodologies. The case provides a market overview of Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and socially responsible investing (SRI), what has driven growth in those areas worldwide, and several best-practice investment approaches. Following the overview, the case describes the founding and development of JUST Capital, explores JUST Capital's ranking methodologies, and presents the decision point faced by the CEO: requisite selection of one of three strategies in order for JUST Capital to generate “self-sustaining” revenue.

This study empirically investigates the relationship between goodwill assets and capital structure (i.e. debt ratio) of firms and the moderating effect of financial market development on the relationship between goodwill assets and capital structure.

This research applied a quantitative method. The article collects large samples of listed firms from 23 developing and nine developed countries and applied the panel data techniques. This research used firm-level data from the DataStream database for both developed and developing countries. The study uses 4,912 firm-level data from 23 developing countries and 4,303 firm-level data from nine developed countries.

The findings reveal a significant positive relationship between goodwill assets and capital structure in developing countries, but goodwill assets have a significant negative relationship with capital structure in developed countries. Moreover, financial market development positively moderates the relationship between goodwill assets and the capital structure of firms in developing countries. The results inform firm managers that goodwill assets serve as additional collateral to secure debt financing. Moreover, policymakers should formulate a debt market policy that recognizes goodwill assets as additional collateral for the purpose of obtaining debt capital.

The study has several implications. First, goodwill assets are identified as a factor of capital structure in this study. Fixed assets have been identified as one of the drivers of capital structure in previous research, although goodwill assets are seldom included. Second, this article shows that along with demand-side determinants, supply-side determinants also play an important role in terms of the firms' choice about the capital structure. Therefore, firms should take both the demand-side and supply-side factors into consideration when sourcing for external financing (i.e. debt capital).

The study considered goodwill as a component of capital structure. The study analysis includes a large sample of enterprises, including 4,912 big firms from 23 developing countries and 4,303 large firms from nine industrialized or developed countries, which adds to the current capital structure information. Furthermore, a large sample size increases the results' robustness and generalizability.

This paper aims to examine how and why consumers respond to chief executive officer (CEO) activism on social media. The authors developed a conceptual model that proposes impression management as a mechanism for consumer response to CEO activism.

In Study 1a, the authors examined 83,259 tweets from 90 CEOs and compared consumer responses between controversial and noncontroversial tweets. In Study 1b, the authors replicated the analysis, using a machine-learning topic modeling approach. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors used experimental designs to test the theoretical mechanism.

On average, consumers tend to respond more to CEO posts dealing with noncontroversial issues. Consumers’ relative reluctance to like and share controversial posts is motivated by fear of rejection. However, CEO fame reverses this effect. Consumers are more likely to engage in controversial activist threads by popular CEOs. This effect holds for consumers high (vs low) in public self-consciousness. CEO fame serves as a “shield” behind which consumers protect their online image.

The study focused on Twitter (aka “X”) in the USA. Future research may replicate the study in other social media platforms and countries. The authors introduce “shielding” – liking and sharing content authored by a recognizable source – as a tactic for impression management on social media.

Famous CEOs should speak up about controversial issues on social media because their voice helps consumers engage more in such conversations.

This paper offers a theoretical framework to understand consumer reactions to CEO activism.