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Companies are increasingly using management development (MD) initiatives as a means of enhancing their capability to realise their business goals. Therefore, the linkage between MD and strategic management should be better understood. Aims to examine this situation.

By utilising quantitative statistical methods, the paper studies the linkage from the perspective of individual managers, and analyses how the various forms of the linkage relate to managers’ strategic awareness and perceived value of MD.

Empirical evidence from Finnish managers implies that the perceived effectiveness of MD and the level of strategic awareness of managers are highly inter‐related.

The paper helps researchers and practitioners to better understand the dynamic and holistic nature of MD and highlights the need to study strategic management and organisational learning increasingly from the perspective of individuals rather than from that of the whole organisation.

The paper explores the role of the strategic partner in the Management Development (MD) process at Jordan Telecom (JT) by surveying the attitudes of 243 Jordanian managers and by testing the relevant hypothesis. The findings reveals that the strategic partner contributes to the development of Jordanian managers' skills in areas such as time management, performance appraisal, job design and communications and cooperation. A limited significant impact of relevant demographic and managerial factors on managers' attitudes towards their MD and strong corelational relationships among MD dimensions are also revealed through the findings. The conclusions highlight the positive outcomes and implications of the strategic partnership at JT. The recommendations emphasized the need for further partnerships in Jordan because of their influential effects on Jordanian businesses.

It has recently come to light that there is an increasing demand for a new type of small house design, which vary in area from 20 square metres to 100 square metres and even more. Being remarkably different from traditional types of spatial organizations, the new house types present an open plan concept with a highly flexible and adaptable spatial arrangement that exhibit diverse functional spaces within one open, integrated space.

In light of this, the main aim of this study is to reveal the new dynamics of spatial organization found in today's small house types and identify the significant changes in the contemporary design approaches to small house layouts which have evolved from a need for minimized space usage and a requirement for diverse living spatiality.

Subsequently, thirty houses have been chosen to be analysed for the purpose of this study to reveal the differences between integrated and segregated spatial organizations in regard to flexibility, adaptability, transformability and permeability within the spaces. In addition to this, the new spatial relations will be overviewed considering spatial depth, interpenetration and density to define more implicit organizations which are able to expand constantly and accommodate different functional spaces in one open space with the help of spatial identifiers.

The main focus of this research study concentrates on the above mentioned dynamic forms of spatiality that change from being weak to strong, implicit to explicit and indistinct to clearly defined spaces. These forms are measured, analysed and basically compare by means of a space syntax application on the values of the space and convex maps of the thirty selected houses.

In summary, the analysis and measurement of the spatial characteristics of contemporary small houses in this sphere include both theoretical and empirical components. Firstly, the study discusses the basic definitions of spatial relations and organizations. Secondly, the space syntax method was used to test and compare new spatial design approaches by means of the Mean Depth, Mean Integration, Basic Difference Factor and Space Link Ratio values mainly to clarify how the spatiality changes according to the size although the plan type stays the same as 1+1.

In response, this study developed a mathematical and computational method, through spatial configurations with justified plan graph (JPG), drawn from Space Syntax to extract essential information of the spatial topology of 13 valuable traditional courtyard houses located in Toon historical city of Iran.

Historical vernacular housing has always been designed to incorporate and reflect the local lifestyle and cultural conditions. “Courtyard” is a fundamental part of traditional Iranian houses. This traditional building type includes a walled boundary and a complex of open, semi-enclosed and enclosed spaces. This study investigates the traditional houses in Toon historical town. Toon is one of the ancient towns in southeast Iran, including old courtyard houses in its heritage context. The spatial influence of the courtyard contributes to the formation of this famous architectural type.

The results show the remarkable impact of this space on dominating the plan of traditional Toon houses configuration compared to other spaces in all cases. Furthermore, spatial accessibility has changed over time, and the Safavid period had a higher level of integration and lower level of accessibility (mean i = 7.03) rather than the Qajar period (mean i = 6.34); also, privacy has decreased progressively.

The knowledge of characteristics of this historical architecture needs to be gathered for the preservation and conservation of the built heritage. Hence, the principle behind traditional Iranian courtyards was investigated to recognize the difference between the spatial influence of the courtyard and other spaces and the changes in the courtyard over time.

University research and academic laboratory facilities are key elements in the support of a successful education and research experience. World-class universities consider the functionality of these facilities as a matter of high priority. The functionality of research and academic laboratory facilities is strongly linked to the productivity of students, teachers and researchers who use these facilities. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the functional performance of eight university laboratories using the space syntax approach.

The methodology involved the measurements and drawing of as-built floor plans of selected academic and research laboratories. The main benchmarks involved in measuring the functional efficiency, such as mean depth (MD) of space and real relative asymmetry (RRA), were analyzed using the A-graph software and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

The results show that “Type D” (chemistry teaching laboratory) and “Type C” (concrete teaching/research laboratory) laboratories have the tendency to be more accessible, efficient and flexible compared to the other laboratory layouts with MD and RRA values of 5.947 and 3.472, and 4.287 and 1.674, respectively.

This study shows that the functional efficiency of academic and research laboratories can be influenced by the spatial configuration of the space, as presented by the space syntax theory. Space syntax benchmark elements, such as MD, RRA, R and H*, can be used to compare various spatial arrangements, and the results can inform decisions on ways to re-arrange the space for optimum efficiency.

It is hoped that the idea of space syntax theory in the evaluation of the functional efficiency of laboratory facilities, illustrated in this research, is of significant contribution to the enhancement of the research and educational experience of concerned stakeholders in teaching and research environments.

This study looked into the scope of integrating the aspirations of zakah and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to counter poverty, inequity, illiteracy, malnutrition and environmental pollution to ensure peace, happiness, prosperity and sustainability as envisaged in sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This is a qualitative research study conducted using both primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected from 29 business enterprises in Bangladesh employing a semi-structured interview protocol. The secondary data were collected through content analysis of annual reports, websites and CSR publications of sample organizations. Finally, collected qualitative data have been analyzed thematically following the due procedures to address the research questions.

The findings reveal that integration of the aspirations of zakah and CSR is a convenient and wholehearted approach for entrepreneurs resulting in pursuing SDGs. In addition, business entrepreneurs in Bangladesh consider such practices as killing two birds with one stone because this approach warrants performing both religious and social obligations simultaneously. Interestingly, the study explores that shariah compliance acts as a guiding force for selecting well-being-oriented projects in zakah-funded CSR resulting in pursuing the priority goals – No Poverty (1), Zero Hunger (2) – of SDGs, thereby addressing some of the most critical issues of emerging economies such as Bangladesh.

The findings of this research can be used as a guide to incorporate the spirit and principle of zakah into the CSR programs aimed at pursuing SDGs mainly in Muslim countries representing one-fourth of the world population.

Integration of the aspirations of zakah and CSR is an innovative move and net addition to the literature on sustainability, CSR and zakah because Muslim business entrepreneurs will now conveniently be able to use the entrepreneurs' zakah money – readily available in each financial year – to fund the entrepreneurs' various CSR projects (within shariah framework) relating to poverty alleviation, humanitarian and disaster relief, health and sanitation and environmental conservation which will eventually contribute to pursuing various SDGs.

Describes a set of numerical techniques which implement the rate‐dependent multi‐mechanism deformation (M‐D) constitutive model for rock salt in a finite element code for use in three‐dimensional, finite strain simulations of creep closure in deeply buried salt excavations. Presents essential details of the numerical implementation. The constitutive model is exercised in a three‐dimensional closure simulation of a large underground field experiment. Compares results from the simulation against actual closure measurements taken from the experiment.

Strategic management development (SMD) uses corporate objectives and strategies as drivers for management development and aims to achieve multiple outcomes. Most studies of SMD have concentrated on consultant‐ or practitioner‐based accounts of “best practice”. There has been little development of conceptual frameworks to inform a more rigorous understanding and evaluation of SMD. Considers the usefulness of some existing frameworks and then, based on literature review and synthesis, proposes new conceptual frameworks for SMD. The first of these new frameworks explores the relationships between individual and organisational objectives in the SMD processes. Many management development interventions have both types of objective and other interventions may be more polarised in purpose. These tensions have to be resolved at the level of the individual manager. Because of environmental change account will need to be taken of emergent needs and opportunities. The second framework reflects this showing how a dynamic environment will lead to more organic forms of management development. The third framework considers the barriers and drivers influencing SMD, and proposes the key requirements for success.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze abnormal behavior patterns in a maintenance outsourcing process. Based on the results, the managers can focus on the abnormal behavior and the direction of the investigation can be narrowed. The abnormal behavior can be identified more easily.

Maholanobis Distance (MD) and Decision Tree (DT) are integrated to analyze for abnormal behavior patterns. To prevent abnormal behaviors, a maintenance outsourcing case must be passed by several managers in different departments. In this research, some criteria for pairs of managers are calculated first. Based on the criteria, the MDs of these pairs can be calculated. Pairs are categorized by their MDs. Any pair whose MD is higher than a threshold is labeled “abnormal” while the remaining are labeled “normal”. After oversampling the minority class of abnormal, a DT is built by Classification and Regression Trees (CART) based on the labeled dataset. Finally, the combination of criteria for abnormal categories is extracted from the tree.

Through the results from the DT, the combinations of criteria provide obvious characteristics of cases that are categorized as abnormal, and then provide a direction for investigators. Thus, the range of investigation can be narrowed. The empirical results show that the result of the proposed integrated methodology is helpful for abnormal behavior pattern analysis.

This research is intended to help an organization to enhance their investigation in a large number of maintenance outsourcing cases. About 8,000 cases are collected for analysis.

The integration of MD and DT for analyzing abnormal behavior patterns in a maintenance outsourcing process is not found in the literature. Moreover, the empirical results show that the proposed integrated methodology is helpful in a real application.