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The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the two energy saving position control strategies for AC drives valid for a wide range of boundary conditions including an analysis of their energy expenses.

For energy demands analysis, the optimal energy control based on mechanical and electrical losses minimization is compared with the near-optimal one based on symmetrical trapezoidal speed profile. Both control strategies respect prescribed maneuver time and define acceleration profile for preplanned rest-to-rest maneuver.

Presented simulations confirm lower total energy expenditures of energy optimal control if compared with near-optimal one, but the differences are only small due to the fact that two energy saving strategies are compared.

Developed overall control system consisting of energy saving profile generator, pre-compensator and position control system respecting principles of field-oriented control is capable to track precomputed state variables precisely.

Energy demands of both control strategies are verified and compared to simulations and preliminary experiments. The possibilities of energy savings were confirmed for both control strategies.

Experimental verification of designed control structure is sufficiently promising and confirmed assumed energy savings.

Over the past years – because of the huge impact of companies such as Airbnb and Uber – the concept of the platform became extremely popular in the business world. Still, the concept of the platform has been evolving for a long time in the management field, from internal platforms (like the famous case of Sony Walkman) to industry-wide platforms (like the case of computers with external software developers), up to transaction and two or multi-sided platforms (such as Airbnb and all the companies with a similar business model). Platforms are often considered disruptors in several industries, from accommodations to mobility to entertainment. Still, the disruptors in the creative world usually deal with the way in which they distribute content (Netflix or Spotify), rather than with the content itself. The purpose of this paper is to understand if and how platforms trategies can also be used in the creative industries.

This paper digs into the movie industry, studying the three most successful Superheroes sagas of the past two decades as follows: the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), DC Comics and X-Men using a narrative approach. The three sagas are studied through network analysis to understand their “platform approach”.

The results show how platform strategies are relevant also in creative industries – defining the concept of “knowledge platform strategy” – and how they have a significant impact in terms of market performance. The MCU builds on a common knowledge through the various movies that enable the chance to rely on many of the platforms’ characteristics emerging from the literature.

This research extends the concept of “platforms,” relying on the three kinds of platform defined in the managerial literature and introducing the “knowledge platform strategy” for creative industries. The main contribution is related to the extension of platforms in research fields where it has not been exploited. This opens up avenues for research both from a knowledge platform and creative industries perspectives.

Managers, working not only in creative industries but also in industries where a common knowledge basis may be leveraged to develop new products over time, may use the concept of “knowledge platform strategy” to rethink the new development process or knowledge management from a customer perspective.

This study explores a mature and relevant concept – the platforms – in a new filed, the creative industries using the case of Superheroes sagas, proposing a new perspective to explain the success of MCU while proposing a new platform strategy.

Fans are proactive consumers of pop culture products, who can be seen as prosumers. Fanvideo production is one of their most widespread practices in the participatory culture scenario. Thus, the aim of the present study is to analyze how ludic prosumption is featured on plays performed in Brazilian fanvideos based on successful pop culture franchises.

Research based on the interpretive content analysis of fanvideos of plays produced by Brazilian fans based on five emblematic pop culture franchises and published on YouTube.

Results have shown six play types in the analyzed fanvideos – i.e. child's play, performing powers, cosplay, play in social rites, teaching to play and “zuêra” –, which revealed a way of having fun in different situations through different practices based on ludic consumption experiences in different spheres of social life.

CCT-based studies focused on investigating plays as ludic consumption phenomenon, as well as fan culture, remain at early research stage. Thus, the main contribution of the present study lies on associating such concepts based on the concept of prosumption.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of innovation in service ecosystems by focussing on the role of values resonance in relation to the integration of brands, service systems and experience rooms.

An empirical, explorative case study of an innovative service system is carried out using a narrative approach and presented in the form of a saga.

Insights gleaned from the empirical study are used for conceptual developments. Analysis of the empirical case study is presented as four lessons linked to values, brands, service systems and experience rooms.

The paper extends a conceptual framework of innovative resource integration in service ecosystems. The paper also contributes four propositions to inform theory: values resonance is a basis for service innovation, the innovative integration of brands based on values resonance can foster innovation, the integration of resources across service system boundaries grounded in values resonance can enable innovation and the integration of experience rooms into a coherent servicescape based on values resonance can support novel forms of resource integration and value co-creation efforts in service ecosystems.

The purpose of the paper is to describe the attempt of a family champagne house to redefine its business organization as a family in a large family of families. This choice involves defining their activities as entrepreneuring in a specific time and space that all actors experience as their sensible reality. To describe the whole process, the authors call this ensemble a “chronotope,” including the same space and time as part of a common story. The authors assess this narrative strategy in reference to both past conflict in the champagne business and to the present crisis caused by the pandemic in addition to a series of social, economic and environmental changes in the environment.

The design of the paper corresponds to the case of a champagne family house in its environment with a longitudinal, processual approach of the family business venture before and especially after its sale and buyback by the family. The authors use Bakhtin to insist on the fictional nature of the account of most events as most protagonists adopt different perspectives. The Taittinger family, at the head of the trade house, creates a story that fits in all these perspectives and makes sense to overcome key issues in the business.

Our findings illustrate the role of the chronotope as a way to broaden the scope of inter- and intra-family relations. This concept also shows the importance of shared experiences, stories and crafted practices to sustain collective work and the meaning associated with the result of this work, in this case, champagne wine. The authors also show the different styles of chronotopes and their role in binding together actors in relation to the transformation of their activities.

The research limitations are of two kinds. The first limitation comes from the choice to focus on the Taittinger family house, as it tends to focus the analysis on their point of view. The second limitation is due to the persistence of the pandemic situation that makes it difficult to test the chronotope idea as it is quite recent. Because of the current pandemic, it is complicated to anticipate what the future could look like and therefore, to imagine the future dimension of the chronotope. To overcome this limit, the authors suggest different scenario that leaves open different possibilities.

The practical implications of this paper could be to see how family business entrepreneurs may benefit from designing their strategy as a rich personal fiction in reference to a chronotope instead of referring to storytelling, communication and brand management or even competition strictly speaking. In turbulent times and to face grand challenges, long-term collaborations require stronger ties and imagination without leaving out emotions. Yet the entrepreneurs may become a victim of their own fictions if stakeholders perceive contradictions or if they were to dislike the new episodes the family invents.

The social implications of this case study show the role of business relations built on fiction reflecting strong ties and shared processes such as entrepreneuring in the world of heritage goods where sustainability and endurance matter. This perspective insists on a shared story and it contrasts with more discontinued approaches based on disruptive innovation, opportunism and competitiveness in turbulent times. The chronotope does not ineluctably evolve in different ways, making actors’ perspective shrink, expand or exile. Family entrepreneuring may actively influence this transformation and they may also be framed by it.

The originality of the paper comes from the description of a family business in its environment as a chronotope. Reflecting how related actors in a business field like champagne co-construct a representation, the authors looked for a concept that would accurately reflect this vision, researchers chose the concept of “chronotope,” borrowing from narrative approaches. This approach is transdisciplinary. It is also an attempt to bring researchers at work closer to what actors in the field experiment with and find inspiration in.

A SPLENDID conference, I thought. True, there were those who complained, those who thought some of the papers were elementary and those who thought that we had come a long way to learn very little. I don't agree at all. Some of the papers did, I admit, deal with basic considerations but it does nothing but good to re‐examine the framework of our services from time to time. In any case other papers were erudite, and for the first time I have seen an audience of librarians and authority members stunned, almost, into silence.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of creative re-appropriation of goods, symbols, and other manifestations of the dominant material culture in the Emo subculture identity construction process.

The authors conducted an ethnographic study on a purposive sample of social networks, blogs, discussion forums and online platforms for images sharing. Verbatim and visual texts as photos, drawings and moodboards were qualitatively content analysed in order to understand the network of meanings underlying the ambiguous amalgam of signs composing the Emo style.

Consistent with the literature, the qualitative content analysis of texts, images, videos, drawings and other forms of fan art typical of this micro culture revealed four key areas of semantic value: the aestheticization of inner pain, the sense of alienation and isolation from socio-cultural mainstream, the search for authenticity, and the need for emotional connection.

The research followed a quite new research method, the netnographic approach, originally developed to analyse brand communities.

Emo creative practices of re-appropriation of goods, symbols and icons of the dominant culture reveal a subtle message of protest against the consumer society and the commodification of everyday life.

The paper presents the deconstruction of Emo Lifestyle and Aesthetics analysing the system of meanings underneath the rituals Emos share through the Web.

After the initial life (which coincides with the origins of social research in the 1850s, and lasts until 1940s), mixed methods revive at the beginning of 1970s. However, this second life (or renaissance) receives the deleterious imprinting of quantitative methods. In fact, some of the old positivist assumptions are still reproduced and active in most of mixed methods research. This imprinting is traceable in the ambiguity (and purposive semantic stretching) of the term “qualitative”: from the 1990s, it encompasses almost everything (even approaches considered positivistic in the 1950s!). Whereby the semantical extension of the term “qualitative” has become a sort of Trojan horse for a new legitimation of many quantitative and positivist researchers: a great swindle. Today “qualitative” is nonsense and acts as a bug, which muddies the qualitative-quantitative debate. For this reason, it would be better to remove the bug (i.e. to discharge the term “qualitative” from the language of social research and methodology), reset and start over from the level of specific research methods, considering carefully and balancing their diversity before mixing them. The purpose of this paper is to outline two (complementary) ways of integration of methods (“mixed” and “merged”), arguing that “merged” methods realize a higher integration than “mixed” methods, because the former overcome some weaknesses of the latter.

A semantic and pragmatic analysis of the term “qualitative.”

In social and behavioral sciences, the second life of mixed methods has been heavily affected by old positivist and quantitative assumptions.

The term “qualitative” should be discharged from the language of social research and methodology.

The coveted integration in “mixed” methods, could be better pursed through “merged” methods.

Disentangling the strands of a debate (the qualitative-quantitative one) become muddy.

An alternative framework, to interpret the mixed methods history and their recent developments, has been proposed.