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The purpose of this paper is to explore the approaches to education and training adopted by manufacturing organisations to identify and develop a set of learning principles for the successful transition to Industry 4.0.

A case study of a manufacturing ecosystem in Queensland, Australia was undertaken, that included semi-structured interviews with a total sample of 22 manufacturing industry representatives, an analysis of secondary data including organisational documents and government reports, and embedded cases of two manufacturing organisations.

Manufacturers successfully transitioning to Industry 4.0 are distinguished by a culture which values learning, management development to understand and lead innovation, experimental learning on the job and strong links to education and training providers through internships and upskilling pathways. These four principles inform approaches to creating tailored training solutions that respond to the unique needs of diverse manufacturing organisations.

The two case studies describe exemplary high performing companies only and not companies at earlier stages of adopting Industry 4.0. Therefore, future research could include a broader spectrum of companies across the adoption spectrum. Nevertheless, considered as a study of a total manufacturing ecosystem, there is strong alignment of views of government, industry, union and education stakeholders regarding the key factors of transition to Industry 4.0.

There is a strong need for leaders of manufacturing organisations to enable a broad strategy of capability development beyond simple acquisition of new technologies. Detailed consideration and resourcing of on-the-job training and experimentation, talent attraction through innovation workplace cultures and strong relationships with education providers are important.

Given that Industry 4.0 technologies such as robotics and AI are now rapidly diffusing into other industry sectors, the research has broader implications for education and training for the future of work. These technologies could produce stark differences between efficiency versus innovation-oriented adoption strategies. Whilst the former could displace workers, the latter can open pathways for upskilling, product and process innovation and cross sector employment.

Through the ecosystem level case approach, multiple stakeholder perspectives provide triangulated insights into advanced manufacturer's education, skills and training strategies, uncovering four learning principles that underpin the approach of manufacturers successfully transitioning to Industry 4.0. The findings have practical implications for policy makers and industry bodies supporting the transition to advanced manufacturing and provide manufacturing managers with insights into successful education and skill strategies that can be adapted to specific organisational needs.

Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are routinely offered in organizational policy, yet employee access to FWAs is highly dependent upon support from their immediate supervisor. There is little empirical research that specifically investigates the role of the human resource function (HR) in supporting managers to implement FWA policy. Through the lens of HR systems theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how HR supports managers to implement FWAs.

Using a case study in the Australian Insurance industry, this paper analyzes corporate documents and interviews with 47 managers, supervisors and HR staff across four diverse business units.

This study identifies supervisors’ perceived ability to implement FWAs as a potential barrier to utilization. Five mechanisms of HR support to overcome perceived barriers are identified in the data. An HR system that enables managers to support FWAs requires alignment of HR policies; the provision of supportive technology; an HR structure that facilitates proactive advice and support; HR business partners with influence; and managerial training on FWAs.

This paper provides HR practitioners with insights into the mechanisms that can support managers to implement FWAs or other devolved HR policies.

Applying HR systems theory, this case study utilizes the perspectives of senior managers, supervisors and HR staff to explain how the HR function supports or constrains managers in the effective implementation of FWAs.

Children's social services in England and Wales deal with a wide range of referrals of children who are or may be ‘in need’. Finding ways of describing the issues that present in such referrals is important if we wish to understand the nature of the work of children's services and explore different interventions and outcomes. Yet there have been few attempts to describe the full range of needs presenting to social services, and no studies of the reliability or validity of attempts to define the types of need. In this article the legal definitions of need, a typology developed by Sinclair et al, a related one used by the Department of Health and one developed within the current study were compared for reliability and construct validity. There were two main findings. First, it was found that while the presence of needs could generally be agreed on in all the schemes, ascriptions of a ‘main’ need were not made reliably. This is important because a ‘main’ need has been used in both research and statistical returns to government. Second, while existing schemes appeared well suited to describing allocated cases, they were less able to describe the range of needs presenting in all referrals to social services.

This qualitative research explores the relationship between religiosity, suicide thoughts and drug abuse among 55 homeless people, interviewed with interpretative phenomenological analysis. Analyzing the thematic structure of the participants' narrations, important main themes appeared in order to avoid suicide, among which family, the certainty of finding a solution and the will to live. However, the suicide ideation inheres in about 30% of participants, almost all believers, addicted and/or alcoholics. Results suggest that religiosity and meaning of death neither prevent from substances abuse and alcoholism, nor is a protective factor against suicide ideation. Meanings of life are the most important reasons for living, and when they are definitively considered unworkable, alcohol and drug help to endure life in the street. A specific model is discussed.

Childbearing via in vitro fertilization (IVF) was taboo for a long time in the Philippines despite being available in the Philippines since 1996 and the signing of the Republic Health Law back in 2013 (Dupont, 2013). In this chapter, the author examines how IVF is imagined, presented, and accepted in the Philippine context by looking at selected case studies of Filipino influencers who opted to bear children via IVF. The author explores these through analyses of selected YouTube videos and Facebook posts through the lens of visibility labor which refers to the activities done by influencers to “the work enacted to flexibly demonstrate gradients of self-conspicuousness in digital or physical spaces depending on intention or circumstance for favourable ends” (Abidin, 2016). The author also examines the comments sections of these selected videos and posts through web scraping to get a glimpse of the reception to the journeys and struggles of these public figures. The author argues that through the visibility labor of influencers, the phenomenon of childbearing via IVF is not only promoted as a viable, if not acceptable procreative process, but also perpetuated as an in/accessible procedure in the Philippines.

Vietnam is a land that has seen turbulent past and has faced huge damage as being a land for proxy war between the USA and the USSR, but yet it has risen and liberated itself out by adapting renovation or Doi-Moi as it is formally called in Vietnam. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the major impact of trade liberalization and trade integration on the Vietnamese economy. Through this chapter we have tried to bring out the changes that took place in the Vietnamese economy post liberalization. The structural change that took place in the Vietnamese economy due to liberalization is analyzed in this chapter. We have used paired sample T-test and Chow Test (F-Test) to observe the change as Vietnam joined the WTO. The effect that the various policy and FTA that Vietnam had after joining the WTO will be analyzed through this chapter.

Aerospace is a demanding technological and industrial sector. Several regulations and policies via innovative digital transformation have been integrated to impact production systems and supply chains, including safety measures. Studies demonstrated that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies could enhance productivity growth and safety measures. The 4IR role in influencing airlines’ growth is yet to receive in-depth studies in South Africa. Thus, this study aims to investigate the role of 4IR technologies in influencing airlines’ growth in South Africa.

This research used a qualitative research method. Primary data were compiled via 56 face-to-face semi-structured interviews with major stakeholders. The study achieved saturation. A thematic method was used to analyse the collected data.

Findings reveal the nine major factors influencing South African airlines’ growth in the 4IR era. This includes investment in ergonomics applications and research, governance is driven by 4IR, collaboration and incorporation of 4IR concepts, partnership with drone technology and high precision and efficiency with 4IR. Others are reskilling and upskilling, investment in 4IR software, policies to promote 4IR usage in the industry and policies to reduce human interface.

Understanding the relative significance of 4IR technologies’ role in airlines’ growth can assist critical stakeholders in promoting innovative policies and regulations tailored towards digitalised aerospace. Thus, the study contributes to strategies to improve digital innovation, airline growth and safety as components of the air travel demands in South Africa.

Coatings science represents one of the best examples available of the importance of an interdisciplinary approach. The organic chemist must provide polymers, solvents, and many of the additives used in paint formulation. The organic chemist also must provide some of the pigments. The inorganic chemist must also provide pigments and extenders. How these components come together to form a paint and how that paint may be successfully applied to a surface is the realm of the physical chemist. The metallurgist is very much involved in making receptive the metal surfaces onto which coatings are placed. The cellulose chemist similarly has a contribution to make where wooded substrates are involved. The physicist is involved in the colour considerations associated with coatings, and one would be remiss to omit from this list, which admittedly is not complete, the empiricist. Many of the observations on which paint technology is based have been made empirically and to this day are without complete scientific basis. It is for this reason if for no other that scientific studies in the paint industry are extremely important.