Search results

This paper aims to examine how collaborative supplier development (SD) activities, supplier capabilities and buyer–supplier relationship interrelate in technology-based, luxury product business contexts characterized by small volumes, difficult targets and resource constraints relative to those targets.

Using inductive case research method, the authors investigate multiple embedded cases involving six dyadic buyer–supplier relationships of two luxury product manufacturers in the motorcycle and automotive industries. Each dyad represents an important sub-system for which the buying firm committed significant SD efforts to help the supplier successfully achieve difficult targets.

The analysis reveals how paradoxical tensions might emerge as the firms engage in successful SD activities, which could lead to decreasing relationship commitment ultimately resulting in the termination of the relationship. The authors utilize the “value co-creation and value capture” paradox framework to understand the SD and relationship dynamic and characterize it as developing-leveraging paradox to explain its dualities, i.e. commitment-based SD efforts (increasing value co-creation), and unilateral leveraging of the newly acquired capabilities (increasing value capture) by both the buyer and the supplier. Overemphasis on value capture by one of the exchange partners spurs a detrimental vicious cycle leading to the decline of the relationship.

The study explains the paradoxical dynamics that may emerge in SD activities of innovative, technologically complex, luxury product firms. The findings contribute to the SD literature by highlighting how learnings from SD activities could contribute to the dark sides of buyer–supplier relationship. The technologically complex, luxury product contextual characteristics of the study may limit the generalizability of the study findings.

The study provides novel insights into the emergence and management of paradoxes in buyer–supplier relationships, in terms of virtuous and vicious dynamics of developing-leveraging.

This research aims to present a novel cooperative control architecture designed specifically for roads with variations in height and curvature. The primary objective is to enhance the longitudinal and lateral tracking accuracy of the vehicle.

In addressing the challenges posed by time-varying road information and vehicle dynamics parameters, a combination of model predictive control (MPC) and active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is employed in this study. A coupled controller based on the authors’ model was developed by utilizing the capabilities of MPC and ADRC. Emphasis is placed on the ramifications of road undulations and changes in curvature concerning control effectiveness. Recognizing these factors as disturbances, measures are taken to offset their influences within the system. Load transfer due to variations in road parameters has been considered and integrated into the design of the authors’ synergistic architecture.

The framework's efficacy is validated through hardware-in-the-loop simulation. Experimental results show that the integrated controller is more robust than conventional MPC and PID controllers. Consequently, the integrated controller improves the vehicle's driving stability and safety.

The proposed coupled control strategy notably enhances vehicle stability and reduces slip concerns. A tailored model is introduced integrating a control strategy based on MPC and ADRC which takes into account vertical and longitudinal force variations and allowing it to effectively cope with complex scenarios and multifaceted constraints problems.

This performance autoethnography may or may not be interpreted as a continuation of a conversation regarding the experiences of those with devalued statuses in academic settings. The authors rely on “strange accounting” to consider their experiences in the academy from various standpoints: before and after promotion, before and after leaving academia. While reflecting on our past experiences, we introduce the concept of “everyday precariousness” as a way of explaining the normalization of instability, insecurity, and negative affect that is part of everyday life for those with devalued statuses in academic settings and beyond. Everyday precariousness is an embodied experience for those in vulnerable positions. Normalized exposure to risks, such as discrimination, harassment, bullying, or structural instability, produces an undercurrent of threat that permeates academic culture. Our stories of everyday precariousness span race, ethnicity, class, academic roles, and gender boundaries (among many others). Analyzing these experiences furthers previous work on the uses of strange accounting as well as the dynamics of status silencing. In the final analysis, unresisted and unabated, everyday precariousness and status silencing can lead to institutional failure and resonance disasters.

This study aims to achieve optimum flow separation control for a road vehicle using a reverse flow fan on rear side.

A full-length reverse flow fan array (fan’s air speed is 50% of the car’s speed) is attached throughout the width of the vehicle at rear edge corner.

The reverse flow fan array positioned at rear edge of car pushes the airflow against the car’s rear window. It creates the recirculation region and alters the pressure distribution. This reduces the lift coefficient by 150%, which becomes the downforce and reduces the drag coefficient by 22%. As the car speed increases, fan speed should also be increased for effective flow control.

This active flow control method for 3D Ahmed car body has been studied computationally at low speed (40 m/s).

This design increases the downforce, thus gives better cornering speed and stability, and decreases the drag which improves fuel efficiency. It can be used for effective flow control of cars (hatchback/sedan). The findings can be applied to the bluff bodies, road vehicles, UAV and helicopter fuselage for flow separation control.

The fan array is attached on car’s rear side, which blows air against the car’s rear window. It alters the pressure distribution and aerodynamics forces favorably. But the existing high-speed fan used in a sports cars sucks the air from bottom and pushes it rearward, which increases both the traction force and drag.

Although special education was built upon the foundation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the discrimination that many racialized students receiving special education services experience cannot be denied. Many culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students receiving special education services encounter labels that perpetuate racism and ableism and lead to inequitable access to services and resources necessary for more positive postsecondary outcomes. By honoring intersectionality and dismantling the singular identity, educators can become change agents and shift the historic oppressive narrative to create a system of empowerment as these individuals transition from transitional kindergarten to age 21 special education programs (TK-21) schools into adulthood.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Asian Americans' perceptions of the police, specifically how they construct support. Although such literature has been growing in recent years, research on Asian American interactions with the police remains limited. Additionally, this paper is situated within the theoretical framework of system justification theory to account for Asian Americans' views of the police.

This study relies on interview data collected from 20 Asian Americans residing in mid-Atlantic states. Participants were either recruited directly by the researchers or through the snowball-sampling method.

Police support is influenced by perception of neighborhood safety, personal police contact and empathetic feelings toward the police. Specifically, regarding the latter component, humanizing or empathizing with police officers is a form of rationalizing individual police misconduct that reinforced police legitimacy. Most participants had similar characteristics and displayed police justification. Additional research is needed regarding what characteristics or patterns are likely to lead to lower levels of police justification.

This article's findings improve our understanding of system justification among Asian Americans, particularly as it relates to policing.

The study adopts an intersectional approach to identify the key dimension(s) that reproduce inequalities in women's subsistence entrepreneurship within urban-poor settings in the global south.

The in-depth case study is based on 44 semi-structured interviews and four focus-group discussions with women entrepreneurs based within urban-poor dwellings in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The authors contribute to the literature by identifying how intersecting socio-class and socioeconomic inequalities, and patriarchal norms of izzat (meaning: honour, respect) and purdah (or veil), perpetuate disadvantage for women entrepreneurs producing and/or selling business goods and services.

The findings challenge the view of entrepreneurship as a meritocratic and neutral activity for social emancipation. The authors argue that multiple social hierarchies and inequalities operate simultaneously, but how these are understood, exercised and reproduce disadvantage for women entrepreneurs, depends on their social class. The authors propose a triple bind of domestic, market and societal inequalities as a heuristic framework for understanding intersecting inequalities, patriarchy and subsistence entrepreneurship in Pakistan, specifically the global south.

The purpose of this study is to propose a precise and standardized strategy for numerically simulating vehicle aerodynamics.

Error sources in computational fluid dynamics were analyzed. Additionally, controllable experiential and discretization errors, which significantly influence the calculated results, are expounded upon. Considering the airflow mechanism around a vehicle, the computational efficiency and accuracy of each solution strategy were compared and analyzed through numerous computational cases. Finally, the most suitable numerical strategy, including the turbulence model, simplified vehicle model, calculation domain, boundary conditions, grids and discretization scheme, was identified. Two simplified vehicle models were introduced, and relevant wind tunnel tests were performed to validate the selected strategy.

Errors in vehicle computational aerodynamics mainly stem from the unreasonable simplification of the vehicle model, calculation domain, definite solution conditions, grid strategy and discretization schemes. Using the proposed standardized numerical strategy, the simulated steady and transient aerodynamic characteristics agreed well with the experimental results.

Building upon the modified Low-Reynolds Number k-e model and Scale Adaptive Simulation model, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, a precise and standardized numerical simulation strategy for vehicle aerodynamics is proposed for the first time, which can be integrated into vehicle research and design.

This study investigates the extent to which a firm’s centrality and autonomy in its supply network are associated with the intensity and complexity of its competitive actions.

Utilizing social network analysis and dynamic panel data models, this study analyzes a comprehensive panel dataset with 10,802 firm-year observations across various industries between 2011 and 2018 to test the hypotheses.

Our findings show that a firm’s level of centrality in its supply network has an inverted U-shaped relationship with both competitive intensity and competitive complexity. In addition, the turning points of these two inverted U-shaped relationships differ in that firms with a lower level of centrality tend to compete aggressively by launching more actions within fewer categories, while firms with a higher level of centrality tend to compete aggressively by launching fewer actions that cover a larger range of categories. Finally, we find that a firm’s structural autonomy has a positive relationship with competitive complexity.

This study bridges the gap between the supply chain management literature and strategic management literature and investigates how supply networks shape competitive aggressiveness. In particular, this research investigates how a firm’s structural position in its supply network affects its competitive actions, an important intermediate mechanism for competitive advantage that has been overlooked in the supply chain management literature.