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The purpose of this paper is to find an optimized thin-film amorphous silicon solar cell design by numerically optimizing the light trapping efficiency of a pyramid-structured back-reflector using a frequency-domain finite element Maxwell solver. For this purpose short circuit current densities and absorption spectra within the investigated solar cell model are systematically analyzed. Furthermore, the authors employ a topology simulation method to accurately predict the material layer interfaces within the investigated solar cell model. The method simulates the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process that is typically used to fabricate thin-film solar cells by combining a ballistic transport and reaction model (BTRM) with a level-set method in an iterative approach. Predicted solar cell models are far more realistic compared to solar cell models created assuming conformal material growth. The purpose of the topology simulation method is to increase the accuracy of thin-film solar cell models in order to facilitate highly accurate simulation results in solar cell design optimizations.

The authors perform numeric optimizations using a frequency domain finite element Maxwell solver. Topology simulations are carried out using a BTRM combined with a level-set method in an iterative fashion.

The simulation results reveal that the employed pyramid structured back-reflectors effectively increase the light path in the absorber mainly by exciting photonic waveguide modes. In using the optimization approach, the authors have identified solar cell models with cell periodicities around 480 nm and pyramid base widths around 450 nm to yield the highest short circuit current densities. Compared to equivalent solar cell models with flat back-reflectors, computed short circuit current densities are significantly increased. Furthermore, the paper finds that the solar cell models computed using the topology simulation approach represent a far more realistic approximation to a real solar cell stack compared to solar cell models computed by a conformal material growth assumption.

So far in the topology simulation approach the authors assume CVD as the material deposition process for all material layers. However, during the fabrication process sputtering (i.e. physical vapor deposition) will be employed for the Al:ZnO and ITO layers. In the framework of this ongoing research project the authors will extend the topology simulation approach to take the different material deposition processes into account. The differences in predicted material interfaces will presumably be only minor compared to the results shown here and certainly be insignificant relative to the differences the authors observe for solar cell models computed assuming conformal material growth.

The authors systematically investigate and optimize the light trapping efficiency of a pyramid nano-structured back-reflector using rigorous electromagnetic field computations with a 3D finite element Maxwell solver. To the authors’ knowledge such an investigation has not been carried out yet in the solar cell research literature. The topology simulation approach (to the best of the authors’ knowledge) has previously not been applied to the modelling of solar cells. Typically a conformal layer growth assumption is used instead.

As service robots increasingly interact with customers at the service encounter, they will inevitably become an integral part of employee's work environment. This research investigates frontline employee's perceptions of collaborative service robots (CSR) and introduces a new framework, willingness to collaborate (WTC), to better understand employee–robot interactions in the workplace.

Drawing on appraisal theory, this study employed an exploratory research approach to investigate frontline employees' cognitive appraisal of service robots and their WTC with their nonhuman counterparts in service contexts. Data collection consisted of 36 qualitative problem-centered interviews. Following an iterative thematic analysis, the authors introduce a research framework of frontline employees' WTC with service robots.

First, this study demonstrates that the interaction between frontline employees and service robots is a multistage appraisal process based on adoption-related perceptions. Second, it identifies important attributes across three categories (employee, robot and job attributes) that provide a foundation to understand the appraisal of CSRs. Third, it presents four employee personas (supporter, embracer, resister and saboteur) that provide a differentiated perspective of how service employee–robot collaboration may differ.

The article identifies important factors that enable and restrict frontline service employees' (FSEs’) WTC with robots.

This is the first paper that investigates the appraisal of CSRs from the perspective of frontline employees. The research contributes to the limited research on human–robot collaboration and expands existing technology acceptance models that fall short to explain post-adoptive coping behavior of service employees in response to service robots in the workplace.

This study aims to investigate how and to what extent structural network properties affect dyadic negotiation behavior in tourism destination ecosystems. Specifically, this study addresses negotiation behavior in terms of problem-solving and contending, because these two key strategies reflect the integrative and distributive aspects of dyadic interactions.

This study relies on network data and dyadic survey data from nine mountain tourism destinations in Southeastern Norway. The structural network properties the authors research are triadic closure – the extent to which a dyad has common ties to other actors – and structural equivalence – the similarities in networking patterns that capture firms’ competition for similar resources. In addition, the authors also study a possible effect of relationship duration on negotiation behavior.

Triadic closure and relationship duration have positive effects on problem-solving, and structural equivalence tends to decrease problem-solving, although the effect is inconsistent; none of these three independent variables was found to affect contending negotiation behavior.

This study shows that a dyad’s structural network embeddedness has implications for negotiation behavior. Further research is encouraged to develop this theoretical perspective.

This study is a pioneering investigation of how structural network properties affect dyadic negotiation behavior in ongoing coproducing relationships in real-world destination ecosystems.

The purpose of this paper is to understand communication strategies formed by multinational subsidiaries in a transition economy during disruptive events. The authors develop and test a framework based on political realism and situational crisis communication theory (SCCT).

The authors collect and analyze communication statements from multinational subsidiaries located in Russia and made in the first two months (March–April, 2022) of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

This study’s main findings are twofold. First, this study extends SCCT by showing that multinational subsidiaries use communication strategies that go beyond the traditional categories of diminish, rebuild and bolster. In particular, this study identifies so-called “shut the door” and “burning bridges” methods as possible industrial and home country contingent communication strategies. Second, this study shows that possession of a political realism lens provides us with powerful communication strategies made requisite during disruptive events.

The results provide practical hands-on advice for subsidiary managers on how to communicate effectively and efficiently during disruptive events such as the one described. This study offers novel communication strategies that help to understand the wider implications for managers in both home and host countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first papers to apply SCCT and political realism to a current disruptive event for multinational enterprises, i.e. the ongoing Russia–Ukraine conflict. In that context, this study expands both perspectives by highlighting their complementarities and their conceptual boundaries. The authors can base those insights on two unique and purpose-built databases of multinational subsidiary characteristics in Russia-proper.

This study aims to develop a specialized and economically feasible educational model using a combination of conventional approach and additive technology with a precision that proves to be sufficient for educational use. With the use of computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing models in educational stages, the possibility of infectious diseases transmission can be significantly reduced.

The proposed process involves the planning and development of specialized anatomical three-dimensional (3D) models and associated structures using omnipresent additive technologies. A short survey was conducted among dental students about their knowledge of applying additive technologies in dental medicine and their desire to implement such technologies into existing curricula.

The results revealed how an educational 3D model can be developed by optimizing the mesh parameters to reduce the total number of elements while maintaining the quality of the geometric structure. The survey results demonstrated that the willingness to adapt to new technologies is increasing (p < 0.001) among students with a higher level of education. A series of recent studies have indicated that the lack of knowledge and the current skill gap remain the most significant barriers to the wider adoption of additive manufacturing.

An economically feasible, realistic anatomical educational model in the field of dental medicine was established. Additive technology is a key pillar of new specialized-knowledge digital skills for the enhancement of dental training.

The novelty of this study is the introduction of a 3D technology for promoting an economically feasible model, without compromising the quality of dental education.

The main objective of this paper is to shed light on the confusion of terminologies related to open innovation through the development of an open innovation taxonomy. By analyzing published case studies using numerical taxonomy methods, it proposes a taxonomic classification of open innovation.

Earlier work on firm collaboration and concepts related to open innovation in order to understand the main motivations, and conditions behind open innovation‐like strategies is first to be reviewed in this paper. It then proceeds to collect and systematically analyze 20 published case studies, and using numerical taxonomy methods it produces a taxonomic classification of open innovation. As a first approach to taxonomy on open innovation strategies, the UPGMA methodology used seems very promising. The taxonomy of open innovation developed here can also be used as a decision‐making tool through the comparison of open innovation strategies inherent in the taxonomy.

Through the numerical taxonomy analysis the paper has been able to objectively create groups of similar cases, and strategies therein. This paper is able to draw some interesting conclusions by identifying two general strategies of collaboration ‐ a free revealing “democratic” strategy and a formal collaboration strategy. The first involves a proliferation of partners whose technical and creative skills are specific to the industry and the source of knowledge, and where the degree of interaction plays an important role. The second broad strategy of cooperation is linked to more formal collaboration, generally firm‐firm collaboration; in this group a large focus on markets features, especially technological intensity, was found.

This paper adds objectivity to the research of different open innovation strategies by using a method developed in the natural sciences. Based on a systematic review of literature, the paper was able to identify key characters describing features and come up with a taxonomy of open innovation, which goes a significant way towards making sense of the plethora of terminology related to open innovation. Key features of different open innovation strategies are also revealed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how the usage of regulatory fit in cost reduction announcements affects employees’ willingness to engage in the cost reduction program (CRP).

Based on the regulatory fit theory, a scenario-based experiment was conducted (n = 517) to investigate the effect of promotion- or prevention-oriented framing of the CRP on the acceptance and the motivation to actively contribute to the CRP using multiple ANOVAs.

The study results point out that the framing of the cost announcement messages should use feelings or emotions and ensure gains for promotion-focused employees to decrease the negative effects of regulatory nonfit. However, in the case of prevention-focused employees, facts and reasons should be used in combination with an assertion of nonlosses in the announcement message to prevent regulatory nonfit.

This research deepens the understanding on the decision-influencing role of managerial cost announcements on employee motivation and the impact of different regulatory orientations. By this, the authors enhance the current understanding of how employees can effectively be integrated into CRPs and expand previous research on how regulatory fit theory can be used by organizations dealing with negative events.

The study findings offer several opportunities and implications for managers engaged in corporate communication. More specifically, the study findings provide helpful guidelines for organizations to align their cost reduction announcement with the regulatory focus of their employees to reach regulatory fit and thus enhance employee willingness to participate in the CRP.

Despite the increasing attention of regulatory focus and regulatory fit theory and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to search for combined effects of emotions and facts versus potential gains and ensuring nonlosses, which both were shown to influence outcomes predicted by regulatory fit.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the construction and everyday maintenance of racialized psychological borders in the Greenlandic Police Force reproduce a postcolonial hierarchy of knowledge, where Danish knowledge and perceptions of professionalism are constructed as superior to Greenlandic knowledge and perceptions of professionalism.

The paper is based on an ethnographic study comprising 5 days of observation of a training course for Danish police officers going to Greenland on summer assistance, 13 days of observation of police work in Greenland, 2 days of participatory observation of a leadership development seminar in Greenland, 26 interviews conducted in Denmark and Greenland with both Danish and Greenlandic officers and interventions in Denmark and Greenland.

The racialized borders create strong perceptions of “us” and “them”, which are maintained and reinforced through everyday work practices. The borders have damaging effects on the way police officers collaborate in Greenland and as the borders are maintained through (often implicit) everyday micro-processes, management has difficulty dealing with it. However, the way the racialized borders became visible through this research project created an awareness of – and sparked conversation about – the colonial stereotypes that have constructed and reinforce the borders. This awareness opens up possibilities of collaborative disruption of those borders.

The paper shows how racialized borders limit the way professionalism is understood in the Greenlandic Police Force. But it also shows that, because these borders are socially constructed, they can be contested. Making the implicit everyday discrimination explicit through vignettes, for example, offers the chance to contest and disrupt the colonial hierarchy otherwise deeply embedded in the work practices of the police force.

Thanks to unique access to Greenland’s police force, this paper offers exclusive in-depth insights into current processes of racialization and colonialization in a contemporary colonial relationship.

With the growing importance of services in the overall economy, it is surprising that the notion of service firms investing in systematic and dedicated innovation activities has taken so long to materialize. This is now set to change as service firms undertake the kind of research, design and development disciplines which for more than a century have been mainstays of modern manufacturing.

S&L interviews the well-known former editor of Harvard Business Review Thomas A. Stewart and his co-author, former BloombergBusinessweek.com editor Patricia O’Connell, in their latest book, Woo, Wow and Win: Service Design, Strategy and the Art of Customer Delight (Harper Business, 2016). They believe we are on the cusp of a “design revolution” in services.

The central thesis of their book is that services “should be designed with as much care as products are” and they include service “delivery” in that premise.

Service design principles offer powerful new ways to address the three basic strategy questions: What do we sell? To whom? And how do we win?

Service design helps you understand how to configure a set of activities, behaviors and touchpoints–a journey–that allows you to serve that customer well.