Search results

This paper aims to examine general contractors’ experiences of using off-site manufactured structural framing systems. This engaged a single-case study using a qualitative methodology to identify expected benefits, actual benefits and challenges of such systems.

A single-case study approach evaluated general contractors’ experience of using a manufactured structural framing system. Qualitative data were collated and analyzed from industry domain experts to determine commonalities and thematic thinking.

The study revealed that the reasons behind considering off-site building systems were: accelerating the project schedule, overcoming site constraints and having a better end-product. The top expected benefits were: saving time (schedule), saving cost and improving quality. The top actual observed benefits were: saving erection time, reducing waste generation, reducing project costs, reducing safety risks and improving construction site logistics. The main challenges encountered were: unfamiliarity of different project parties with the off-site framing system, difficulty with reducing the overall project schedule, heavy site logistics and complicated off-site system design and standards requirements. The findings include solutions to overcome the challenges associated with using a manufactured structural system.

This paper was a case study and therefore inherently limited in its generalizability. The study was conducted with general contractors in the mountain-west region of the USA. However, the implications of the study may have a broad application, as contractors across the globe seek to find similar solutions to using off-site or manufactured construction methods.

Construction labor shortages around the world are forcing the construction industry to find creative solutions to meet the demand for their services. Manufactured or off-site construction methods provide a possible solution to that labor shortage. However, builders need to be aware of the immediate challenges and actual benefits of using a manufactured structural framing system.

Manufactured structural framing systems have the potential to impact lean and sustainable practices in construction. Reduced waste, reduced on-site man-power requirements, reduced construction schedules and reduced injuries each improve the lives of construction workers and the communities around these buildings.

An extensive literature review was performed to guide the design of this case study. Much has been written about off-site construction practices, but there is a significant research gap on the topic of structural framing systems. This study contributes to expanding the knowledge of off-site construction and specifically helps researchers and practitioners understand the challenges and benefits of this systematic approach to construction.

Nowadays, residential buildings have become increasingly important due to the growing communities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the behavior of a steel structural framing system that incorporates lightweight load-bearing walls and slabs, and to compare the weight of materials used in cold-formed and hot-finished steel structural systems for affordable housing.

Four types of models consisting of 243 members were simulated. Model 1 is a cold-formed steel structural framing system, while Model 2 is a hot-finished steel structural framing system. Both Models 1 and 2 use lightweight wall panels and lightweight composite slabs. Models 3 and 4 are made with brick walls and precast reinforced concrete systems, respectively. These structures use different wall and slab materials, namely, brick walls and precast reinforced concrete. The analysis includes bending behavior, buckling resistance, shear resistance and torsional rotation analysis.

This study found that using thinner steel sections can increase the deflection value. Meanwhile, increasing member length and the ratio of slenderness will decrease buckling resistance. As the applied load increases, buckling deformation also increases. Furthermore, decreasing shear area causes a reduction in shear resistance. Thicker sections and the use of lightweight materials can decrease the torsional rotation value.

The weight comparison of the steel structures shows that Model 1, which is a cold-formed steel structure with lightweight wall panels and lightweight composite slabs, is the most suitable model due to its lightweight and affordability for housing. This model can also be used as a reference for the optimal design of modular structural framing using cold-formed steel materials in the field of civil engineering and as a promotional tool.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic viability of a new and innovative seismic damage resisting system (SDRS) device by conducting a feasibility study. The SDRS device has been patented and specifically designed to be implemented in multi-storey modular buildings in seismic regions such as New Zealand.

Using a case study approach, two sample modular multi-storey buildings were purposively selected for the study. A cost-comparison analysis was conducted using the SDRS device in the two buildings, by carrying out a measure and price exercise of the construction elements.

The research results showed that the SDRS device is an economically viable option for mitigating seismic damage in modular multi-storey buildings in New Zealand. There is an average of 7.34 per cent of cost reduction when SDRS is used in modular multi-storey buildings when compared to other seismic resistance systems such as base isolation, moment resisting frames and friction damper systems.

The economic viability of the SDRS presents an opportunity for its usage in modular design and construction of multi-storey buildings. SDRS system is also applicable to other building typologies and construction methods. The use of SDRS also aligns with the current national objective to provide more affordable and resilient housing within a limited time; the opportunity is considered significant in New Zealand, including for export and manufacturing.

The confirmation of the SDRS device’s economic feasibility is the original contribution of the authors.

Agency is inherently an institution and involves dynamic socio-cultural processes that facilitate development. This paper is written in three parts. The purpose in Part 1 was to represent agency theory as an institutional theory, and consideration was made of the relationship between development, growth and globalisation. In Part 2, the purpose was to explore development with respect to the political context, explaining in terms of culture under what conditions political groups may come to power. Using political frames intended to define their nature and realities, they seek to attract agents in their political sphere to gain administrative power. In this Part 3, the purpose of this paper is to model, using cybernetic agency theory, the nature of development and reduction to instrumentality.

Development theory is a multidisciplinary field in which research and theories are clustered together and set within an adaptive institutional activity system framework. An adaptive activity system has a plural membership of agents represented by agency. In Parts 1 and 2 of this paper, agency was shown to have an institutional basis. Activity system development was also explained as a process of institutional evolution, and its potential was shown to provide power acquisition in a political landscape by competitive political frames which vie for support in a place of potentially susceptible agents. Here in Part 3, agency theory will be used to model the dynamic relationships between political frames and the agents that they wish to attract by projecting both cognitive and emotional structures, this enabling the anticipation of behaviour.

These relate to the three parts of the paper taken together. Agency is an evolutionary institutional system that can represent socio-political development. A model for political development has been created that identifies the conditions under which formal political groups are able to promote frames of policy to attract support from autonomous agents that constitute the membership of the activity system, and hence gain agency status. On the way to this, it connects Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity to Sorokin’s theory of socio-cultural dynamics and cultural stability. One result is the notion of liquid development, an unstable condition of development in adaptive activity systems. Agency theory can usefully explain detailed changes in agency, the relationships between agency agents, and interactions between agencies, this embracing institutional processes.

The implication of this research is that it will allow empirical methods to be used that potentially enables political outcomes in complex socio-political environments to be anticipated, given additional appropriate measurement criteria.

The synergy of agency and institutional theories to explain the process of development is new, as is its application to the political development process in a political landscape. As part of this synergistic process, it has been shown how Bauman’s concept of liquidity relates to Sorokin’s ideas of socio-cultural change.

A new framing system at Vauxhall Motors' Ellesmere Port factory uses half the robots of other framing systems but offers greater flexibility.

Three levels of learning developed by Gregory Bateson in the tradition of second-order cybernetics have in-part been translated in terms of double-loop and triple-loop learning (TLL), particularly in the tradition of systems thinking. Learning III and TLL have gained less popularity since they deal with less tangible issues regarding virtues of wisdom and justice, respectively. The purpose of this paper is to provide a learning device – the systems thinking in practice (STiP) heuristic – which helps to retrieve the cybernetic concern for wisdom in association with an often forgotten systems concern for real-world power relations.

Using “conversation” as a metaphor the heuristic is introduced based on three orders of conversation. Drawing on ideas of systemic triangulation, another heuristic device – the systemic triangulator – is used to surface issues of power in the three orders of conversation. Some manifestations in using the STiP heuristic for supporting postgraduate systems learning are demonstrated.

Some key complementarities between conventionally opaque cybernetic issues of wisdom and systems issues of power are revealed, and used proactively to explore more effective coaching of STiP.

Cybernetics and systems thinking may benefit from being grounded more in understanding, engaging with, and transforming social realities. The heuristics provide practical experiential and meaningful learning through conversation, and more social premium for the study of cybernetics and systems thinking.

The heuristics – STiP, and the systemic triangulator – provides an innovative cyber-systemic space for learning and action.

This vision article alerts service managers to the potential of cognitive computing to reframe their value propositions. Humans are bounded in three ways: perception, rationality and physicality. Cognitive computing, hardware or software that transcends these three limits, offers many opportunities to improve the performance of service systems, in particular those focused on customer engagement. The intangibility spectrum is presented as a mental model for service managers to consider how to use cognitive computing to support augmenting their value proposition by moving across the spectrum.

Three frameworks are integrated: a five systems framework, a system's impact classification of types of cognitive computing and a tangibility spectrum.

Three examples illustrate the potential value of this integrative approach for service management.

This is the first integration of these frameworks, and two of them are the result of the first author's research.

Roles of academic libraries have recently been regularly discussed among Library and Information Science (LIS) scientists and practitioners. A shift of roles induced by various factors forces academic libraries to reconsider their operational guidelines and plan future scenarios. This article provides an analysis of the framing of roles assumed by academic libraries and identifies key factors and agents that influence the process. Research consisted of an analysis of official strategic documents of Lithuanian state-owned universities that are of great importance to the strategic development of academic libraries and the anchoring of their roles. Applying Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) discourse theory and the concepts of new institutionalism as a theoretical approach, key factors and agents influential to the role of academic libraries were identified. Modernity, market, and quality as three interrelated discourses highlight the proposition that modernity is inseparable from the development of information technologies and infrastructure and that various professional networks in the library environment act as powerful institutional agents. Practices of market law application in universities have influence on the institutional logic of libraries which increasingly relies on the criteria of efficiency and rationality.

The purpose of the paper is to justify the research programme and describe the conclusions.

This paper is a summary of the aims and results of the research published in two special issues of Journal of Management Development. It argues that there are three fundamental issues that must be examined in order to resolve the conundrums of business strategy: the semantics; the structures; and the epistemology and ontology of the subject. To achieve this aim, four papers (Part 1) cover the literature that allows for a research aim to be developed. In the subsequent papers (Part 2), strategic thinking is reframed. An inductive frame is created to develop a model to help small business principals understand the need to think strategically about their business. The proposition that better strategy can be generated if answers are found to quality questions, rather than quality solutions found for poorly posed questions, is examined. A deductive frame of fundamental questions is created based on this concept and finally a reflective frame, which is “critically anti‐management”, provides the mechanism for the inductive and deductive frames to be applied to small business. The methodology is presented by French in “Action research for practising managers” in this issue and this paper is the summary of the research.

A research aim is developed: to examine critically the theory of business strategy and reframe strategic thinking in order to develop and test a viable small business strategic process. Thus, strategic thinking is (critically) reframed and emergence explored beyond the (modernist and postmodernist) “box” of traditional strategic management.

Small business principals have access to an integrated system of strategic frames that have been developed and tested using action research. Consequently the small business principal can be confident that the strategic process has both academic and practitioner credibility.

Parker suggests that little work has been done in the field of strategy in any non‐modernist paradigm. The author believes that this may be one of the early comprehensive studies in this field to utilise both critical theory, in the form of critical management studies, and to apply this epistemology to firms that are considered to be complex self‐adapting systems. The consequence is that there is now a theoretical answer to the problems of both Mintzberg, because there is now a mechanism for emergence, and of Hamel, because there is no longer a gap in the strategy discipline, we have a mechanism for strategy creation.

This chapter explores the evolution of the media framings of a corporate corruption scandal over time. Our analysis focuses on the evolution of media frames used by the English and French Press in the coverage of the corruption scandal involving SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based multinational engineering firm. We reveal how media coverage shifted from balanced and nuanced coverage of a complex phenomenon that facilitated debates on the appropriate consequences of corruption to a selective (re)construction of events to serve partisan agendas when the company’s legal plight was politicized. Our study contributes to the literature on media framings of corporate corruption by highlighting how the politicization of a corporate corruption scandal led to a dual climate of opinion across the English and French Press.