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University–industry collaborations are an important driver of innovation that highlights the benefits of collaborative processes across organizational boundaries. However, like in most collaborative processes, many challenges remain when trying to manage the process of knowledge sharing and interaction in university–industry partnerships. In this chapter, the authors specifically investigate how leadership as a managerial dimension facilitates collaboration within university–industry joint laboratories. The authors present an explorative and inductive case study of eight joint laboratories set up by Telecom Italia within five major Italian universities. The results show that the laboratory directors play a crucial role in providing a dynamic and socially active working environment, which is enabled through a process of sensemaking and sensegiving. The authors, moreover, find that this process plays a crucial role by shaping effective communication channels that facilitate knowledge sharing and transfer of information. The authors find that this process ultimately acts as a mediator between charismatic leadership on the individual level and distributed leadership on the collective level.

Digital technologies provide an opportunity for the rail sector to achieve social, economic and environmental sustainability, if implemented correctly. Unlocking the full potential of technology, however, will require significant changes beyond the technological. Physical assets will need to link with digital assets, making best use of data, simulation and modelling. Transformational leadership informed by systems engineering will be necessary to deliver the change process required to innovate across the whole railway life cycle. Each of these digital railway elements – technology, data, simulation, transformational leadership and systems engineering – presents challenges to be overcome. The authors believe that by instilling core values alongside technical expertise, by being open, resilient, responsive, customer-centric and valuing people, the digital railway has the power to transform the sector. It will enable improved railway processes; safer, faster and more reliable trains; better customer experience; cost-effectiveness; and reduced carbon emissions and more. The digital railway will not just realise the current vision but form the foundation for a sustainable railway to meet changing mobility needs well beyond 2050.

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a nonparametric mathematical programming technique used to measure the relative efficiency of the production organization's operations. This paper presents the theoretical measures of the railway systems, along with the bootstrap DEA analysis. A DEA model is applied to evaluate the relative efficiency of railway operations of 29 UIC (Union Internationale des Chemins de fer) countries, based on the data obtained from the International UIC publications. The bootstrap DEA analysis provides information (bias estimates) on the sensitivity of the DEA efficiency index to the sampling variations. The model results are analyzed and evaluated in terms of their relative operational performance efficiency. The model results facilitate an organization's decision-making by providing valuable information.

Of the three ‘pillars of sustainability’, railways’ initial focus was on the economic pillar, having been developed in the nineteenth century to enable economic development and having struggled in the mid-twentieth century to maintain their economic sustainability in the face of competition from road and air transport. From the 1960s onwards, increased focus on and concern about social and environmental sustainability, together with rail’s comparatively high capacity and low environmental impact, has led to renewed interest in the role of rail in passenger and freight transport. Providing the necessary railway system capacity to enable a significant modal shift from air and (especially) road transport requires major investment, and there is a trade-off between the economic sustainability of these investments and the resulting social and environmental sustainability benefits. However, the railways should also benefit from the increased revenue resulting from improved services and could be supported by additional financial incentives to encourage modal shift. Similarly, there are different philosophies of and approaches to timetable planning and development, ranging from making the most economically sustainable use of resources to the provision of high-frequency, integrated ‘clockface’ timetables, providing passengers and freight users with an attractive range of travel and transport opportunities. Future sustainability, capacity, timetabling and other aspirations are set out in the Rail Safety and Standards Board’s Operational Philosophy for the GB Mainline Railway: these aspirations were developed in the context of Britain’s heavy rail system but are also more generally applicable.

High-speed rail, as a distinct subset of rail systems, has been in operation since 1964, first introduced in Japan and subsequently adopted widely in heavily populated countries across Europe and Asia with plans in place to extend to America and Australia. Development of technologies has been continuous such that maximum speed in service operation has safely increased from 210 to 350 km/h with further advances to come in the next decade. Its economic and social effect through reducing journey time between cities while also offering very high capacity, reliability and safety with a low-carbon footprint means it is no longer considered by sponsoring governments on its merits as a transport system but rather as part of a wider set of strategic policies around housing settlement and employment. Analysis techniques continue to be developed to estimate true benefits alongside construction, environmental impact and operational costs.

As researchers and analysts apply the theory of institutional logics to higher education, they may choose from a variety of methods and analytical techniques by which to proceed. This chapter focuses on qualitative document analysis as one helpful approach to capturing logics–organising principles and underlying theories of action–in colleges and universities. It builds on the recent call to mobilise the institutional logics perspective for higher education research by offering a conceptual framework for qualitative document analysis, and an example of analytical and coding procedures applied to documentary materials on financing and resourcing strategies of US public research universities. The chapter concludes with implications for theory as gleaned from using this method, such as its value in probing emergent combinations of multiple logics in contexts of institutional complexity, and addresses broader methodological considerations to support future work in this arena.

We propose a local linear functional coefficient estimator that admits a mix of discrete and continuous data for stationary time series. Under weak conditions our estimator is asymptotically normally distributed. A small set of simulation studies is carried out to illustrate the finite sample performance of our estimator. As an application, we estimate a wage determination function that explicitly allows the return to education to depend on other variables. We find evidence of the complex interacting patterns among the regressors in the wage equation, such as increasing returns to education when experience is very low, high return to education for workers with several years of experience, and diminishing returns to education when experience is high. Compared with the commonly used parametric and semiparametric methods, our estimator performs better in both goodness-of-fit and in yielding economically interesting interpretation.

The railway track system is the platform by which loads from moving trains are transferred to the underlying soil or supporting infrastructure such as bridges. The most common type of railway track system is ballasted track, which has been in use for over a century. Ballasted track has proved versatile. It can be constructed using locally available materials and with modifications to the rails and sleepers, crossings transferring trains from one route to another can be created. The structure of a ballasted track system consists of two main parts. The upper portion, termed the superstructure, comprises the rails, fastenings and sleepers. It is formed of components whose shape, stiffness and strength are designed and closely controlled. Below the superstructure is the substructure, which comprises the ballast and sub-ballast. Although the materials used in the substructure may have been specified, their engineering properties and geometric placement are less well controlled. In this chapter, we will explore how a typical ballasted track system transfers load to the ground and the ways in which the track form deteriorates, requiring maintenance and eventually renewal.

We examine how Emotional and Social Competence (ESC) data measures how well a leader positively attracts or repels others. It is believed that leaders with high emotional and social competence are more skilled at building positive interpersonal relationships with their employees and translates to increased employee engagement.

Individuals denoted as leaders in their respective organizations took a 66-question self-reported survey (ESC) that measured their current emotional and social competency levels. Direct reports of these leaders took a 62-question self-reported assessment that measured constructs of employee engagement. The leaders then commenced participation in a program (PDT) that focused on building their emotional and social competency levels. After completing the program (PDT) both the leaders and their direct reports retook their respective surveys and the scores were compared to the pre-program (PDT) results.

Results indicate that ESC scores increased by 8.21%, with a similar increase in employee engagement of 5.62%. Another key finding was how quickly the group bonded during the first two meetings.

As corporations move from a hierarchical to a self-managed team organizational structure, this program provides an evidence-based model of how to increase the ESC scores of leaders, leading to an increase in employee engagement and retention. The process-designed methodology incorporates a “use inspired” research framework, offering applications to study the impact of a leader’s emotional social competence on employees feeling a higher sense of membership, empowerment, and purpose.