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Economic models based on simple rules can result in complex and unpredictable deterministic dynamics with emergent features similar to those of actual economies. I present several such models ranging from cellular automaton and register machines to quantum computation. The additional benefit of such models is displayed by extending them to model political entanglement to determine the impact of allowing majority redistributive voting. In general, the insights obtained from simulating the computations of simple rules can serve as an additional way to study economics, complementing equilibrium, literary, experimental, and empirical approaches. I culminate by presenting a minimal model of economic complexity that generates complex economic growth and diminishing poverty without any parameter fitting, and which, when modified to incorporate political entanglement, generates volatile stagnation and greater poverty.

Purpose – This chapter contributes to the growing debate on the diffusion of managerialist modes of thinking across third-sector organisations. It offers an analysis into the power dynamics at play in the emergence of hybrid management systems (HMSs) by looking at the management practices in non-profit organisations (NPOs) active in combating HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

Design/methodology/approach – In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with donor organisations and big non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based in the Northern hemisphere, and with managers and team leaders in South African NGOs. Taking a postcolonial perspective, the HMSs resulting from the encounter at the ‘glocal’ interface are investigated.

Findings – The data indicate that the power dynamics shaping the process of hybridisation work through three intertwined circuits of power: the managerialist discourse, the ‘rules of practice’ emanating from that discourse and episodic power relations at the level of interactions.

Research limitations/implications – As is the case with most qualitative research, care must be taken in generalising the findings of this research beyond the organisations participating in this study. At a theoretical level, the implications of this chapter are its contributions to three sets of literature that rarely interact: NPO management, international and cross-cultural management (ICCM) and critical management studies (CMS). At the level of organisational praxis, the findings have potential impact in terms of developing innovative ways of managing NPOs.

Originality/value – The originality and value of this chapter lies in its application of postcolonial theory to understanding hybridisation processes shaping management ideas and practices in South African NPOs.

This chapter offers a theoretical appraisal of our contemporary hyper-regulated urban spaces situated against a backdrop of deindustrialisation, the shift to consumer economies and the rise of the creative city paradigm. While existing work has characterised urban space as dead and asocial spaces bereft of life. This chapter opts to think our city centres as ‘Zombie Cities’: cities which have been eviscerated the social but are forced to wear the exterior signs of life through the injection of economically productive but artificial modes of culture and creativity. This sets the stage for explaining why parkour is inconsistently included and excluded from urban space, and how it attains spatio-economically contingent legitimacy and inclusion into urban space that problematises existing theoretical perspectives around a revanchist urbanism.

Michael Holquist (1990), one of the commentators on Mikhail Bakhtin’s monumental work, stated flatly that “human existence is dialogue,” and Ivana Markova (2003) declared that “dialogism is the ontology of humanity.” Bakhtin (1985;1986) himself said that such dialogues are conducted by using “speech genres.” From another angle Kenneth Burke asked, “What is involved when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it?” and claimed – and showed – that this question can be best answered by using what he called the “grammar of motives,” which consisted of a hexad of terms: act, attitude, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. In this chapter, I examine, by using various examples, how the Burkean grammar is used in the construction of one speech genre or the other to achieve rhetorically effective dialogic communication.

This chapter engages with the performativity discourse in CMS that seeks to impact practice for social transformation. It seeks to draw attention to the implicit assumption of ‘scale’ as a causal mechanism in social transformation.

This essay is primarily conceptual and theoretical. However it uses two real life social organizations from India as an illustration for the basic assumptions and the argument. It draws upon institutional theory and William Wimsatt’s work on ontology of complex systems, causation and robustness to make its arguments.

The essay argues that large size and scale does not necessarily mean greater social transformation for the good. Drawing upon Wimsatt’s work, it argues that system level causal mechanisms are not necessarily limited to aggregative, additive effects the way a scale-based argument would have us believe. In fact such systemic interactions would be unpredictable. Therefore when CMS as a community of scholars looks at difficulty in scaling up of successful endeavours as a weakness it might hamper egalitarian social transformation in more ways than one. It delays and/or closes opportunities for new ways, risks reproducing ills of existing large scale systems and creating oppressive universals. It suggests that for a pluriversal world a more phenomenological understanding of local transformative efforts is needed for the CMS community.

This chapter provides a novel and sound theoretical basis for eschewing size and scale as indispensible for fostering social transformation.

Purpose – Appreciating the continuing relevance and contribution of Theodor W. Adorno's work requires acknowledgement of the difficulty to grasp his philosophy in a way that is consistent with that which is to be understood, as the necessary first step to achieving concordant understanding.

Design/methodology/approach – To assay an understanding of Adorno's quest for the object beyond the concept, it is best to undertake a journey through the complexity of his thinking, beginning with the book he wrote with Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Findings – The difficulty to capture the substance of philosophy in a manner that allows for representation arises from the inherently processual character of philosophy, which is always both unfinished and without secure summation of report at any step along the way. Indeed, the difficulty is all the greater with respect to Adorno, in light of his postulate that philosophy “must strive, by means of the concept, to transcend the concept.”

Research limitations/implications – Adorno's obsession to overcome the compulsion of identity made him perceptive and blind at the same time. To liberate his insights from their reconciliatory-philosophical shroud, one would have to expose the concept of rationality to the same obsessive gaze under which false generalities dissolve in Adorno's philosophy.

Originality/value – The inherently processual character of Adorno's philosophy makes his writings especially germane to present conditions of modern society, as they highlight the importance of efforts to develop theories that are sufficiently sensitive to the dynamic character of modern society, including its inconsistencies and its contradictions.

The cultural imperative for public buildings in countries like Australia to maintain their intrinsic “openness” – physically and symbolically – faces particular challenges in the context of current global terrorism concerns. Building regulations and counter-terrorism guidelines coexist uneasily, with implications for both public amenity and safety. This is particularly evident in the context of current approaches to hostile vehicle (HV) mitigation.

Based on a review of comparative literature, this multidisciplinary project assimilates design aesthetics and security expertise to assess the advantages and limitations of current counter-terrorism design approaches in Australia, the UK and the USA. The research focusses on public buildings of high cultural symbolic value (e.g. concert halls) in the context of HV mitigation.

Two key recommendations emerge. The first presents the benefits of adopting a layered security strategy tailored to a building's security and symbolic profile mix. The second proposes enhancements to the existing counter-terrorism guidelines based on a model that accounts for both symbolic value and openness.

The research presents new strategies for urban design and security stakeholders to balance openness and security in the design of publicly accessible buildings. While existing research addresses the challenges of terrorism in the design of public space, a literature (and practice) gap exists in Australia, the UK and the USA regarding current approaches to the design of public buildings. Using Australia as a case study, the findings will inform government and industry practitioners seeking more complementary approaches to public amenity and safety in comparable counter-security design contexts globally.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a contactless and batteryless loading sensor system that can measure the internal loading of an object structure through several covering materials for structural health monitoring.

The paper proposed an architecture by which two radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are used in the system. It has been difficult to realize sensing by RFID because of the low power supply. To solve the power supply problem, a method using functional distribution of RFID tags of two kinds of RFID for communication and power supply was proposed. One RFID tag is specialized as a power supply for communication of strain loading information through A/D conversion. Another is specialized to supply power for driving the strain gauges bridge circuit.

By using developed system, the measurement of the structural internal loading with 20.0 mm depth was possible through covering materials such as concrete, but also plaster board, flexible boards, silicate calcium board, blockboard, and polystyrene with a resolution performance from 10 × 10⁻⁶ to 40 × 10⁻⁶.

A sensor system was developed using passive RFID, which enables measurement of load‐deformation information inside a structural object. Moreover, the inexpensive wireless, batteryless devices used in this system require little maintenance, and applications for the user interface are also included in the developed system for uniform management of structural health monitoring. The developed system was evaluated in an actual situation using not only concrete but also other materials as covering materials on a structural object.

The purpose of this study is to explore the virtual space of the library and how it is part of the library building and many spaces offered. It inspects as well the work of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ section related to library buildings and equipment libraries can play if they are able to provide remote users education, which can help in fighting illiteracy and promote digital literacy.

The study adopted a structuralist approach from linguistics, sociology and anthropology to decorticate the concept of space. It favoured the literature review method, which was the most adequate approach for multidisciplinary results.

The study results indicate that the library virtual space became equally important as its physical spaces for our modern world and development. The significance of the virtual spaces is similar nowadays to the physical spaces of libraries as they allow for social integration and self-recognition.

The value of this study is uniquely exhaustive, as it highlights the value and significance of the library virtual space in the contemporary world, in comparison with the library physical spaces.