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Social movement scholars have increasingly drawn attention to the process of “bridge building” in social movements – that is, the process by which activists attempt to resolve conflicts stemming from different collective identities. However, most scholars assume that social movements primarily attempt to resolve tensions among activists themselves, and thus that bridge building is a means to other ends rather than a primary goal of social movement activism. In this chapter, I challenge these assumptions through a case study of a “bridging organization” known as Bridge Builders, which sought as its primary goal to “bridge the gap between the LGBT and Christian communities” at a Christian university in Nashville, Tennessee. I highlight the mechanisms by which Bridge Builders attempted to facilitate bridge building at the university, and I argue that Bridge Builders succeeded in bridging (a) disparate institutional identities at their university, (b) “structural holes” between LGBT- and religious-identified groups at their university, and (c) oppositional personal identities among organizational members. As I discuss in the conclusion, the case of Bridge Builders has implications for literatures on bridge building in social movements, cultural and biographical consequences of social movements, and social movement strategy.

This book provides a deeper understanding of what it means to promote social justice and equity work in schools and communities around the world. Throughout this book, narratives describe how authors continue to reshape the agenda for educational reform. They remind us of the significance meaningful relationships play in promoting and sustaining reform efforts that address the injustices vulnerable populations face in school communities. Their voices represent the need for engaging with obstacles and barriers and a resistant world through a web of relationships, an intersubjective reality (see Ayers, 1996). As authors engaged in thinking about addressing injustices, they describe how their thoughts transformed into actions moving beyond, breaking through institutional structures, attempting to rebuild and make sense of their own situations (see Dewey, 1938).

Details the restoration of Coalport Bridge Tollhouse in Shropshire, a historic building which had fallen into disrepair. Presents the historical and structural surveys carried out and lists the sources of information.

Special shaped columns composed of concrete-filled square steel tubes have broad application prospects in steel structure residential buildings. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this paper, the thermal bridge problem of special-shaped column structures is studied, T-shaped column composed of concrete-filled square steel tubes is taken as an example, the finite element thermal bridge model is established by ANSYS software, the heat treatment is calculated by the software and the results are output.

According to the finite element results, it can be found that in the thermal bridge model, the temperature distribution is uniform, the heat flux density is small and the heat dissipation where the steel plate locates is serious. The lowest temperature of the thermal bridge is greater than the air condensation temperature, and the affected area is about 0.2 m, which is larger than the thickness of the wall and will not cause too much impact on the wall. It will help to suppress heat dissipation and achieve energy-saving and heat preservation inside the buildings.

The experimental results prove the effectiveness of the special-shaped column structure for building energy-saving buildings. This study provides some theoretical basis for further application of special-shaped column structures in architecture.

This paper aims to understand the effect of different foundation designs of passive house on the resultant thermal bridges, at the junction between a wall and a slab on grade.

The linear thermal transmittances of some newly developed foundations of passive house are determined. The investigated foundation designs are L-element, U-element and foundation with foam glass technique.

It is found that the special design of passive house foundation can considerably influence the heat flow through thermal bridges. In this context, it is proposed a new foundation design of passive house, which has relatively low heat loss through thermal bridges. The results are compared with the “default” ISO values used to evaluate the effect of thermal bridges in typical buildings. It is found that there is large difference between the calculated linear thermal transmittances at the investigated foundations of passive house as compared to typical buildings.

The results can hopefully be used to improve the energy efficiency of the passive house.

Sustainable solution of buildings.

A new foundation design of passive house is suggested to reduce heat loss through thermal bridges.

Team social capital (TSC) has been attracting increasing research attention aiming to explore team effectiveness through within- and cross-team resource conduits. This study bridges two disconnected theories – TSC and evolutionary theory – to examine gaming clans and analyzes mechanisms of the clans' TSC building from an evolutionary perspective.

This research draws longitudinal data from a sample of gaming teams (N = 1,267) from anonymized player data from the game World of Tanks spanning 32 months. The authors explored teams' evolutionary patterns using hidden Markov models and applied longitudinal multilevel modeling to test hypotheses.

The results showed that teams of different sizes and levels of evolutionary fitness vary in team closure and bridging social capital. The authors also found that larger teams are more effective than smaller ones. The positive association between team-bridging social capital and effectiveness is more substantial for smaller teams.

This research advances the theoretical development of TSC by including the constructs of teams' evolutionary status when analyzing strategic social capital building. Adding to existing literature studying the outcome of TSC, this research also found a moderating effect of team size between TSC and effectiveness. Finally, this study also contributes to a longitudinal view of TSC and found significant evolutionary patterns of teams' membership, TSC, and effectiveness.

This paper empirically aims to examine the relationship between collaboration initiatives of cluster organizations (COs) and improved innovation and financial performance among cluster firms. Moreover, the paper proposes a method for the development of cluster initiatives and evaluating their performance.

COs in North Mid Sweden have been studied between 2005 and 2014, where 12 COs have focused on collaboration, ranging from process industries, such as forestry, paper and steel, to tourism and information and computer technology (ICT). A survey method was used to collect data for some 1,000 firms engaging in cluster activities. A new method of analysis, which associates initiatives of COs with cluster members’ innovation and financial performance, has been developed and used in the paper.

The paper finds that cluster initiatives (enhancing collaboration across different types of actors in clusters) improve innovation and financial performance among involved cluster firms. But the effect of the cluster initiatives depends, to a large degree, on the policy of the CO. Results show large differences in performance among cluster initiatives, leaving room for the benchmarking and cross-cluster learning.

The new method proposed in this paper can help to formulate and implement cluster initiatives. Evaluation of COs can be improved through the new method.

The major contribution of this work is the association of CO initiatives with the performance of cluster member firms. Additionally, this work provides a new statistical instrument for assessing the impact of cluster initiatives on cluster members’ performance.

The purpose of this paper is to glean leadership lessons of megaproject managers through the life stories of four purposefully selected managers from two contemporary and two landmark megaprojects.

A narrative inquiry approach applying thematic analysis is used to capture lessons learnt from these stories with a focus on leading megaprojects. Narrative analysis has been used in organization studies and this paper is an attempt to use it in project management research.

Common strategies used by all four megaproject managers to be successful include: selecting the right people and building their capability; building trust with stakeholders; dealing with institutional power and politics effectively; and having the courage to innovate. There were also some differences in the approaches used by these managers due the times in which these projects were implemented.

The use of narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. As the life stories were not presented in the same way it was difficult to analyze them in the same manner, and further data had to be collected. This could have been avoided if it were feasible to collect narratives directly from the megaproject managers. This is being planned in future research emerging from this paper.

This study helps megaproject managers to exhibit leadership attributes that would be required to execute such large complex projects that have wide implications for the society, economy and the environment.

Megaprojects are often considered major displacements that cause social and geophysical issues that affect the environment. Lessons learnt from these stories could be useful to avoid such issues. The stories analyzed showed the human side of the megaproject managers toward people related, health and societal issues.

Narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. In the past, project management literature has focused on extracting lessons learnt from historical and classical projects, but lessons from life stories of project managers have not been used for the same purpose.

Civil engineering encompasses such a wide array of subject areas that it would be very difficult to cover all of them in one survey. Basically, civil engineers are concerned with the planning, design and construction of buildings, transporation facilities and other structures required for human health, safety and welfare. A major part of their job relates to achieving a coherent relationship between the “built environment” and the “natural environment.” They are required to fulfil this function within the framework of constraints imposed by the present day building codes, union regulations and economic considerations. This survey concerns itself mostly with the general civil engineering reference books and some selected sources on specialized topics like construction engineering, foundation engineering, structural engineering, highway and dam engineering and codes and specifications. A forthcoming survey will deal with the major area of environmental and sanitary engineering.

Outlines some basic forms of dynamic loading which cause vibrational problems in structures. Presents information on the possibility of structural damage occurring from vibration. Discusses the human response in terms of its often being the limiting factor in terms of amplitude which can be tolerated within a structure. Details industrial vibrational problems, covering areas of traffic, piling, forced vibration and industrial plant.