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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2013

Peter A.C. Smith and Carol Ann Sharicz

The purpose of this paper is to assist an organization to restructure as a bi‐modal organization in order to achieve sustainability in today's highly complex business world.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assist an organization to restructure as a bi‐modal organization in order to achieve sustainability in today's highly complex business world.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is conceptual and is based on relevant literature and the authors' research and practice.

Findings

Although fluid self‐organizing networks are the natural state for humankind, in most organizations “organizing” entails the process of autopoiesis. This process does not produce the open fluid organization that is required for success in today's business world. While autopoiesis is taking place, informal socialization is taking place across the organization's interpersonal networks. Under supportive conditions, this leads to the development of a bi‐modal organization where one or more open systems may emerge and co‐exist concurrently with the autopoietic system; these open systems include fluid networks and complex adaptive system. The bi‐modal organization achieves sustainability by balancing a certain amount of organization versus a certain amount of instability, leading to predictability with disorder, and planned long‐term strategy achieved through many concurrent short‐term actions.

Research limitations/implications

Future research will involve an empirical study that will further examine the bi‐modal organization, its development, and its properties.

Practical implications

The systems that surround a business organization now and for the foreseeable future are highly dynamic, competitive, and socially individualized, and demand a new organizational form and competencies that may only be exhibited by a bi‐modal organization based on an open system. The paper describes how an organization can restructure to become a bi‐modal organization.

Social implications

The paper should help improve quality of work‐life and organizational structure.

Originality/value

The paper describes a new organizational form designed to flourish in today's complex business contexts.

Article
Publication date: 6 October 2023

MD. Shamshuddin, Anwar Saeed, S.R. Mishra, Ramesh Katta and Mohamed R. Eid

Whilst a modest number of investigations have been undertaken concerning nanofluids (NFs), the exploration of fluid flow under exponentially stretching velocities using NFs…

Abstract

Purpose

Whilst a modest number of investigations have been undertaken concerning nanofluids (NFs), the exploration of fluid flow under exponentially stretching velocities using NFs remains comparatively uncharted territory. This work presents a distinctive contribution through the comprehensive examination of heat and mass transfer phenomena in the NF ND–Cu/H2O under the influence of an exponentially stretching velocity. Moreover, the investigation delves into the intriguing interplay of gyrotactic microorganisms and convective boundary conditions within the system.

Design/methodology/approach

Similarity transformations have been used on PDEs to convert them into dimensionless ODEs. The solution is derived by using the homotopy analysis method (HAM). The pictorial notations have been prepared for sundry flow parameters. Furthermore, some engineering quantities are calculated in terms of the density of motile microbes, Nusselt and Sherwood numbers and skin friction, which are presented in tabular form.

Findings

The mixed convection effect associated with the combined effect of the buoyancy ratio, bioconvection Rayleigh constant and the resistivity due to the magnetization property gives rise to attenuating the velocity distribution significantly in the case of hybrid nanoliquid. The parameters involved in the profile of motile microorganisms attenuate the profile significantly.

Practical implications

The current simulations have uncovered fascinating discoveries about how metallic NFs behave near a stretched surface. These insights give us valuable information about the characteristics of the boundary layer close to the surface under exponential stretching.

Originality/value

The novelty of the current investigation is the analysis of NF ND–Cu/H2O along with an exponentially stretching velocity in a system with gyrotactic microorganisms. The investigation of fluid flow at an exponentially stretching velocity using NFs is still relatively unexplored.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 34 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 June 2023

Silvia Gherardi

The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are…

1210

Abstract

Purpose

The article contributes to affective ethnography focussing on the fluidity of organizational spacing. Through the concept of affective space, it highlights those elements that are ephemeral and elusive – like affect, aesthetics, atmosphere, intensity, moods – and proposes to explore affect as spatialized and space as affective.

Design/methodology/approach

Fluidity is proposed as a conceptual lens that sits at the conjunction of space and affect, highlighting both the movement in time and space, and the mutable relationships that the capacity of affecting and being affected weaves. It experiments with “writing differently” in affective ethnography, thus performing the space of representation of affective space.

Findings

The article enriches the alternative to a conceptualization of organizations as stable entities, considering organizing in its spatial fluidity and in being a fragmented, affective and dispersed phenomenon.

Originality/value

The article's writing is an example of intertextuality constructed through five praxiographic stories that illustrate the multiple fluidity of affective spacing in terms of temporal fluidity, fluidity of boundaries, of participation, of the object of practice, and atmospheric fluidity.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 18 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 September 2016

M.C. Raju, S.V.K. Varma and A.J. Chamkha

The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical study for a problem of unsteady free convection boundary layer flow past a periodically accelerated vertical plate with…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical study for a problem of unsteady free convection boundary layer flow past a periodically accelerated vertical plate with Newtonian heating (NH).

Design/methodology/approach

The equations governing the flow are studied in the closed form by using the Laplace transform technique. The effects of various physical parameters are studied through graphs and the expressions for skin friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are also derived and discussed numerically.

Findings

It is observed that velocity, concentration and skin friction decrease with the increasing values of Sc whereas temperature distribution decreases in the increase in Pr in the presence of NH.

Research limitations/implications

This study is limited to a Newtonian fluid. This can be extended for non-Newtonian fluids.

Practical implications

Heat and mass transfer frequently occurs in chemically processed industries, distribution of temperature and moisture over agricultural fields, dispersion of fog and environment pollution and polymer production.

Social implications

Free convection flow of coupled heat and mass transfer occurs due to the temperature and concentration differences in the fluid as a result of driving forces. For example, in atmospheric flows, thermal convection resulting from heating of the earth by sunlight is affected differences in water vapor concentration.

Originality/value

The authors have studied heat and mass transfer effects on unsteady free convection boundary layer flow past a periodically accelerated vertical surface with NH, where the heat transfer rate from the bounding surface with a finite heat capacity is proportional to the local surface temperature, and which is usually termed as conjugate convective flow. The equations governing the flow are studied in the closed form by using the Laplace transform technique. The effects of various physical parameters are studied through graphs and the expression for skin friction also derived and discussed.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 26 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 November 2009

Diana F. Spears, David R. Thayer and Dimitri V. Zarzhitsky

In light of the current international concerns with security and terrorism, interest is increasing on the topic of using robot swarms to locate the source of chemical hazards. The…

Abstract

Purpose

In light of the current international concerns with security and terrorism, interest is increasing on the topic of using robot swarms to locate the source of chemical hazards. The purpose of this paper is to place this task, called chemical plume tracing (CPT), in the context of fluid dynamics.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper provides a foundation for CPT based on the physics of fluid dynamics. The theoretical approach is founded upon source localization using the divergence theorem of vector calculus, and the fundamental underlying notion of the divergence of the chemical mass flux. A CPT algorithm called fluxotaxis is presented that follows the gradient of this mass flux to locate a chemical source emitter.

Findings

Theoretical results are presented confirming that fluxotaxis will guide a robot swarm toward chemical sources, and away from misleading chemical sinks. Complementary empirical results demonstrate that in simulation, a swarm of fluxotaxis‐guided mobile robots rapidly converges on a source emitter despite obstacles, realistic vehicle constraints, and flow regimes ranging from laminar to turbulent. Fluxotaxis outperforms the two leading competitors, and the theoretical results are confirmed experimentally. Furthermore, initial experiments on real robots show promise for CPT in relatively uncontrolled indoor environments.

Practical implications

A physics‐based approach is shown to be a viable alternative to existing mainly biomimetic approaches to CPT. It has the advantage of being analyzable using standard physics analysis methods.

Originality/value

The fluxotaxis algorithm for CPT is shown to be “correct” in the sense that it is guaranteed to point toward a true source emitter and not be fooled by fluid sinks. It is experimentally (in simulation), and in one case also theoretically, shown to be superior to its leading competitors at finding a source emitter in a wide variety of challenging realistic environments.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 2 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 September 2017

Thomas Cuckston

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in efforts to conserve biodiversity.

1558

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in efforts to conserve biodiversity.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines a case study of biodiversity conservation efforts to restore a degraded blanket bog habitat. The analysis adopts a social nature perspective, which sees the social and the natural as inseparably intertwined in socio-ecological systems: complexes of relations between (human and non-human) actors, being perpetually produced by fluid interactions. Using a theoretical framework from the geography literature, consisting of four mutually constitutive dimensions of relations – territory, scale, network, and place (TSNP) – the analysis examines various forms of accounting for biodiversity that are centred on this blanket bog.

Findings

The analysis finds that various forms of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity have rendered this blanket bog visible and comprehensible in multiple ways, so as to contribute towards making this biodiversity conservation thinkable and possible.

Originality/value

This paper brings theorising from geography, concerning the social nature perspective and the TSNP framework, into the study of accounting for biodiversity. This has enabled a novel analysis that reveals the productive force of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity, and the role of such accounting in organising the world so as to produce socio-ecological systems that aid biodiversity conservation.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 30 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 2022

Yongliang Wang and Xin Zhang

Hydrofracturing technology has been widely used in tight oil and gas reservoir exploitation, and the fracture network formed by fracturing is crucial to determining the resources…

Abstract

Purpose

Hydrofracturing technology has been widely used in tight oil and gas reservoir exploitation, and the fracture network formed by fracturing is crucial to determining the resources recovery rate. Due to the complexity of fracture network induced by the random morphology and type of fluid-driven fractures, controlling and optimising its mechanisms is challenging. This paper aims to study the types of multiscale mode I/II fractures, the fluid-driven propagation of multiscale tensile and shear fractures need to be studied.

Design/methodology/approach

A dual bilinear cohesive zone model (CZM) based on energy evolution was introduced to detect the initiation and propagation of fluid-driven tensile and shear fractures. The model overcomes the limitations of classical linear fracture mechanics, such as the stress singularity at the fracture tip, and considers the important role of fracture surface behaviour in the shear activation. The bilinear cohesive criterion based on the energy evolution criterion can reflect the formation mechanism of complex fracture networks objectively and accurately. Considering the hydro-mechanical (HM) coupling and leak-off effects, the combined finite element-discrete element-finite volume approach was introduced and implemented successfully, and the results showed that the models considering HM coupling and leak-off effects could form a more complex fracture network. The multiscale (laboratory- and engineering-scale) Mode I/II fractures can be simulated in hydrofracturing process.

Findings

Based on the proposed method, the accuracy and applicability of the algorithm were verified by comparing the analytical solution of KGD and PKN models. The effects of different in situ stresses and flow rates on the dynamic propagation of hydraulic fractures at laboratory and engineering scales were investigated. when the ratio of in situ stress is small, the fracture propagation direction is not affected, and the fracture morphology is a cross-type fracture. When the ratio of in situ stress is relatively large, the propagation direction of the fracture is affected by the maximum in situ stress, and it is more inclined to propagate along the direction of the maximum in situ stress, forming double wing-type fractures. Hydrofracturing tensile and shear fractures were identified, and the distribution and number of each type were obtained. There are fewer hydraulic shear fractures than tensile fractures, and shear fractures appear in the initial stage of fracture propagation and then propagate and distribute around the perforation.

Originality/value

The proposed dual bilinear CZM is effective for simulating the types of Mode I/II fractures and seizing the fluid-driven propagation of multiscale tensile and shear fractures. Practical fracturing process involves the multi-type and multiscale fluid-driven fracture propagation. This study introduces general fluid-driven fracture propagation, which can be extended to the fracture propagation analysis of potential fluid fracturing, such as other liquids or supercritical gases.

Article
Publication date: 3 December 2020

Foster Roberts, Milorad M. Novicevic, Christopher H. Thomas and Robert Kaše

This paper aims to examine how team familiarity, as a social resource accumulated through vertical and horizontal exchanges, in teams with undifferentiated member roles may…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how team familiarity, as a social resource accumulated through vertical and horizontal exchanges, in teams with undifferentiated member roles may satisfy the functional needs of a fluid team by facilitating operational effectiveness and contributing to its financial performance.

Design/methodology/approach

To analyze how vertical and horizontal team familiarity impacts team financial job performance, this paper collected three years of archival data from a moving services firm yielding a final sample of 306 moving jobs. This paper used a cross-sectional design and structural equation modeling to test the impact of vertical and horizontal familiarity on team financial job performance.

Findings

This paper found empirical evidence that vertical team familiarity affects horizontal team familiarity among teams with undifferentiated member roles. In addition, the analysis shows that horizontal team familiarity positively impacts financial team job performance. Finally, the results indicate that team leaders are capable of indirectly impacting financial job performance through their discretion to influence horizontal familiarity.

Originality/value

This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the role of team familiarity in the organizational practices of organizing and assembling fluid teams with undifferentiated member roles. In particular, organizations relying on these types of fluid teams need to appoint the right leaders that, familiar to team members, allocate the right mix of member familiarity to increase team coordination and team performance.

Details

Team Performance Management: An International Journal, vol. 27 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-7592

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1998

Yi Lin and Soucheng OuYang

In this paper, we consider the fundamental characteristics of motion in the universe in terms of the whole and local evolutionary forms of fluids, based on the theory of blown‐ups…

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the fundamental characteristics of motion in the universe in terms of the whole and local evolutionary forms of fluids, based on the theory of blown‐ups and the experiment of spinning disc of currents. It is pointed out that the practical meaning of “the invisible Tao”, see Lao Tsu for more details, is that of currents, and the central theory of fluid dynamics is the vortex flow dynamics, and the practicability of the nonlinear evolutions of mathematical models is getting away from the assumption of continuity.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 27 no. 6/7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 May 2018

Maximiliane Wilkesmann and Uwe Wilkesmann

The rise of new information and communication technologies forms the cornerstone for the future development of work. The term Industry 4.0 refers to the vision of a fourth…

5986

Abstract

Purpose

The rise of new information and communication technologies forms the cornerstone for the future development of work. The term Industry 4.0 refers to the vision of a fourth industrial revolution that is based on a network of autonomous, self-controlling, self-configuring, knowledge-based, sensor-based and spatially distributed production resources. All in all, different forms of the application of the Industry 4.0 concept can be observed, ranging from autonomous logistic transport systems drawn upon the idea of swarm intelligence to smart knowledge management systems. This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework to analyze different applications of Industry 4.0 on an organizing continuum. The general research questions are: What forms of organizing digitalized work lead to the reproduction of routines, and what forms foster innovation within Industry 4.0? The authors thus analyze the consequences of different forms of organizing work on workers’ perceptions and the results of the working process.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper provides case studies for different stages of the organizing continuum in the context of Industry 4.0. The cases and a further analysis of all 295 funded projects are based on the Platform Industry 4.0 Map, which is part of the Industry 4.0 initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The consequences for people acting in such organizational and digitally supported structures are discussed.

Findings

A variety of applications of Industry 4.0 can be found. These applications mainly vary in the dimensions of the degree of formalization, the location of control authority, the location of knowledge and the degree of professionalization. At the right side of the organizing continuum, the digitalization organizes a work environment that supports highly qualified humans. They have broad leeway and a high degree of autonomy to design and create innovative forms of digitalization for tomorrow. At the left side of the organizing continuum, Industry 4.0 structures a work environment with narrow leeway, a low degree of autonomy and a top-down structure of control authority predetermined by digital applications. In this case, employees fill the gaps the machines cannot handle.

Research limitations/implications

As the paper focuses on Industry 4.0 developments in Germany, the comparability with regard to other countries is limited. Moreover, the methodological approach is explorative, and broader quantitative verification is required. Specifically, future research could include quantitative methods to investigate the employees’ perspective on Industry 4.0. A comparison of Industry 4.0 applications in different countries would be another interesting option for further research.

Practical implications

This paper shows that applications of Industry 4.0 are currently at a very early stage of development and momentarily organize more routines than innovations. From a practical point of view, professional vocational and academic training will be a key factor for the successful implementation of digitalization in future. A joint venture of industry and educational institutions could be a suitable way to meet the growing demand for qualified employees from the middle to the right-hand of the organizing continuum in the context of Industry 4.0.

Social implications

Industry 4.0 is designed by men, and therefore, humans are responsible for whether the future work situation will be perceived as supportive or as an alienated routine. Therefore, designers of Industry 4.0, as well as politicians and scientists, absolutely must take the underlying outcomes of digitalized work into account and must jointly find socially acceptable solutions.

Originality/value

This paper provides a promising avenue for future research on Industry 4.0 by analyzing the underlying organizational structures of digital systems and their consequences for employees. Moreover, the paper shows how Industry 4.0 should be organized to simply reproduce routines or to support innovation.

Details

VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, vol. 48 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-5891

Keywords

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