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Are societal-level values still relevant measures in the twenty-first century businessworld? A 39-society analysis
No full textSince the days of Hofstede (1980), cross-cultural comparisons of countries based on societal-level work values have been a norm. This approach has been represented more recently in Ronen and Shenkar’s (2013) 11 clusters of country cultures. However, more contemporary research found within-country heterogeneity of values/behaviors is substantial and growing exponentially across today’s twenty-first century businessworld. We investigated, across a sample of 39 societies, whether work values variance within societies was greater than work values variance across societies, and whether individual work values differences contributed more to predictions of behavioral performance criteria than the society in which the individuals lived. Both sets of analyses addressed how work values conceived at societal-levels are relevant in understanding the twenty-first century businessworld. Our findings revealed first that there was substantial within-society values heterogeneity, which resulted in the failure to replicate Ronen and Shanker’s (2013) societal cluster aggregations. Second, we found individual-level values contributed significantly to the prediction of employees’ behaviors, while societal-level values contributed substantially less. These findings strongly suggest that cross-cultural studies of work values predictive power are most relevant when conducted at the individual-level. Finally, we also make available for future investigators a 51-society database containing 11,780 individual-level records
The Uncanny Capital: Mapping the Historical Spatial Evolution of Windhoek
No full textThis paper has traced the historic spatial development of Windhoek through five distinct socio-political epochs. These different periods’ spatial, aesthetic, and representational effects on the city’s urban landscape are presented in original maps, allowing a spatial-to-scale comparison and analysis of the city’s development. Rather than the discrete chapters in Windhoek’s urban development, successive occupations’ spatial compositions are shown to have been assembled from and grounded in the geomorphological, spatial, social, and administrative conditions preceding them. The paper expands the concept of the uncanny, the colonial drive to recreate home in foreign lands and local resistance to this, from the architectural to the urban. It
describes how infrastructure, residential typologies and neighbourhood morphologies, memorials, places of memory, and public space were designed to segregate and subjugate Windhoek’s population and how this spatial legacy continues to inform city-making in Windhoek today. In doing so, the paper challenges the notion that the city’s spatial structure, layout, and urban planning are neutral quantitative entities
Configurational analysis of conditions influencing customers’ channel switching intention in omnichannel retailing: a fuzzy-set analysis
No full textThis research examined the interplay among personal factors, namely channel lock-in, cross-channel synergy, attribute-based decision making (ADM); environmental factors, namely others’ past switching behaviour (OPB), pressure to switch from others (PSO); and behavioural factors, namely perceived self-efficacy and perception on facilitating conditions as antecedents to customers’ channel switching intention in an omnichannel context. Drawing on the complexity theory and set theory, we applied configurational analysis using the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The result of the analysis indicated two (2) sufficient configurations that led to an intention to switch channels. Both configurations contained ADM, OPB, and PSO conditions that highlight the importance of personal factors and environmental factors needed for the presence of an intention to switch channels. However, no sufficient configurations were obtained that indicate an absence of intention to switch channels. This study challenges theoretical underpinnings by demonstrating that omnichannel channel-switching behaviours can be explained from a configurational perspective. The configurations produced by this study can serve as a basis for researchers who plan to conduct asymmetric modelling of customers' channel-switching behaviour in an omnichannel context. Finally, this paper suggests omnichannel retail strategies and management as informed by these configurations
Mobile Media and Telecommunications
No full textThis chapter introduces the Australian telecommunications sector, explains technical processes common to the sector and outlines contemporary challenges facing industry and policymakers. In the first section, we introduce Australia’s major telecommunication companies and discuss how the country transitioned from one publicly owned company to the current market structure. Here we also outline consumption trends and other relevant statistics associated with telecommunications. We then explain the concept of mobile generations and discuss the technical, social and cultural transformations that have occurred from the first generation (1G) through to the fourth generation (4G). The chapter then turns to 5G and carefully introduces this novel technology in some detail. We go on to explain how this generation represents a radically different form of mobile technology from previous generations. The final section explains three major policy issues associated with the uptake of 5G: net neutrality, telecommunications infrastructure (including network sharing) and spectrum scarcity
Future of Engineering Management in the Age of Data-Driven Decision-Making
No full textThis chapter provides an overview of the Engineering Management profession, specifically the challenges and opportunities for engineering managers to operate and thrive in the digital economy. This chapter also examines the role of big data in engineering management and discusses how the discipline has evolved to one that is more complex in terms of both technical content and managing people and projects
"'Come in, the Water's Fine': The Drowning World of Peter Weir's The Last Wave (1977)"
No full textPeter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977) is a profoundly in-between film. While many of the most celebrated Australian films of the mid-to-late 1970s feature film “revival” were about finding or expressing a voice, a home, an identity, or a history – even if questioning these ideas in particular cases – The Last Wave is much more uncertain, eerie, unhomely, even unnerved. This chapter traces and examines the Gothic qualities of The Last Wave and explores the ways in which it productively draws on the tensions and porous boundaries between First Nations and settler-colonial perspectives, Australian and international cinema. As in several other films of the 1970s feature film “revival,” it also highlights the unheimlich or uncanny sensibility lying beneath the Australian cinema of this era. It frames this dislocation or disjuncture within forms that are commonly aligned with descriptions of the Gothic, including the wild weather, ancient ruins, isolated landscapes, haunted histories of dispossession, and the self-conscious staging of all these elements. Where it is commonly the vast size and arid nature of the continent’s interior that engulfs the colonial visitor, The Last Wave stages a similar encounter through an inclement portrait of a figure lost between two worlds. In the process, it suggests to us that white settlement, clinging to the verdant coastline of the vast continent, is equally lost, inundated by more than the watery “last wave” that is heading to shore
Animating Sub-Mariner and Aquaman: Generational Taste and the Moral Panic of the 1968 Television Season
No full textIn the 1960s, moral panic about violent superheroes extended beyond comics into television. The controversy came to a head in 1968, when superheroes became one of the dominant genres in the children’s Saturday morning animation slot on US television. The objections of commentators famously focused on violent content and perceived negative impact upon young viewers. This chapter uses the case studies of the two aquatic superheroes Namor the Sub-Mariner and Aquaman—who appeared in the syndicated series Marvel Super Heroes (1966) and The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure on CBS (1967–68) respectively—to argue that underlying the calls to rein in superhero shows was a sharp divide in generational taste around genre and aesthetics, a split strongly informed by adult nostalgia
MEga Yoga: a Counter Narrative Embodied Experience
No full textBACKGROUND: The wellness industry is a multibillion, neoliberal global industry capitalising on spiritual practices such as yoga to perpetuate conflicting heteropatriarchal values and ideals. This industry functions by emulating fashion and luxury marketing strategies. There is emerging academic scholarship sitting in-between critical luxury and consumer culture highlighting the ethical implications of these practices. This creative work expands on this scholarship by using embodied knowledge and participatory performance to raise awareness about participation within neoliberal spiritual practices and the wellness industry. CONTRIBUTION: This participatory performance is a more than human collaboration between a performance artist, a fashion and yoga researcher/instructor, an Artificial Intelligence’s data harvesting of the wellness industry’s values and ideals and a sound designer. The work consists of a critical yoga ‘class’ accompanied by an original, New-Age style soundtrack designed to function as an uncannily reflexive mantra. This creative work is the first to present sensory activation and embodiment as a tactic to actively reflect on these topics. It also offers new knowledge on the increasing commodification of spirituality through fashionable practices such as Western yoga. SIGNIFICANCE: This performance was presented at Next Wave (September 2024) as part of Bus Projects Engages public program. The application was selected from more than 300+ received in the open call, which made this process highly competitive. This creative work is funded by Bus Projects and assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.</p
Long-term durability of iron-rich geopolymer concrete in sulphate, acidic and peat environments
No full textThis study assesses the behaviour of iron-rich type F fly ash geopolymer concretes (GC) exposed to simulated sulphate, acidic, and peat environments, typical of those encountered in tropical peatlands. GC and Portland cement (PC) concrete of comparable strengths were exposed to a range of simulated solutions for 18 months, including 5 % magnesium sulphate (MgSO4), 5 % sodium sulphate (Na2SO4), 1 % and 3 % sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and peat. The GC generally outperformed PC in all conditions. The GC showed a significant increase in strength in the first year, along with enhanced durability properties. Microstructural analysis indicated a decrease in total porosity and pore size. This was attributed to continuing geopolymerization leading to the foration of additional N-A-S-H gel, which filled the pores and solidified the concrete matrix. However, compressive strength decreased at 18 months due to crack propagation caused by drying shrinkage. In Na2SO4, GC attained an 8.9 % and 6.3 % increase in compressive strength at 12 and 18 months, respectively, again attributed to ongoing geopolymerization. GC exposed to MgSO4 exhibited a significant decrease in compressive strength of approximately 11 % at 12 months and 19.8 % at 18 months, attributed to the formation of lower-strength M-A-S-H from reaction between MgSO4 and N-A-S-H gel. After 12 months GC exposed to 1 % and 3 % H2SO4 demonstrated a decrease in compressive strength of approximately 1.2 % and 4.5 %, respectively, together with 2 % and 3 % mass loss. Chemical and microstructural data confirmed this strength reduction due to the vulnerability of N-A-S-H to when exposed to H2SO4. GC exposed to peat solution exhibited a 1.25 % increase in compressive strength at 12-month, but a decrease of 11.3 % at 18-month. Microstructural analysis observed a reduction in Na+ within GC matrix, and the presence of gypsum. The reduction in pore sizes and total porosity suggested generation of zeolite crystalline material was contributing to the pore filling.</p
The impact of fluorine-18-fluoroethyltyrosine positron emission tomography scan timing on radiotherapy planning in newly diagnosed patients with glioblastoma
No full textBackground and purpose: Glioblastoma is one of the most common and aggressive primary brain tumours in adults. Though radiation therapy (RT) techniques have progressed significantly in recent decades, patient survival has seen little improvement. However, an area of promise is the use of fluorine-18-fluoroethyltyrosine positron-emission-tomography (18F-FET PET) imaging to assist in RT target delineation. This retrospective study aims to assess the impact of 18F-FET PET scan timing on the resultant RT target volumes and subsequent RT plans in post-operative glioblastoma patients. Materials and Methods: The imaging and RT treatment data of eight patients diagnosed with glioblastoma and treated at a single institution were analysed. Before starting RT, each patient had two 18F-FET-PET scans acquired within seven days of each other. The information from these 18F-FET-PET scans aided in the creation of two novel target volume sets. The new volumes and plans were compared with each other and the originals. Results: The median clinical target volume (CTV) 1 was statistically smaller than CTV 2. The median Dice score for the CTV1/CTV2 was 0.98 and, of the voxels that differ (median 6.5 cc), 99.7% were covered with a 5 mm expansion. Overall organs at risk (OAR) and target dosimetry were similar in the PTV1 and PTV2 plans. Conclusion: Provided the 18F-FET PET scan is acquired within two weeks of the RT planning and a comprehensive approach is taken to CTV delineation, the timing of scan acquisition has minimal impact on the resulting RT plan.</p