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Entwicklung eines Modells zur Lean Communication am Beispiel eines mittelständischen Unternehmens der Möbelindustrie im DACH-Raum
No full textThe thesis examines issues and approaches in the introduction of lean administration as efficiency and quality improvements are not achieved to the same extent as is the case in lean production. This is partly due to the organization of administrative areas, the type of work and the processes in the administrative areas, which are more customer-oriented, but also to a large extent focused on communication.
As part of this dissertation, the process of implementing and adapting the organization to lean administration was examined using a case study from the furniture industry in Austria. The focus was on communication between managers and employees. The research question was: which communicative means and approaches are required in a lean administration in order to successfully implement lean communication between managers and employees.
The results show that both vertical and horizontal communication channels have problems. One prerequisite for lean communication is the dismantling of hierarchies. This enables vertical permeability in both directions of communication. This ensures that innovation and quality improvement are promoted within the company. From a value creation perspective, this contributes to topic leadership, as innovation potential is developed. The company also becomes more resilient in the face of crises.
With regard to horizontal communication, an improvement in efficiency can be expected if the flow of information takes place across departments. In administrative areas, it is necessary to ensure that communicative standards are developed in the sense of lean communication. Employees should be given as much freedom to make decisions as possible.
With regard to resources, care must be taken to ensure that all departments use the same systems in order to reduce waiting times. It turns out that e-mail and MS Teams are mostly used for internal communication. Building relationships and trust is neglected in communication. From a value creation perspective, the company loses flexibility if the mentioned points are not adhered to.
Implementing lean communication can not only enable economic value creation, but also build other intangible value, for example by increasing employee commitment or incorporating customer preferences.
The model developed takes into account horizontal and vertical communication, shows how this contributes to value creation and makes suggestions for the optimal use of communication tools
Test-retest reliability of different jump tests using the output sports movement sensor
No full textThe aim of this study was to assess the within and between session reliability of the countermovement jump (CMJ), squat jump (SJ), drop jump (DJ), and 10 5 repeated jumps (10 5), in youth athletes using an Output Sports movement sensor. Thirty one participants (23 female, 8 male; mean age = 15 ± 0.7 years) performed three maximal trials of each test during two separate data collections sessions separated by seven days. CMJ height showed excellent within session reliability (session 1: ICC = 0.92, CV = 5%; session 2: ICC = 0.95, CV = 4%) and excellent between session reliability (ICC = 0.92, CV = 4%). SJ height demonstrated good to excellent within session reliability (session 1: ICC = 0.84, CV = 5%; session 2: ICC = 0.91, CV = 5%) and excellent between session reliability (ICC = 0.91, CV = 5%). For the DJ, within session reliability was moderate-to-excellent with moderate to high variability for jump height (JH) (session 1: ICC = 0.74, CV = 11%; session 2: ICC = 0.75, CV = 8%) contact time (CT) (session 1: ICC = 0.89, CV = 11%; session 2: ICC = 0.82, CV = 11%) and reactive strength index (RSI) (session 1: ICC = 0.92, CV = 12%; session 2: ICC = 0.69, CV = 14%). Between session reliability for the DJ ranged from moderate to good, alongside moderate to high variability for JH (ICC = 0.80, CV = 9%), CT (ICC = 0.62, CV = 11%), and RSI (ICC = 0.86, CV = 13%). For the 10 5 test, within session reliability ranged from good-to-excellent, with moderate-to-poor variability for JH (session 1: ICC 0.68, CV = 10%, session 2: ICC = 0.84, CV = 7%) CT (session 1: ICC = 0.79, CV = 5%; session 2: ICC = 0.75, CV = 5%) and RSI (session 1: ICC = 0.89, CV = 7%; session 2: ICC = 0.90, CV = 7%). Between session reliability for the 10 5 ranged from moderate to good, alongside moderate variability for JH (ICC = 0.83, CV = 8%), CT (ICC = 0.57, CV = 5%), and RSI (ICC = 0.85, CV = 7%). Finally, significant negative decreases were observed for CMJ height (g = -0.26; p < 0.05), SJ height (g = -0.25; p < 0.05), DJ height (g = - 0.12; p < 0.05), DJ CT (g = -0.42; p < 0.05), and 10 5 CT (g = -0.22; p < 0.05). For the most part, practitioners can consider these four jump tests reliable when using the Output sensor, although some additional familiarization and attention to coaching detail may be required for the DJ
Being attuned: high-quality baby rooms – what they look like and how we get there
No full textHigh-quality baby rooms – what they look like and how we get there. By Dr. Mona Sakr, Dr. Sara Bonetti and Kayla Hall
Open Innovation in der deutschen Chemie- und Pharmaindustrie: Kollaboration zwischen etablierten Unternehmen und digitalen Startups
No full textThis thesis investigates how established corporates of the German chemical and pharmaceutical industry collaborate with digital startups to foster open innovation activities. A critical review of the literature identifies the current level of research. Established corporates often lack a strategic approach to identifying and collaborating with startups. Additionally, cultural differences and varying speeds of both parties may hinder collaboration activities. There is a mismatch between the agile spirit of digital startups and the bureaucratic organization of corporates. Coupled with a risk-averse mindset, established corporates struggle to adopt their structures to internalize the innovativeness of startups. Corporates collaborate with startups often apply different forms of collaboration not being synchronized.
In recent years, the focus on more integrated and less-siloed approaches of startup-collaboration activities has emerged. This focus is achieved by addressing the gap in current knowledge regarding effective collaboration between established corporates and startups, specifically digital startups. The research follows a qualitative approach including data collection from 20 experts including both corporate managers and digital startup founders. The collected data is analysed based on the qualitative content analysis using a deductive-inductive category definition. Through the narrow cohort the results offer a deep understanding how collaboration with digital startups is applied by established corporates of the German chemical and pharmaceutical industry. This research projects examines how both parties can jointly enter a collaboration to leverage the digital startup’s solution within the corporate environment based on a guided framework.
The results show that pilot projects are required to start a collaboration to test the provided solution of the digital startup. Based on a structured evaluation, the collaboration can deepen through different forms such as a customer-supplier-relationship, co-innovation or CVC investment. In addition, the social and organizational relations within the corporate itself, especially between the innovation unit, the business departments and top management, are uncovered as a crucial factor for the collaboration. Based on both theoretical and empirical findings, the developed four-stage-gate-framework supports to navigate through the collaboration between established corporates of the German chemical and pharmaceutical industry and digital startups
“I’m not a big fat panda, I’m the big fat panda”: comic, material, and digital bodies in Kung Fu Panda’s animated action spectacle
No full textKung Fu Panda is a film about the body. This is so on the level of its narrative about a chubby panda who masters the intensely athletic art of kung fu and also its existence as 3-D digital animation in the post-Disney, post-Pixar ‘realist’ tradition, which, however fantastical the content, seeks to construct a world and characters subject to a coherent physics. Furthermore, the world Kung Fu Panda (re-)constructs is the carnivalesque universe of the kung fu comedy pioneered by Jackie Chan. Kung fu has itself been seen as a ‘body genre’, relying for its effects on the performing bodies of its stars and stuntworkers and addressing its audience through the ensuing sensations in their own bodies, rather than on a ‘cognitive’ level (Hunt 2003, pp. 2–3).
As Chung (2012) has argued, Kung Fu Panda displaces such ‘real’ bodies from their central place in the genre, making digital technology the ‘star’ instead. But this only serves to entangle us with a new range of bodies: animal and human, real and virtual, visibly present and invisibly haunting – the bodies of the characters, of the past kung fu stars they reference, and the film’s voice actors and animators, among others. Drawing on Chung’s insights, my own analysis concentrates on the film’s action choreography and the fantasies of the body this mobilises.
In Kung Fu Panda, the radicalism of Hong Kong action cinema’s cheaply made ‘Third-Worldist’ approach, reliant on the body as means of spectacle rather than Hollywood’s intensely capitalised, technologically advanced output, is reversed. Po’s excess corporeality is affirmed through both plot and animation technique: his pendulous arms and rubbery belly mark him as subject to gravity and inertia in a way none of the other characters are, and it is precisely his use rather than transcendence of his body’s subjection to the laws of physics that allows Po to triumph at the film’s climax. However, our viewing pleasure is no longer a matter of the capabilities of a human body (potentially ours, too) to conjure the marvellous. Rather, the marvel is the power of technology (and the networks of capital and labour mobilised in it) to reproduce the same effect, and the pleasure is recognising ourselves as the consuming subject for whom this mechanism is set in motion.
But Kung Fu Panda’s translation of a range of cinematic techniques (wirework, trampolines, constructive editing, manipulation of camera speed, etc.) drawn from kung fu cinema should also make us wary of imagining live-action martial arts cinema as a site of unmediated authenticity: the performing kung fu body has always been ‘animated’ by ever-changing cinematic technologies. Jackie Chan has discussed the influence of silent-era physical comedians such as Keaton and Chaplin, but his performance style owes a broader debt to the anarchic, utopian exploding of everyday reality that Walter Benjamin saw them sharing with early Mickey Mouse cartoons (Leslie, 2004). To what extent, then, should we see Kung Fu Panda as exemplifying such a ‘cartoonalism’ (Summers, 2020) and to what extent does it belong more squarely within the ‘realism’ Disney made dominant in the 1930s
Preventing drug-related deaths in Scotland: perceptions and experiences of engagement in a “shared care” model of service delivery
Get PDFPurpose
Scotland faces a crisis of drug-related deaths, disproportionately affecting people living in the most deprived areas. The purpose of this paper is to explore patient and service provider perceptions of engagement within shared care treatment systems, acknowledged as a critical factor in preventing drug-related harms and deaths.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study approach was adopted, focusing on two primary care practices in highly deprived urban areas. Thematic analysis was used to investigate the interplay of individual, organisational and structural factors acting as facilitators and barriers to service engagement. Data were collected through 34 semi-structured interviews with 6 people who use drugs, 4 family members, 20 health-care practitioners and 4 policymakers.
Findings
Engagement challenges were multifaceted, encompassing relational aspects (e.g. trust and stigma) and systemic issues, including poor collaboration across professional groups, fragmented services, inadequate communication and resource constraints. Participants emphasised the cumulative impact of socioeconomic deprivation and structural inequalities, which shaped the environments in which drug use occurred and constrained effective care delivery. Practitioners used various strategies, including harm reduction approaches and personalised support, to enhance engagement.
Originality/value
This paper provides new insights into the challenges faced by practitioners, people who use drugs and families in navigating the shared care system. The findings of this study highlight the need for policy action to strengthen service provision as well as reinforcing the importance of tackling cumulative health and social inequalities, seen as a key factor in drug-related deaths
An exploration of London based second generation Sierra Leoneans’ family mental health narratives and their relatedness to personal narratives of mental health
No full textWith current statistics on mental health outcomes for black people in England still demonstrating poor outcomes, and with little understanding as to why, the aim of this research study is to focus on a specific black population being Sierra Leoneans, and to review what informs their personal narratives about mental health.
Giving consideration to the unique experience of migrant families straddling two cultures, the research aims to explore these phenomena by investigating how the family narratives of second-generation Sierra Leoneans are related to their personal narratives about mental health examining the role of storytelling by first generation Sierra Leoneans to second generations in informing the relationship between the two narratives.
The research design was semi-structured interview, conducted and recorded remotely via Zoom. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The sample consisted of 4 adults, who were British born second-generation Sierra Leoneans with both parents being first-generation Sierra Leoneans. All participants were resident in London.
Four themes were identified from the data. (1) Purpose of storytelling, (2) Straddling two cultures, (3) Hardship, (4) Personal perspectives of mental health.
The findings highlight the role family stories play in developing a sense of moral and cultural values. They also identify the lack of descriptive language in Sierra Leonean dialect for mental health along with very little dialogue around mental health or emotions. Family perspectives of mental health were found to influence participants’ personal narratives of mental health, however through integration into British culture there were attempts by participants to assimilate mental health perspectives from both Sierra Leonean and British contexts
Investment arbitration and the autonomy of EU’s legal order: a rule of law perspective
No full textEU’s steps towards putting an end to intra-EU investment arbitration have attracted much criticism, which ranges from accusations of legal imperialism to observations that the notion of autonomy of EU’s legal order, which is the primary tool weaponised against intra-EU arbitration, is politically malleable. Nevertheless, those supporting EU’s position argue that in a legal community like the EU, it is expected to litigate against state authorities before national courts. This article informs the debate from a rule of law lens – it contends that the concerns for EU’s legal order with respect to intra-EU investment arbitration resonate dual standards and undermine Article 2 TEU. First, it analyses the inconsistencies of the EU Commission’s position considering its failure to protect judicial independence in the EU. Then, it explains why the politicisation of the principle of the autonomy of EU’s legal order in CJEU’s caselaw, which reflects the court’s commitment to self-increasing its jurisdiction and to prioritising procedure over substantive human rights, leads to tension with Article 2 TEU. After shedding light on concrete cases illustrating why EU’s stance on intra-EU investment arbitration hampers investors’ rights, it contemplates what solutions could be envisaged to ensure more adequate investor protection in the EU
Accentuated eccentric loading in countermovement jumps vs. Drop jumps: effects on jump performance and strength in a randomized controlled trial
Get PDFThis study examined the effects of Accentuated Eccentric Loading Countermovement Jump (AEL CMJ) training on jump performance, lower body strength, sprint performance, and change of direction ability, compared to drop jump (DJ) training. This study used a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a parallel design. Forty men physical education students (Mean ± SD: age 22.60 ± 3.24 years, body mass 75.21 ± 8.12 kg, height 1.79 ± 0.07 m) were randomly assigned to AEL (n = 14), DJ (n = 13), or a control group (CON, n = 13). The AEL and DJ groups trained three times per week for 8 weeks, while the CON group maintained their usual routines. All groups with similar levels of physical activity outside the training. Pre-, mid- (4 weeks), and post-intervention (8 weeks) assessments measured jump performance (CMJ and squat jump (SJ)), 1RM squat strength, 30 m sprint time, and change of direction (T-test). A mixed-effects model evaluated group and time effects. Significant group × time interactions were observed for CMJ height (P = 0.006), with both AEL and DJ training improving CMJ (AEL: +11.8%, ES = 0.77; DJ: +7.7%, ES = 0.47), SJ height (AEL: +5.7%, ES = 0.37; DJ: +11.3%, ES = 0.66), and 1RM squat (AEL: +7.0%, ES = 0.44; DJ: +8.4%, ES = 0.46) at 8 weeks. Neither training method significantly improved sprint or change of direction performance. Additionally, no significant gains were seen in any indicator at 4 weeks. These results indicate that AEL CMJ and DJ training both effectively enhance vertical jump and strength, positioning AEL CMJ as an effective alternative or complement to DJ training
Life satisfaction around the world: measurement invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups
Get PDFThe Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a widely used self-report measure of subjective well-being, but studies of its measurement invariance across a large number of nations remain limited. Here, we utilised the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset-with data collected between 2020 and 2022 -to assess measurement invariance of the SWLS across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups (N = 56,968). All participants completed the SWLS under largely uniform conditions. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated that configural and metric invariance was upheld across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggesting that the unidimensional SWLS model has universal applicability. Full scalar invariance was achieved across gender identities and age groups. Based on alignment optimisation methods, partial scalar invariance was achieved across all but three national groups and across all languages represented in the BINS. There were large differences in latent SWLS means across nations and languages, but negligible-to-small differences across gender identities and age groups. Across nations, greater life satisfaction was significantly associated with greater financial security and being in a committed relationship or married. The results of this study suggest that the SWLS largely assesses a common unidimensional construct of life satisfaction irrespective of respondent characteristics (i.e., national group, gender identities, and age group) or survey presentation (i.e., survey language). This has important implications for the assessment of life satisfaction across nations and provides information that will be useful for practitioners aiming to promote subjective well-being internationally