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To put forward the, to date, unidentified viewpoint that organisational action research and project management have many shared properties – making it a useful exercise to compare and contrast them in relation to organisational management structures and strategies.

A conceptual exploration, drawing on a wide range of supporting literature, is used here.

Project management represents a mainstay strategy for much of the organisational research seen in health care management – and has done for many years. More recently, the exploratory literature on project management has identified many limitations – especially when matched against “traditional” examples. Many health services have witnessed a more recent organisational management drive to seek out alternative strategies that incorporate less hierarchical and more participatory research methods. Action research certainly fits this bill and, on further examination, can be incorporated into a project management ethos and vice versa.

The views expressed here are of a theoretical construct and have not been implemented, as they are presented in this paper, in practice. The intention, however, is to do so in some of the author's future studies.

If the management of health service organisations are to evolve to incorporate desirable structures that promote consumer‐oriented empowerment and participation (where the consumers also include the workforce), then having a wider array of research tools at one's disposal is one way of facilitating this. Incorporating action research principles into project management approaches, or the other way round, or marrying them both to form a “hybrid” research strategy – it is argued here – represents an appropriate and representative way forward for future organisational management studies.

In terms of originality, this represents a conceptual piece of work that puts forward constructs that have, to date, not featured in the health care literature. Its value lies in suggesting further options for organisational‐oriented health care research.

The purpose of this paper is to perform a comparative assessment on working of the existed subassembly identification (SI) methods, which are widely practiced during the product development stage and to propose an improved method for solving the SI problem in assembly sequence planning (ASP).

The cut-set method is found as a suitable method among various knowledge-based methods such as the theory of loops, theory of connectors and theory of clusters for the workability enhancement to meet the current requirements. Necessary product information is represented in the matrix format by replacing the traditional AND/OR graphs and the advanced predicates are included in the evaluation criteria.

The prominent methods in SI are followed a few of the predicates to avoid complexity in solution generation. The predicate consideration is found as the most influencing factor in eliminating the infeasible part combinations at SI. However, the quality of identified subassemblies without advanced predicates is not influencing the solution generation phase but practical applicability is affecting adversely.

The capability of performing SI by the cut-set method is improved to deal with the complex assembly configurations. The improved method is tested by applying on different assembly configurations and the effectiveness is compared with other existent methods of ASP along with the conventional method.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate yoyo potential difference and induction of electric yoyo flows by using the general systemic yoyo model and available quantitative tools.

Empirical laws and well‐known laboratory experiments of physics are revisited in light of the spinning yoyo method and thinking logic. When appropriate, relevant quantitative methods are established.

By generalizing the concept of electromotive force, the paper introduces that of meridian motive forces (MMF). By considering two possible cases when electric yoyo flows can be induced within a return circuit, the paper uses specific examples to compute yoyo potential differences, the forces needed to pull a conductive wire in a magnetic yoyo field, and the total flux of magnetic yoyo field passing through a return circuit. When the paper tries to address the questions of how an electric yoyo current in a circuit is produced and what force could get around the resistance of metals to make electric yoyo charges move around inside return circuits, the paper successfully establishes a theoretical explanation for why Lenz's law about the direction of induced electric currents holds true. At the end, the paper develops a quantitative formula for practically calculating desired MMF.

This paper provides the first ever theoretical explanation for why Lenz's law could be true. It is expected that this explanation would be equally applicable in the study of social systems.

A novel low profile frequency selective surface (FSS) with a band-stop response at 10 GHz is demonstrated. The purpose of this designed FSS structure is to reject the X-band (8-12 GHz) for the application of shielding. The proposed FSS structure having the unit cell dimension of 8 × 8 mm², the miniaturization of the FSS unit cell in terms of λ₀ is 0.266 λ₀ × 0.266 λ₀, where λ₀ is free space wavelength. The designed FSS provides 4 GHz bandwidth with insertion loss of 15 dB. The transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes of the proposed design are same because of polarization independent characteristics and hold the angularly stable frequency response for both TE and TM mode polarization. Both the simulation and measurement results are in good agreement to each other.

The proposed FSS design contains square-shaped PEC material, which is placed on the substrate and the shape of the circle and rectangle is etched over the PEC material. The PEC material of the patch dimension is 0.0175 mm. The substrate used for the proposed design is FR4 lossy with the thickness of 0.8 mm and permittivity εr = 4.3 having a loss tangent of 0.02.

To find a new design and miniaturized FSS structure is discussed.

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This research paper aims to investigate the effects of internal audit’s (IA) use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality.

The authors conduct a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment among upper and middle managers where the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities by internal auditors are manipulated.

Results highlight the importance of internal auditor use of data analytics and performance of consulting activities to improve perceived IA quality. First, managers perceive internal auditors as more competent when the auditors use data analytics. Second, managers perceive internal auditors’ recommendations as more relevant when the auditors perform consulting activities. Finally, managers perceive an improvement in the quality of relationships with internal auditors when auditors perform consulting activities, which is strengthened when internal auditors combine the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities.

From a theoretical perspective, this research builds on the IA quality framework by considering digitalization as a contextual factor. This research focused on the perceptions of one major stakeholder of the IA function: senior management. Future research should investigate the perceptions of other stakeholders and other contextual factors.

This research suggests that internal auditors should prioritize the development of the consulting role in their function and develop their digital expertise, especially expertise in data analytics, to improve perceived IA quality.

This research tests the impacts of the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities on perceived IA quality holistically, by testing Trotman and Duncan’s (2018) framework using an experiment.

Through a unique design and application of a photo‐elastic material a gripper was developed that was able to perform high precision assembly tasks with a robot on ultra thin‐walled(R/T300).

Temporary employment, colloquially referred to as temping, is relatively new to New Zealand. Research is divided as to where the benefits of temporary employment lie – with the agencies, the employers, or the “temps” themselves. We review the literature on temporary employment, with particular reference to New Zealand. We also present some findings of a New Zealand survey of agency‐employed temps. We present the demographic profile of this population group, their reasons for engaging in temporary employment, and their preferred type of employment. Most temporary employees in this study preferred permanent work, and undertook temporary work as a step towards more permanent employment. We discuss the implications of the research findings for organisations that are increasingly being faced with issues surrounding the management of temporary employees.

Special software in a CAD system can help a designer evaluate an assembly and redesign it for automation.

Cascaded DC-DC converters system is the main structure of distributed power system, and it has complex nonlinear phenomena during operation, which affect the power quality. Therefore, the dynamic behavior of the cascaded buck converter and boost converter system, as one of the typical cascaded DC-DC converters systems is analyzed.

Firstly, the studied cascaded system of the buck converter with peak current control and the boost converter with PI current control is introduced and its discrete modeling is built. Then, the Jacobian matrix of the cascaded system is calculated to research the stability when the parameter change. Finally, simulation by PSIM and experiments are carried out to verify the theoretical analysis.

The coexistence of fast and slow time scale bifurcations with the changes of reference current and input voltage are studied in the cascaded system, and using simulation analysis to further study the sensitivity of the inductor current of the front-stage converter and back-stage converter to different parameters.

A discrete model of the cascaded buck converter and boost converter system is established, and its dynamic behavior is analyzed in detail for the first time.

Blockchain is increasingly being considered for applications in operations and supply chain management. However, evidence from practice is still scarce on why, where and how organizations seek to apply the technology in the supply chain across different industries. The study develops a comprehensive framework to enhance understanding of the application areas of blockchain technology in the supply chain, as well as organizations' motivations in seeking blockchain solutions and relevant contingency factors influencing applications.

The authors investigate 50 use cases of blockchain applications in the supply chain, covering six industries. Contingency theory is applied in conducting a qualitative textual and correlation analysis to identify and compare blockchain adoption motivations, application areas and contingency factors across different industries.

The analysis develops an evidence-based framework that captures ten principal motivations in seeking blockchain solutions, three main blockchain application areas along with important application sub-categories and five clusters of contingency factors that influence blockchain deployment and its uses in different industrial sectors.

The study expands the limited cross-sectoral research on blockchain applications and motivations in the supply chain. Using contingency theory, it presents a comprehensive framework that captures the drivers and factors relating to blockchain adoption in the supply chain in a nomological network. The study lays the foundation for further theoretical perspectives and empirical research to investigate relevant sectoral characteristics and their importance for different types of blockchain application in the supply chain.

The study informs practitioners about potential supply chain application areas that can be enhanced through blockchain technology, taking account of the specific characteristics of their products, business and manufacturing processes, supply network configurations, industry standards, regulations and market demand.

The study is the first to provide cross-sectoral evidence on the relevance of organizations' motivations and numerous contingency factors on blockchain application areas in the supply chain.