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Climbing ropes are made to withstand severe stresses and absorb energy during fall, reducing the impact force on the climber and their equipment. Natural fibres like hemp and sisal have been mostly substituted by synthetic fibres like nylon, polyester and aramid fibres, which provide greater strength, durability and flexibility. The performance of climbing ropes can deteriorate due to moisture exposure, UV radiation and abrasion during outdoor activities.

This review examines the transition from natural to synthetic fibres and advances in material and construction techniques. The analysis also examines how construction methods, ranging from traditionally laid ropes to current braided kernmantle designs, affect rope strength, elasticity and handling qualities. Furthermore, the paper analyses how the fibres influence the rope’s behaviour under various conditions, such as dynamic loading, wear and tear, fatigue and exposure to environmental variables such as moisture, temperature and UV light.

Ropes should have lower peak forces and greater dynamic elongations, resulting in decreased maximum accelerations, increased energy absorption, reduced jerk and lower forces on safety components during fall arrest. It gives recommendations for future research areas to optimize climbing rope design.

The systematic literature review in this study is focused on the performance of climbing ropes, including the raw materials and construction, as well as the impact of weathering and service conditions.

The purpose of the paper is to explore how refashioning can shift fashion consumer attitudes towards sustainable consumption of clothing by restoring consumption values. The study categorizes consumers into distinct groups based on consumer perception of refashioning. Finally, the study recommends three value dimensions of the circular business model to promote consumer engagement with refashioning.

This study adopts an exploratory approach, applying qualitative design which involved 45 semi-structured interviews and 10 in-depth interviews with Gen Z female consumers who favour clothing lifetime extension.

The findings revealed that consumption values act as motivators and inhibitors, influencing consumers’ behaviours of using refashioning for clothing lifetime extension. Based on their distinguished levels of refashioning engagement and association with the satisfaction of consumption values, three potential consumer segments are discovered and defined as “DIY practitioners,” “DIY apprentices” and “DIY outsources”. To encourage consumer engagement with refashioning, the article suggests value proposition, value delivery and value capture dimensions of two circular business models and verifies how these cater to distinct segments to facilitate refashioning.

This paper provides new insights into clothing refashioning activities from the consumer perspective, bridging a gap in marketing literature. It investigates how refashioning restores consumption values and proposes three value dimensions of circular business models, enhancing clothing lifetime and engaging consumers. This unique approach incorporates consumption values and aligns with the UN’s 12th Sustainable Development Goal.

This paper aims to map the antecedents and precursory contexts regarding the four principles of management. Moreover, a description of its codification and coalescence as a unified teaching framework is provided, critically reviewing key theoretical underpinnings of management principles in academic research and management textbooks.

A historiographic approach reviewed seminal works for theory origins of the four principles of management, by analyzing 260 management textbooks from 1935 to 2013 to document their adoption in management education. This study used critical hermeneutics (Prasad, 2002) to explore the framework’s progression by providing the context of cultural, political and economic influences.

This research study tracked and mapped the creation of the four principles of management, as it became the commonly accepted teaching framework in management education. Today, every predominant management principles textbook uses the four principles of management – plan, lead, organize and control – as the basis for teaching students.

There is limited research on the application of the four principles of management in contemporary management, despite its ubiquity in management education. The study’s historical account of its formation provides insights into its adoption and utilization in modern education context. The study’s primary limitation stems from the generalization of the representative sample of textbooks used in the study (1917–2013). However, data saturation was achieved for the scale of textbooks and writings which was reviewed.

Through a critical analysis into the formation of the four principles of management, this research not only provides a historical account of its construction but, as importantly, the influencing factors that led to its development. This research fills a gap in critical literature, as a post mortem exegesis has never been conducted on the four principles of management in the afteryears of its amalgamation.

This paper does not concern with the “why” of ethics. Such questions are typically of interest to philosophers and are outside the scope of this work. In the next section, the authors offer a look into “what” of ethics, i.e. various types and subtypes of ethics. Subsequently, the authors explore “how” of ethics, by summarising various computational approaches to ethical reasoning offered by researchers in the field.

The approaches are classified based on the application domain, ethical theory, agent type and design paradigm adopted. Moreover, promising research directions towards ethical reasoning are also presented.

Since the field is essentially interdisciplinary in nature, collaborative research from such areas as neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, law and social sciences is necessary. It is hoped that this paper offers much needed insight into computational approaches for ethical reasoning paving way for researchers to further engage with the question.

In this paper, the authors discussed vaious computational approaches proposed by researchers to implement ethics. Although none of the approaches adequately answer the question, it is necessary to engage with the research effort to make a substantial contribution to the emerging research area. Though some effort has been made in the design of logic-based systems, they are largely in stages of infancy and merit considerable research.

This work aims to investigate the feasibility of recycling waste plastic (polyethylene terephthalate) as a coarse aggregate for producing blended cement concrete modified with fly ash and pond ash.

The low, medium and high controlled strength blended cement concrete modified with varied proportions of fly and pond ashes were produced. Manufactured sand and recycled plastic coarse aggregate (RPCA) replaced normal fine and coarse aggregates. Concrete samples were tested for workability, mechanical and durability characteristics. Microstructural analysis was performed on cement concrete blended with fly and pond ashes and compared to conventional concrete samples.

All concrete mixes showed better flowability with values greater than 200 mm. Besides, the maximum flow time was approximately 8 s. The wet density of blended cement concrete-RPCA-based concretes was approximately 30% lower than that of conventional concrete. The compressive strengths of the controlled strength mix at 7 and 28 days were within the specified ranges. While the conventional concrete had slightly higher permeability, the blended cement concrete-RPCA-based concretes had better thermal resistivity and lower thermal conductivity. The scanning electron microscopy analysis revealed the densification of the microstructure due to the filler effects of fly and pond ashes.

This study establishes the prospects of substituting RPCA with normal coarse aggregate in the production of controlled low-strength blended cement concrete, offering benefits of structural fill concrete, lower permeability and thermal conductivity, higher thermal resistivity and reduced density and shrinkage.

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of American management education. It introduces both the explicit influence of Cold War politics and Indian development imaginaries to the export of American management thought in the early 1960s.

This paper relies on archival research for its primary source material, drawing upon rich archives of documents found at the Baker Library of Harvard Business School.

Harvard’s role in Ahmedabad was explicitly influenced by the Cold War anti-communist foreign policy of the USA, but did so opportunistically and contrary to the Ford Foundation’s (FF) original plans. Vikram Sarabhai, who was a key player in the Indian national imaginary of development, invited Harvard on his own initiative and forced the foundation to follow his interests rather than being a mere “subaltern.”

This paper could additionally add to the historical debate about the scope and periodization of the Cold War and the role of non-state actors.

This paper covers new ground in exploring the early connection between the Indian development imaginary and business education. It concludes that the export of hegemonic US management education was not successful during Cold War, and the FF was not as dominant as it was made out to be.

This paper aims to review and assess the sustainable design and management considerations affecting workplaces’ productivity in Saudi Arabia.

The study uses a mixed approach, commencing with literature review, development and pilot-testing of a structured questionnaire instrument to assess design and management considerations towards productively sustainable workplaces (PSWs). In total, 31 considerations affecting sustainable workplaces’ productivity were identified and clustered under five main directions. A collective group of stakeholders, including architects/engineers (A/E), workplace users and facilities managers, were approached to correlate and compare their individual assessment of the identified PSWs. The relative importance index (RII) for each of the PSW considerations is correlated and discussed.

A high level of agreement is recognized among the three stakeholder groups for PSWs considerations’ assessed rankings. The provision of sufficient ventilation and illumination levels, availability of occupational health, security and safety, availability of ergonomically oriented technological infrastructure, availability of formal and informal meeting spaces, efficient space utilization and ergonomic workstations are all ranked highest in importance as design considerations towards PSWs.

The study stems from the need to understand how the PSWs’ design and management considerations are perceived by all streams of stakeholders. The findings identify the considerations’ importance for prioritization on PSWs’ investments.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the role of virtual teams in organizational transformation. This conceptual paper explores the significant influence of the digital era on organizational structures, specifically focusing on the transformative shift toward virtual teams (VTs) with a strong message for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The article is based on the review of existing concepts identified in the previously published studies and their critical reflection. The literature search was conducted in the Web of Science database in May 2024 by using the keywords VTs, Digitalization and SMEs.

In the rapidly changing business environment, organizational transformation is no longer a choice but a prerequisite for the survival and growth of businesses. It is argued in the study that organizations, especially SMEs, need to embrace VT despite the challenge of a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding VT and the need for the development of a novel theory, which has been a reoccurring phenomenon and subject of debate in the literature. Furthermore, the paper underlines the necessity of providing essential preparation and training for VTs, focusing on both technological skills and collaborative work methods. In the context of SMEs, the paper argues that collaboration with external partners and the adoption of virtuality can enhance competitiveness. In the end, the emergence of virtual learning communities is proposed as a solution, providing a platform for SME owners/managers to share experiences and acquire new skills.

Overall, this study provides several recommendations for future research on VTs.

Practitioner architects who teach design move between their professional practice and teaching, and these different work contexts and cultures shape their identity. When teaching, they need to self-regulate in order to perform independently and develop their teaching. This paper discusses what practitioner architects who teach design say they do in design studios, their conceptions about roles in design studios, how they develop their ability for evaluative judgement and shape their identity.

This study employs case study methodology. It relies on data collected via semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. The audio recordings were transcribed and analysed by identifying persistent words, phrases and ideas that were grouped into themes. Each “idea” is drawn from terms used by participants (e.g. characterising aspects of their practices) and researchers’ interpretations and/or based on existing ideas (e.g. found in the literature). The “theory of practice architectures” is employed as a framework of analysis to investigate what professional architects who teach design say they do in studios and their conceptions of their roles, design teaching and development of teaching expertise.

Findings show that practitioner architects who teach design employ evaluative judgement to provide constructive feedback to students and monitor the quality of their own projects. They also use evaluative judgement to assess the quality of their own teaching and hence self-regulate their professional development as design educators. Participants do not identify as teachers; rather their identity is firmly rooted in professional practice.

The study focuses on practitioner architects who teach design and explores how they develop their ability for evaluative judgement and shape their identity through the lens of “theory of practice architectures” which offered a comprehensive view of practices as encompassing conceptions, intentions, actions and outcomes.

In this paper, the authors opt for an identification strategy to examine the moderating impact of the institutional environment on the association between modern slavery and financial reporting quality, as measured by classification shifting and real earnings management around the world.

Using panel data between 2010 and 2018, the authors perform various analyses and robustness tests on a sample consisting of 134, 205 firm-year observations in 63 countries.

The results, which are robust, show a positive association between modern slavery and expense misclassification and real activities earnings management, confirming that the institutional environment facilitates prolonged and endless concealment of unethical and illegal business practices. In addition, we find that the quality of the legal environment moderates illegal modern slavery practices, unethical expense misclassification and real activities earnings management. The negative impact is more pronounced in a strong legal environment than in a weak legal environment. Our results are robust after controlling for the impact of auditing, including financial auditors, social auditing, corporate social responsibilities, environmental, social and governance score and corporate governance.

The study’s findings are limited to a lack of modern slavery data prior to 2010. In addition, some of the variables examined are studied at the firm level, while other variables are at the state or county level. Finally, the study establishes an association between the variables of interest, and this does not necessarily imply causation.

The findings have several important social, practical, policy, practitioner and regulatory implications for all types of countries and businesses. First, senior and corporate management committed to socially responsible reporting should intensify their momentum to deal with modern slavery risks and practices in their supply chains. Second, auditors and external monitoring agencies should strengthen their social and financial audits to uncover hidden modern slavery crimes and illicit financial benefits. Third, regulators and governments around the world should mandate laws and severe sanctions against illegal and illegitimate modern slavery practices. Fourth, the internal governance mechanism should be strengthened and modern slavery reporting, sustainability reports and social audits should be enforced and made compulsory in the governance section of the annual report.

The study provides novel evidence of the impact of modern slavery practices on financial reporting quality in an institutional environment. Our study contributes to the ongoing policy debate by showing how institutional and legal environments influence firms’ behaviour regarding modern slavery and financial reporting. The findings reveal the importance of robust regulatory frameworks and ethical auditing practices in curbing modern slavery and promoting transparency. As firms continue to navigate these challenges, strengthening institutional and ethical standards could play a key role in reducing illegal and unethical practices, ultimately contributing to better financial transparency and accountability on a global scale.