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What might lead a luxury consumer to signal with an inconspicuous product? Drawing upon luxury consumer maturity theory, which proposes that mature luxury consumers exhibit a greater preference for inconspicuous luxury goods, this papers aims to consider if consumer field-specific knowledge increases the preference for inconspicuous consumption.

By measuring and manipulating consumer knowledge via correlational and experimental designs, respectively, the authors probe the association between consumer knowledge and preferences for inconspicuous luxury products.

This study reports converging evidence suggesting that more knowledgeable (non-)luxury consumers prefer (non-)luxury goods that send inconspicuous signals.

The proposed luxury consumer knowledge effect provides insights into the rise of inconspicuous luxury consumption and offers counterintuitive managerial implications, particularly for marketing communications and advertising.

Inconspicuous luxury brands should engage in an informational sharing approach to their marketing communications, as increasing knowledge may encourage inconspicuous consumption.

While prior work on inconspicuous consumption has addressed the utility of subtle signals and presented a classification of different types of luxury consumers, for instance, the authors instead consider one potential driver of inconspicuous consumption: consumer knowledge. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is also the first to provide empirical support for luxury consumer maturity theory, in addition to examining the boundaries of this framework.

This study aims to provide understanding of the influence of external factors, such as gravity, during sintering of three dimensional (3D)-printed parts in which the initial relative density and cohesion between the powder particles are lower compared with those present in the green parts produced by traditional powder technologies. A developed model is used to predict shrinkage and shape distortion of 3D-printed powder components at high sintering temperatures.

Three cylindrical shape connector geometries are designed, including horizontal and vertical tubes of different sizes. Several samples are manufactured by binder jetting to validate the model, and numerical results are compared with the measurements of the sintered shape.

Simulations are consistent with empirical data, proving that the continuum theory of sintering can effectively predict sintering deformation in additively manufactured products.

This work includes the assessment of the accuracy and limits of a multiphysics continuum mechanics–based sintering model in predicting gravity-induced distortions in complex-shaped additively manufactured components.

The personalities of the design team members constitute one of the factors that influence team effectiveness. In this study, 223 members of the “American Institute of Architects” who are employed by the largest architectural design firms in the United States of America were categorized according to their personality types by using “The Enneagram Personality Type Model.” Also, the respondents’ opinions about eight team effectiveness outcomes were recorded in order to explore the relationship between team members’ personality types and team effectiveness outcomes.

The information was collected by a questionnaire where the first part included 144 pairs of statements that were used to identify respondents’ personality types. The second part sought designers’ opinions about the importance of eight team effectiveness outcomes rated on a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. The results were assessed by performing the Kruskal–Wallis test first and Dunn’s post-hoc test with Bonferroni adjustment subsequently.

The findings highlight the significance of personality types in effective design teams. While Type 6 (loyalist and skeptic) and Type 3 (achiever and performer) architects prioritize team effectiveness the most, Type 7 architects (enthusiasts and epicureans) assign the lowest importance. However, the presence of Type 1 (reformist and perfectionist) and Type 8 (challenger and protector) architects within the same design team may involve challenges or conflicts.

The primary contribution of this study is that it is the first study in the construction management literature that utilizes The Enneagram of Personality Test to understand the relationship between team members’ personality types and team effectiveness outcomes. This study is of direct relevance to practitioners and could be utilized in design team-building activities.

Although several studies evidence the positive outcomes of facilitation coaching style in various professional settings, it has received less attention in the health-care context. Thus, drawing on previous research and the tenets of Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985), Job Demands-Resources Theory (Demerouti et al., 2001) and Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1989), this study aims to investigate the relationship between facilitation coaching style and adaptive performance in health-care professionals, considering a serial mediation mechanism in which job-related anxiety and informal field-based learning are antecedents of positive psychological capital (PsyCap).

Self-reported data were collected from 253 Romanian health-care professionals using a cross-sectional research design.

The authors found that facilitation coaching style reduces job-related anxiety and promotes informal field-based learning, thereby improving PsyCap and, ultimately, contributing to higher adaptive performance.

These results emphasize the critical role of facilitation coaching style in the health-care sector and provide actionable insights for health-care organizations seeking to enhance their staff’s adaptive performance and, consequently, patient care.

This article proposes diffractive vignettes as a new analytical approach that can sensitize organizational communication research to extra/linguistic forces in the communicative constitution of major societal challenges such as the climate crisis. The critical feminist concept of diffraction examines how diverse forces interact, interfere and produce new patterns of meaning and difference through entangled, performative relations.

Diffraction as an analytical tool is illustrated based on fieldwork on organizing the climate crisis in the tourist destinations in the Tyrolean Alps and Venice. We analytically attune to how extra/linguistic forces move and resonate with us, how we read them through each other in a diffractive experiment and how they allow us to attend to materialization differently through crafting diffractive vignettes.

We account for how the analytical work required us to experiment with juxtaposing, weaving, dividing and melting data and theories together through non-representational, post-qualitative ways of analyzing. Through a diffractive vignette, we then unfold how the extra/linguistic forces became agentic for the constitution of the climate crisis.

Through diffractive vignettes, we extend a fast-developing body of work on materialization within organizational communication to analytically exploit communication’s performativity, including its extra/linguistic forces in a post-qualitative, non-representational sense. With diffraction, we expand the analytical potential of organizational communication scholarship with a sensitivity to difference in materialization.

Megaproject's construction is essential for the development and economic growth of any country, especially in the developing world. In Kuwait, megaprojects are facing many restrictions that discourage their execution causing a significant delay in bidding, design, construction and operation phases with the execution quality being affected. The objective of this study is to develop a complexity measurement model using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for megaprojects in Kuwait, with a focus on the New Kuwait University multi-billion campus Shadadiyah (College of Social Science, Sharia and Law (CSSL)) as a case study.

The study applies a hybrid fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) method to compare the results with those obtained using the conventional AHP method. This can facilitate the project management activities during the different stages of construction. Data were collected based on the results of a two-round Delphi questionnaire completed by seniors and experts of the selected project.

It was found that project modeling methodology was responsible for complexity. It was grouped under several categories that include technological, goal, organizational, environmental and cultural complexities. The study compares complexity degrees assessed by AHP and FAHP methods. “Technological Complexity” scores highest in both methods, with FAHP reaching 7.46. “Goal Complexity” follows closely behind, with FAHP. “Cultural Complexity” ranks third, differing between methods, while “Organizational” and “Environmental Complexity” consistently score lower, with FAHP values slightly higher. These results show varying complexity levels across dimensions. Assessing and understanding such complexities were essential toward the completion of such megaprojects.

The contribution of this study is on providing the empirical evidential knowledge for the priority over construction complexities in a developing country (Kuwait) in the Middle East.

The purpose of this article is to summarise key literature related to the Foundation for Learning and Literacy’s Touchstone 4 (creativity, the arts and imagination).

This article reviews a selection of relevant studies exploring the contributions of creativity, imagination and the arts to traditional literacy learning. The existing literature has been synthesised and summarised to provide readers with a broad understanding of the evidence supporting Touchstone 4.

The literature review reveals that all five arts subjects, along with creativity and imagination, contribute positively to students' literacy learning. Each arts subject enhances and extends different aspects of conventional literacy skills – such as reading, writing, viewing, speaking and listening – while fostering the development of multiliteracies.

This article uniquely summarises existing research on the arts, creativity and imagination, highlighting how each area supports literacy development in school students.

The purpose of this study is to revisit the conventional wisdom about a key contribution [i.e. strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis] in the field of strategic management. The societal context and the role of academics, consultants and executives is taken into account in the emergence of SWOT analysis during the 1960–1980 period as a pivotal development within the broader context of the satisfactory, opportunities, faults, threats (SOFT) approach. The authors report on both the content and the approach, so that other scholars seeking to invigorate indigenous theories and/or underreported strategy practices will thrive.

Applying a historiographic approach, the authors introduce an evidence-based methodology for interpreting historical sources. This methodology incorporates source criticism, triangulation and hermeneutical interpretation, drawing upon insights from robust evidence through three iterative stages.

The underreporting of the SOFT approach/SWOT analysis can be attributed to several factors, including strategy tools being integrated into planning frameworks rather than being published as standalone materials; restricted circulation of crucial long-range planning service/theory and practice of planning reports due to copyright limitations; restricted access to the Stanford Research Institute Planning Library in California; and the enduring popularity of SOFT and SWOT variations, driven in part by their memorable acronyms.

In the spirit of a renaissance in strategic planning research, the authors unveil novel theoretical and social connections in the emergence of SWOT analysis by combining evidence from both theory and practice and delving into previously unexplored areas.

Caution is advised for scholars who examine the discrete time frame of 1960–1980 through mere bibliometric techniques. This study underscores the risks associated with gathering incomplete and/or inaccurate data, emphasizing the importance of triangulating evidence beyond scholarly databases. The paradigm shift of strategic management research due to the advent of large language models poses new challenges and the risk of conserving and perpetuating academic urban legends, myths and lies if training data is not adequately curated.

The main purpose of this research was to determine what types of promotions increase Minor League Baseball attendance across all of the official leagues. The secondary purpose was to ascertain the role of other control variables such as win percentage, weather, days of the week, start time and city demographics. The research also includes a grouping of cities through k-means clustering to better understand what types of promotions work in what cities.

Data were gathered on all the Minor League Baseball teams and their respective cities. Regression models were run to test for the role of individual promotions (structured as dummy variables) and other controls. One model specification used city demographic variables, one used city fixed effects rather than city demographics and the final specification used k-means clustering to separate cities into distinct groups.

Promotions generally were found to increase attendance, although there were differences across levels of play. K-means clustering helped with the grouping of cities to ascertain which types of promotions were beneficial when comparing large metropolitan areas to high-income cities.

Promotions were grouped into common categories, although some were difficult to classify (or were infrequent), so a miscellaneous promotions category was included to capture these promotions in Minor League Baseball.

The findings of this research are beneficial to those designing promotional schedules for individual teams. It also is beneficial to the leagues as the findings have implications as it relates to what fans desire to see when attending minor league games.

The originality in this work is the collection of all Minor League Baseball attendance, city information and promotional information across the different levels of play (AAA, AA, High-A and A). Using different model specifications and groupings, including k-means clustering to match similar cities, successful promotions were identified.

This study aimed to address the underexplored domain of organisational vulnerability, with a specific focus on understanding how vulnerability is understood in organisations and the underlying pathways leading to vulnerability.

This study utilised a narrative literature review methodology, using Google Scholar as the primary source, to analyse the concepts of organisational vulnerability in the context of disaster risk studies. The review focused on relevant documents published between the years 2000 and 2022.

The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of organisational vulnerability, which arises from both inherent weaknesses within the organisation and external risks that expose it to potential hazards. The inherent weaknesses are rooted in internal vulnerability pathways such as organisational culture, managerial ignorance, human resources, and communication weaknesses that compromise the organisation’s resilience. The external dimension of vulnerability is found in cascading vulnerability pathways, e.g. critical infrastructure, supply chains, and customer relationships.

As the frequency and severity of disasters continue to increase, organisations of all sizes face heightened vulnerability to unforeseen disruptions and potential destruction. Acknowledging and comprehending organisational vulnerability is a crucial initial step towards enhancing risk management effectiveness, fostering resilience, and promoting sustainable success in an interconnected global environment and an evolving disaster landscape.