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The materiality of policy worlds – buildings, mobile phones and carparks – has been an under-examined aspect of policy relations. Everyday materialities are routinised in such a way they are enacted as trivial, contributing to an indifference towards the roles they play. In particular, the role of the car and quite what happens aside from driving is largely overlooked. How relations are re-assembled through the small threshold spaces of car interiors, where actors are suspended between two states – neither here nor there – affects everyday work. Latterly, the car has become a complex communicative assemblage for multi-tasking, a coordination centre for telephone, global positioning system (GPS), internet, etc., a place of work, but cars are also places of refuge, comfort zones for affective regulation via the sound system. This chapter explores from a multi-sited, inter-organisational ethnography in rural Scotland how cars are vital in mobilising relations for the implementation of legislation requiring certain National Health Services (NHSs) to integrate with local government social care services. Given rurality, actors’ cars were used to travel around the area. I suggest a focus on taken-for-granted materials, like cars, can unsettle policy understandings, engendering thinking beyond ‘formal’ policy practices, to illuminate acts of implementing ‘through things’ (de La Bellacasa, 2011). Materialities provide a novel way of interrogating policy practices unfolding in assorted in|formal settings, in this case, conveyed via vehicles. The car is a site whereby often unnoticed doings are produced through relations between bodies, objects and places. These relations are spatially and temporally enfolded and constitute policy work, particularly in rural areas.

The purpose of the present study is to explore multimodal, i.e. verbal and nonverbal, gendered communication patterns of female physicians in senior management positions (governmental and health authorities) during a crisis.

Using a mixed multi-variable design, repeated ANOVA tests, and planned contrasts, the authors analyzed television appearances of 20 female physicians in senior management positions during the COVID-19 crisis (March/2020-April/2021).

The findings revealed patterns of mixed-gendered communication structures. Verbally, female physicians primarily displayed a masculine/agentic communication style of assertiveness, control, confidence and rationality. Nonverbally, however, they expressed a feminine/communal communication style of emotional attention, interpersonal sensitivity, responsiveness, kindness and empathy. Moreover, the analysis delineated integrated multimodal constructive vs. inhibitive communication strategies for crisis communication of female physicians in senior management positions.

In the current research the authors did not compare females to males in health management positions, which is their follow-up project, but the authors did examine studies of males and females in management positions in the political sphere, which supported their findings. Therefore, the authors were able to demonstrate theoretical implications of multimodal gendered communication frameworks of feminine leadership.

Delineating verbal and nonverbal gendered communicative structures of effective management in health sectors can help female physicians assume positions of leadership, serve as guide models for other female physicians and contribute to improving effective communication skills during a crisis.

This study contributes to the attempts of promoting gender equity in medicine and management by presenting effective communication strategies in medical crises that can help to promote female physicians’ messages development, social influence, leadership and management success in the future.

This article presents constructive, multimodal gendered communication frameworks of female physicians in senior management positions used in television appearances during the global COVID-19 crisis. Most previous studies in this area have examined either verbal or nonverbal communication mode. The value of this multimodal examination provides insights that may enhance constructive communication of female physicians in senior management positions during a crisis.

The integration of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is in the nascent stage and promises to achieve new optimums in operational excellence. This study aims to empirically examine the enablers, barriers, benefits and application of I4.0 technologies in LSS and I4.0 integration.

A pilot survey was chosen as an appropriate methodology, as LSS and I4.0 integration is still budding. The survey targeted senior quality management professionals, quality managers, team leaders, LSS Black Belts and operations managers to collect the relevant research data. The questionnaire was sent to 200 respondents and received 53 valid responses.

This study reveals that “top management support” is an essential enabler for LSS and I4.0 integration. The most significant barrier was “poor understanding of data analysis” and “lack of top management support”. The findings further illustrated that LSS and I4.0 integration resulted in greater efficiency, lower operational costs, improved productivity, improved customer satisfaction and improved quality. Regarding I4.0 technology integration at different phases of LSS, the authors noticed that big data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) are the most prominent technologies used in all phases of LSS implementation.

One of the limitations of this study is the sample size. LSS and I4.0 are emerging concepts; hence, obtaining a larger sample size is difficult. In addition, the study used non-parametric tests to analyse the data. Therefore, future studies should be conducted with large sample sizes across different continents and countries to understand differences in the key findings.

The outcomes of this study can be useful for organisational managers to understand the enablers and barriers before integrating LSS and I4.0 for adoption in their organisations. Secondly, it helps to convince top management and human resource personnel by providing a list of benefits of LSS and I4.0 integration. Finally, it can help decision-makers understand which I4.0 technologies can be used in different stages of LSS methodology.

LSS and I4.0 integration was studied at a conceptual level. This is the first empirical study targeted toward understanding the LSS and I4.0 integration. In addition, this study investigates the application of widely used I4.0 technologies in different phases of LSS.

This study uses computer-aided design to improve the ecological and environmental sustainability of early-stage landscape designs. Urban expansion on open land and natural habitats has led to a decline in biodiversity and increased climate change impacts, affecting urban inhabitants' quality of life and well-being. While sustainability indicators have been employed to assess the performance of buildings and neighbourhoods, landscape designs' ecological and environmental sustainability has received comparatively less attention, particularly in early-design stages where applying sustainability approaches is impactful.

The authors propose a computation framework for evaluating key landscape sustainability indicators and providing real-time feedback to designers. The method integrates spatial indicators with widely recognized sustainability rating system credits. A specialized tool was developed for measuring biomass optimization, precipitation management and urban heat mitigation, and a proof-of-concept experiment tested the tool's effectiveness on three Mediterranean neighbourhood-level designs.

The results show a clear connection between the applied design strategy to the indicator behaviour. This connection enhances the ability to establish sustainability benchmarks for different types of landscape developments using parametric design.

The study allows non-expert designers to measure and embed landscape sustainability early in the design stages, thus lowering the entry level for incorporating biodiversity enhancement and climate mitigation approaches.

This study expands the parametric vocabulary for measuring landscape sustainability by introducing spatial ecosystem services and architectural sustainability indicators on a unified platform, enabling the integration of critical climate and biodiversity-loss solutions earlier in the development process.

This paper aims to explore how young students experience the contribution of a pedagogical assemblage based on design thinking (DT) while contributing to the transition to a more just and sustainable university.

This qualitative research considers the case of two pedagogical experiences developed at Universitat Politècnica de Valencià, Spain. In both experiences, a methodological proposal that includes practices of care, just transitions and DT was implemented. The data obtained through in-depth interviews, surveys and digital whiteboard labels was analyzed under the lens of three relational categories in the context of sustainability.

Learnings are acquired through five categories: place-based learning, prior learning, embodied learning, collaborative teamwork and intersectionality. The research shows how the subjective knowledge of young students positions them as co-designers and leaders of a University that drives a more just and sustainable transition.

The originality of the paper lies in the shift of DT from a human-based approach to a justice-oriented relational approach.