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The purpose of this paper is to examine a unique sociotechnical system in its historical context to better understand and appreciate how a naturalistic organization enacted five key characteristics identified as critical to sociotechnical systems by theorists hundreds of years after the fact.

The paper presents an examination of the history and context of this unique method of organizing. The literature of sociotechnical systems was examined and five guiding principles are identified which provide the framework for this evaluation.

A sociotechnical system with naturalistic origins is identified, described, and discussed; providing fresh insights into the nature of sociotechnical systems and there enactment.

This is a unique case not previously identified in the literature of management and organizations. It should be of particular interest to scholars interested in sociotechnical systems.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reasons behind the occurrence of serious accidents during interior firefighting operations of the German fire services despite numerous and significant safety improvements.

The paper is a case study relying on accident investigation reports from four accidents that happened in Germany between 2005 and 2016.

The study finds that the system of interior attack firefighting in Germany is a tightly coupled and complex system, as described by the normal accident theory, and that all four cases were caused by unanticipated interactions between components of the system and were therefore system accidents as described by the normal accident theory. This means that these accidents were ultimately caused by the properties of the system that make it susceptible to system accidents.

To prevent these accidents, there is a need to change the properties of the system that make it susceptible to system accidents.

The study identifies factors that make the system inherently dangerous. Hence, practical measures can be undertaken to counter these factors and make the system safer.

This study is the first application of the normal accident theory to the operations of the fire services in general, and it is the first theory-guided inquiry into accidents of the German fire services. The findings of this paper provide new explanations for accidents and new approaches to improve safety during interior attack firefighting operations.

Human presence tends to decrease biodiversity and often results in the local extinction or even global extinction of megafauna. The focus here is on how humans have affected wolf populations in what are now known as the contiguous 48 United States. While the arrival of indigenous peoples to the region produced the extinction of some species and a reduction in wolf populations, the cultural values and economic system, i.e., capitalism, utilized by the European invaders led to anthropogenic decimation of wildlife species on an unprecedented scale and the near local extinction of wolves. Although capitalism almost led to the local extinction of wolves in the contiguous 48 US states, it also produced an educated, affluent urban class concerned with protecting endangered species. Unlike farmers and ranchers, this urbanized class does not view wildlife as a potential economic threat. The vast majority of contemporary Americans, i.e., 96%, do not engage in sport hunting, so most do not view apex predators as unwanted competitors for game species. Moreover, many individuals who belong to the urban affluent class, even those who do not engage in wildlife viewing or other forms of outdoor recreation, value biodiversity. Since the late twentieth century, this has resulted in the preservation of existing wolf populations and reintroducing wolves to some of their historical ranges. These trends are likely to continue in the coming decades. However, capitalism should not be viewed as a system that initially decimated wolf populations and eventually created an economic class that saved them. It is argued that, due to its growth imperative, if left unchecked, capitalism will ultimately destroy wolves and many other species that have been granted temporary reprieves from extinction.

Much has been written about the works of Chester I. Barnard and Frederick W. Taylor but little attempt has been made by scholars to compare Barnard and Taylor. Barnard is a successor of Taylor and this may be one of the reasons why there has been a reluctance to place them side‐by‐side. The purpose of this paper is to capture the similarities and differences that existed in the thinking of these two individuals who greatly influenced management thinking during the twentieth century.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate electromechanical properties of a new stretchable interconnect design for “fine pitch” applications in stretchable electronics.

A patterned metal interconnect with a zigzag shape is adhered on an elastomeric substrate. In situ home‐built electromechanical measurement is carried out by the four‐probe technique. Finite element method is used to analyze the deformation behavior of a zigzag shape interconnect under uniaxial tensile loading.

The electrical resistance remains constant until metal breakdown at elongations beyond 40 percent. There is no significant local necking in either the transverse or the thickness direction at the metal breakdown area as shown by both scanning electron microscopy micrographs and resistance measurements. Micrographs and simulation results show that a debonding occurs due to the local twisting of a metal interconnect, out‐of‐plane peeling, and strain localized at the crest of a zigzag structure.

In this paper, the zigzag shape is, for the first time, proven as a promising design for stretchable interconnects, especially for fine pitch applications.

This study aims to demonstrate that in the latter years of his life, Frederick Winslow Taylor embraced union participation in management decision-making and that interwar US Taylor Society members and organized labor extended his support for this endeavor.

This study engages with primary materials not previously present in the management history literature and secondary works generated by researchers in disciplines commonly ignored by management scholars.

This study contests the claim that the scientific managers reached out to unions only after Taylor’s death and demonstrates Taylor welcomed union participation in the management of enterprises, held it was necessary to “show” and not merely “tell” unions that scientific management could be “good” for them, that his inner circle and organized labor jointly promoted these propositions within F.D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration, and that the US union movement was eventually compelled to settle for a form of industrial relations pluralism that limited their participation to bargaining over the conditions of employment and consequently doomed them to a disastrous future.

This study might support trade unionists develop strategies that may dampen employer hostility and thus revitalize the labor movement and assist management studies rediscover insights that once enabled the discipline to evolve beyond the enterprise. The latter is necessary for this study to live in an age when an increasing number of liberal market economies are characterized by austerity and retrenchment.

This study provides new evidence that demonstrates that Frederick Taylor embraced union participation in enterprise management and also that Taylor Society members actually made a significant contribution to Roosevelt’s New Deal labor policies.

In the past 15 years stretchable electronic circuits have emerged as a new technology in the domain of assembly, interconnections and sensor circuits and assembly technologies. In the meantime a wide variety of processes with the use of many different materials have been explored in this new field. The purpose of the current contribution is for the authors to present an approach for stretchable circuits which is inspired by conventional rigid and flexible printed circuit board (PCB) technology. Two variants of this technology are presented: stretchable circuit board (SCB) and stretchable mould interconnect (SMI).

Similarly as in PCB 17 or 35 μm thick sheets of electrodeposited or rolled‐annealed Cu are structured to form the conductive tracks, and off‐the‐shelf, standard packaged, rigid components are assembled on the Cu contact pads using lead‐free solder materials and reflow processes. Stretchability is obtained by shaping the Cu tracks not as straight lines, like in normal PCB design, but as horseshoe shaped meanders. Instead of rigid or flexible board materials, elastic materials, predominantly PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane), are used to embed the conductors and the components, thus serving as circuit carrier. The authors include some mechanical modeling and design considerations, aimed at the optimization of the build‐up and combination of elastic, flexible and rigid materials towards minimal stress and maximum mechanical reliability in the structures. Furthermore, details on the two production processes are given, reliability findings are summarised, and a number of functional demonstrators, realized with the technologies, are described.

Key conclusions of the work are that: supporting the metal meanders with a flexible carrier prior to embedding in an elastic substrate substantially increases the reliability under mechanical stress (cyclic uniaxial stretching) of the stretchable interconnect and the transition areas between rigid components and stretchable interconnects are the zones which are most sensitive to failure under mechanical stress. Careful design and technology implementation is necessary, providing a gradual transition from rigid to flexible to stretchable parts of the circuit.

Technologies for stretchable circuits, with the same level of similarity to standard PCB manufacturing and assembly, and thus with the same high potential for transfer to an industrial environment and for mass production, have not been shown before.

In the closing decades of the twentieth, and at the start of the twenty‐first, centuries, attention has again turned to the critical role of intuition in effective managerial decision making. This paper examines the history of intuition in management thought by tracing its origins to Chester I. Barnard. This paper reveals not only the intellectual roots linking Barnard’s conceptualization of intuition in management thought to, among others, the influential works of the economist and sociologist, Vilfredo Pareto; Lawrence Henderson’s influence on Barnard through Henderson’s leadership and direction of the Harvard Pareto Circle; the works of the early pragmatist John Dewey; Humphrey’s The Nature of Learning; and Koffka’s Principles of Gestalt Psychology. Further, Barnard’s conceptualization of intuition foreshadowed by nearly two decades nearly all of Polanyi’s thinking and elaboration of tacit knowledge. This paper also examines Barnard’s and Simon’s differing views on intuition and provides a brief overview of contemporary research on intuition in managerial decision making.

Presents anecdotes in the development of aspects of the field of management, relating to Lawrence J. Henderson, Chester I. Barnard, Peter Drucker, Kurt Lewin and J.B. Rhine. These suggest that history needs to be viewed in a hermeneutical philosophy where it is seen as presenting the Zeitgeist of its period rather than describing facts or causal relations.