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This paper aims to present a case study where proportional hazards modeling software is used to evaluate the potential benefits of a condition‐based maintenance policy for military vehicle diesel engines.

Maintenance records for diesel engines were supplied by the UK Ministry of Defence. A proportional hazards model based on these data was created using EXAKT software. Covariate parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood method and transition probabilities were established using a Markov Chain model. Finally, decision parameters were entered to create an optimal decision model.

Two significant covariates were identified as influencing the hazard rate of the engines. In addition, the optimal decision model indicated a potential economic saving of up to 30 per cent.

A model of this nature is particularly useful to predict failures, improve maintenance policies, and possibly reduce maintenance costs. In addition, the cost of implementing maintenance policies based on this model should be balanced with the potential to reduce the risk of danger to personnel.

The model presented provides military personnel with a decision tool that optimizes the maintenance policy for diesel engines installed in military vehicles.

This study suggests two new diversification strategies, i.e., tourism-related and tourism-unrelated diversifications which are specifically applicable to the hotel firms. This study aims to investigate which diversification strategy has better benefits toward firm performance. This study includes a complete set of public listed firms of the hotel industry from four Asian countries, namely, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and Malaysia, covering from years 2001 to 2012. Revealing the advantage and disadvantage of both diversification strategies, the empirical evidence regarding its influences on hotel firm performance are investigated in this study. This study finds a nonlinear relationship between degree of diversification and firm performance. Confronting with the volatile earnings when crises strike tourism sector, this study further shows how the crises affect the relationship between tourism-related/unrelated diversification strategy and hotel firm performance.

Adopting a person-environment (P-E) fit approach, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of emotional labour, segmentation/integration and social support in the development of work-home conflict.

Mental health professionals (n=118) completed the work-home conflict and home-work conflict scales (Netemeyer et al., 1996), the segmentation preferences and supplies scales (Kreiner, 2006) and the Mann Emotion Requirements Inventory (Mann, 1999). A social support checklist was also developed to assess the perceived value of work and non-work sources of support.

Contrary to expectation, emotional labour was associated with lower levels of work-home conflict. There was no evidence found for the relevance of a P-E fit approach, rather the results indicated that the perception that the organisation supports the separation of work and home is sufficient in ameliorating work-home conflict. In addition, work-based support was found to reduce work-home conflict.

The importance of support within the work environment as a way of reducing work-home conflict has been highlighted. That is, providing a safe environment to discuss anxieties and concerns is a fundamental factor when developing organisational support structure. The importance of providing professionals with choice regarding their preference to segment or integrate work and home has also been highlighted. Based on the contradictory findings with regards to emotional labour and work-home conflict, future research should aim to further examine this relationship within a forensic psychiatric setting.

This is the first research paper to explore the role of emotional labour, segmentation/integration and social support in the development of work-home conflict.

Situated within the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, the Chapman Learning Commons (CLC) has been offering academic transition and learning support programs targeted to first year students since 2002. A recent addition to our suite of services is the Profs-in-Commons program which invites faculty members to conduct their office hours and host events in the CLC. The program has been an important initiative for the Learning Commons and the UBC campus community because it encourages student–faculty interaction outside of the classroom; it increases student’s attendance in course-based office hours – hosted by faculty members and it leverages the status of libraries as neutral, collaborative, and community-oriented learning spaces. The program is grounded in student engagement research consistently showing that students’ transition to university is greatly enhanced when they foster academic connections with faculty members. Profs-in-Commons also responds to research into best practices for how to support student transition to university academic environments. This chapter will elaborate on the theoretical foundations of the Profs-in-Commons program, share how the UBC-Vancouver Profs-in-Commons program was initiated and is sustained, and discuss the program’s benefits and challenges.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) commonly struggle to acquire needed financial, human, and technological resources. The above being stated, recent scholarly research argues that SMEs that are able to successfully navigate the legitimacy threshold are better able to gather the resources they need to survive and grow. This article provides an empirical test of that claim by examining whether the presence of a corporate parent positively influences SME resource acquisition. Results of the study show that SMEs with corporate parents, when compared to like-sized independent SMEs, have higher credit scores, have more complete management teams, use more computers, and are more likely to be on the Internet. These differences are most pronounced for very small firms and diminish in significance as firm size increases. Study implications include the notion that presence of a corporate parent likely represents a successful navigation of the legitimacy threshold, positively increasing SME resource acquisition.

This paper aims to present a contribution to the fields of knowledge management and social business. As the extant literature about knowledge management reveals the role of knowledge in the process of new venture creation, the authors argue that such literature can answer concerns and calls for further research on examining social entrepreneurship. This paper proposes several key insights for this purpose and argues that one key contribution of the literature on knowledge management to the field of social entrepreneurship is that it explains the poor growth of new social ventures. The authors also conclude the paper by explaining how the specificities of knowledge management among social businesses could create a new research agenda in the field of knowledge management.

Following the systematic literature review approach, this conceptual paper proposes a reflection that is based on the connection of two kinds of literature reviews as follows: a review on knowledge management applied to the context of new venture creation and a review on social entrepreneurship and its vision of knowledge.

The authors reveal that one key explanation of poor growth in new social ventures is not necessarily associated with a lack of resources, but rather an inefficient knowledge management process.

The first original point of the paper is that it links two sets of literature reviews that have hardly ever been addressed together, namely knowledge management literature and social entrepreneurship literature. Moreover, the paper reveals how knowledge management based on a “bricolage” approach could foster the growth of new social ventures.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of participating in an eight‐week physical training (ie. balance or weight training) on psychosocial outcomes for independently living healthy older adults. Eighteen older adults (65 years old or older) voluntarily participated in this study. Participants were randomly and evenly distributed in three different groups such as balance, weight or control group; six participants in each. Fear of falling and social activity levels were statistically tested by evaluating questionnaires validated in previous studies. Psychological factors improved in all groups after eight weeks (P < 0.05). Social interaction levels did not improve in any of the three groups, although all participants exhibited improvements in being physically independent (P < 0.05). Results suggested that being physically active as well as being socially active could result in being less fearful of falls, more confident of leaving residency, being more independent, and being more active.

Reflects on the experience of three product development teams to build a framework to aid in the process of strategic sourcing. Focuses on patterns observed across these three new product development projects in terms of challenges in strategic sourcing. Building from these observations, proposes a four‐step decision‐making framework that enables product development teams and managers to make informed product development sourcing decisions. The framework was designed to have enough structure to guide the sourcing decision process, but flexible enough to promote challenging thinking and deep analysis.

Innovation is crucial for attaining a competitive advantage for companies. Innovation, versus imitation, motivates companies to launch new products and become pioneers on markets. Many factors have been shown to be determinants for supporting an organizational innovative orientation. One of them is organizational culture. The objective of this paper is to analyze the organizational culture that fosters or inhibits organizational innovation and imitation strategy.

The paper uses a sample of 471 Spanish companies for examining the hypotheses. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, it relates the effect of organizational culture with an innovation strategy.

The results confirm the hypotheses. The paper finds that organizational culture is a clear determinant of innovation strategy. Moreover, adhocracy cultures foster innovation strategies and hierarchical cultures promote imitation cultures.

The main limitations are that data in the study were collected from one source for the cross‐sectional design of this research.

Managers should pay more attention to their organization culture if they pursue innovation/imitation strategies. Moreover, depending on this orientation (to be the first company to introduce in new markets or develop new products for a market versus to follow a pioneer), companies should promote different values and norms in their organizations.

The main value of this paper is its analysis and testing of the relation of organizational culture and innovation orientation. The majority of the literature underlines the paper's seeking after organizational culture for innovation. However, this topic has not been studied in depth and requires attention to different organizational cultures and innovation orientations.