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How responsible is the management elite for the so‐called “world‐problems”, e.g. like “the scandalous economic scissors between north and south”, population growth and food scarcity or environmental problems? To give first answers on these questions is the purpose of this paper.

As we began to think about these sorts of questions, we became very much aware, that there are numerous reasons to get down from the “ivory tower” and start being more concerned about the role of business administration within this “world‐problem” issue. The theoretical scope of the paper is observing management attitudes by the glasses of the system theory. The practical outcome of this work is giving managers the chance to reflect themselves.

By asking questions to the traditional business administration as a science and as a practice we will develop a new attitude of self‐responsibility in the spirit of Heinz von Foerster for a new, alternative academic management education.

This paper describes the core elements of a new “I‐want” reflection‐theory and tries to “irritate”; better: perturbate management‐systems in order to keep the dynamics of self‐reflection going.

The Libraries are in an era where changes come with high speed and much intense issues, and this seems to be as a result of the 4th industrial revolution. These emerging issues come in the form of changes that are not supposed to be overlooked by the library managers. These are changes libraries and Librarians have to be knowledgeable about. This chapter will address the impact, issues, challenges and controversies, prospects and how libraries should adapt, embrace and redesign their services, spaces and roles to accommodate this change on the Libraries. Existing research in the 4th Industrial revolution tends to focus on the challenges without much prospects and little or no evidence that researchers have approached how the libraries should accommodate and harness this revolutionary changes for improved library services provision. Therefore, this chapter aims to provide how the 4th industrial revolution affects the library and how libraries can harness the industrial revolution for enhanced services provision.

Presents an “in memoriam” tribute to Heinz von Foerster.

Outlines his work.

Introduces his inspiring contributions in the applied sciences and to the more general researches on the theoretical and practical implications of the cybernetic epistemology.

Gives insights to the importance of the work of von Foerster.

To improve the load capacity and stability of gas foil journal bearings (GFJB), this paper aims to propose a novel GFJB with taper-grooved top foil.

A modified bump stiffness model is established considering rounding and friction. By considering the variation of clearance in the circumferential and axial direction, the static and dynamic characteristics of the novel bearing are calculated using the finite difference method, and perturbation method, respectively. The bearing performance under different groove parameters is studied and compared to the traditional bearings.

The results show that this novel GFJB can bring multi-extra local dynamic pressure and decrease the gas end leakage, which improves the static and dynamic properties. Moreover, as the increment of groove depth, the load capacity and direct stiffness are reinforced. There is an optimal groove width to maximize the load capacity, and the taper-groove is more beneficial to the improvement of bearing performance than other groove shapes. For the novel GFJB (Ng = 6, Hg = 10µm), the load capacity and direct stiffness increase by about 6.67 and 13.5 per cent, respectively. The stability threshold speed (STS) of a rotor supported by the novel bearings is also increased.

The performance of the presented novel GFJB is enhanced immensely compared to the traditional bearings, and the results are expected to be helpful to bearing designers, researchers and academicians concerned.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2019-0307.

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the supply and demand of marketing and communication consulting services and evaluate actual and perceived gaps.

The paper uses two different datasets to assess the gap. The supply database comes from desk research carried out in the province of Bergamo (n. 159 consulting agencies). The demand dates are the results of 100 structured interviews with local companies that requested marketing and communication consulting services both inside and outside the province.

Findings show that there is no significant shortage in local service supply. Nonetheless, a limited gap exists between the provision of specific services and their overall quality. Conversely, the perceived gap is wider, leading to an impression of scarce availability – a notion disproven by the analysis of the actual supply.

The study suggests that local agencies may overcome their “myopic” attitude and need to increase their visibility, competencies and expertise by investing in these areas and improving networking.

There are no previous studies that compare the supply and demand for marketing and communication consulting services. The paper also provides insights into actual and perceived gaps in a hypercompetitive environment.

Drowsiness is a common cause of severe road accidents. Therefore, numerous drowsiness detection methods were developed and explored in recent years, especially concepts using physiological measurements achieved promising results. Nevertheless, existing systems have some limitations that hinder their use in vehicles. To overcome these limitations, this paper aims to investigate the development of a low-cost, non-invasive drowsiness detection system, using physiological signals obtained from conventional wearable devices.

Two simulator studies, the first study in a low-level driving simulator (N = 10) to check feasibility and efficiency, and the second study in a high-fidelity driving simulator (N = 30) including two age groups, were conducted. An algorithm was developed to extract features from the heart rate signals and a data set was created by labelling these features according to the identified driver state in the simulator study. Using this data set, binary classifiers were trained and tested using various machine learning algorithms.

The trained classifiers reached a classification accuracy of 99.9%, which is similar to the results obtained by the studies which used intrusive electrodes to detect ECG. The results revealed that heart rate patterns are sensitive to the drivers’ age, i.e. models trained with data from one age group are not efficient in detecting drowsiness for another age group, suggesting to develop universal driver models with data from different age groups combined with individual driver models.

This work investigated the feasibility of driver drowsiness detection by solely using physiological data from wrist-worn wearable devices, such as smartwatches or fitness trackers that are readily available in the consumer market. It was found that such devices are reliable in drowsiness detection.

The paper aims to investigate the possibilities to control friction in lubricated systems by surface patterning, making use of a multi-scale approach. Surface patterns inside the tribological contact zone tend to directly reduce friction, whereas surface patterns located in the close proximity of the contact area can improve the tribological performance by avoiding lubricant starvation and migration. Finally, optimized surface patterns were identified by preliminary laboratory tests and transferred to a journal bearing, thus testing them under more realistic conditions.

Surface patterns on a large scale (depth > 10 µm) were fabricated by micro- and roller-coining, whereas surface patterns on a small scale (depth < 2 µm) were produced by direct laser interference patterning. The combination of both techniques resulted in multi-scale surface patterns. Tribologically beneficial surface patterns (verified in ball-on-disk laboratory tests) were transferred onto a journal bearing’s shaft and tested on a special test-rig. To characterize the lubricant spreading behavior, a new test-rig was designed, which allowed for the study of the lubricant’s motion on patterned surfaces under the influence of a precisely controlled temperature gradient.

All tested patterns accounted for a pronounced friction reduction and/or an increase in oil film lifetime. The results from the preliminary laboratory tests matched well, with results from the journal bearing test-rig, both tests showing a maximum friction reduction by a factor of 3-4. Numerical investigations, as well as experiments, have shown the possibility to actively guide lubricant over patterned surfaces. Smaller periodicities, as well as greater structural depths and widths, led to a more pronounced anisotropic spreading and/or greater spreading velocities. Multi-scale surfaces demonstrated the strongest effects regarding the lubricant’s spreading behavior.

Friction, as well as lubricant migration, can be successfully controlled by using micro-coined, laser-patterned and/or multi-scale surfaces. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study demonstrates for the first time the unique possibility to transfer results obtained in laboratory tests to a real machine component.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the effects of top-down leadership and employees’ bottom-up job crafting behaviors on employee health and performance. The authors expected that employees’ promotion- and prevention-focused job crafting act as intervening mechanisms linking top-down employee-oriented leadership with employee health and performance.

Multi-source data were collected among n=117 independent employee-leader dyads.

Promotion-focused job crafting was positively and prevention-focused job crafting was negatively related to employees’ health and performance. Employee-oriented leadership was positively related to promotion-focused job crafting but unrelated to prevention-focused job crafting. Employee-oriented leadership was indirectly related to health and performance through promotion-focused job crafting. Moreover, promotion-focused job crafting had the strongest positive impact on adaptive performance, followed by proactive and then task performance, while prevention-focused job crafting had the strongest negative impact on task performance followed by proactive and then adaptive performance.

Despite the cross-sectional study design, results reveal how employee-oriented leadership is related to employee health and performance through promotion-focused job crafting.

Organizations need employee-oriented leaders, who facilitate promotion-focused job crafting, which helps employees to perform well while staying well.

This study adds to the literatures on job crafting, leadership, and employee health and performance by explicating intervening processes in these relationships. It adds to research on the extended job demands-resources job crafting model by showing, that promotion- and prevention-focused job crafting has different relationships with antecedents (i.e. leadership) and outcomes (i.e. health and performance).

China is a major energy import powerhouse, its trade deals have significant impact on international energy trade and global energy markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of energy in China’s preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and their impact on Chinese imports of oil, gas and coal.

An extended trade gravity model framework is applied to explore the dynamics of China’s annualized energy import flows from the 22 economies that have PTAs with it for the period 1995–2015.

The effect of PTAs on trade patterns varies across the product groups and agreement clauses. The dominant factor affecting trade flows of coal, crude oil and oil products is the average tariff level. Its impact is less significant for gas imports, which are more affected by policy arrangements represented by a PTA variable. The depth and scope of a PTA do not affect Chinese energy imports patterns.

This paper is focused on exploring the effect of China’s trade and foreign relations strategies on its energy imports through the prism of its PTAs. Estimating the direct impact of China’s initiatives in the areas of trade, investment, security, culture, etc., on its trade flows of energy products and other product groups using the methodological framework proposed in this study would contribute to better understanding of the issue.

The findings can assist both China and energy exporting countries that target Chinese market in better understanding the drivers of trade flows of energy products and design their PTA strategies accordingly.

This study applies the trade gravity model framework to assess the impact of specific components of preferential trade agreements – tariff reduction and depth and scope of agreement – on energy trade flows differentiated by product group.