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Research into the antecedents of TMT conflict has become increasingly popular in light of the effects that conflict can have on strategic decision making and organizational performance. Of course, such performance becomes a part of the contextual backdrop against which future decisions are made. Thus, organizational performance is itself an important antecedent of TMT conflict. Using data drawn from the TMTs of 44 mid‐sized public firms, we demonstrate that cognitive and affective conflict relate differently to past performance. The implications of this research for efforts to effectively manage conflict during strategic decision making are discussed.

The breasts are mainly fatty and connective tissues with no muscles that directly support them, so wearing sports bras is one of the most effective means of alleviating the discomfort of breast movement and potential injury during vigorous physical exercise. However, the design and development processes of traditional sports bras are time-consuming and costly. Hence, a novel method of simulating the static contact pressure between a sports bra and women’s body based on the finite element (FE) and artificial neural network (ANN) models is developed in this study to contribute to the design considerations of sports bras.

Three-dimensional FE models of a female subject and sports bras with different fabric properties are developed to determine the amount of contact pressure exerted onto the body. The FE results are then verified by measuring the amount of pressure exerted by the sports bra on the skin with pressure sensors. The Taguchi technique is used to effectively reduce the number of trials from 625 to only 25 cases. These 25 results obtained through FE modelling are then used to provide the training set for the ANNs. Finally, a comparison between the FE and ANN results is carried out.

A novel model of the static contact pressure between a sports bra and human subject based on the FE and ANN methods is presented in this paper. The root mean square error values show that there is only a small difference between the FE and ANN results.

The ANN function established in this study can be used to predict the mechanical behaviours of breasts and has a fundamental impact on the computer-aided design of functional garments in general.

The gender diversity of top management teams (TMTs) is slowly increasing. Research shows that top executives influence firms through their role in strategic decision-making but that executives are not equally engaged in it. The purpose of this paper is to understand whether gender affects the likelihood of inclusion in strategic decision-making.

Drawing on surveys completed by chief executive officers (CEOs) and using expectation states and gender roles theories, the author examines the relationship between gender and inclusion in strategic decision-making for 266 top executives of global public firms.

After controlling for a myriad of factors, results indicate that female executives are less likely than male executives to be included in strategic decision-making. Firm tenure moderates this effect such that it leads to a greater likelihood of inclusion for female executives but not male executives.

This study provides a unique consideration of strategic decision-making in TMTs. The findings suggest that diversity and inclusion do not always go hand in hand and that female executives may need to prove themselves more than male executives to be given an equal voice in the strategic direction of the firm.

Despite its strategic importance, researchers have given little attention to when CEOs are willing to delegate decisions to top management team members. Prior studies and conventional wisdom suggest that CEOs will be more willing to delegate in times of good performance. Drawing from prospect theory, we suggest an alternative view: that CEOs will be risk‐averse and, therefore, less willing to delegate when their firms have performed well. Our findings provide support for both perspectives.

Health economics is now a well‐established topic within the discipline of economics. A 5,500‐item bibliography covering material up to 1982 is available (Blades et al, 1986). Health economists write on such diverse matters as (to select at random) demand for acute care in hospitals, the costs of illness, the economics of alcoholism, cost‐benefit analysis in magnetic resonance imaging, and the pros and cons of any number of ways of financing the delivery of health services. Here in the UK the Health Economists' Study Group boasts around 150 members. Meanwhile, hardly a day goes by without the newspapers containing items concerning topics which could form the basis for health economists' involvement in analysis, evaluation and, in some cases, policy advice. The jargon of economics and evaluation is becoming familiar to a wider audience: thus articles on cost‐effectiveness and cost‐benefit analysis appear regularly in medical journals and the quality‐adjusted life‐year (QALY) has featured on TV. Thus a review of some of the recently published books in this area would appear appropriate at this juncture.

A common design driver for pipe-jacking projects is the jacking force required to advance the tunnel boring machine and pipe string. Empirical methods are popular in industry but are well known to lack accuracy, while there is a strong desire to supplement such approaches with robust data-driven techniques, typically small construction datasets present significant challenges.

To address this challenge, this paper develops a physics-constrained neural network predictive model for pipe-jacking forces. Information used as input into the model includes principal design information and soil type.

The physics constrained model was found to predict jacking force to a higher accuracy than current industry practice and better discern meaningful patterns in data than a purely data-driven artificial neural network. The results reveal promising performance for this initial dataset such that there is motivation, as a longer-term objective, to train the present approach on a more comprehensive drive database for more reliable and cost effective solutions for new projects.

Novel contributions include (a) a bespoke framework to constrain a neural network using a pipe-jacking mechanistic model which includes stoppage-induced friction increases, (b) built-in model uncertainty for greater confidence in model outputs, (c) new historical drive data for model training and (d) one-hot encoding of soil type as a model input. The model is calibrated and validated against 14 tunnel drives across four different sites with four distinctive ground types.

Although the majority of research explores the direct relationship between family control and innovativeness, the purpose of this paper is to investigate mediators that explain how family control is related to innovativeness. Grounded in agency theory, resource dependence theory, and the resource-based view of the firm, the authors suggest that this relationship operates through board task performance, that is, the level of directors’ involvement in control and service tasks.

To test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling is applied to cross-sectional survey data collected from 329 private firms that are located in Belgium. Family control is defined as 50 percent family ownership in combination with at least one family member being involved in the management or board of directors of the firm.

Four key results emerge from the analysis. First, family control is negatively associated with control task performance but does not affect service task performance. Second, control and service task performance positively influence innovativeness. Third, the negative relationship between family control and innovativeness is partially mediated by control task performance. Fourth, the presence of a family CEO and the percentage of family directors address heterogeneity among family controlled firms (FCFs).

This paper complements and extends existing research on the relationship between family control and innovativeness by adopting a governance perspective. The authors contribute to a deeper understanding of why FCFs are more or less innovative than nonfamily controlled firms and reveal underlying mechanisms previously uncovered.