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First responders are specialty teams who are trained to work in toxic environments to assess and diffuse the threat. They have to wear specially designed Personal Protective Ensembles (PPE) that is impermeable to liquids and gasses. Microclimate inside PPEs gets hot and humid, rapidly rendering it uncomfortable and often hazardous to work longer than 30 minutes at a time. Providing active cooling is one way to extend the time spent in PPEs. Two water-cooled prototype garments were developed at our department. This study focused on the evaluation of the prototype cooling garments using human subjects, performing simulated tasks in an environmental chamber. Both physiological and perceptual responses were considered to understand the garment's effectiveness in providing cooling relief as well as the user acceptance in terms of ease of use, comfort and perceived effectiveness. The subjects' perception of cooling relief generally agreed with the physiological data. The two prototype cooling vests positively affected skin temperatures, sweat rate, microclimate temperature, humidity, perceived temperature and perceived humidity. Both physiological and perception data indicated there were no significant and consistent differences between the two cooling vests. The subjects perceived the prototype cooling garments to provide effective cooling, to be attractive and practical overall.

Combining of natural and synthetic materials in apparel products caused problems with material recovery, reuse, recycling, or composting at the end of product life. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of design for disassembly methods in the design and construction of men's jacket. With this type of design, consumers and manufacturers can easily compost, recycle, or reuse different materials and components at the end of the garment's usable life.

After analyzing the men's jackets available in the market and identifying obstacles to disassembly, the authors designed and constructed a man's jacket that can be easily disassembled. The jacket design for disassembly focused on material selection, jacket design, and stitch evaluation and selection. The disassembly time was also measured.

It was found that minimizing material diversity and sewing similar materials together whenever possible, replacing fusible interfacing with blind hemming stitches under the collar and on the backside of the lapel, and using an appropriate low density stitch to sew the wool outer shell and polyester lining together, can make the jacket disassemble easily into a compostable outer shell and recyclable lining within 1.5 min.

This research provided a pilot study demonstration of applying “design for disassembly” in apparel design and construction. The findings could be employed in different apparel products to help reduce environmental pollution and resource depletion problems related to the apparel industry.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and implement a new sustainable apparel design and production model, cradle to cradle apparel design (C2CAD), that provides guidelines for apparel designers and manufacturers to solve some of the sustainability problems related to apparel production.

The C2CAD model was developed by integrating McDonough and Braungart's “cradle to cradle” model into existing apparel design and production models. Knitwear design and production was used to implement the C2CAD model as a proof of concept. The performance and cost of the C2CAD knitwear were evaluated.

The C2CAD model has four main steps: problem definition and research; sample making; solution development and collaboration; and production. Following the four steps and with an international collaboration similar to current apparel industry practices, “Four‐season sustainability” children's knitwear prototypes were developed. Produced with an acceptable manufacturing cost, the products have good mechanical and color fastness performance.

The C2CAD model provides practical guidelines for apparel designers and manufacturers and allows them to address all three pillars in sustainable development: economic development, social development, and environmental protection.

The C2CAD is the first apparel design and production model that emphasizes sustainability in addition to functional, expressive, and aesthetic considerations. The production process of “Four‐season sustainability” children's knitwear demonstrated the implementation of C2CAD model in sustainable apparel design and production.

This chapter reports on a hybrid sector of disability provision in Australia and the changes to the sector due to the shift to person-centred care in Australia. It explains the significant changes to the way the sector will respond to government and to client demands and how the organisations are responding to this by re-structuring and building new performance measurement systems including Social Return on Investment.

The first part of the chapter is descriptive of the change to person-centred care in the Australian disability sector using public reports. The second part of the chapter looks at the change at a micro level using an analysis of the literature.

Findings illustrate how the National Disability Insurance Scheme has brought about significant change between sectors of government and between providers, both government and non-government. Organisations have had to make significant changes to adapt to the government’s policy and especially funding change. This includes setting new governance and leadership models, changed human resource management practices and performance measurement systems.

The paper is a report relatively early in the transition phases, and therefore, more evidence is needed as the system change progresses. Still, the Australian disability sector provides a powerful example of significant hybridisation changes as a result of a shift to person-centred care.

This is a dramatic change from the Australian government to impose person-centred care. The adaptations of Australian organisations provide an interesting insight for the international community.

The purpose of this study is to identify how craft spirits distilleries use elements of the storytelling narrative as part of a storytelling marketing strategy.

A case study approach was undertaken based on seven craft distilleries in and around Chicago, IL. Data were collected from various sources including direct observation and secondary data based on online press coverage company websites and social media.

In the sample of firms, the authors identified the following seven categories of storytelling themes: craft, innovation, origins, myth, celebrity, provenance and collectability. These categories comprise both functional and emotional components which are strongly associated with the concept of authenticity.

This research is the first of its kind to investigate storytelling within the craft spirits sector. The results are relevant to develop strategies for marketing craft spirits brands. Findings are relevant for spirits distilleries in Chicago, IL but have transferable learnings for beverage categories who desire to stage meaningful, valued customer experiences.

Prior studies examined the effects of rater and ratee on performance-related evaluations (PREs) either individually or in conjunction with one other variable. This study extended the literature by adopting a more complete approach. It examined the interaction effect between rater, ratee and environmental (such as level of performance) variables on PREs. A three-way interaction effect between rater age, ratee sex and level of managerial performance on PREs was predicted. An experiment using two cases — one where the ratee performed successfully and the other where the ratee performed unsuccessfully — was carried out. Fifty-seven participants took part in the experiment. As predicted, when the ratee performed successfully, younger raters demonstrated a sex bias against the female ratee whereas older raters did not. However, when the ratee performed unsuccessfully, neither younger nor older raters exhibited significant female sex bias. Implications of the findings were discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of immediate workspace satisfaction (IWS) and environmental workplace quality (EWQ) on perceived organizational support (POS), engagement and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). In this paper, we draw on social exchange theory and environmental psychology to propose IWS and EWQ as drivers of employee OCBs.

A survey was conducted with 1,206 full-time employees. The EWQ measure was assessed with a randomly selected calibration sample (n = 603). Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the hypothesized model (n = 603).

IWS and EWQ both are positively related to employees’ OCBs. For IWS, the effect was fully mediated by POS while POS and engagement partially mediated the EWQ–OCB relationship.

The survey was conducted at one point in time and may introduce common method variance.

High-quality, satisfying workspace and workplace environments motivate employee OCBs through POS and work engagement.

This study introduces a scale for measuring EWQ. Empirical evidence provided to support the effects of two contextual perceptions—IWS and EWQ—on employee discretionary behaviors.