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This paper explores the precedents for purchasing to contribute effectively to innovation exploration. We investigate how purchasing can become aware of innovation opportunities, their incentives or motivations to explore and capture innovation and the required capabilities.

Aiming for theory elaboration, we analyse an exemplar case study of a company developing leading-edge practices for involving purchasing in innovation exploration applying an Awareness-Motivation-Capability (AMC) framework.

This study elaborates on purchasing theory with a comprehensive set of AMC-based precedents for purchasing’s innovation exploration contribution that we categorise into three dimensions: motivations, capabilities and awareness. Our findings indicate interrelations between these and purchasing motivation as a precedent of capabilities and awareness.

We demonstrate the useful of applying AMC theory to researching purchasing’s contribution to innovation and how AMC needs to be adapted in this research context. We explore interrelations between awareness, motivation and capabilities but propose future research on the nature of these interrelations.

We suggest ways for managers to shape, adapt or redesign their purchasing organisations to better support innovation exploration.

This study proposes a framework for purchasing contribution to innovation based on AMC theory.

Most current modeling approaches identify very small gains from trade reform. In this chapter, we examine recent developments in the literature to assess whether standard modeling approaches are mis-specifying, understating, or overstating the gains from trade reform. Key areas where the impacts of trade barrier reduction appear to be understated include the measurement of barriers; the aggregation of these barriers; process productivity gains, particularly those resulting from reallocation of resources between firms; product quality improvements and expansion of product variety; factor supply; and investment of gains from trade.

The trajectory of François Perroux across the Vichy regime poses about all possible range of methodological issues to the historian of ideas: individual versus collective biography, ideational versus ideological reading, internal versus external analysis, etc. The chapter outlines key elements about Perroux’s trajectory showing the entanglements and boundaries of science and politics in the transition from democratic to authoritarian rule and vice versa. A particular emphasis on uncertainties and adjustments shows, against the tendency to a teleological explanation induced by a linear interpretation of his career, that different paths were considered by Perroux, but that his choices were nevertheless constrained by the forces of both the scientific and political fields.

This paper aims to describe coupon tests performed at elevated temperatures on S355 to S500 steel grades and comparison of test results with previous research studies and current EN 1993-1-2 material laws. The objective is to state if these steel grades satisfy to the current material laws and if the scope of application of these laws could be extended to S500 grades.

Two experimental programmes were launched to investigate the behaviour of S460M and S500M steel grades developed for hot-rolled sections. The first research programme was focussed on a comparison between S355 and S460 grades, where the second experimental programme was focussed on the recently developed S500M steel grade. The latter one comprised steady-state tests, transient-state tests and two large-scale beam tests.

Results of steady-state and transient-state tests correlate well with the reduction factors defined in EN 1993-1-2, currently limited to S460 grade. On the basis of this study, the scope of EN 1993-1-2 applies to S500 grades. For steady-state tests, the testing procedure (with and without acceleration after Rp0,2) led to noticeable differences. Transient-state tests, which are not standardised up to now, have been performed considering 5 K/min and 10 K/min constant heating rates. The slowest rate leads to lower strengths as creep effects are more significant. However, all the results are in line with EN 1993-1-2 material law. Importance should be given to the reference yield strength of steel at ambient temperature.

The revision of EN 1993-1-2 is on-going and this piece of work provides a contribution for extending the scope of application of material law of steel under fire conditions.

This chapter aims to address the question of the evolution of economists’s reception of Marxism in France, and thus to complete the more general history of the development of Marxism among French academics. To do so, we follow the relationship to Marx’s work of the economist François Perroux, a priori typical of the reversal reception of Marxist ideas in the 1950s, moving from open hostility to enthusiasm. Indeed, an incisive critic of Marx’s writings before the war, then head of the scientific institution of the Vichy regime, Perroux became in the postwar period a leading figure in the diffusion of Marx’s ideas in France. He founded the ISMEA (Institute of Mathematical and Applied Economic Sciences) which published the journal Études de marxologie, and eventually penned the preface to Marx’s economic works in 1963 for the Pléiade. By following this sinuous path, we show that the way Perroux related to Marx’s work helps us shed light on the various shifts in Perroux’s relationship to the science and politics of his time.

The economic science is again in a crisis and a new solution prolegomena to any future study in economics, finance and other social sciences has just been published by the International Institute of Social Economics in care of the MCB University Press in England. The roots of the major financial and economic problems of our time lie in an open conflict between theory and practice. In the 1930s and before the conflict was between classical theory and given realities. In the 1990s the conflict appears between the now prevailing modern, Keynesian theory and the actual realities. In addition during the twentieth century a great argument developed between the two schools of thought, argument which is not yet settled. In one sentence, the prolegomena tried and was successful to solve the conflict between theory and practice and the big doctrinal dispute of the twentieth century. It was a struggle of research and observation over half a century between 1947 and 1997.

Finite element (FE) models are considered for the penetration of magnetic flux in type-II superconductor films. A shell transformation allows boundary conditions to be applied at infinity with no truncation approximation. This paper aims to determine the accuracy and efficiency of shell transformation techniques in such non-linear eddy current problems.

A three-dimensional H – ϕ formulation is considered, where the reaction field is calculated in the presence of a uniform applied field. The shell transformation is used in the far-field region, and the uniform applied field is introduced through surface terms, so as to avoid infinite energy terms. The resulting field distributions are compared against known solutions for different geometries (thin disks and thin strips in the critical state, square thin films). The influence of the shape, size and mesh quality of the far-field regions are discussed.

The formulation is shown to provide accurate results for a number of film geometries and shell transformation shapes. The size of the far-field region has to be chosen in such a way to properly capture the asymptotic decay of the fields, and a practical procedure to determine this size is provided.

The importance of the size of the far-field region in a shell transformation and its proximity to the conducting domains are both highlighted. This paper also provides a numerical way to apply a constant magnetic field in a given region, while the source, on which only the far-field behaviour of the applied field depends, is excluded from the model.

The purpose of this paper is to review technostress-related challenges arising out of workplace communication, for employees and organizations, and to provide suggestions for taking these challenges on.

The paper presents an overview of current research and practice in the area of technostress-related challenges workplace communication.

Employees face technostress challenges relating to workplace communication in the form of technology overload, interruptions and work-home interferences. Organizations have to strike a balance between giving employees the technology they want and protecting them from these challenges. Several interventions to strike such balance are reviewed and commented on.

The paper gives practitioners an accessible overview of current research and practice in the area of technostress from workplace communication such as e-mail. A number of practical interventions are reviewed and commented on, which could help employees tackle such challenges.

Although this paper reviews state-of-the-art research, it is written in an accessible and practitioner-oriented style, which should be found valuable by readers with limited time but urgency to deal with technostress challenges arising out of workplace communication.

Robotic friction stir welding (RFSW) is an innovative process which enables solid-state welding of aluminum parts using robots. A major drawback of this process is that the robot joints undergo elastic deformation during the welding, because of the high forces induced by the process. This leads to tool deviation and incorrect orientation. There is currently no computer-aided manufacturing/computer-aided design (CAD) software for generating off-line paths which integrates robot deflections, and the main purpose of this study is to propose an off-line methodology to plan a path for RFSW with the integration of the deflections.

The approach is divided into two steps. The first step consists of extracting position and orientation data from CAD models of the workpieces and adding the deflections calculated with a deflection model to generate a suitable path for performing RFSW. The second step consists of the smooth fitting of the suitable path using Bézier curves.

The method is experimentally validated by welding a curved workpiece using a Kuka KR500-2MT robot. A suitable tool position and orientation were calculated to perform this welding, an experimental procedure was set up, a defect-free weld was performed and a high accuracy was achieved in terms of position and orientation.

This method can help manufacturers to easily perform RFSW for three-dimensional workpieces regardless of the lateral tool deviation, loss of the right orientation and control force stability.

The originality of this method lies in compensating for robot deflections without using expensive sensors, which is the most commonly used method for compensating for robot deflection. This off-line method can lead to a reduction in programming time in comparison with teach programming method and leads to reduced investment costs in comparison with commercial off-line programming packages.