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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.

Management research has begun to explore how cultural entrepreneurs use established or declining societal traditions to create distinctive new ventures and products. In this study, we propose an alternative pathway for creating entrepreneurial opportunities, that is, through leveraging extinct societal traditions. Extinct societal traditions yield opportunities to create highly distinctive products and ventures, yet their use entails substantial challenges. To understand how entrepreneurs can successfully leverage extinct societal traditions, we investigate the case of The Merchant of Venice, an Italian venture established in 2013 that produces luxury perfumes based on the perfume-making tradition that flourished in Venice between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and disappeared afterwards. Our study illuminates how cultural entrepreneurs can leverage extinct societal traditions by (a) exhuming lost knowledge and practices, (b) validating them as an authentic and appreciable tradition of a given community and territory, and (c) elevating their meaningfulness as core to place identity. Our study contributes to the literature on cultural entrepreneurship and traditions by revealing the distinct challenges that resurrecting extinct traditions entail, enriching the understanding of types, goals, and processes of cultural entrepreneurship, and widening current knowledge of the roles of tradition custodians.

The sociological and demographic reality of recent decades has meant that western companies have seen an evolution towards greater diversification among their staff members. The implementing of a diversity policy in a company cannot be reduced to a managerial fashion or fad, to professional rhetoric or to a set of superficial or illusory initiatives, but it can aim at social transformation. That is why, in this chapter, the authors have chosen to portray the deployment of such an approach from the standpoint of an organisation-changing process, which can, at the same time, alter the language, the standards and the practices of the organisation and led them at the end to identify three managerial levers capable of transforming team diversity into performance enhancers.

Leadership is basically about influence and ability to cultivate followership. This chapter examined the nature of indigenous socio-political leadership in Africa using Zimbabwe, Sudan and Nigeria as caselets and compared this with the post-colonial or modern-day leadership realities. A survey was conducted among senior executives at Lagos Business School, Nigeria, with a sample size of 200 persons, to find out their perception of the African indigenous leadership system. An overwhelming 90% believe that culture plays a big role in shaping African leadership style. However, two-thirds of the respondents agreed that Africa lacks proper institutional structures to support good leadership, thus encouraging corruption (97% of the respondents) and non-accountability among the leaders. Also, only 5% thought cultural orientation was the reason why the African followers do not hold their leaders accountable. In other words, it is not in the African culture not to hold leaders accountable for their actions. So, what went wrong? We attempted a deeper look at the effect of colonial rule and the attendant militarisation of the African continent. Our conclusion is that the colonisation of the continent by Europe brought significant distortion to the traditional African indigenous leadership institutions and the psyche of the African leader and the followers alike. Post-colonial Africa has witnessed 133 recorded coups d’etat between 1952 and 2016. This chapter is recommended to all those who seek a deeper understanding of the nature of the African indigenous leadership practices and the factors that have shaped these over the years.

Drawing on sociolinguistics, this chapter proposes an encoding–decoding perspective on evaluation, conceptualizing codes as interpretive schemas that are encoded by firms and decoded by audiences. A key element in this process is code complexity, denoting combinations of interdependent elements. We demonstrate that the evaluation of code complexity depends on the type of audience (professionals and laypersons) and the type of complexity (technological and aesthetic). We analyze the attribution of awards by professionals and the public in luxury watchmaking, featuring three mechanisms: the social embeddedness of audiences, their motivation for evaluation and supply-and-demand matching. The results attest to significant differences in the evaluation of technological and aesthetic code complexity by professionals and laypersons. There is a premium attributed to aesthetic code complexity by professionals and a premium attributed to technological complexity by laypersons. Finding the right type and level of code complexity to pursue in their offerings is a key strategic challenge for producers.

The aim of this paper is to explore interactions between change and stability during the implementation of a specific change initiative (ISO 9000). It attempts to develop a theoretical framework on change and stability management in small firms.

This research uses a process approach based on retrospective comparative case study methodology. Data collection in the six companies lasted over a year. This gives the opportunity to contrast failed change initiatives against successful ones.

Two models emerged from this approach; they support the notion that change and stability could be complementary during the different phases of the change initiative the authors analyzed. The findings show that total absence of stability variables in the change initiative could have negative effect on results.

The research is based on a multiple case study approach, which limits the generalizability of the findings.

This is one of the first studies that applies and empirically tests the change and stability relation in small firms.

Most publications on the management of diversity in Western countries pay homage to history by referring back to the way regulatory frameworks developed to promote equal treatment and to oppose discrimination. In work on English speaking countries, particular attention has been given to the struggles waged in the USA for civil rights and for gender equality in the 1960s and their impact on the emergence of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action laws and policies. Generally, these developments are depicted as the antecedents to the emergence of diversity management in the USA. This genealogical orientation is usually designed to establish historical foundations. However, as we see it, this approach to history has promoted an impression of linear evolution. Our general aim in this chapter is to show how an historical perspective can help uncover continuities in regard to equal employment opportunity, affirmative action and diversity management policies and strategies in Australia, particularly in relation to the management of cultural diversity in Australian workplaces. Rather than seeing development in linear terms, our aim is to highlight connections and the implications of such connections. Accordingly, this chapter relates each of these policies/strategies to analogous political and legal developments that emerged concurrently, in particular such initiatives as multiculturalism, anti-discrimination laws and what became known in Australia as ‘productive diversity’ policies.