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To examine how public servants are depicted in film, I discuss the changes over time of Batmanʼs Commissioner Gordon, particularly his character arc in the contemporary The Dark Knight trilogy. An important aspect of Gordonʼs evolution is in contrast to the filmsʼ other prominent public servant, District Attorney Harvey Dent. The Gordon-Dent contrast illustrates aspects of the Friedrich-Finer debate over administrative discretion, a classic debate in public administration. The trilogyʼs verdict on public service is mixed: the flawed, rule-bending, expedient public servant survives while the fabricated hero is a sham. Commissioner Gordon is far more interesting than he had been for decades, but is he just an expedient bureaucrat ultimately pursuing self preservation? In contrast, the (pre-villain) Harvey Dent, who refuses to compromise his principles, is ultimately undone by his absolutism. For the complexity of his character and its centrality to the plot, I judge the depiction of Commissioner Gordon-warts and all-to be better than simplistic caricatures of bureaucrats and promising for future public servants in film.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a fast analytical model of the acoustic behaviour of pulse‐width modulation (PWM) controlled induction machines to a fractional‐slot winding machine, and to analytically clarify the interaction between space harmonics and time harmonics in audible electromagnetic noise spectrum.

A multilayer single‐phase equivalent circuit calculates the stator and rotor currents. Air‐gap radial flux density, which is supposed to be the only source of acoustic noise, is then computed with winding functions formalism. Mechanical and acoustic models are based on a 2D ring stator model. A method to analytically derive the orders and frequencies of most important vibration lines is detailed. The results are totally independent of the supply strategy and winding type of the machine. Some variable‐speed simulations and tests are run on a 700 W fractional‐slot induction machine in sinusoidal case as a first validation of theoretical results.

The influence of both winding space harmonics and PWM time harmonics on noise spectrum is exposed. Most dangerous orders and frequencies expressions are demonstrated in sinusoidal and PWM cases. For traditional integral windings, it is shown that vibration orders are necessarily even. When the stator slot number is not even, which is the case for fractional windings, some odd order deflections appear: the radial electromagnetic power can therefore dissipate as vibrations through all stator deformation modes, leading to a potentially lower noise level at resonance.

The analytical research does not consider saturation and eccentricity harmonics which can play a significant role in noise radiation.

The analytical model and theoretical results presented help in designing low‐noise induction machines, and diagnosing noise or vibration problems.

The paper details a fully analytical acoustic and electromagnetic model of a PWM fed induction machine, and demonstrate the theoretical expression of main noise spectrum lines combining both time and space harmonics. For the first time, a direct comparison between simulated and experimental vibration spectra is made.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the implementation and management of multi‐objective optimizations, with the help of heuristic algorithms such as space mapping methods.

The authors consider the design of electromechanical actuators by the use of mathematical and computer means. Experiments are then virtual, because they correspond to numerical simulations. Dimensioning is then ensured by an optimization procedure of the space mapping type, whose main characteristic consists in using two models of the same size actuator (instead of a single one for classical optimization methods). Moreover, one considers here that multiple outputs are defined: this defines a multi‐objective optimization. This paper proposes several techniques making it possible to include the definition of multiple objectives to be fulfilled as part of an output space mapping optimization process.

The proposed approaches make it possible to stabilize and accelerate the convergence of multi‐objective optimizations performed by space mapping. This is illustrated by the example of the dimensioning of a resonant linear electromagnetic actuator.

The approach presented in the paper is original because it allows finding of a solution to the multi‐objective problem, without building any Pareto front, and most effectively by improving the convergent behavior of the optimization algorithm.

This essay focuses on institutional leadership in complex public organizations. Using an expanded version of James A. Stever’s organizational scepticism framework, an argument is presented that the concept new occupies a privileged and unique position in the modern conception of leadership. The concept’s status is due, in part, to its intimate relationship with other favorable concepts, most notably progress and radical change. It is argued that the modern fixation with new, progress and radical change is troublesome. The scholarly community is encouraged to commit more intellectual resources to developing alternative models of leadership that recognize the usefulness of, but are not limited by, the underlying values and assumptions of modernity. The model of administrative conservatorship is offered as one such model.

Approximately 50 years ago, William Westley’s (1953) pioneering study of police officers brought to the forefront the special characteristics of police work. The present research raises the question: how far have thepolice come since Westley? Using focus group interviews and surveys collected from alarge Southwest police department, the study examines the situational role context of physical force. In doing so, it provides an explanation of physical force today, compared to explanations offered by Westley. The current research examines whether officer use of physical force and its severity are determined by the situation. The results confirm this hypothesis by suggesting that physical force is determined situationally, according to low‐order excessive force and high‐order violent force. As a way of understanding the lack of change in attitudes and practice of physical force, a possible explanation is the patrol culture.

International assignments rely on interactions between host country nationals (HCNs) and an international assignee (IA). These interactions are significantly determined by the reputation that the IA holds among HCNs. However, reputation has only scarcely been addressed in extant mobility research, and there is a lack of understanding about how the reputation of an IA shifts among HCNs during the course of an assignment. The purpose of this paper is to understand the development of an individual's reputation as well as the interactions between an IA and HCNs in the context of international assignments.

This is a conceptual paper that builds upon the central idea in extant research of individual reputation as a social construction and draws on sensemaking theory to develop its conceptual model.

As extant research argues for both a temporal and dynamic dimension of reputation, the authors introduce time and reputational richness as central model elements. Furthermore, the conceptual model proposes reputational events as the principal triggers for reputational shifts. Reputational events reveal quantitatively and qualitatively new informational cues about the IA to HCNs, who then use these cues to incrementally construct the IA's reputation in sensemaking processes. In addition, contextual factors of reputational shifts, namely accelerators and amplifiers, are discussed. The authors argue that these contextual factors may affect both the timing and the strength of reputational shifts.

The study introduces a novel conceptual model and contributes to the understanding of individual reputation development as well as the interactions between an IA and HCNs in international assignments.

This paper attempts to trace and describe the role played by the government sector – the state – in promoting economic growth in Western societies since the Renaissance. One important conclusion is that the antagonism between state and market, which has characterised the twentieth century, is a relatively new phenomenon. Since the Renaissance one very important task of the state has been to create well‐functioning markets by providing a legal framework, standards, credit, physical infrastructure and – if necessary – to function temporarily as an entrepreneur of last resort. Early economists were acutely aware that national markets did not occur spontaneously, and they used “modern” ideas like synergies, increasing returns, and innovation theory when arguing for the right kind of government policy. In fact, mercantilist economics saw it as a main task to extend the synergetic economic effects observed within cities to the territory of a nation‐state. The paper argues that the classical Anglo‐Saxon tradition in economics – fundamentally focused on barter and distribution, rather than on production and knowledge – systematically fails to grasp these wider issues in economic development, and it brings in and discusses the role played by the state in alternative traditions of non‐equilibrium economics.

This chapter offers a critical evaluation of the narrative of the entrepreneur-adventurer common in business schools today. It suggests that this narrative stands in the way of meaningful ethics integration in business education in part because it fails to encourage or even acknowledge insights that are “felt” rather than merely intellectually registered. Philosopher-writers like Henri Bergson, William James, and Friedrich Nietzsche agree that a large part of experience escapes purely theoretical frameworks. We need nontheoretical, evocative narratives to make visible those parts of reality that are easily overlooked when we are focused on the practical and utilitarian side of existence. These philosophical theories, combined with the concept of “felt knowledge,” help determine where the current business narrative falls short and serve as a foundation for a few suggestions about how this narrative might be changed from within.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether patrol officers believe that police practices vary by precinct assignment and whether the precinct acts as a sub‐organizational level of analysis in police organizations.

The research design is a multi‐method ethnographic case study including observational fieldwork, both structured and unstructured interviews and official departmental documents.

The study finds that patrol officers overwhelmingly agree that police practices vary at the precinct level of analysis. This variation is perceived to be caused by: individual officer temperament/personality and level of experience,; culture, nature and expectations of the clientele/citizens; nature of calls for service, higher call loads and officer safety concerns; and command and precinct rules/norms. The study also finds that the precinct is a viable and important level of analysis within police organizations.

This study highlights the need to examine variation in police behavior within organizations at the precinct level of analysis.

The findings from this study have considerable practical implications because the findings indicate that to understand police patrol practices, police practitioners must investigate variation in the informal structures/cultures of police organizations at the sub‐organizational level of the precinct.

This paper is valuable because police researchers have investigated police behavior at the individual, situational, neighborhood, organizational and legal levels of analyses but have largely overlooked the intersection of these levels of analyses: the precinct.