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From the factors that affect shear strength of reinforced concrete (RC) beams, the study examines the effect of controversial parameters, width-to-depth (b/d) and effective length-to-depth (l_eff/d) ratio on shear strength of RC slender beams.

The researchers utilized a database of 676 experimental test results from ACI-DAfStb database, Conducted regression analysis to examine relationship between b/d and l_eff/d ratios and shear strength, compare and analyze sensitivity to changes in b/d and l_eff/d ratios for the selected 12 shear models for RC beams.

Increasing b/d ratio enhanced shear strength until b/d ˜ 3, but further increases had limited impact and increasing l_eff/d ratio resulted in decreased shear strength. From comparative analysis, the models provided by various design standards were found to be safe, with EC-2 and JSCE models being conservative. From considered research models, Campione and Arslan models were conservative, while Kim and White model were observed to be unsafe. Sensitivity analysis indicated ACI318-19, JSCE, CEB-FIP-90 and Arslan models were sensitive to changes in b/d and l_eff/d ratios. National code models generally captured shear strength characteristics well. Certain models suggested a constant/decreasing b/d effect despite observed shear strength enhancement. Most models indicated improved shear strength with an increasing l_eff/d ratio, contrary to experimental findings while TS500 and Hwang models aligned with experimental results.

The study's limitations include the dependence on the available database, which may not encompass all possible experimental scenarios. Further research should aim to expand the database and investigate additional parameters that may influence shear strength in RC beams.

The findings of this study have practical implications for the design and analysis of RC beams by suggesting that the width-to-depth and length-to-depth ratios should be carefully considered to optimize shear strength. The identified models can assist engineers in selecting appropriate shear strength prediction models based on specific design scenarios.

The study contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field of reinforced concrete beam design, which has implications for the safety and reliability of structural systems. By understanding the factors influencing shear strength, engineers can design more efficient and robust structures, ensuring the safety of buildings and infrastructure.

This study provides valuable insights into the influence of the width-to-depth and effective length-to-depth ratios on shear strength in reinforced concrete beams. It contributes to the understanding of these factors and their impact on shear strength, addressing the lack of consensus among researchers. The comparative analysis of shear models and the sensitivity analyses add value by identifying the models that align better with experimental observations. The study emphasizes the need for accurate models that account for these factors and highlights the importance of further research to refine and develop improved predictive models.

The transition to motherhood has been studied extensively, but primarily among participants in homogenous race/ethnicity relationships. The aim of the current study was to explore the lived experiences of a diverse group of women in biracial and monoracial relationships experiencing the transition to motherhood (e.g., biracial or monoracial motherhood). Informed by the symbolic interaction framework, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate the expectations and experiences of first-time motherhood on a sample of 12 U.S. women. Their diverse stories contained multiple themes including an overarching theme of racial/ethnic differences in appropriate infant care, which surfaces during engagement in family and social support interactions. This analysis emphasizes the need for more diverse portrayals of motherhood. We discuss our findings in light of the literature and implications for future research and practice.

Our study proposes a resource environment view (REV) of competitive advantage by unpacking the environmental origins of a firm’s competitive advantage. The key tenet of the REV is that the heterogeneity and imperfect mobility of strategic factor markets and institutions across countries explain how firms based in different countries would likely both create and sustain a competitive advantage. In particular, our study introduces the notion of “the paradox of environmental embeddedness.” The paradox lies in the fact that the same environmental conditions – in terms of strategic factor markets and institutions – that enable firms to create a competitive advantage can paradoxically also create a situation in which it is more difficult for these firms to sustain an advantage. Another important aspect of our study is that, to enhance our understanding of how firms manage the paradox of environmental embeddedness, our study specifies the resource environmental conditions under which firms’ internal and external resource-oriented strategies – that is, the development of dynamic capabilities and interventions in the country resource environment – are more beneficial when managing the environmental paradox. Overall, our theorizing has important implications for strategic management theory and practice.

Self-inflicted crises (SIC)– either intentionally induced or at least carelessly accepted – can tremendously damage a corporation’s reputation and legitimacy in the eyes of the stakeholders. While academia usually advices companies to accept full responsibility, practice shows that by far not all companies rely on such a responsible strategy. In practice, corporations choose various response strategies ranging from apologies, over diminishing approaches to full denials. By investigating a large data set embracing several countries and industries covering 696 cases of SIC, the authors analyze how corporations respond to such events and compare these response strategies across countries and types of crises.

This book chapter follows a domain-spanning approach by combining corporate social responsibility (CSR), crisis management, and stakeholder management to investigate how companies aim at solving crises. Drawing on attribution theory and situational crisis communication theory, the results reveal that corporations often do not follow the prevailing recommendation to take responsibility. The authors find that in the majority of cases, internationally active corporations try to deny or diminish their responsibility for the crises. Hence, the findings suggest that the concept of CSR is not working in the case of SIC since not only the existence of such corporate behavior but also the use of denial and diminish strategies contradicts the idea of corporate responsibility. Moreover, the authors shed light on possible differences and preferences toward a specific response strategy between countries and between different types of crises.

The authors contribute to the growing literature in the field of crisis management and crisis response strategies by investigating a large data set embracing several countries and industries. In this regard, the study differs from previous qualitative studies and experimental research as it is based on a large cross-country and cross-company set of secondary data. Thereby, the study allows drawing conclusions for a wide range of corporations and countries, hence increasing its general applicability.

While earlier acquisition research often focused on either the acquirer or the target side of analysis, recent work has increasingly emphasized the need to understand the dyadic interrelationship between the target and the acquirer. This review aims at synthesizing research progress in the area of target–acquirer interrelationships and understanding what questions remain unanswered. The author organizes this review into three dimensions of target–acquirer interrelationship: (a) their relative attributes (what both parties are relative to each other), (b) their connections (what both parties have with each other), and (c) their interactions (what both parties do to each other). Based on the review, the author then identifies critical research gaps and opportunities for developing a more comprehensive understanding of the interrelationship between the target and the acquirer in acquisitions.

“Asian” is an aggregating descriptive term commonly used in Australian media, politics and everyday speech to describe people of diverse backgrounds. The purpose of this paper is to question the extent to which “Asian” Australian residents living in Perth, Western Australia demonstrate spatial or organisational panethnic association.

The paper analyses quantitative population data from the 2011 Census using GIS to visualise the spatial residential distribution of individuals born in Asian countries and individuals with Chinese ancestry within the Perth metropolitan area. The paper further uses qualitative data drawn from fieldwork conducted in Perth to consider evidence of organisational panethnic association.

For first generation migrants there is currently little spatial or organisation evidence of “Asian” panethnic association in Perth. Migrants from different ethno-national backgrounds exhibit very different residential patterns. Incipient ethnoburbs are developing that appear to be based on ethnicity rather than panethnicity. Migrant organisation in Perth is likewise arranged primarily on the basis of ethnicity although some panethnic work is observed.

Findings indicate trends towards ethnic residential segregation. Further longitudinal research could expand upon these findings. Qualitative research could determine causes of segregation and implications of (pan)ethnic identities, and explore how individuals from Asian countries respond to the dominant linguistic aggregation of “Asians”.

This paper offers an original analysis of a common frame of reference that has received little critical attention in the Australian context. It applies the framework of Asian panethnicity developed in the USA and finds it wanting, highlighting an inconsistency between the racialised language used in Australia to describe migrants from Asia and the ways these migrants associate.

Within the field of medical sociology, there is an extensive body of literature on notable family transitions and stages in the reproductive cycle, such as getting married or becoming a parent, as they relate to mental health and well-being. However, the transition to becoming a completed family, that is, the process of determining or recognizing that one’s family is complete, is notably absent. In response to this empirical gap, this chapter presents findings from 114 semi-structured interviews with participants who reported having at least one child and who considered their family to be complete. First, the concept of “family completion” is introduced and conceptualized based on the qualitative considerations of participants and the contextual medical sociology literature. Then, thematic considerations around the process of family completion, related emotional preparations, and factors associated with mental health and well-being are explored. Findings suggest that family completion can be an important transitional period for parents and can be associated with emotional hardship for some individuals. Participants described experiencing conflict with their partner if they disagreed on the completion decision, frustration and sadness related to infertility, and/or feelings of loss or depression when completion was regarded as the end of a personal or familial life phase. This chapter concludes that creating a cultural context in which family completion is a recognized family transition period may spur intentional consideration among parents and promote the design of intervention services for parents experiencing changes in mental health or well-being.

This chapter studies the dynamic responses of the conditional quantiles and their applications in macroeconomics and finance. The authors build a multi-equation autoregressive conditional quantile model and propose a new construction of quantile impulse response functions (QIRFs). The tool set of QIRFs provides detailed distributional evolution of an outcome variable to economic shocks. The authors show the left tail of economic activity is the most responsive to monetary policy and financial shocks. The impacts of the shocks on Growth-at-Risk (the 5% quantile of economic activity) during the Global Financial Crisis are assessed. The authors also examine how the economy responds to a hypothetical financial distress scenario.

This chapter proposes a measure of systemic default interconnectedness between banks, non-banks, housing finance companies in India and globally systemically important banks based on variance decompositions associated with a multiple variable vector autoregression of probability of default of the institutions. We call it the “vulnerability spillover index” (VSI). The vulnerability indices capture all the major macro and financial stress events in the Indian and global economy explaining the interconnections between sectors and underlying reasons for spillovers and potential for a systemic crisis. Thresholds of VSI are calculated which may enable prediction of financial stress events.