Vishal Arghode, Ann Lathan, Meera Alagaraja, Kumaran Rajaram and Gary N. McLean
This paper aims to conceptualize and discuss empathic organizational culture and leadership along with organizational implications.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to conceptualize and discuss empathic organizational culture and leadership along with organizational implications.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors reviewed literature to conceptualize empathic organizational culture and leadership. They referred to Hofstede’s organizational culture concept and studies on empathy to explore how leader–follower relationships are influenced by a leader’s empathic disposition.
Findings
Organizational leadership is instrumental in shaping employee performance. While work design, culture, peer support and resource accessibility are discernible, leadership style, control and others are covert. Leaders’ empathic attitudes and dispositions can positively influence organizational functions for improved performance. This review suggests that organizational culture should support growth, proper functioning and effective coordination between employees for improved organizational effectiveness.
Research limitations/implications
The authors conducted searches in leadership and management journals to help conceptualize leaders’ empathic disposition. Future researchers may explore other bodies of literature and the cultural demographic differences in exhibiting empathic leadership and its effectiveness. Researchers can explore how empathic culture relates to job motivation, satisfaction and commitment. The authors suggest that future research may explore how employees’ and supervisors’ behaviors and interactions can create an empathic organizational culture.
Practical implications
The authors identify the characteristics in an empathic leader to articulate the role of empathy in leadership. Alignment between person, group norms and organizational values is more important than the existence of culture.
Originality/value
Empathy is studied by researchers from various disciplines. Similarly, employee well-being has received attention from organizational researchers from many fields. However, researchers have given inadequate attention to conceptualizing an empathic organizational culture and its interrelationship with leadership. The authors offer a more positive perspective to the leader-member exchange (LMX) research by describing how leaders can sustain positive relationships with employees rather than the purely transactional exchanges that characterize LMX.
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Kumaran Rajaram and John B. Collins
This exploratory research project investigated how mainland Chinese business students studying overseas conceptualize and describe the learning effectiveness of ten different…
Abstract
Purpose
This exploratory research project investigated how mainland Chinese business students studying overseas conceptualize and describe the learning effectiveness of ten different instructional techniques commonly encountered in their business courses. A large numbers of mainland Chinese students enroll in business courses in private international institutions in Singapore – dislocated from their home cultures – but needing to adapt to Western learning curricula and ultimately to acquire proficiency in Western business practices. Certain instructional techniques are likely to bridge the cultural gap better than others. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Twenty consenting students selected from 400+ geographically diverse Chinese students participating in a larger study provided face-to-face interview information on how different instructional techniques stimulated different aspects of content acquisition, learner group dynamics, decision-making, learning efficiency, comfort, flexibility, familiarity, and applicability.
Findings
Interviewees' free-form descriptions of “learning effectiveness” included phrases such as “quality of learning”, “control over my learning”, “scope of knowledge”, “efficiency of learning”, “gaining/acquiring knowledge”, “understanding theories”, “flexibility in time and place”, “applicability of new information”, “attractive learning environment”, “[absence of] ambiguity and uncertainty”, “security and ease of mind”, etc. Their 340 descriptors were classified into 30 qualitative indicator categories, four of them common to many instructional techniques and ten more specific to individual techniques.
Originality/value
Although Chinese mainland students generally prefer rote-learning styles of instructional techniques due to their prolonged exposure to it, rote-style techniques may not always be the preferred choices for learning effectiveness and adaptation to new culture norms and practices. This paper reports qualitative “consultations” with learners in new cultures and argues for holistic and engaged approaches to learning effectiveness for students dislocated from their home cultures while providing a starting-point for further research in mainland Chinese students' Western-based business education in Singapore and elsewhere.
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Kumaran Rajaram and Sarbari Bordia
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a new trend of training mainland Chinese students in Western‐style business education in Singapore. The paper examines the influence of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a new trend of training mainland Chinese students in Western‐style business education in Singapore. The paper examines the influence of the inferred learning effectiveness and cultural dislocation variables when measured across ten commonly used instructional techniques.
Design/methodology/approach
The use of consensual qualitative research allowed the data to be qualitatively analysed. The random selection of 20 participants represents mainland Chinese students, from the northern, southern, eastern and western regions. The study reports the level of knowledge acquisition, the relationship between comfort and knowledge acquired and the differences between the active and passive instructional techniques on students' learning effectiveness.
Findings
Rote‐learning styles of instructional techniques may not be the Chinese students' only preferred choice in terms of acquisition of knowledge and how they learn most effectively.
Research limitations/implications
The present exploratory study provides a starting‐point for further research into understanding how to teach Western‐based business education to mainland Chinese students in Singapore.
Practical implications
The findings will give institutions conducting Western‐based education programs in Singapore an advantage in providing effective learning pedagogies, and will assist in increasing their quality, which will enable them to nurture well‐qualified business professionals.
Social implications
The quality of the educational standard and its compatibility with the Asian client base are further enhanced both in terms of contents' intensity and educational services provided to students.
Originality/value
The paper offers practical help from the perspective of the curriculum design and development of an effective business educational framework to sustain profitability by offering tailor‐made, superior quality course programs.
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Yafei Deng, Xiaotao Pan, Guoxun Zeng, Jie Liu, Sinong Xiao and Zhenquan Zhou
This paper aims to improve the tribological properties of aluminum alloys and reduce their wear rate.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to improve the tribological properties of aluminum alloys and reduce their wear rate.
Design/methodology/approach
Carbon is placed in the model at room temperature, pour 680°C of molten aluminum into the pressure chamber, and then pressed it into the mold containing carbon felt through a die casting machine, and waited for it to cool, which used an injection pressure of 52.8 MPa and held the same pressure for 15 s.
Findings
The result indicated that the mechanical properties of matrix and composite are similar, and the compressive strength of the composite is only 95% of the matrix alloy. However, the composite showed a low friction coefficient, the friction coefficient of Gr/Al composite is only 0.15, which just is two-third than that of the matrix alloy. Similarly, the wear rate of the composite is less than 4% of the matrix. In addition, the composite can avoid severe wear before 200°C, but the matrix alloy only 100°C.
Originality/value
This material has excellent friction properties and is able to maintain this excellent performance at high temperatures.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-10-2019-0454/
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Gülcan Toktaş and İmren Öztürk Yılmaz
The purpose of this study is to investigate the tribological properties of society of automotive engineers (SAE) 430B bronze-graphite composite, supplied in the form of machined…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the tribological properties of society of automotive engineers (SAE) 430B bronze-graphite composite, supplied in the form of machined and graphite embedded, used in sheet forming industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Pin-on-disc wear tests were performed under a constant normal load of 15 N and a sliding velocity of 60 mm/s. Due to the extended usage of Fe-based alloys in forming dies, pin materials were selected as cold work tool steel, gray and ductile irons. The weight losses of the disc (SAE 430B bronze-graphite composite) and the pins (Fe-based alloys) were measured separately under various sliding distances (5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 m). The average friction coefficients and wear tracks were obtained.
Findings
It is concluded that dry sliding behavior of SAE 430B bronze-graphite composite is the worst when operated with GGG-70 ductile iron due to its highest abrasive effect. The high hardness and nodular shape of graphite increased the abrasiveness of ductile iron. The improvement in wear resistance reached up to maximum 90 per cent and the degradation in friction coefficient was about 50 per cent by embedding graphite solids in bronze disc at dry sliding conditions.
Originality/value
Although the machined and graphite embedded bronze composites are indispensable parts of forming dies, there is no scientific knowledge on their dry sliding behavior.
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Doğan Şimşek, Dursun Özyürek and Serdar Salman
The purpose of this study, the tribological behaviors at different temperatures of aluminium matrix composites (AMCs) with different amounts of ZrO2 added were investigated.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study, the tribological behaviors at different temperatures of aluminium matrix composites (AMCs) with different amounts of ZrO2 added were investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
Aluminium graphite (A356/2 wt% graphite (solid lubricant)) composite powders prepared by adding four different amounts (3 wt%, 6 wt%, 9 wt% and 12 wt%) of Zirconia (ZrO2) to the matrix were mechanically alloyed for 4 h. Wear tests were conducted at five different temperatures (20 °C, 100 °C, 180 °C, 260 °C and 340 °C) and for three different sliding distances (53 m, 72 m and 94 m) on the pin-on-disc type wear tester.
Findings
Results of the study showed that the highest hardness and density value were measured for 12% ZrO2 added AMC material. Wear test results showed that weight loss increases with increasing temperature; weight loss decreases at all temperatures with the increasing amount of reinforcement in the matrix.
Originality/value
In this paper, the tribological properties of aluminium matrix composites produced by the mechanical alloying method by adding different amounts of ZrO2 were determined by simulating the tribological properties at different loads and temperatures.
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Shuhaib Mushtaq and Mohd Farooq Wani
This paper aims to investigate the effect of varying Wt.% (0-3 per cent) of graphite as a solid lubricant on the tribological properties of Fe-Cu-Sn alloy.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the effect of varying Wt.% (0-3 per cent) of graphite as a solid lubricant on the tribological properties of Fe-Cu-Sn alloy.
Design/methodology/approach
Powder metallurgy technique is used for the fabrication of Fe-Cu-Sn alloy with varying Wt.% of graphite. The tribological tests were conducted on a ball-on-disc universal tribometer under different testing conditions.
Findings
The friction coefficient decreases with sliding distance and load, but the wear rate increases with the increase in load. The G3 composition showed the best tribological properties under dry conditions. The wear mechanism of G0 composition shows adhesive wear and abrasive wear, while G1, G2 and G3 compositions show mildly abrasive wear.
Originality/value
This paper reported a new, cheap and wear-resistant self-lubricating Fe matrix material for gears and bearings.
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Navin Kumar, R.S. Walia and Surjit Angra
The aim of the present study is to find the tribological properties of newly developed polyester-based hybrid glass-jute fibre reinforced plastic composites loaded with different…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the present study is to find the tribological properties of newly developed polyester-based hybrid glass-jute fibre reinforced plastic composites loaded with different weight per cent of hybrid filler particles were investigated under a dry sliding medium from room temperature to 75°C.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was carried out using a pin-on-disc wear test set-up. The design of experiments was carried out in a controlled way using a central composite design based on response surface methodology to observe the effect of various parameters i.e. sliding velocity, sliding distance, the temperature of counterface and different applied load conditions during dry-sliding.
Findings
The maximum wear resistance was found at 9 Wt% loading of filler, 4 ms-1 sliding velocity, 30 N applied load, 54°C temperature of the counterface and 1,100 m sliding distance condition. Optimum values of hybrid filler loading, sliding velocity, applied load, the temperature of the counterface and sliding distance for the minimum coefficient of friction value and minimum friction force are 9 Wt%, 4 ms−1, 30 N, 54° C, 1,100 m and 12 Wt%, 3 ms−1, 20 N, 59°C and 1,100 m, respectively. The worn surface morphology was studied using scanning electron microscope, for wear dominant mechanisms.
Originality/value
The tribological properties of newly developed polyester-based hybrid glass-jute fibre reinforced plastic composites loaded with different weight % of hybrid filler particles, were investigated under dry sliding medium from room temperature to 75°C has not been attempted yet.