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The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the adaptation to fire of current proposals/design methodologies at normal temperature is capable of producing accurate predictions of resistance for the out-of-plane stability of tapered beams.

The adaptation of these methodologies to fire has been done by accounting for the reduction in steel material properties with the temperature. Results were then compared to FEM calculations by performing GMNIA analyses to determine the ultimate strength of the numerical models and to ascertain the validity and accuracy of the adapted methodologies.

Although all methodologies produce safe results at normal temperatures, only the general method is recommended for the safety verification at elevated temperatures, although the data points were overly conservative. This investigation demonstrates the need of proper and accurate design methods for tapered beams at elevated temperatures, which should be the subject of future developments.

The research in this paper is limited to the adaptation of existing room temperature design methods to fire. Therefore, possible assumptions made during the conception of the initial formulae, which may be valid exclusively for 20ºC, may have been disregarded.

For the time being, design methodologies for the safety check of tapered beams for the case of fire are inexistent. This paper investigates the adaptation of existing room temperature design to the fire situation by providing insights on their accuracy level, as well as on how to proceed. Finally, a safe design methodology for tapered beams in case of fire is provided until improved design methods are developed.

Everyday conversation has not yet been assigned its full role in public discussion of citizen’s issues, despite the growing number of studies about it. Casual conversations are not usually regarded as a particularly privileged place for political discussions mainly because of its apparent lack of organization following the principles and rules of the deliberative tradition in Political Studies. However, due to its closeness, informality, and personal proximity, it is particularly adequate to rise political aspects of everyday lives that otherwise would not be publicly disclosed. But how to grasp the spontaneity of everyday conversation? This chapter argues that focus groups, as a research method, are fit to observe and understand real-time ordinary conversation on political issues. In what follows, the argument goes threefold: (1) it contrasts “conversation” with “deliberation” from a micro-point of view; (2) all conversation, as a discourse embroiled in power relations, is political in a broad sense (3) as it brings forward personal views and experiences, casual conversations defies the borders between public and private issues.

This chapter elaborates a phenomenological framework for the concept of “communication” by drawing mainly on the notion “lifeworld,” created by Husserl and developed by Habermas. The concept of “lifeworld” is approached as a communication-grounded idea.

The chapter is a theoretical essay, grounded mainly on bibliographical research. Main sources are the two volumes of Habermas’ The Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas, 1987), seconded by other works by the German philosopher and some commentators as Stein (2004) e Pizzi (2006). The chapter endeavors to show that the phenomenological notion of “lifeworld” might be key to a critical understanding of main constructivist approaches in communication theory. It could be particularly illuminating where the focus is on a “reality,” which results from intersubjective interactions in everyday life. Most communication theories are media-centered, which means that they regard the “media,” both in its technical and institutional aspects as the main focus of the communication process. This chapter argues that the “lifeworld” is a far broader way to understand communication as a form of social interaction, whether mediated by media technologies or not. The chapter discusses the concept of “lifeworld,” framing its relational and communicative aspects as fundamental to the notion of “reality” as an interactive social creation. It also proposes the understanding of “communication” grounded on this phenomenological notion. Finally, it discusses some problems and limits of this approach, offering an alternative approach to conventional communication theory.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between team psychological capital (PsyCap) and team process improvement (TPI) by focusing on the mediating role of team self-managing behaviors (TSMBs) and the moderating effect of the team reward system.

Data were collected from 514 members and their immediate superiors nested in 135 action teams working for a Canadian public safety organization. Hypotheses were tested using a path analytic procedure.

Team PsyCap was positively related to TPI, and this relationship was mediated by TSMBs. In addition, the team reward system positively moderated the first stage of this relationship.

This study highlights the important role that motivational factors play in the effectiveness of action teams. Specifically, the present study reveals that the psychological resources of action teams interact with the level of recognition and reward they receive to predict members’ engagement in self-managing behaviors and in improvement processes.

Findings suggest that to promote the capacity for process improvement of actions teams, managers should focus on their positive psychological resources, their capacity to self-manage and on the level of recognition and reward they receive.

Considering the dynamic and complex environments within which action teams operate, the finding that team PsyCap promotes their optimal functioning is particularly noteworthy. Furthermore, this study clarifies why and when team PsyCap enhances TPI.

To develop more sustainable tourism, the Cleaner Production approach in sitting, designing, building and managing tourism facilities and hotels appears essential.

This study analyzes whether power in the supply chain, based on governance modes and network centrality, explain financial performance at different levels of analysis: buyers, suppliers and dyads.

The study employs a dual macro-micro lens based on global value chain (i.e. market, modular, relational and captive governance modes) and social network analysis (network centrality) to assess the impact of power (im)balance onto financial performance. Different from previous research, this study adopts information reliability techniques – such as information entropy – to differentiate the weights of distinct financial performance metrics in terms of the maximal entropy principle. This principle states that the probability distribution that best represents the current state of knowledge given prior data is the one with largest entropy. These weights are used in TOPSIS analysis.

Results offer insightful reflections to SCM research. We show that buyers outperform suppliers due to power asymmetry. We ground our findings both analyzing across governance modes and comparing network centrality. We show that market and modular governances (where power balance prevails) outperform relational and captive modes at the dyadic level – thus inferring that in the long run these governance modes may lead to financially healthier supply chains.

This study advances SCM research by exploring the impact of governance modes and network centrality on performance at both firm and dyadic levels while employing an innovative combination of secondary data and robust set of techniques including TOPSIS, WASPAS and information entropy.

Fashion brands are under heavy criticism for often exhibiting poor working conditions and producing environmental damage. Pressure comes from initiatives such as Fashion Transparency Index (FTI) by Fashion Revolution to assess fashion brands' transparency based on information publicly disclosed. But an understanding of how such movements reflect in a Global South country characterised by institutional voids is still absent.

While the FTI ranks individual brands, in this study the authors have analysed 305 documents extracted from the websites of 20 Brazilian fashion brands to unpack practices and re-bundle them according to three archetypes – opaque, translucent and transparent – that display a maturity curve.

The authors show that advancement is heterogeneous, and we complement previous research exposing the limits of an NGO in driving transparency by investigating a context embedded in institutional voids. The authors show that most fashion brands restrict transparency to tier-1 suppliers. Moreover, although fashion brands increasingly demand disclosure from their suppliers, they do not clarify their own purchasing practices such as cancellation and payment policies. On the positive note, the authors show that maturity for transparent brands can include the actionability concept by engaging with consumer via surveys and educative content.

The authors contribute to theory by offering a maturity curve of fashion supply chain transparency. The authors contribute to practice by offering the three archetypes – opaque, translucent and transparent. This study unveils heterogeneity and asymmetry between the levels of transparency that buying firms demand from their suppliers against what they provide about their own practices.

This article raises the following question: is tourism as a leisure time activity entering a period of stagnation? Research carried out in urban Montreal indicates that the increasing division of society into two classes has an effect on people's behaviour as tourists. Whatever one might believe from the figures that are regularly published, tourism is not entirely dependent on the economic cycle. For it is also greatly influenced by social developments. In our post‐modern societies, tourism growth is not at all continuous.

Information and communication technologies brought a new paradigm that allows policymakers to ground their actions on real-time events. Smart cities were initially conceived as a technological vision separate from urban planning. As a result, projects were rarely connected between departments, objectives were not aligned with strategic goals and there was a lack of citizen participation. This study aims to propose a framework to guide and support the design and implementation of a smart city.

Interviews with eight policymakers and one secretary of state are conducted to explore current decision-making processes, specifically, to understand if and how smart city strategies are designed and who their main contributors are. Based on these findings, an inductive thematic analysis of existing literature studies to inspire the steps of the proposed framework is performed. Finally, these steps are discussed in a focus group with nine smart city experts to characterize the guidelines comprehensively.

Policymakers confirmed the lack of a standard method and approach to orient their smart city strategies. Results describe a flexible, participatory framework that envisions 12 steps divided into 4 phases with dedicated guidelines.

This paper integrates the plan-do-check-act cycle approach into the thinking for urban planning design. In addition, it raises the need to reflect on the definition of a country’s strategic plan and the alignment and execution of cities’ roadmaps.

Although adaptation to climate change is a well-researched topic at the individual level and in highly vulnerable industries, its integration into business strategies is poorly researched. In this chapter, we conduct bibliometric analyses on a sample of 368 relevant papers published in business journals to derive descriptive statistics and map the conceptual and intellectual structure of the field. We find an increased interest in adaptation and confirm a strong representation of industry-specific research. We complement the bibliometric analyses with a content analysis focused on emergent themes in the adaptation scholarship. We discuss systemic influences, individual effects, regulations and stakeholders, and exposure as areas likely to attract further scrutiny in future scholarship. For each theme, we derive practical implications for practitioners and policymakers.