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The purpose of this study is to create sustainable additives for future vehicles, characterized by low levels of sulfated ash, sulfur and phosphorus (SAPS) or even SAPS-free alternatives. These newly developed additives must not only match or outperform the current commercial benchmarks in terms of tribological performance, but also align with the emerging sustainability trends. It is anticipated that this innovative technology will yield promising outcomes in the realm of hybrid and electric vehicles.

This research primarily focused on chemical synthesis, performance evaluation and characterizations. These aspects were studied through collaboration between Syensqo, Southwest Research Institute (the USA) and the Lab of the Future in France. The data was generated and analyzed by a team of research scientists, internship students and technical specialists.

Two types of additives have been specifically designed and synthesized in accordance with sustainable requirements. Both technologies have exhibited exceptional frictional and wear-resistant properties. Moreover, the leading candidates exhibit a lower rate of copper corrosion, stable electric conductivity and outstanding thermal stability when compared to commercial benchmarks. This study is expected to open a new research avenue for developing next-generation additives for lubricants, with wide potential applications including hybrid electric vehicle and electric vehicle markets.

In the current lubricant market, there is a lack of effective low-SAPS or SAPS-free additives. This research aims to address this gap by designing sustainable additives for next-generation vehicles that not only meet specific requirements but also maintain optimal lubrication performance.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-01-2024-0033/

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the phenomenon of experience copycats. Despite being a growing problem for organisations selling extraordinary experiences, it remains a largely under-researched field of study. By analysing consumers’ sense of the extraordinary brand experience copycats in which they have participated, it becomes possible to detect the meanings they ascribe to imitations of experiential features as opposed to experiential themes.

The paper is based on the ethnographic study of a group of individuals who spent 12 days on a Québec copycat of the Way to Compostela. The methods include participant observation, photos, non-directive interviews, semi-directive interviews and introspection.

The paper’s main contribution is to demonstrate that participants in extraordinary experience copycats do not ascribe meanings to them based solely on their own personal feelings. Instead, their appraisals tend to be intersubjective, with each individual judgment being influenced by other participants’ opinions. This explains why copycat experiences can, for instance, be valued very positively at a thematic level even as consumers’ individual appraisals might hightlight negative differences in terms of features.

The battle against experience copycats does not, on the face of things, seem very useful insofar as consumers attribute copycats a meaning that complements the way in which they view original brands. Consumers tend to neither conflate nor contrast the two but instead consider them complementary. The end result is that original brands should seek more to cohabit with these copycats than to treat them aggressively, even as they develop a defensive posture to avoid excessive value slippage.

The study demonstrates that the battle against experience copycats becomes more difficult once participants who appreciate and defend the imitation have developed a sense of community

This paper focuses on copycats, a topic where very little research exists. It seeks to transcend customary economic and socio-psychological approaches by examining deliberate lookalike uses and experiences via the ethnographic method.

Globalization and accelerating product life cycles require use of time‐based manufacturing practices (TBMP) accompanied by organizational integration. Evidence has suggested that cultural integrative beliefs (IB) influence the presence of TBMP but research has not investigated two alternative theory‐based views: TBMP influences the formation of integrative beliefs; and TBMP and integrative beliefs interact to enhance performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between espoused values, TBMP and performance.

The authors empirically re‐analyze work carried out in 2004 by Nahm et al., using structural equations modeling and factor scores regression.

Support is found for the competing model that implies IB is a consequent of TBMP rather than an antecedent. This new theoretical perspective is not reconciled via the interaction model.

The authors' re‐examination suggests TBMP and IB are mutually reinforcing, implying that resources can be devoted to simultaneously implementing TBMP and IB, rather than a time‐consuming sequential strategy.

The paper is the first to empirically test three perspectives on how organizational culture and operations management practices interrelate. Conventional conceptions of cultural beliefs' role are questioned and a new perspective is offered. Additionally, the FSR method gives a structured approach to latent variable interaction modeling.

This paper aims to detail how consumers can harness the power of brands to reconstruct their lives.

The authors followed five brand devotees over several years, using various data collection methods (long interviews, observations, videos, photographs and secondary data) to study how they reconstructed their lives with a brand.

Consumers transform their existence through a distinctive form of brand appropriation that the authors call brand magnification, which unfolds: materially, narratively and socially. First, brand devotees scatter brand incarnations around themselves to remain in touch with the brand because the brand has become an especially positive dimension of their lives. Second, brand devotees mobilize the brand to craft a completely new life story. Finally, they build a branded clan of family and friends that socially validates their reconstructed identity.

The research extends more muted depictions of brands as soothing balms calming consumer anxieties; the authors document the mechanism through which consumers remake their lives with a brand.

The research helps rehabilitate the role of brands in contemporary consumer culture. Organizations can use the findings to help stimulate and engage employees by unveiling the brand’s life-transforming potential for consumers.

The authors characterize a distinctive, extreme and unique form of brand appropriation that positively transforms consumer lives.

This monograph seeks to summarise the key influences of a role‐based perspective on leadership when making decisions as to how organisational resources can best be deployed.

Application of new frameworks provides insight into the leadership roles executives can adopt when part of formal, informal and temporary groups within the organisation's senior management team and those parts of the organisation for which they are responsible. The methodology adopted is qualitative, focusing on application of previously developed frameworks.

Adoption of an appropriate leadership role, and the timely switch from one role to another as circumstances change, are found to facilitate improvement in the ability of executives to mobilise organisational resources, and in so doing effectively address those challenges with which the organisation is faced.

A one‐organisation intensive case study of a multinational engineering company engaged in the design, development and manufacture of rotating turbomachinery provides the platform for the research. The research intent is to validate two frameworks in a different organisation of a similar demographic profile to those in which the frameworks were developed. The frameworks will require validating in organisations of different demographic profiles.

The concepts advanced, and implications discussed, provide an insight into the role‐based nature of leadership. The practical steps individual executives can take to develop their ability to adopt different leadership roles are highlighted.

This monograph is an investigation into, and study of the contribution of theory that provides insight into, the process by which executives effectively mobilise organisational resources. This differs from the original contributions to theory, which focused on methodology, data gathering and validation in contrast with the current study that is focused on practical application.

This monograph summarises the key influences of leadership behaviour on the transformation process associated with creation of an effective and high performing team. It clarifies the key factors that are relevant to a team at each stage of the transformation process and the leadership roles that each team member can play. The role of an organisation's senior management is considered both in terms of the impact it has on the transformation process within specific teams and in terms of creating the necessary organisational environment to make effective teams the norm. Some reasons why senior management behaviour is often perceived as inconsistent and unhelpful are explored. Specific recommendations are made to help senior managers to adapt their behaviour, and in so doing become more context‐sensitive to the needs of the environment as it changes. Some tools and techniques are presented that have been found in practice to help senior managers adapt their behaviour to that most appropriate at a given time, and to create the organisational infrastructure needed to make effective teams the organisational norm rather than the exception. A case study is presented illustrating the networked nature of leadership and the culture change associated with making effective teams “the way we do things around here.”

Organizations are currently striving to become more sustainable, as resources dwindle and social desirability for sustainability increases. This is important in public sector organizations as well as private, and exemplars are needed. Therefore, this chapter provides a description of how a public housing authority in pursuit of a social mission parlayed an energy performance contract into a triple bottom line sustainability journey. The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's (CMHA) sustainability journey has been shaped most significantly by the commitment of CMHA leadership to collaboration (internal and external) as a core strategy. The chapter provides a rich description of CMHA's emergent partnerships with various organizations in their environment; focusing first on energy and later encompassing social, ecological, and economic sustainability. It describes and analyzes the leadership that emerged which played an essential role in supporting the complexity of increasing collaborative involvement. New theories of leadership, most specifically Complexity Leadership Theory (Uhl-Bien & Marion, 2008), emergent leadership (Goldstein et al., 2010), and adaptive leadership (Heifetz, 1994) are used to make sense of the leadership philosophy and actions that worked in the sustainability journey.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a methodology to measure the circulation area required by a manual or powered wheelchair within a toilet stall and present the range of possible results that can be collected when used in an experimental bathroom setup.

A bathroom environment containing a toilet, grab bars and two transparent acrylic panels suspended on rails to simulate walls was built. Three setups were experimented: 1,500 mm from the walls, 1,500 mm diagonally from the toilet and 1,700 mm from the walls. For each of the participants, markers were placed on the back and on the rear of the wheelchair and one on the toes of the participants. The Vicon® optical motion capture system was used to register the markers’ position in the 3D space.

The methodology proved to be relatively easy to install, efficient and easy to interpret in terms of results. It provides specific points from which it is possible to measure the trajectories of markers and calculate the polygonal projection of the area covered by each participant. The results showed that manual and powered wheelchair users required, respectively, 100 and 300 mm more than the minimum 1,500 mm wall-to-wall area to complete a rotation task in front of the toilet.

These results showed that the 1,500 mm gyration area proposed in the Canadian Code of Construction is not sufficient for manual and powered wheelchair users to circulate easily in toilet stalls. The methodology can provide evidence to support the improvement of construction norms in terms of accessible circulation areas.

THIS seaplane is of interest, not only for its aero and hydrodynamic design, but also because of its construction. It is nowadays comparatively rare to find a flying boat with a metal hull and wooden planes— although it is only a few years since the protagonists of such a system were singing its praises, with particular references to its advantages in the event of a forced descent and the possibility of a damaged and leaking hull. Another point of interest is the use of liquid‐cooled engines in place of the more popular air‐cooled radiais. It also might be of interest to note that the Etablissement Lioré et Olivier has recently had its Argenteuil factory absorbed into the nationalised group forming the Société Nationale des Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud‐Est.

The purpose of this paper is to verify whether the horizontal grab bar for the toilet and the bathtub suggested by the Code du bâtiment du Québec conform to users’ preferences. Perceived effort, comfort and safety were considered.

In total, 31 adults and seniors using manual and powered wheelchairs were asked to test different grab bar configurations for both the toilet and bathtub. A questionnaire was designed to evaluate participants’ perceptions and preferences after the trials with each grab bar. Effort was measured using the ten-level Borg scale, while participants’ comfort and safety were assessed with a five-point Likert scale. Participants were finally invited to express an overall personal preference between the two grab bar used in each setup.

Participants showed preference for an L-shaped grab bar for the toilet, and a horizontal grab bar for the bathtub. The authors’ results differ from the recommendations of the barrier-free design standards of the province of Quebec’s construction code, which states that horizontal grab bars should be used for the toilet and bathtub.

This study suggest that despite the limited sample, there is an undeniable need for testing norms for public spaces, whenever is possible and has a direct effect on end-users, before publishing them.