Adam J. Sulkowski, Wojciech Kowalczyk, Bruce L. Ahrendsen, Robert Kowalski and Edward Majewski
While progress has been made in the realm of teaching about sustainability to business students, integrating sustainability into experiential learning with a systemic mindset has…
Abstract
Purpose
While progress has been made in the realm of teaching about sustainability to business students, integrating sustainability into experiential learning with a systemic mindset has been identified by leading scholars as an area for improvement. The purpose of this paper is to describe a pilot project in which students prepared a sustainability report for a client company and to answer the question of whether the experiment yielded the anticipated benefits.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents an initiative that was part of an MBA course delivered at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland by an international team of professors. The multinational group of students was confronted with the task of preparing an integrated sustainability report for a large corporation.
Findings
The initiative creates opportunities for both students and commercial organizations to understand large business commercial activities from a sustainability perspective. This paper identifies the next steps for others to build upon.
Originality/value
The paper explains the experiential learning opportunity that was created, describes how students rose to meet the challenge, discusses the benefits that accrued to students, professors and a commercial organization and shares some guidance for those seeking to emulate this practice.
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Robert Kowalski, Michal Glowacki and Marian Abramowicz
The paper presents results of experimental research whose main topic was determination of stiffness reduction in bent reinforced concrete beams in two cases: when only tensioned…
Abstract
The paper presents results of experimental research whose main topic was determination of stiffness reduction in bent reinforced concrete beams in two cases: when only tensioned or only compressed zone was exposed to high temperature. Twenty four reinforced concrete beams with rectangular cross-section were prepared for the experiment. Eight groups of beams were prepared in total: 2 with reinforcement ratio - 0.44 and 1.13% x 2 levels of load - 50 or 70% of destructive force ensuring the constant value of bending moment in the centre part of heated beams x 2 static schemes. Three beams were used in each group. Significant cross-section stiffness reduction was observed in beams where the tensile zone was heated. This was due to considerable elongation of the bars where the steel load elongation summed up with the free thermal strain. In beams where the compressed zone was heated the stiffness reduction was observed only after the time where the tensile zone heated cross-sections were already destroyed.
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Ian T. Johnson and Elizabeth Lund
Although there are welcome signs that mortality from coronary heart disease is declining, both in the United States and more recently in Britain, the condition remains a major…
Abstract
Although there are welcome signs that mortality from coronary heart disease is declining, both in the United States and more recently in Britain, the condition remains a major source of disability and premature death. In our increasingly health‐conscious age, much public attention is focused on the identification and avoidance of risk‐factors such as smoking, lack of exercise and a high level of blood cholesterol due to an unhealthy diet.
Consumer interest concerning the health aspects of food products hasgrown in recent years. Consequently, media attention to scientificstudies about the beneficial or detrimental…
Abstract
Consumer interest concerning the health aspects of food products has grown in recent years. Consequently, media attention to scientific studies about the beneficial or detrimental effect on consumers′ health has resulted in substantial changes to the consumption of certain products. A recent CBS 60 Minutes program, The French Paradox, highlighted the health issues concerning red wine consumption. As a result, red wine sales have climbed significantly. Discusses the managerial implications for preparing and reacting to similar situations.
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Xiaohui Zhao, Sira Yongchareon and Nam-Wook Cho
The purpose of this research is to explore the ways of integrating situational awareness into business process management for the purpose of realising hyper automated business…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to explore the ways of integrating situational awareness into business process management for the purpose of realising hyper automated business processes. Such business processes will help improve their customer experiences, enhance the reliability of service delivery and lower the operational cost for a more competitive and sustainable business.
Design/methodology/approach
Ontology has been deployed to establish the context modelling method, and the event handling mechanisms are developed on the basis of event calculus. An approach on performance of the proposed approach has been evaluation by checking the cost savings from the simulation of a large number of business processes.
Findings
In this research, the authors have formalised the context presentation for a business process with a focus on rules and entities to support context perception; proposed a system architecture to illustrate the structure and constitution of a supporting system for intelligent and situation aware business process management; developed real-time event elicitation and interpretation mechanisms to operationalise the perception of contextual dynamics and real-time responses; and evaluated the applicability of the proposed approaches and the performance improvement to business processes.
Originality/value
This paper presents a framework covering process context modelling, system architecture and real-time event handling mechanisms to support situational awareness of business processes. The reported research is based on our previous work on radio frequency identification-enabled applications and context-aware business process management with substantial extension to process context modelling and process simulation.
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The purpose of this article is to give a non‐technical overview of some of the technical progress made recently on tackling three fundamental problems in the area of formal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to give a non‐technical overview of some of the technical progress made recently on tackling three fundamental problems in the area of formal knowledge representation/artificial intelligence. These are the Frame Problem, the Ramification Problem, and the Qualification Problem. The article aims to describe the development of two logic‐based languages, the Event Calculus and Modular‐E, to address various aspects of these issues. The article also aims to set this work in the wider context of contemporary developments in applied logic, non‐monotonic reasoning and formal theories of common sense.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies symbolic logic to model aspects of human knowledge and reasoning.
Findings
The article finds that there are fundamental interdependencies between the three problems mentioned above. The conceptual framework shared by the Event Calculus and Modular‐E is appropriate for providing principled solutions to them.
Originality/value
This article provides an overview of an important approach to dealing with three fundamental issues in artificial intelligence.
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Robert S. Fleming and Michelle Kowalsky
This article discusses the experiences of a university's business school in enhancing the preparation of undergraduates through the innovative design and delivery of Business…
Abstract
Purpose
This article discusses the experiences of a university's business school in enhancing the preparation of undergraduates through the innovative design and delivery of Business Policy, the capstone course taken by all business students.
Design/methodology/approach
The case discusses the proactive approaches taken to explicitly align efforts between thinking and doing, for both faculty course designers and student participants alike.
Findings
Ten strategic areas of innovation and improvement are identified and discussed as areas for individual course alignment as well as the impetus for college and university business program development and delivery.
Practical implications
These innovations can be replicated by other institutions to enhance graduates' career preparation, pursue greater consistency with their organization's mission, develop external stakeholder engagement, and enhance internal collaboration with colleagues within the business school and across the university.
Originality/value
The unique value of this innovative and multifaceted approach was recognized by AACSB International, the elite accrediting agency for business schools, in several articles and at a conference on undergraduate program innovation.
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“Since films attract an audience of millions, the need and appetite for information about them is enormous.” So said Harold Leonard in his introduction to The Film Index published…
Abstract
“Since films attract an audience of millions, the need and appetite for information about them is enormous.” So said Harold Leonard in his introduction to The Film Index published in 1941. The 1970's has produced more than enough — too much — food to satisfy that appetite. In the past five years the number of reference books, in this context defined as encyclopedias, handbooks, directories, dictionaries, indexes and bibliographies, and the astounding number of volumes on individual directors, complete histories, genre history and analysis, published screenplays, critics' anthologies, biographies of actors and actresses, film theory, film technique and production and nostalgia, that have been published is overwhelming. The problem in film scholarship is not too little material but the senseless duplication of materials that already exist and the embarrassing output of items that are poorly or haphazardly researched, or perhaps should not have been written at all.
In the face of increasing resource insecurity, environmental degradation and climate change, more governments and businesses are now embracing the concept of the circular economy…
Abstract
In the face of increasing resource insecurity, environmental degradation and climate change, more governments and businesses are now embracing the concept of the circular economy. This chapter presents some historical background to the concept, with particular attention paid to its assumed opposite, the ‘linear’ or growth economy. While the origins of the circular economy concept are to be found in 1960s environmentalism, the chapter draws attention to the influence of the then ‘new’ sciences of ecology and ‘cybernetics’ in shaping the public environmental discourse of the period. It also draws attention to the background of the present linear economy in postwar policies that encouraged reconstruction and a social and economic democratisation across the West, including an expansion of mass-consumption. It emphasises the role of the 1960s counterculture in generating a popular reaction against this expansionary growth-based agenda, and its influence in shaping subsequent environmentalism, including the ‘metabolic’ and ecological economic understanding of the environmental crisis that informs the concept of the circular economy. Reflecting upon this historical preamble, the chapter concludes that more attention should be paid to the economic, cultural and social contexts of consumption, now more clearly the main driver of our global environmental crisis. Without now engaging more directly with the ‘consumption problem’, the chapter argues, it seems unlikely that the goals of the circular economy can be met.
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Vincent K. Chong, Michele K. C. Leong and David R. Woodliff
This paper uses a laboratory experiment to examine the effect of accountability pressure as a monitoring control tool to mitigate subordinates' propensity to create budgetary…
Abstract
This paper uses a laboratory experiment to examine the effect of accountability pressure as a monitoring control tool to mitigate subordinates' propensity to create budgetary slack. The results suggest that budgetary slack is (lowest) highest when accountability pressure is (present) absent under a private information situation. The results further reveal that accountability pressure is positively associated with subordinates' perceived levels of honesty, which in turn is negatively associated with budgetary slack creation. The findings of this paper have important theoretical and practical implications for budgetary control systems design.