The Engineering and Scientific Challenges of Environmental Justice Organizations in the US: A Qualitative Study

With the goal of exploring the engineering and scientific challenges of environmental justice organizations (EJOs), we present the results of 47 interviews with representatives of US-based EJOs. Methodologically, we use a deductive-inductive approach to identifying salient categories in the interview coding process. We identify a structure of three overarching themes for potential interactions between EJOs and engineers and scientists: (1) organizational goals; (2) engineering and scientific challenges; and (3) experiences with engineers and scientists. Our findings reveal a breadth of EJO goals and myriad engineering and scientific challenges ranging from community development, clean and just energy transactions, climate change adaptation, and water and air quality monitoring. We also find activity-based opportunities for engineers and scientists like data collection, management, and analysis; online platform building; GIS mapping; and causation analyses. We find that engineers and scientists could help bridge the culture gap between them and EJOs and help build a field of collaboration by: a greater mindfulness of local contexts; building relational rapport and trust; moving beyond narrow technical solutions; identifying low-cost accessible solutions; and receiving unconscious bias training. To our knowledge, this study is unique by its provision and assemblage of—in one place—the myriad ways engineers and scientists might work with EJOs to address the challenges of environmental, energy, and climate justice.

Analytical Interpretation of the Early Literature on the Theory of Vibrations

A discussion is given of early literature pertaining to the theory of vibration from the time of Pythagoras up through 1750. The paper attempts to give an analytical interpretation to early anecdotal works concerning Pythagoras and to publications of Galileo, Huygens, Hooke, Taylor, John Bernoulli, Leibniz and Euler. To bridge the “culture gap,” mathematical developments by the latter cited authors are, whenever appropriate, rephrased in modern notation, using, for the most part, only those techniques that should have been well known to the authors at the time. The emphasis is on what might be loosely called the physics (or the mathematical physics) of vibration.

Learning Culture as the Enabler of Business Transformation

Business organizations experience not only episodic but also continuous and disruptive changes. Those changes make the organization need not only transitional and developmental but also transformational initiatives. Based on business transformational experience in many prominent companies, organizational culture was one of eight factors that make transformation fail. Organizational culture plays a strategic role in business transformations and management. It can be an asset or liability for business transformation. The development of organizational culture should not only impact on work engagement but also learning agility of people in the organization. Based on the impact, organizational culture can be differentiated from the hierarchal-centralistic culture and the learning culture. By using the concept of culture map, learning culture is mapped and reflected into eight dimensions: communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, and scheduling. By mapping the culture gap of the current condition, management practitioner has a road map for developing the learning culture.

Independent Women Being Compassionate Towards Corporate Commitment

Increasing in opportunities for women has changed the world which fills workspace culture gap in several sectors. Empowering women is one of the most pressing criteria for economic and social needs of a nation. The study focuses on contributions of women in corporate sector and sustaining active engagement in their personal life. Women disruptions to employment, stimulating deeper thinking with targeted business actions and self-management brings the most possible change in society. The findings show that women have developed considerable effect on the academic front whereas ever-increasing work pressure is urging working women to spend less time for themselves. Women contributions in corporate sector is extremely important for prosperity and success of nations that make an incredible progress across the globe. The methods suggest that creating an envisioned process to improve gender parity in society by capitalizing human talents will make a better work place for women. This dearth of women in corporate boardrooms definitely steers the accountability. Results show that the presence of women in management positively with commitment and leadership affects significant untapped source of executive talent leading the way in decision and policy making.

Lean culture: a comprehensive systematic literature review

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of pragmatic ambiguity (PA) lean culture has currently in the manufacturing and service literature. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive systematic review of academic (journals, books and theses) and commercial literature was undertaken drawn from a six databases search of two keywords (“lean” and “culture”) and related citations. Findings A total sample of 1,066 references (678 academic papers, 121 books, 103 theses and 164 commercial documents) were analyzed. The authors found contributions from 67 countries but oddly, only two came from Japan. In total, 89 percent of citations were directly about lean culture. However, for 86 percent of them, lean culture was only discussed superficially. All four literature segments show an over 85 percent agreement on lean culture being an organizational aim. The authors encountered 103 definitions of organizational culture and found 13 definitions of lean culture. Issues of culture gap, leadership, human resource management, sustainability and innovation are found to amplify lean culture’s already high PA level. Research limitations/implications Further research and development are needed to decrease lean culture’s PA level and improve understanding of lean from a cultural perspective. Practical implications Current lean culture’s high PA level has positive and negative effects on lean implementation. Taking lean implementation from a cultural perspective may facilitate an organization’s lean transformation journey. Originality/value This is the first systematic literature review on lean culture using a broad and inductive approach. An original evidence-based definition of organizational culture is proposed.

Pragma-linguistic Difficulties in the Recognition of Phrasal Verbs by Iraqi EFL University Learners

The purpose of this paper is to recognize the level of pragma-linguistic difficulties Iraqi EFL university learners face when handling phrasal verbs. Despite the fact that phrasal verbs are easy to understand by native speakers of English, non-native speakers usually encounter some difficulties in understanding the meaning of a phrasal verb depending on the meaning of the root verb, or different phrasal verbs of the same root. The problem might be attributed to pragma-linguistic knowledge. However, culture gap could be the reason behind such difficulties. The aim of the study is (1) to evaluate the pragma-linguistic level of interpreting phrasal verbs as understood and used by Iraqi EFL university learners, (2) to check the level of difficulty they experience while recognizing phrasal verbs, and (3) to find out reasons behind such misinterpretations. It is hypothesized that (1) the pragma-linguistic interpretation of phrasal verbs tends to play an important role in understanding the message conveyed by the speaker; (2) cultural gap could be the reason that EFL learners recognize phrasal verbs incorrectly, and (3) mother tongue language might make it difficult for EFL learners to understand phrasal verbs. To verify the aforementioned hypothesis, a test has been constructed and administered to a sample of 100 fourth-year Iraqi EFL university learners, morning classes at the department of English Language and Literature, College of Arts, in Mustansiriyah University, during the academic year 2017 – 2018. The responses of the students have been collected and linguistically analyzed according to a model given by Richards and Schmidt (2010). It has been found that Iraqi students’ lack of cultural norms of the target language makes it difficult for them to understand phrasal verbs. The lack of this knowledge is considered as a factor of confusion and then failure. The influence of the first language culture on the recognition of phrasal verbs may be seen as a negative first language transfer. The reason behind this negative transfer is that the norms and principles of first language are different from the norms and principles of the target language. It has been concluded that Iraqi EFL university learners have difficulties in pragma-linguistic knowledge as far as phrasal verbs are concerned. Iraqi EFL university learners face great difficulties in using phrasal verbs while communicating with other people. While using phrasal verbs, Iraqi EFL university learners have been highly influenced by their mother tongue language.