Facilitating Interdisciplinary Dialog in Research and Teaching: A roadmap for providing timely, needs-based project support

Interdisciplinary research and teaching is intellectually rewarding and practically challenging for the same reason: integrating disciplinary perspectives and methods requires all involved to study and communicate beyond the bounds of their expertise. Project facilitators may offer crucial support in such situations, anticipating needs before struggles arise and managing communication logistics while participants attend to the content of those dialogs. UCSB's Crossroads program has tested a series of facilitated dialog activities with several interdisciplinary groups. We have found that such interventions—when tailored and timed responsively to fit each project's unique goals and structure—can help groups to transition more efficiently and cohesively through the stages of interdisciplinary collaboration. Examples and explanations of such types of interventions are provided.

Multimodale graphische Kommunikation im pharaonischen Ägypten: Entwurf einer Analysemethode

“Multimodal graphic communication in Ancient Egypt: A method for analysis”: This article presents a method to analyse Hieroglyphic-Egyptian artefacts based on the semiotic approach of multimodality. In a first step, the theoretical background of multimodality research is given and its methodological application to Hieroglyphic-Egyptian text-image-compositions is discussed. In a second step, the method is illustrated analysing a relief from an Old Kingdom mastaba in Giza – the will of Wep-em-nefert (G8882). In a third step, some graphic techniques for information structuring are compared to similar techniques that can be found in Franco-Belgian comics. In indenting semiotic methods of multimodality research with Egyptology, this article presents a new perspective for the investigation of Hieroglyphic-Egyptian artefacts, which opens new grounds for both research areas and for interdisciplinary dialog.

A Study of Interdisciplinary Dialog of Music and Dance in the 21st Century Turkey through Performed Examples

Power outages have negatively impacted the economy of Zambia through declining gross domestic product, loss of jobs and increased mortality rates. This case study provides some of the most crucial solutions to Zambia’s electricity supply deficit which include Yardstick competition and other alternative sources.

On Occupant Behavior and Innovation Studies Towards High Performance Buildings: A Transdisciplinary Approach

With ever-increasing population and urbanization, it is crucial to decrease energy density in the built environment without sacrificing occupants’ comfort and well-being. This requires consideration of technological developments along with the human factor in order to achieve environmental and social sustainability. Two major contributors to the development of conceptualizations for human-centric technologies are behavior and innovation (B&I) studies. Behavior studies aims to explain individualistic or society-based dynamics of human behavior whereas the innovation studies focuses on social, economic, organizational, and regulatory dimensions and processes of inventive activity. If these studies are incorporated into the hardcore architecture and engineering disciplines with a transdisciplinary approach, the orchestration of occupant behavior and the innovative technologies would be possible, which in turn significantly enhance the comfort and energy efficiency in built environments. This paper aims to provide an overview of interdisciplinary dialog between B&I studies and underlines the role of their collaboration to leverage transdisciplinary research on human-building interaction for energy efficiency. The approach presented here is structured as a conceptual framework and named the ‘socio-technical core’ (STC). STC is to lead to more organic articulation of energy efficiency innovations with real life and pave the way for higher level of acceptance. In order to have a ‘big-picture’ for the well-accepted conceptualizations and the current status of interdisciplinary dialog, we provide a review of (B&I) theories and models along with network analysis of key concepts. Then we investigate the potential directions of future transdisciplinary efforts by discussing the influences of B&I studies to each other for application to energy efficiency studies. In order to put the analysis in a firm background, we provide a case study for thermostat, which can be considered as a product improved with B&I approaches during last decades. We also discuss the benefits of B&I based transdisciplinary research perspective by referring to few examples in literature and the points emerged in this study.

Accelerating employee-related scholarship in service management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to accelerate research related to the employee-facets of service management by summarizing current developments in multiple research streams, providing propositions, and articulating new directions for theory and empirical inquiry. Design/methodology/approach Seven scholars provide short reviews of the core topics and findings from four employee-related research streams – collective turnover, service climate, emotional labor, and occupational stress; and generate propositions to guide future theoretical and empirical work. Four distinguished service scholars – David Bowen, Ray Fisk, Christian Grönroos, and Jochen Wirtz comment upon these research streams and provide future directions for accelerating employee-related research in service management. Findings All four research-streams yield insights that have the potential to advance service management research. Commentaries from the distinguished scholars further integrate this work with key concerns within service management including technology-enablement, transformative services, and service strategy. Originality/value This paper is unique in its scope of coverage of management topics related to service and its aim to promote interdisciplinary dialog between service management scholars and researchers conducting employee-related research relevant to services.