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We introduce the BDA dynamics and explore the associated applications in renewable energy sector with a focus on data-driven innovation. Our study draws on the exponential growth of renewable energy initiatives over the last decades and on the paucity of literature to illustrate the use of BDA in the energy industry. We conduct a qualitative field study in the UK with stakeholder interviews and analyse our results using thematic analysis. Our findings indicate that no matter if the importance of the energy sector for ‘people’s well-being, industrial competitiveness, and societal advancement, old fashioned approaches to analytics for organisational processes are currently applied widely within the energy sector. These are triggered by resistance to change and insufficient organisational knowledge about BDA, hindering innovation opportunities. Furthermore, for energy organisations to integrate BDA approaches, they need to deal with challenges such as training employees on BDA and the associated costs. Overall, our study provides insights from practitioners about adopting BDA innovations in the renewable energy sector to inform decision-makers and provide recommendations for future research.

Social responsibility in labour-intensive industries of developing countries is always acontroversial issue among academics and practitioners. Although several studies haveconceptualised or empirically examined social responsibility in developing countries, there islimited research that investigates social responsibility issues spanning the entire manufacturingsupply chain. Using stakeholder and Resource-Based View (RBV) theory, this study examines thebarriers, enablers, motivations, and the current social responsibility facts of the garment and textileindustry from knitting suppliers to apparel or garment manufacturer to fashion retailers in theVietnamese context. The exploratory research design was used through content analysis, paneldiscussion, and in-depth interview. Our results show that most of the companies have notimplemented any significant policies to promote social responsibility but only to adhere to labourlaw. Since managers realize the crucial social responsibility role in the performance of theiroperation, merchandisers and intermediaries have a compelling role in improving their socialresponsibility, and the role of government and NGOs seems to be faded. We also provide themanagerial implications and directions for future research.

This paper discusses how digitalization of healthcare empowers stakeholders to interact and co-create value. The literature so far has focused on the benefits of healthcare value co-creation through digital technologies (DTs) from the patients and providers’ perspective. It has viewed patients and providers in isolation focusing on the benefits accruing to the healthcare system but has not shed light upon the role of DT during interactions between stakeholders to co-create healthcare value. To address this gap, this research uses a case of the ‘Occupational Health Adviceline’ (OHA), a DT-enabled Occupational Health (OH) service introduced in England to provide support and advice to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). We draw upon the affordances and S-D Logic concepts to illustrate how technology enables stakeholder (employees, employers, contact centre advisors, and OH nurses) empowerment and allows them to interact and co-create healthcare value. Our contribution lies in illustrating, through the affordances and S-D Logic lenses, how digitalization facilitates value co-creation through empowering stakeholders while providing new forms of visibility management. British Academy / Leverhulme Trust (grant no. SG122331); Knowledge Transfer Leave (Brunel University London).

Scholars have long acknowledged the importance of unveiling the black box of Operational Research (OR) practice. However, despite the emerging empirical studies in the area known as “Behavioural OR”, there is still a dearth of research into how artefacts are used at the micro-level of OR practice. This article addresses this gap by using adaptive structuration theory (AST) to study the appropriation (use) of artefacts during a facilitated modelling (FM) workshop. We argue that the appropriation of artefacts from the workshop participants enables them to engage in negotiation of meaning with action implications effectively, but appropriation occurs at varying intensities (high, medium, and low) depending on the issue of concern. Moreover, we identify that artefacts are reproduced if their reproduction is an aim or part of an aim of strategic discourse. Finally, we outline the limitations of our study and future research avenues.\ud \ud

This paper examines the role of adverse economic conditions and human capital on different types of collaboration within agri-food supply chains. Data was collected from the Greek agricultural sector, covering periods of economic hardship. The results reveal that the impact of adverse economic conditions on the collaborative constructs of goal congruence, decision synchronization, incentive alignment, resource sharing and joint knowledge creation is nonlinear, specifically an inverted U for all of them. For collaboration constructs of information sharing and collaborative communication, the results reveal that under adverse economic conditions, the farmers do not collaborate. We also show that aspects of human capital such as age, education and farming experience affect collaboration. Our contribution lies in investigating the potential non-linear relationship between adverse economic conditions and various types of collaboration. Therefore, this study provides several managerial implications and insight for policymakers, while filling a crucial gap in the literature due to the limited existing studies that consider the impact of adverse economic conditions on agri-food supply chains.

In this paper, we study the role of temporal coordination in managing the early stages of innovation (aka fuzzy front-end) in the context of virtual teams. Following a comparative case study approach, we detail the role of temporal coordination through the study of two contrasting virtual teams—one with a 24-h lifespan, and one with a five-month lifespan—from two Industry-Academia collaboration projects. Our approach was longitudinal capturing virtual team activities from start to end of each project, and involved multiple data collection methods, including observations and interviews. The findings reveal that the virtual team lifespan influences the type of temporal coordination that emerges. In virtual teams with short lifespans, tight coordination with frequent communication can help to reduce the uncertainty characterizing the fuzzy front-end. On the other hand, in virtual teams with longer lifespans, loose coordination allows dispersed members to work simultaneously on different, complementary aspects of the task at hand. These findings extend scholarly understanding around how innovation activities are coordinated in technology-mediated environments, such as virtual teams. Finally, we discuss theoretical and managerial implications.

In recent years, to stimulate the development of Lean Supply Chain Management (SCM) in SMEs, the UK aerospace industry has developed a change programme named ‘Supply Chains for the twenty-first century’ (SC21). This programme promotes the use of a simple standard improvement framework, which defines performance goals and standardises the approaches and tools for continuous sustainable improvement. However, its effective impact on Lean SCM and performance measurement systems (PMS) has not been widely covered in the literature. Adopting a qualitative research methodology approach, this study investigates five significant organisations to explore and contribute to knowledge on Lean SCM and PMS challenges related to the adoption of the SC21 programme. From an academic point of view, the paper highlights the key role of SC21 in accelerating the competitiveness of the aerospace industry by fostering managerial development of supply chain partners. In particular, it highlights the importance of PMS as well as collaboration between supply chain partners for efficient and effective SCM. From a practitioner’s perspective, the SC21 performance award is highlighted as a very successful approach in bridging the gap of differing agendas between supply chain partners. SMEs, with support from their larger supply chain partners, can embrace performance measurement practices to improve their performance. More established SMEs with a headcount of more than 50 employees are capable of developing and documenting strategic plans and more sophisticated PMS.

The scarcity of IT resources and technological advancements in high-tech small and medium enterprises (SMEs) require leaders to embed IT ambidexterity – simultaneous pursuit of IT exploitation and IT exploration activities – into their organization’s strategy, which could be challenging. To better understand how leaders enable IT ambidexterity, this study focuses on the leadership decision-making style (directive decision-making and participative decision-making) as a key driving factor. Moreover, we examine how and when leadership decision-making styles are most effective in enacting IT ambidexterity by considering new product development (NPD) team diversity and shared vision as two important contingencies. Finally, we test the role of IT ambidexterity in improving NPD performance. We analyse our research model using survey data from 292 high-tech SMEs. Our findings suggest that both decision-making styles enable IT ambidexterity, however, participative decision-making style is more effective in highly diverse NPD teams and directive decision-making style should be preferred when shared vision is a dominant factor among NPD team members. Our results also show that IT ambidexterity significantly enhances NPD performance. We discuss our contribution to information systems (IS) and ambidexterity research and provide implications for practice.

Academics and practitioners have long acknowledged the importance of agile manufacturing and related supply chains in achieving firm sustainable competitiveness. However, limited, if any, research has focused on the evolution of practices within agile manufacturing supply chains and how these are related to competitive performance objectives. To address this gap, we reviewed the literature on an agile manufacturing drawing on the evolution of manufacturing agility, attributes of agile manufacturing, the drivers of agile manufacturing, and the identification of the enabling competencies deployable for agile manufacturing. Our thesis is that agile manufacturing is at the centre of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage, especially in light of current unprecedented market instability coupled with complex customer requirements. In this regard, the emphasis which agile manufacturing places on responsive adaptability would counter the destabilising influence of competitive pressures on organisations performance criteria. We have identified five enabling competencies as the agility enablers and practices of agile manufacturing, that is, transparent customisation, agile supply chains, intelligent automation, total employee empowerment and technology integration, and further explored their joint deployment to create positive multiplier effects. Future research directions were also provided with respect to the operationalisation of the five identified enablers and the potential for emergent technologies of big data, blockchain, and Internet of Things to shape future agile manufacturing practices.

New product development (NPD) speed is becoming an important weapon by which firms can gain market share in today's competitive and complex market environments, where consumer preferences change rapidly. Drawing on the information technology (IT)-enabled organizational capabilities perspective, this study proposes that IT ambidexterity—the simultaneous pursuit of IT exploitation and IT exploration, which has become imperative in modern industry to sustain the business value of IT—enhances NPD speed by facilitating operational agility. We examine the proposed relationship of IT ambidexterity with the potential moderating role of market complexity in a sample composed of 292 British high-tech firms. Our findings, based on a moderated-mediation analysis, suggest that the impact of IT ambidexterity on NPD speed is mediated by operational agility and that the mediation effect is especially pronounced in complex markets. The resulting theoretical arguments and empirical evidence yield further insights into the strategic impacts of IT.

This study contributes to the literature on Information Systems (IS) implementation and provides insights into how IS implementation emerges as an assemblage constituted by diverse sociomaterial practices –that is, the intertwining of humans and technology in practice– during the implementation of Greece’s Yearly Property Tax policy and information system over the period 1997–2015. Drawing on the work of Deleuze, Guattari, and Delanda on ‘assemblage theory’ and Burke’s on motive (expressed as ‘intentionality’ and ‘motivation’) we discuss IS implementation as a performative process that is shaped by assemblage agents’ intentionality and motivation and conclude that explicitly attending to these dynamics during the emergence of policy and technology as a sociomaterial assemblage contributes to a better understanding of IS implementation and its success. We propose that higher levels of motivation and intentionality are related to higher chances of successful implementation. Finally, limitations and future research directions are proposed.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a performance measurement model for the entire supply chain that includes balanced set of performance measures.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual model was validated empirically in case companies through semi-structured interviews and content analysis of documents.FindingsPerformance measures are important to companies in the natural gas (NG) supply chain to assess performance against set objectives in order to identify loopholes in performance. This is important in order to remain competitive. The research found that both financial and non-financial performance measures are employed by companies to measure performance. The results also indicate that six performance criteria of the conceptual model are vital to the NG supply chain. In addition, all identified measures under each of criteria impact on performance of the supply chain with customer service and financial criteria considered as most important.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical data collected from the NG supply chain in Ghana were relatively small; however, additional information was obtained from company data and relevant magazines. Also, getting through to specific target participant was a challenge due to busy work schedule but, in case companies where it proved impossible, other staff who were also involved in supply chain were interviewed instead.Practical implicationsThis research provides a useful source of information on performance measures for practitioners in the NG industry who wish to measure performance of their supply chain. It also provides areas from which further and additional research can be carried out.Originality/valueThis research provides performance measures for the NG supply chain of Ghana. Typically, performance measures have been evaluated in discrete manufacturing supply chain, petroleum industry supply chain and oil industry supply chain. This research expanded on ideas from these studies and applied them in the NG industry.

In this study we attempt to establish the missing links between supply chain sustainability and frugal innovation. Our study motivations stem from two facets of the emerging markets: firstly, the institutional barriers and secondly, the resource constraints. We argue that there is a synergy in the concepts of frugal innovation and sustainability in supply chains and there is a need to further explore this synergy. Furthermore, we claim that even in the wake of many success stories in the frugal innovative supply chain management practices from emerging markets such as India, there are very few, if any, attempts made to understand the implications of a sustainability oriented frugal innovations in the particular context. To address this gap we develop a model to establish the linkage between sustainable supply chains and frugal innovations. Our proposed conceptual framework depicts the hierarchy and interlinks of the identified enablers in developing sustainability oriented frugal innovative capabilities in supply chains. Furthermore, we have empirically validated our theoretical framework using survey data. We observed that most of the interpretive links are supported. These findings extend the understanding of frugal innovation for supply chain sustainability using multi-method research design, while also providing theoretically guidance to managers in the development of frugal innovation capability to achieve sustainability in supply chain in resource constrained environment.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model to explain the impact of big data and predictive analytics (BDPA) on sustainable business development goal of the organization.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have developed the theoretical model using resource-based view logic and contingency theory. The model was further tested using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) following Peng and Lai (2012) arguments. The authors gathered 205 responses using survey-based instrument for PLS-SEM.FindingsThe statistical results suggest that out of four research hypotheses, the authors found support for three hypotheses (H1-H3) and the authors did not find support forH4. Although the authors did not find support forH4(moderating role of supply base complexity (SBC)), however, in future the relationship between BDPA, SBC and sustainable supply chain performance measures remain interesting research questions for further studies.Originality/valueThis study makes some original contribution to the operations and supply chain management literature. The authors provide theory-driven and empirically proven results which extend previous studies which have focused on single performance measures (i.e. economic or environmental). Hence, by studying the impact of BDPA on three performance measures the authors have attempted to answer some of the unresolved questions. The authors also offer numerous guidance to the practitioners and policy makers, based on empirical results.

We explore how professional legal services and their supply chains can be modularised. Based on a review of the service\ud modularity, supply chain modularity and supply chain strategy literature, we posit that the scope of service modularisation\ud should be determined by, and aligned with, the supply chain strategy of a firm. We develop a conceptual framework\ud that links the service and supply chain modular architectures with the supply chain strategy of service firms. The framework\ud provides the foundation for an empirical confirmatory analysis through in-depth multiple case studies in 10 law\ud firms in the UK. We identify the current status quo of service and supply chain architectures of professional legal services\ud and then explore several options for their modularisation. Our findings show that legal services are currently overcustomised,\ud offering significant opportunities for the application of modularity across their supply chains. We generate\ud insights to show how service modularity can be applied to the service offering, processes and supply chain levels of law\ud firms. We also demonstrate the effects of each level of modularisation on the selection of appropriate interfaces and on\ud the decomposability of services.

This study develops a theoretical model that links reconfigurable manufacturing systems with top management beliefs, participation, and environmental performance, drawing on agency theory and organizational culture. The study takes into account the possible confounding effects of organization size and organizational compatibility. Drawing on responses from 167 top managers, the results of hypothesis testing suggest that (i) higher top management participation, being influenced by top management beliefs, leads to higher chances of RMS becoming adopted by organizations as their manufacturing strategy; (ii) organizational culture moderates the relationship between the level of top management participation and RMS (and manufacturing strategies) adoption; and (iii) higher re-configurability of manufacturing systems leads to better environmental performance. Furthermore, we integrate Agency Theory and organizational culture to explain the role of top management beliefs and participation in achieving environmental performance via RMS. Finally, we offer guidance to those managers who would like to engage in leveraging top management commitment for achieving environmental performance, and outline further research directions.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine when and how organizations create agility, adaptability, and alignment as distinct supply chain properties to gain sustainable competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approachThe current study utilizes the resource-based view (RBV) under the moderating effect of top management commitment (TMC). To test the research hypotheses, the authors gathered 351 usable responses using a pre-tested questionnaire.FindingsThe statistical analyses suggest that information sharing and supply chain connectivity resources influence supply chain visibility capability, which, under the moderating effect of TMC, enhance supply chain agility, adaptability, and alignment (SCAAA).Originality/valueThe contribution lies in: providing a holistic study of the antecedents of agility, adaptability, and alignment; investigating the moderating role of TMC on SCAAA; following the RBV and addressing calls for investigating the role of resources in supply chain management, and for empirical studies with implications for supply chain design.

© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. The inter-rater/test-retest reliability and construct validity of a palliative care needs assessment tool in interstitial lung disease (NAT:PD-ILD) were tested using NAT:PD-ILD-guided video-recorded consultations, and NAT:PD-ILD-guided consultations, and patient and carer-report outcomes (St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ)-ILD, Carer Strain Index (CSI)/Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool (CSNAT)). 11/16 items reached at least fair inter-rater agreement; 5 items reached at least moderate test-retest agreement. 4/6 patient constructs demonstrated agreement with SGRQ-I scores (Kendall's tau-b, 0.24-20.36; P

International audience; Sustainability benchmarking is gaining importance in industry. Despite its increasing popularity, the existing research utilizing theory to explain the organizations intention to shape performance measurement systems (PMS) for sustainability benchmarking is limited. Drawing upon institutional theory and organizational culture, this study investigates how institutional pressures motivate organizations to shape PMS for sustainability benchmarking and how such effects are moderated by organizational culture. The results of a survey of 277 respondents, gathered from Indian manufacturing firms, suggest that two of the dimensions of the institutional pressures (i.e. coercive pressures and normative pressures) are positively related to the PMS whereas the third dimension (i.e. mimetic pressures) does not affect PMS. Furthermore, organizational culture (i.e. flexible orientation and control orientation) plays a different role on the differential effect of coercive pressures, normative pressures and mimetic pressures on shaping PMS for sustainability benchmarking. The current manuscript offers an interesting contribution to the sustainability benchmarking literature: we integrate the perspectives of ‘external pressures’ and ‘organizational culture’ –as neither perspective, can on, its own can shape the PMS for sustainability benchmarking–, and ‘organizational structure’ under which the external pressures are most effective. From a practitioners' perspective, our study provides theory-driven and empirically-proven guidance for managers to understand the effect of external pressures and the role of organizational structure on PMS for sustainability benchmarking.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of big data and business analytics (BDBA) in agile manufacturing practices. Literature has discussed the benefits and challenges related to the deployment of big data within operations and supply chains, but there has not been a study of the facilitating roles of BDBA in achieving an enhanced level of agile manufacturing practices. As a response to this gap, and drawing upon multiple qualitative case studies undertaken among four U.K. organizations, we present and validate a framework for the role of BDBA within agile manufacturing. The findings show that market turbulence has negative universal effects and that agile manufacturing enablers are being progressively deployed and aided by BDBA to yield better competitive and business performance objectives. Further, the level of intervention was found to differ across companies depending on the extent of deployment of BDBA, which accounts for variations in outcomes.

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an enduring approach for enhancing firm competitiveness. Still, there is dearth of research regarding organisational diffusion (post-adoption) of TQM. To address this gap, this research proposes a theoretical model rooted in institutional and upper echelon theories that explains TQM diffusion via top management commitment. We surveyed 300 senior quality managers representing 300 auto-components manufacturers in India to collect data to test the proposed model using variance based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings suggest that institutional pressures significantly influence top management commitment to TQM. Subsequently, top management commitment influences organisational diffusion of TQM via acceptance, routinization, and assimilation. Managers can use the findings of this research to better understand how to assimilate TQM so that anticipated benefits can be fully realized.

‘Big Data & Analytics’ (BD&A) has become increasingly important over the last years in both academic and practitioner worlds. Organisations are trying to harness the benefits of BD&A, defined as ‘a...

This paper focusses on the openness in the front-end phase of service innovation and its impact on innovation success. The early stages of innovation are fuzzy and unstructured, thus often being called “fuzzy front-end” (FFE) by scholars. The FFE begins when an opportunity is considered worthy of further ideation, exploration, and assessment and ends when a firm decides to invest in — or terminate — an idea. Although openness has been identified as pivotal to innovation performance, little effort has been put into exploring its role in the early phase of innovation. By drawing on the data of a multiple case study in Thai online service firms, we are able to identify four key dimensions of FFE openness competence: prior related knowledge, top management support, the presence of workable prototype, and slack resource. Furthermore, we found three openness activities that often take place in the FFE phase of successful online service innovation, i.e., external search, inter-firm partnerships and customer experimentation. From a managerial perspective, our study provides useful insights to innovation managers aiming at enhancing front-end performance through openness.

Understanding supply chain sustainability performance is increasingly important for supply chain researchers and managers. Literature has considered supply chain sustainability and the antecedents of performance from a triple bottom line (economic, social, and environmental) perspective. However, the role of supply chain visibility and product complexity contingency in achieving sustainable supply chain performance has not been explored in depth. To address this gap, this study utilizes a contingent resource-based view theory perspective to understand the role of product complexity in shaping the relationship between upstream supply chain visibility (resources and capabilities) and the social, environmental, and economic performance dimensions. We develop and test a theoretical model using survey data gathered from 312 Indian manufacturing organizations. Our findings indicate that supply chain visibility (SCV) has significant influence on social and environmental performance under the moderation effect of product complexity. Hence, the study makes significant contribution to the extant literature by examining the impact of SCV under moderating effect of product complexity on social performance and environmental performance.

Understanding sustainable production is becoming increasingly important for production and operations managers, mainly due to a shortage in natural resources. Sustainability requires many changes in behaviour at all levels. Few studies within the sustainable production literature have empirically disentangled the underlying behavioural concepts of sustainable production. To address this gap, this study utilizes the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to develop a theoretical framework to explain sustainable production behaviour. Survey data gathered from 128 Indian cement manufacturing units suggest that attitude, subjective norms or social pressures and perceived behavioural control are predictors of the intention for sustainable production which then predicts sustainable production behaviour. The research contribution of this study is twofold: firstly, the current study highlight that the influence of social pressures or subjective norms on intention is greater than attitude and perceived behavioural control; and secondly it may be noted that intention is not a strong predictor of the sustainable production behaviour. Finally, our study based on limitations offers extensive future research directions.

PurposeGreen or sustainable supply chain management (GSCM/SSCM) has in recent years attracted much attention from academia and practitioners in all part of the world. In recent years, all humanity has experienced severe climate change which is widely attributed to human activity. Harmful emissions have made a major contribution to recent climate change which presents major challenges and threats to the entire human race in form of global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunami and floods. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual GSCM/SSCM framework contributing to knowledge-based view theory and systems theory (ST) and provide an exhaustive list of further research directions.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper the authors have used a systematic literature review to identify building blocks of the conceptual framework, which is the principal contribution of the present paper.FindingsIn this paper the authors have proposed a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain network and at the end the authors have outlined further research directions.Research limitations/implicationsThe current paper is an attempt to develop a conceptual framework which is grounded in knowledge-based theory. The study helps to extent the prior works which lacks theory focused approach.Originality/valueThe present work has immense theoretical value and can be useful to the policy makers or practitioners engaged in GSCM practices.

This paper offers a systematic review of the literature on the use of information technology (IT) in logistics and supply chain management to achieve competitive advantage. While IT has revolutionized traditional logistics and supply chains to achieve numerous benefits such as increased efficiency and responsiveness, it is not still clear to what extend IT has contributed to competitive advantage within logistics and supply chains. This paper contributes to this debate by: (i) reporting the literature on the role of IT in achieving competitive advantage within logistics and supply chains based on the linkages between ‘adaptation’, ‘alignment’, and ‘agility’, (triple A’s) (Lee, 2004), and (ii) discussing managerial implications and identifying future research directions.

Scholars acknowledge the importance of big data and predictive analytics (BDPA) in achieving business value and firm performance. However, the impact of BDPA assimilation on supply chain (SCP) and organizational performance (OP) has not been thoroughly investigated. To address this gap, this paper draws on resource-based view. It conceptualizes assimilation as a three stage process (acceptance, routinization, and assimilation) and identifies the influence of resources (connectivity and information sharing) under the mediation effect of top management commitment on big data assimilation (capability), SCP and OP. The findings suggest that connectivity and information sharing under the mediation effect of top management commitment are positively related to BDPA acceptance, which is positively related to BDPA assimilation under the mediation effect of BDPA routinization, and positively related to SCP and OP. Limitations and future research directions are provided.

Economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability have been shown to span beyond organizational boundaries, indicating the importance of managing sustainability initiatives across the supply chain. Although scholars and practitioners focus a great deal of attention toward economic and environmental sustainability in supply chains, less attention is paid to social aspects. This is unfortunate, because social sustainability not only plays an important role in enabling other sustainability initiatives, but social injustices in one echelon of a supply chain can lead to significant losses for firms across the chain. Social issues have been especially problematic in developing nations, where abusive labor practices continue to negatively affect trading partners. This research seeks to disambiguate supply chain social sustainability in developing nations by uncovering relevant dimensions of social sustainability and resultant outcomes. Using semi-structured interview data collected from supply chain executives in Indian manufacturing companies, this research uncovers dimensions of social sustainability in terms of not only the focal firm, but also first-tier suppliers and customers. Each of these dimensions is then associated to potential performance outcomes. The findings not only provide a baseline for future research, but help practitioners understand where to focus their attention to enhance social sustainability in their supply chains.

The amount of data produced and communicated over the Internet is significantly increasing, thereby creating challenges for the organizations that would like to reap the benefits from analyzing this massive influx of big data. This is because big data can provide unique insights into, inter alia, market trends, customer buying patterns, and maintenance cycles, as well as into ways of lowering costs and enabling more targeted business decisions. Realizing the importance of big data business analytics (BDBA), we review and classify the literature on the application of BDBA on logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) – that we define as supply chain analytics (SCA), based on the nature of analytics (descriptive, predictive, prescriptive) and the focus of the LSCM (strategy and operations). To assess the extent to which SCA is applied within LSCM, we propose a maturity framework of SCA, based on four capability levels, that is, functional, process-based, collaborative, agile SCA, and sustainable SCA. We highlight the role of SCA in LSCM and denote the use of methodologies and techniques to collect, disseminate, analyze, and use big data driven information. Furthermore, we stress the need for managers to understand BDBA and SCA as strategic assets that should be integrated across business activities to enable integrated enterprise business analytics. Finally, we outline the limitations of our study and future research directions.

This paper focuses on unique longitudinal research within a multi-vendor outsourcing environment in the European Defence Sector. It describes the unfolding relationship between vendors and a major defence organization as the vendors developed, implemented and then managed a human resource management (HRM) system. This paper examines the apparent paradox between the wide scale adoption of outsourcing and its relatively poor performance and outcomes. The research suggests this comes from a loose coupling between the rational logic of outsourcing practice and the interpretation and enactment by interest groups that is exaggerated by the imposition of fixed deadlines and strong contractual governance.

Περιέχει το πλήρες κείμενο "Open" practices have been at the forefront of research, business and political agendas for some time. Traditionally, research has focused on analysing critical factors for the deployment of Open Source (OS) Software and has highlighted the roles of "Collective Intelligence" and "participation in voluntary communities" in facilitating OS development. Nevertheless, there is little literature examining the role these Open Innovation (01) practices may play in influencing the private-collective model of innovation and its application in economies-in-crisis to create public-good innovations. To address this gap, this paper uses the case of Greece. Data were gathered from interviews conducted with public policy makers and private sector top executives. The findings underline the importance of using OS as software to deal with cost reduction during debt crisis; but more importantly reveal a shift from OS to utilising the aforementioned 01 practices to support the creation of public-good innovations through the private-collective model of innovation, and the difficulties faced in encouraging this initiative due to insufficient national innovation policy, and different philosophies, structures, and cultures followed by the organisations. The study calls for changes in the national policy supported by the private-collective model to leverage innovation.

Part 2: Acceptance and Diffusion; International audience; Despite the need expressed in the literature for shedding light upon the mechanisms that underpin the transformational process of t-Government, there is still research to be conducted regarding the critical factors that affect the citizens’ adoption of local government transformational services. To address this gap, this research reports on the findings of the use of the structured-case approach and suggests a framework to investigate the success factors for t-Gov in a Greek context. The paper reveals that transformational government is not a state, but a process entailing experiential judgement. Existing acceptance theories, hence, need to be complemented by additional variables that affect citizens’ adoption of transformational services.

PurposeThe importance of networks in effecting the outcomes of change processes is well‐established in the literature. Whilst extant literature focuses predominantly on the structural properties of networks, our purpose is to explore the dynamics of network emergence that give rise to the outcomes of process improvement interventions. Through the use of actor‐network theory (ANT), the purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics in the implementation of a process improvement methodology in the complex organisational setting of a UK National Health Service Trust. The paper illustrates the utility of ANT in articulating the dynamic nature of networks underpinning socio‐technical change, and our analysis provides insights for the management process change initiatives.Design/methodology/approachThis is a rich qualitative study in the Pathology Unit of a UK National Health Service Trust, using ANT as the theoretical lens for tracking the emergence and transformation of networks of individuals over the course of a management intervention to promote “Lean thinking” for process performance improvements.FindingsANT is useful for explicitly tracking how organisational players shift their positions and network allegiances over time, and for identifying objects and actions that are effective in engaging individuals in networks which enable transition to a Lean process. It is important to attend to the dynamics of the process of change and devise appropriate timely interventions enabling actors to shift their own positions towards a desired outcome.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper makes the case for using theoretical frameworks developed outside the operations management to develop insights for designing process interventions.Originality/valueBy understanding the role of shifting networks managers can use timely interventions during the process implementation to facilitate the transition to Lean processes, e.g. using demonstrable senior leadership commitment and visual communication.

International audience; This study presents the outcomes of a qualitative case study of implementing e-government Information Systems within the national digital strategy in a governmental organisation, following action research. The results show that although e-government is a socio-technical process and has to accommodate the views of all stakeholders, this is questioned in practice. No matter if e-government needs to be a tool for decentralisation and democratisation, this scope may be rendered futile due to the fundamental role of the political support required to secure future funds for implementation. While focusing on the changes in business processes that have to be considered by governmental institutions to successfully implement e-government, the need for a holistic model, which can embrace the back- and front- office, and be linked to the real citizens' needs, arises.

Artificial intelligence by principle is developed to assist but also support decision making processes. In our study, we explore how information retrieved from social media can assist decision-making processes for new product development (NPD). We focus on consumers’ emotions that are expressed through social media and analyse the variations of their sentiments in all the stages of NPD. We collect data from Twitter that reveal consumers’ appreciation of aspects of the design of a newly launched model of an innovative automotive company. We adopt the sensemaking approach coupled with the use of fuzzy logic for text mining. This combinatory methodological approach enables us to retrieve consensus from the data and to explore the variations of sentiments of the customers about the product and define the polarity of these emotions for each of the NPD stages. The analysis identifies sensemaking patterns in Twitter data and explains the NPD process and the associated steps where the social interactions from customers can have an iterative role. We conclude the paper by outlining an agenda for future research in the NPD process and the role of the customer opinion through sensemaking mechanisms.