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1 – 10 of 11Roberto Chavez, Wantao Yu, Mark Jacobs and Chee Yew Wong
This study aims to investigate whether Industry 4.0 digital technologies can enhance the effects of lean production on social performance.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate whether Industry 4.0 digital technologies can enhance the effects of lean production on social performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data collected from China’s manufacturing industry are used to test research hypotheses.
Findings
The results reveal that the three dimensions of lean production (internal, customer and supplier) have a significant positive effect on social performance and that digital technology advancement (DTA) positively moderates these relationships. DTA adds only a marginal contribution to social performance.
Practical implications
This study addresses a new challenging question from manufacturing firms: how to integrate lean, technology and people? The empirical findings provide timely and insightful practical guidance for managers to better understand the role of digital transformation in the traditional lean context.
Originality/value
While digitalization is known to complement lean production, this study shows digitalization also complements the effects of lean production on social performance.
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Wantao Yu, Chee Yew Wong, Roberto Chavez, Mark Jacobs and Lakshminarayana Nittala
This study aims to examine the relationship between the three dimensions of intellectual capital (IC), i.e. human, social and organizational, and supply chain resilience (SCR…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the relationship between the three dimensions of intellectual capital (IC), i.e. human, social and organizational, and supply chain resilience (SCR) through testing a primary (mediation) and competing (moderation) model.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modelling and regression analysis were used to test the mediation and moderation models using survey data from Chinese manufacturers.
Findings
Dual processes in which human, social and organizational capitals build SCR are revealed: all three IC components act as knowledge stocks for informing each other, and both organizational and social capitals act as intervention mechanisms that draw knowledge resided within individuals and collectively deploy/enrich such knowledge for responding to supply chain disruptions.
Practical implications
The empirical results provide useful and timely guidance to managers on how to leverage knowledge resources to develop resilience, which is particularly valuable in the current volatile environment.
Originality/value
By empirically testing both the mediation and moderation models, this study provides crucial evidence for advancing the understanding of how the three IC components may be managed to achieve SCR, which is of critical importance for addressing the many unprecedented disruptions facing global supply chains and economies.
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Wantao Yu, Chee Yew Wong, Roberto Chavez and Mark Jacobs
Digitally oriented firms are faced with new opportunities and risks in today’s ever-changing world. Drawing upon organisational entrainment theory, this study investigates how…
Abstract
Purpose
Digitally oriented firms are faced with new opportunities and risks in today’s ever-changing world. Drawing upon organisational entrainment theory, this study investigates how supply chain (SC) entrainment improves the effects of digital orientation on firm performance through absorbing risks and exploiting opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 307 Chinese manufactures and analysed using structural equation modelling and regression analysis.
Findings
The results show digital orientation absorbs risk through evoking three SC entrainment dimensions (i.e. internal entrainment, entrainment with customers and entrainment with suppliers). Entrainment with customers and suppliers mediate the relationship between internal entrainment and firm performance. An opportunity exploitation mechanism is evidenced by the moderating effects of internal and external entrainment on the relationship between digital orientation and firm performance.
Practical implications
The empirical findings provide timely insights for managers to fully harness the benefits of digital orientation by using SC entrainment, i.e. to match the tempo and pace of internal and external cyclical activities to reduce the risks and increase the benefits of adopting advanced digital technologies. The authors show managers how to adjust their organization’s actions to keep tempo and synchronous phase with their SC partners.
Originality/value
The study introduces and conceptualizes a construct (i.e. SC entrainment) to understand how risks and opportunities arising from digital transformation can be addressed to maximize the value of advanced digital technologies.
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Wantao Yu, Mark Jacobs, Roberto Chavez and Yongtao Song
This study aims to explore how bundling knowledge resources (i.e. knowledge integration mechanisms [KIMs]) and digital resources (i.e. big data-powered artificial intelligence…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how bundling knowledge resources (i.e. knowledge integration mechanisms [KIMs]) and digital resources (i.e. big data-powered artificial intelligence [BDAI]) can enhance supply chain visibility (SCV) capabilities for implementing just-in-case (JIC) practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Analysis of survey data from Chinese manufacturers was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The results reveal a significant positive effect of KIMs on BDAI, as well as positive effects of both BDAI and KIMs on SCV. Furthermore, the results suggest that SCV partially mediates the KIMs–JIC relationship and fully mediates the BDAI–JIC relationship.
Originality/value
This study advances the digital SC and inventory management literature by proposing and empirically testing a digital JIC model that explores how to bundle knowledge and digital resources into SC capabilities for managing JIC inventory in uncertain and digital times.
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Wantao Yu, Chee Yew Wong, Mark Jacobs and Roberto Chavez
This study aims to address a significant and previously unanswered question for both academics and practitioners: how do organizations learn to apply Blockchain technology to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to address a significant and previously unanswered question for both academics and practitioners: how do organizations learn to apply Blockchain technology to support modern slavery (MS) supply chain capabilities? Specifically, this study examines whether employees’ digital dexterity (EDD) and strategic investment in Blockchain technology (SIBT) can support three MS supply chain capabilities: internal MS capability (IMSC), MS capability with customers (MSCC) and MS capability with suppliers (MSCS).
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses resource accumulation and deployment perspective to explain how EDD promotes SIBT, which then drives the development of MS supply chain capabilities. Survey data collected from the Chinese manufacturing industry were used to test the proposed theoretical framework and hypotheses through structural equation modelling and moderated regression analysis.
Findings
EDD has a positive relationship with SIBT. SIBT has a positive relationship with IMSC. IMSC fully mediates the relationships between SIBT and MS capability with customers and suppliers.
Originality/value
By conceptualizing MS supply chain capabilities as a multi-dimensional construct for the first time, this study discovers the significant mediating roles of IMSC. The empirical findings also clarify digital dexterity of employees that drives investment in Blockchain technology to foster MS supply chain capabilities as resource accumulation and deployment processes.
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Wantao Yu, Qi Liu, Roberto Chavez and Linchang Zheng
Many firms are now pursuing large-scale change initiatives to accelerate their digital transformation (DT) and sustainable development. However, the success rate of DT projects is…
Abstract
Purpose
Many firms are now pursuing large-scale change initiatives to accelerate their digital transformation (DT) and sustainable development. However, the success rate of DT projects is still low, and the extent to which DT enables firms to improve environmental sustainability (ES) remains unclear. Recently, researchers have argued that DT is more about people transformation rather than technology. Based on the contingent resource-based view, this study investigates how DT influences ES and examines the moderating role of training provision (TP).
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data gathered from manufacturers in China were analysed to test the proposed theoretical framework.
Findings
The results indicate that DT has a positive impact on ES, and that this effect is positively moderated by TP.
Practical implications
The empirical findings provide insights for managers to understand the success of digital sustainability transformation requires necessary digital knowledge and skills derived from TP.
Originality/value
This study provides an initial examination of digital sustainability, which is a new stream of literature for the digital age, and further extends existing knowledge by demonstrating the importance of people (i.e. TP) in strengthening the effectiveness of DT on ES.
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Wael Hassan El-Garaihy, Tamer Farag, Khalid Al Shehri, Piera Centobelli and Roberto Cerchione
Nowadays, a prominent research area is the development of competitive advantages in companies, due to their environmental commitment and orientation. Based on resource-based view…
Abstract
Purpose
Nowadays, a prominent research area is the development of competitive advantages in companies, due to their environmental commitment and orientation. Based on resource-based view (RBV) and institutional theory (InT), this paper aims to investigate the influence of internal and external orientation on businesses' sustainable performance while considering the effect of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from 351 manufacturing companies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have been collected and analysed through structural equation modelling (SEM) using the partial least squares (PLS) method.
Findings
The results indicated that both internal and external environmental orientation have important effects on SSCM practices, which in turn have a considerable beneficial effect on environmental, social and economic performance.
Originality/value
Although SSCM is constantly gaining ground in the literature, most SSCM research and models examine its effects, antecedents or motivation, mainly adopting a qualitative approach. Research on the topic adopting a large-scale empirical approach is still limited. In this context, this study contributes to the SSCM management literature by exploring the role of environmental orientation in facilitating the adoption of SSCM practices and improving companies' performance.
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Beatrice Avolio and Jessica Marleny Chávez Cajo
This phenomenological study, conducted within the discourse on the underrepresentation of women in academia, examined the factors influencing the advancement of women academics in…
Abstract
Purpose
This phenomenological study, conducted within the discourse on the underrepresentation of women in academia, examined the factors influencing the advancement of women academics in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Design/methodology/approach
The sample comprised twenty-one women academics from both public and private universities in Peru. Data were collected through in-depth interviews based on the women's experiences and subsequently processed using Moustakas’ (1994) stages for encoding, categorization, and analysis.
Findings
The study introduces a conceptual framework of nine factors – personal tastes and preferences, attitudes towards science as a vocation, care work, work–life balance, congruent gender roles, occupational segregation, lack of opportunities, low salaries, and lack of gender equality policies – that impact the career progression of women in STEM fields.
Originality/value
The results offer valuable insights for policymakers and academic authorities to address the barriers affecting women academics in STEM. The uniqueness of this paper lies in its investigation in Peru, a country with the highest female labor force participation in Latin America, where women constitute the majority of undergraduate program graduates.
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This article poses the question on whether and how youth participation in environmental sustainability makes a difference within participatory budgets (PBs). This is a question…
Abstract
Purpose
This article poses the question on whether and how youth participation in environmental sustainability makes a difference within participatory budgets (PBs). This is a question worth asking because PBs have pursued, from the very beginning, goals of social sustainability through the inclusion of social groups that struggle to make their voices heard, as in the case of the youth. As young people show an increasing capacity to self-organise around environmental issues, a knowledge gap emerges as to the contribution that youth can give to environmental sustainability within PBs.
Design/methodology/approach
The 2021 edition of the Lisbon PB (2021PB) has been analysed through desk research – document analysis using the city council's website as the main source of information, and fieldwork – an organisation of one two-day workshop with 20 young students through a partnership between the local authority and the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Methods were applied to retrieve findings on youth participation in environmental sustainability in the 2021PB.
Findings
The youth show a relative increase of participation in the 2021PB and emerge as a key target group in funded proposals. Convergence with student proposals suggest shared awareness on the role of youth in the pursuit of social sustainability. The success of health-related proposals confirms ownership of (young) citizens over the concept of environmental sustainability, which further relies on the various scopes of funded proposals at both city and neighbourhood levels. In the workshop, students did not stick to specific themes and struggled to connect present criticalities and future imaginaries.
Research limitations/implications
Focus on one case study necessarily limits the generalisation of findings. Nevertheless, the 2021PB illuminates pathways of research on youth participation in environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting that are worth clearing in the future, such as the role of digital participation, dynamics induced by extreme events as the COVID-19 pandemic and PBs' capacity to intercept environmental activism.
Practical implications
Decision-makers and practitioners can take advantage of findings to acknowledge the potential of youth participation in PBs to reframe the take of environmental sustainability.
Social implications
The article provides new inputs for future developments in the operationalisation of social and environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting.
Originality/value
This article examines original data retrieved from the 2021PB. Data analysis is backed by the literature review of key democratic challenges in social and environmental sustainability within participatory budgeting.
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Roberto Falcão, Eduardo Cruz, Murilo Costa Filho and Maria Elo
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues in studying hard-to-reach or dispersed populations, with particular focus on methodologies used to collect data and to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues in studying hard-to-reach or dispersed populations, with particular focus on methodologies used to collect data and to investigate dispersed migrant entrepreneurs, illustrating shortcomings, pitfalls and potentials of accessing and disseminating research to hard-to-reach populations of migrant entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methodology is proposed to access hard-to-reach or dispersed populations, and this paper explores these using a sample of Brazilian migrants settled in different countries of the world.
Findings
This paper explores empirical challenges, illustrating shortcomings, pitfalls and potentials of accessing and disseminating research to hard-to-reach populations of migrant entrepreneurs. It provides insights by reporting research experiences developed over time by this group of researchers, reflecting a “mixing” of methods for accessing respondents, contrasting to a more rigid, a-priori, mixed methods approach.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this paper is to showcase experiences from, and suitability of, remote data collection, especially for projects that cannot accommodate the physical participation of researchers, either because of time or cost constraints. It reports on researching migrant entrepreneurship overseas. Remote digital tools and online data collection are highly relevant due to time- and cost-efficiency, but also represent solutions for researching dispersed populations. These approaches presented allow for overcoming several barriers to data collection and present instrumental characteristics for migrant research.
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