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The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of paradoxes, underlying tensions and potential management strategies when integrating digital technologies into existing lean-based production systems (LPSs), with the aim of achieving synergies and fostering the development of production systems.

This study adopts a collaborative management research (CMR) approach to identify patterns of organisational tensions and paradoxes and explore management strategies to overcome them. The data were collected through interviews and focus group interviews with experts on lean and/or digital technologies from the companies, from documents and from workshops with the in-case researchers.

The findings of this paper provide insights into the salient organisational paradoxes embraced in the integration of digital technologies in LPS by identifying different aspects of the performing, organising, learning and belonging paradoxes. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate the intricacies and relatedness between different paradoxes and their resolutions, and more specifically, how a resolution strategy adopted to manage one paradox might unintentionally generate new tensions. This, in turn, calls for either re-contextualising actions to counteract the drift or the adoption of new resolution strategies.

This paper adds perspective to operations management (OM) research through the use of paradox theory, and we (1) provide a fine-grained perspective on why integration sometimes “fails” and label the forces of internal drift as mechanisms of imbalances and (2) provide detailed insights into how different management and resolution strategies are adopted, especially by identifying re-contextualising actions as a key to rebalancing organisational paradoxes in favour of the integration of digital technologies in LPSs.

The purpose of this paper is to set forth a conceptual model describing the actors and roles in ecosystems created to enable productive black entrepreneurship in the USA.

This paper provides a systematic literature review of entrepreneurship ecosystems. It further leverages such literature review by using an autoethnographic approach recommended by Guyotte and Kochacka (2016), drawing on the authors’ practical experience in studying, owning, educating or consulting employer businesses owned by persons of color in the USA and abroad.

Each actor in the ecosystem has practical wisdom and assets that can be shared and leveraged through interacting with the other actors either as role model institutions or capacity development institutions, thus mitigating social inequalities and boosting economic progress by extending entrepreneurial opportunities beyond those that are greatly resourced.

Our literature review is based on selected samples of relevant articles on entrepreneurship ecosystem research and ethnic minority entrepreneurship, and thus, is not exhaustive. The selection was partly influenced by the authors’ opinion of whether a given study was relevant or not to a black entrepreneurship ecosystem. There is the possibility that some relevant studies were excluded. Thus, other actors are encouraged to revise or adapt this model to inform their distinct roles and goals.

The proposed model can help actors involved in the operation or support of a black-owned business make optimal business decisions, enabling each actor to be instrumental in another’s understanding of how to facilitate the success of black American entrepreneurs and business owners and thus, deploy marketing campaigns to boost the visibility and role of each actor. These campaigns play a role in their entrepreneurial marketing efforts.

Responding to Gines and Sampson’s (2020) call, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explicitly provide a comprehensive black entrepreneurship ecosystem model that identifies the actors, roles and activities that can help black Americans address social inequalities that limit their ability to become a successful employer business. The proposed model may aid in deepening the theoretical discussion on entrepreneurial ecosystems and be of inspiration for the future works of scholars and practitioners interested in the entrepreneurship and marketing interface.

This paper aims to explore the concept of “actor engagement” within the context of the sharing economy, a novel and dynamic business model. Specifically, it investigates the formation of actor engagement and its relationship with value creation within this business model.

Drawing on Storbacka et al. (2016)actor engagement framework and service-dominant logic service ecosystem model, unstructured data (text and images) from the Airbnb platform in seven countries and text- and image-mining techniques such as machine learning are used to measure the research variables and test the model by PLS-SEM.

The results indicate that affective engagement has a more significant impact on behavioural engagement than cognitive engagement for multidimensional actor engagement. Service providers’ engagement – directly, and through customer engagement – influences value creation for service providers (i.e. performance). Moreover, national-level moderator (i.e. economic, competitiveness, technology, social and political factors) plays a significant moderating role in our model.

This study encourages future research to explore how actor engagement leads to value creation for all actors on the different sharing economy platforms.

The findings provide practical insights for service providers to engage their customers and platform managers, especially in an international context, on managing their relationships with both customers and service providers in different countries.

This study advances the current literature on actor engagement and its role in value creation by providing a better understanding of the role of the national context in this process through unstructured data analysis.

This paper examines the relationship between behavioral biases, and demand decisions for life insurance products in Uganda.

Data were collected from 351 life insurance policyholders in Uganda. The authors used a cross-sectional survey by applying a structured questionnaire. Descriptive analysis was conducted and hypothesized relationships between the constructs were evaluated through the use of structural equation modeling.

Results indicate that, behavioral biases are significant predictors of life insurance demand among Ugandan policyholders. Also, the two behavioral bias variables (heuristic bias and prospect bias) are significant predictors of demand decisions for life insurance products.

These results are helpful for both insurers and regulators. For insurers, it is now evident that demand decisions for life insurance products are not fully rational. It is imperative for insurers to simplify life insurance product information (heuristics), integrate product education and widen dissemination of product information (prospect bias) to allow policyholders to come up with optimal demand decisions. While for insurance policymakers, the study provides an understanding of behavioral biases. With such insights, policymakers can identify exploitative and deceptive information that target policyholders to better guide life insurance documentation and product designs.

This study is the first to offer insights into behavioral biases' influence on demand decisions for life insurance products in a developing country like Uganda. By integrating prospects and expected utility theory, this study examines rationality and irrationality in demand decisions for life insurance products.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0201

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study the application of lean six sigma combined with mining transportation overall vehicle effectiveness (MTOVE) to improve mining transportation performance. MTOVE is a newly developed model to measure the overall effectiveness of mining transportation.

The method used is case study combines the MTOVE and LSS methodologies. Data were collected from the hauling operation during a three-month period. Various lean six-sigma tools, such as the Pareto chart, ANOVA, two sample t-tests, one sample t-test, cause-and-effect analysis and time study, have been used.

The case study resulted in improvement of vehicle overall effectiveness; a 35% increase in MTOVE value, a 17% improvement in productivity and a 9% increment in truck utilization. Statistical tests confirmed the significance of reducing the mean and variation in the hauling process cycle time, which led to productivity improvement.

This study provides practitioners with additional quantitative evidence of the potential benefits of LSS methods in the coal mining industry.

This paper practically and unquestionably has contributed to the LSS body of knowledge focused on the mining sector, which is recently still far behind the manufacturing sector. The study has demonstrated that some challenges in the mining environment can be solved through the effective implementation of LSS tools. Hence, this paper could be used as a reference for both researchers and practitioners.

The study contributes in the field of LSS spread in mining industries using a case study. This study shows practical evidence of improving overall vehicle effectiveness using LSS. Practitioners can refer to this study to understand the benefits of LSS in mining sector. Since the mining industry should also adopt the LSS principle into the mining business process due to its ability to improve business performance (Valente et al., 2020; Tupamahu et al., 2019; Zanon et al., 2021).

There has been little scientific study of the LSS implementation in the mining industry. This research provides detailed evidence of LSS implementation in the mining sector. The main contribution is the implementation framework, which shows the combination of newly developed indicators (MTOVE and LSS) to enhance hauling operation effectiveness. This paper demonstrates how LSS tools and methods can be applied in the mining transportation industry.

This paper aims to unveil the darker side of cryptocurrencies by delving into its role as an obstacle to investments in Middle East and African (MEAs) countries, unravelling the challenges involved. Indeed, despite the rise of blockchain-related technologies, specifically cryptocurrencies, having undeniably unlocked new avenues for business and society, crypto for venture funding purposes may exhibit a “dark side” due to their use for unethical purposes, for example, money laundering or terrorism financing, largely diffused in certain areas of MEA countries.

Through an explorative research design, using a mix of techniques based on both qualitative and interpretive methods, we conducted in-depth interviews among 33 European managers of companies engaged in MEA markets or aspiring to invest in such foreign markets, to analyse their thoughts, perceptions and possible strategies concerning the management of the “dark side” of cryptocurrencies in MEAs.

Our investigation unearthed seven pivotal issues, which manifest as significant barriers related to the ambivalent use of crypto for funding projects, encompassing seven important consequential elements: (1) lack of knowledge about the technology’s potentialities; (2) perceptions of crypto technology’s ambivalence; (3) reputation and image consequences; (4) uncertainty about the destination of the invested funds; (5) decreased attractiveness of MEAs; (6) competition and market; and (7) lack of control and regulation. We grouped these into technology-related, business-related and legal- and policy-related barriers. Such findings underline the probable decrease in attractiveness of MEAs in terms of investments, together with the triggering factors and potential strategic solutions to mitigate such circumstances.

Future studies could explore a broader sample of managers since we only considered the perception of European managers operating in companies that invest (or are intending to invest) in MEAs. Moreover, future research may extend the analysis to MEA-native companies or those engaging in reciprocal exchanges with Western countries.

Practically, our findings suggest several elements in which to intervene to mitigate managers’ negative perception of the unethical use of cryptocurrencies in MEAs and to support CEOs’ and CFOs’ strategies, together with requirements to ensure the unaltered attractiveness of investments in an otherwise thriving region of the world, without overlooking the protection and safeguarding of investments and the health of the market and competition. Furthermore, a call for future research in this domain, along with at least minimal regulatory mechanisms, clearly emerges.

Our findings underline the social challenges associated with the perception and acceptance of cryptocurrencies in these contexts, influencing cultural and social dynamics. Moreover, the identification of these barriers could underscore the significance of awareness of and education on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies within society, including implications for policymakers.

Despite prior investigations into the negative effects of cryptocurrencies as a form of venture funding, no studies to date have examined managers’ perceptions by focusing on possible barriers to investment in MEA countries due to the unethical usage of crypto. Importantly, this paper unravels the unexplored complexities of crypto’s impact on ethical investments in MEAs, showcasing an original perspective.