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Acknowledging the importance of both lean thinking (LT) and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) for successful business performance and organisational success, the present study investigates the critical success factors (CSFs) for the concurrent implementation of both approaches, a field not yet significantly explored.

The study conducts two systematic literature reviews (SLRs), one on LT and the other one on I4.0 to map out the CSFs for the effective implementation of each approach. These CSFs are subsequently prioritised with the use of a Delphi Study. Finally, from the set of the common CSFs recognised through the two approaches, a more condensed list is put forward as the first step towards achieving a successful synergy between LT and I4.0.

The study’s findings suggest the most important CSFs and determine their definition in the context of a concurrent implementation of LT and I4.0. This can provide managers and practitioners with the awareness of crucial factors, enabling them to take the necessary steps for planning and implementing both approaches.

A concise set of CSFs for the concurrent implementation of both LT and I4.0 has been identified, which can be viewed as a starting point for providing top executives and managers with useful insights into enhanced business efficiency and performance. This study furthermore contributes to the overall body of knowledge on LT and I4.0.

The scholarly literature that explores a common set of CSFs for the concurrent implementation of LT and I4.0 is limited. This gap significantly enhances the importance of the present research, contributing to a better understanding amongst both academics and practitioners of the key supporting factors for the integration of the two approaches.

This paper aims to review the elements of facilities condition index (FCI) as one of the most widely used metrics for describing the physical condition of facilities and as a measure of financial indicator related to maintenance activity. This research will benefit future studies that focus on implementation of FCI and encourage the best practice when assessing the physical condition to evaluate the performance of facilities as well as to plan for maintenance action to be taken and financial implication involved based on the findings from FCI.

A total of 33 studies from 2012 to 2022 were identified and extracted from four academic databased, named Scopus, Google Scholar, Web of Science and Mendeley. These published studies were selected because it matches with the inclusion requirements for research question, “What are the elements of facilities condition index discussed in the literature from 2012 to 2022?”. To answer the research question, the studies in ATLAS.ti were grouped into five major themes based on the codes and categories found.

This paper presents the findings of a thematic analysis of the current literature discussed about FCI. A total of 33 studies from 2012 to 2022 were identified and extracted from four academic databased, named Scopus, Google Scholar, Web of Science and Mendeley. A themed review was conducted, and five themes were identified as elements of FCI, which are named as follows: “Condition Assessment”, “Deferred Maintenance”, “Facilities Performance”, “Financial and Fund Allocation” and “Decision Making”.

This paper fulfils the fundamental elements on current FCI practices as well as intended to highlight existing practices that are essential to evaluate facilities performance and planning for maintenance strategies.

As the warehouse is increasingly viewed as a strategic component, retailers’ willingness to invest in automated warehouse systems (AWS) has increased. These investment decisions are influenced by well-known operational factors, but strategic factors, which have received limited attention in warehousing literature, also play a pivotal role. Addressing this gap, this study investigates how strategic factors influence AWS investment decisions in retail.

Based on a theoretical foundation of technology adoption, strategic intent, and automation strategy, an abductive multiple case study is conducted with eight purposefully selected retailers that had implemented or were in the process of implementing a large AWS.

The study ranks 10 competitive priorities and 21 AWS evaluation aspects and shows how the firm’s strategic intent and the AWS investment decisions can be connected via the formulation of a warehouse automation strategy. The findings reveal the content for such a strategy – including 7 categories and 17 considerations – related to, for example, technology innovativeness, efficiency versus adaptiveness, technology-supplier relationships, control and ownership, and risk exposure. The study empirically shows how manager characteristics and owner strategies influence retailers’ AWS investment decisions. Four strategic intent profiles are abductively developed: reliability and delivery service; profitable deliveries; scalable logistics for volume growth; and platform building for logistics services. The study also provides evidence of a reciprocal relationship between strategic intent and AWS investment decisions.

The study is conducted with a limited number of Swedish retailers, indicating a need for additional studies to test the findings across different contexts.

The study offers a framework for formulating a warehouse automation strategy. As a foundation for developing the framework, the study shares empirical insights from retailers in the forefront of AWS implementation.

The study contributes as a conversation changer by showing the importance of shifting from a tactical-operational focus to a strategic perspective on warehouse configuration in general and on AWS investment decisions in retail in particular.

The main purpose of this study is to test whether ethical financial behavior as a mediator promotes microfinance inclusion and survival of the poor young women microenterprises in rural Uganda.

The methods recommended by Kenny et al. (1998); Shrout and Bolger (2002); MacKinnon et al. (2004); and Preacher and Hayes (2004) were used to establish the existence of non-zero monotonic association between microfinance inclusion and survival through testing the mediating effect of ethical financial behavior in SmartPLS.

The results from the structural equation modeling revealed a significant full mediating effect of ethical financial behavior in the relationship between microfinance inclusion and survival of the poor young women microenterprises. Microfinance inclusion and ethical financial behavior explain 62 % of the variation in survival of the poor young women microenterprises in rural Uganda.

Whereas significant results were obtained from this study, the data were collected only from rural-based poor young women microenterprises located in northern Uganda. Extending the sample to cover the whole country may provide a more representative picture. Besides, it would be useful to compare results across developing countries as this may provide information about the generality of our findings.

The findings from this study can be useful to managers of microfinance institutions in developing countries to adopt practice that can promote financial discipline among rural poor young women microentrepreneurs. Routine financial education and business mentorship can be organized through workshops, trainings and seminars to teach rural poor young women microentrepreneurs how to manage money, especially business loans borrowed from the microfinance institutions to put it into right use. This can help them to meet timely loan repayment to increase access to future microfinance loans.

This study provides the first evidence on the use of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and theory of reasoned action (TRA) to explain microfinance inclusion of the poor young women microentrepreneurs in rural Uganda. The study uses a blend of TPB and TRA derived from psychology and sociology to explain repayment intention and ethical behaviors of the poor young women borrowers, which determines the microfinance lending cycle to make microcredit available for them to engage in entrepreneurship to come out of poverty to attain wellbeing.

Purpose. This chapter discusses the challenges and different strategies to increase skill development for the future workforce.

Methodology. Multiple sources on the topic were studied and reviewed in this chapter. The idea of skill and its development is discussed in the literature review.

Findings. Different nations’ governments have promoted human capital development by providing up-skilling and retraining programs to balance supply and demand. Skills gaps need to be brought to the attention of stakeholders, such as governments, businesses, and the educational system. Teachers, employers, and other stakeholders need to develop strategies and action plans to ensure that the skills gaps are appropriately identified and adequately addressed. These initiatives must be developed with input from various stakeholders.

Practical Implications. The research results would inform the curriculum, incorporating skill development processes tailored to various scenarios. These findings would aid business organisations in crafting skill development programs that address identified skill gaps. Challenges in skill development would be taken into account during course development, and relevant teaching–learning materials would be created. Key stakeholders, such as accrediting organisations, employers, and students, should exert more influence on academic institutions to prioritise societal demands for economic development.

Originality/Value. The uniqueness and significance of this chapter lie in its concise summary of the strategies to tackle the hurdles in skill development.

The present study examines the relational, structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital developed within members of self-help groups (SHGs) in India.

The study has used multistage random sampling to collect 1,285 samples covering 4 districts such as Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj, Koraput and Rayagada in Odisha. Structure equation modeling (SEM) is used in hypothesis formulation and data analysis.

The result highlighted that relational, structural and cognitive social capital are significant to social capital formation among the participants of SHGs. However, structural social capital has the highest impact compared with others in building social capital.

Policy professionals, development agencies and government departments must use social capital as a catalyzing agent for the successful implementation of welfare schemes in rural areas.

The paper adds valuable contributions in advancing the theory of social capital. Additionally, marginalized households fail to uplift their socioeconomic conditions in developing nations due to a lack of social capital; hence, its measurement is critical.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2023-0804.

The integration of front-end technologies such as automation, process simulation and augmented reality with Just-in-Time (JIT) practices can yield unforeseen outcomes in manufacturing due to complex dynamics. This study examines this integration’s impact on manufacturing firms' performance.

We design a survey questionnaire and distributed it among 353 Brazilian manufacturing firms to conduct our investigation. We utilize a combination of factorial and regression analyses with moderation within our final sample, composed of 262 manufacturing firms. Our goal is to examine the impact of aligning front-end technologies and JIT on the operational and economic performance of these manufacturing firms. We adopt complexity theory as our theoretical framework, recognizing and accommodating the intrinsic unpredictability and uncertainty inherent in complex scenarios such as technology adoption and its interplay with firm culture, adoption time and technology adoption resistance.

Our findings indicate that JIT influences the use of front-end technologies both positively and negatively. Regarding operational performance, JIT has a positive moderation effect on automation and a negative moderation effect on process simulation. Conversely, for economic performance, JIT positively moderates process simulation and negatively moderates automation.

We provide empirical evidence for managers to carefully assess the compatibility of technology adoption strategies with existing organizational culture and operational practices to maximize performance outcomes.

Our study advances complexity theory by elucidating the impacts of integrating front-end digital technologies with JIT practices within the unique scenario of the Brazilian manufacturing industry. More specifically, our theoretical framework offers a new perspective on the unpredictable nature of performance outcomes regarding technology adoption in operations.

The purpose of this study is to test for the mediating effect of debt literacy in the relationship between microcredit access and the survival of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) owned and operated by young women in rural sub-Saharan Africa post COVID-19.

This study uses a five-point Likert scale questionnaire to collect data from young women entrepreneurs with MSMEs located in rural northern Uganda. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and SmartPLS with bootstrapping are used to test the magnitude and level of the mediation effect as recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) and Hair et al. (2022).

The results reveal that debt literacy increases the impact of microcredit on the survival of young women entrepreneurs with MSMEs in rural sub-Saharan Africa post COVID-19 based on data collected from rural northern Uganda.

A questionnaire was used to collect data for this study. Future studies could collect data using interviews and the experimental research design to evaluate the effect of debt literacy over time.

This study provides valuable insights on the importance of debt literacy in microcredit access and the survival of MSMEs. The results of this study can be used to inform policy and guide practitioners on how to integrate debt literacy into the national educational and literacy curriculum.

This study brings into the limelight the important role of debt literacy in helping young women microentrepreneurs learn to be more cautious when taking on future debts and helping them become more resilient in the post COVID-19 pandemic situation. This topic of debt literacy is limited in the microcredit literature and the theory of microfinance in rural Uganda post COVID-19.

This paper aims to explore the significance of resource sharing in business to capture new market opportunities and securing competitive advantages. Firms enter strategic alliances (SAs), especially for designing new products and to overcome challenges in today’s fast changing environment. Research projects have dealt with the creation of SAs, however without concrete referencing the impact on selected supply chain resources. Furthermore, academia rather focused on elaborating the advantages and disadvantages of SAs and how this affects structural changes in the organization than examining the effects on supply chain complexity and performance.

The authors collected and triangulated a multi-industry data set containing primary data coming from more than 200 experts in the field of supply chain management along and secondary data coming from Refinitiv’s joint ventures (JVs) and SA database and IR solutions’ database for annual reports. The data is evaluated in three empirical settings using binomial testing and structural equation modeling.

The results show that nonequity SAs and JVs have varying degrees of impact on supply chain resources due to differences in the scope of the partnership. This has a negative impact on the complexity of the supply chain, with the creation of a JV leading to greater complexity than the creation of a nonequity SA. Furthermore, the findings prove that complexity negatively impacts overall supply chain performance. In addition, this study elaborates that increased management capabilities are needed to exploit the potentials of SAs and sheds light on hurdles that must be overcome within the supply network when forming a partnership. Finally, the authors give practical implications on how organizations can cope with increasing complexity to lower the risk of poor supply chain performance.

This study investigates occurring challenges when establishing nonequity SAs or JVs and how this affects their supply chain by examining supply networks in terms of complexity and performance.

This study aims to determine whether the relationship between the Muslim community and moneylenders is important even though the practice of moneylenders is clearly forbidden in Islam. This study examines a model consisting of two major theories, namely, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and marketing theory, and the existence of the religiosity variable as a moderator.

This study uses a structural equation modeling (SEM); SEM was chosen because it has effectiveness in revealing estimates of direct and indirect effects and shows moderating values. Manual questionnaires were distributed to 385 Acehnese who use loan shark services.

The combination of TPB and marketing theory constructs has a significant influence on the intention to use loan shark services. Then, the existence of the word-of-mouth variable significantly mediates the relationship between service and subjective norms and the intention to use loan shark services. In fact, the position of the religiosity variable has a significant negative effect on the intention to use loan shark services, and in terms of the moderating effect, it has been demonstrated that religiosity weakens the relationships between the services provided by loan sharks and the intention to use loan shark services.

This study has several limitations. First, sampling is still limited and can still be expanded. Second, it is difficult to get data and there are people who refuse to be sampled. Third, this study succeeded in capturing the phenomenon of the behavioral intentions of people who have a religious spirit but are still associated with moneylenders.

This research provides material implications for the Aceh Government, especially in managing public funds. Indeed, Aceh is a productive province that has produced policies and regulations that encourage the Sharia economy; it is just that the use of social funds and Islamic philanthropy in Aceh has not been maximized, which has led to the growth of a network of moneylenders. Because of this, Aceh, which has been successful in producing the law for Islamic financial institutions, should also be successful in destroying the moneylender network by synergizing to create alternatives and financial solutions for the community, especially the lower and middle classes.

This research explains that the level of religiosity can dampen and reduce the intention to use loan shark services; therefore, it is important for the community to understand the dangerous impact of using loan shark services and expand the role of community leaders in socializing the idea of lending money to loan sharks.

Due to the lack of studies on the behavior of Muslims using the services of moneylenders, therefore, this study provides new knowledge of the literature on the economic behavior of Muslim communities who continue to use the services of moneylenders. This study develops TPB theory and marketing theory in one model and involves the religiosity variable as a moderator.