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This study attempts to analyze the overall effectiveness of Lean System (LS)-based India post facility layout design (FLD) selection.

We have grouped all Lean Six Sigma elements into three different categories: Lean Technical Practices, Lean Workplace Environment Practices, and Lean Ergonomics Practices based on literature support and field surveys in the Indian postal service. Further, it employs a mathematical model known as the graph theory (GT) method. From the GT approach, interactions were identified through LS tools represented through the digraph, matrix model approach. This study was directed at the National Sorting Hub in Mysuru, Karnataka, in the southern part of India. A number of insights were given in the GT area where FLD is possible to evaluate.

The results showed that Layout five has the highest value, followed by Layout one from the GT approach. The relative relevance and effect values are given as inputs to the permanent function in the digraph technique, and an evaluation index is obtained as an output.

When solving any optimization issue with a high number of attributes, the digraph and matrix technique is successful. The layouts that have been identified have yielded valuable insights into how to enhance critical decision-making processes, which are necessary to accomplish company strategic objectives like growing postal business services.

The process operations carried out in India post service as well as its heterogeneity of articles and the intangible measures of production are the significant challenges to keenly analyze the layout design through lean service principles.

Multiple crowdfunding platforms have been created over the last decade. Some have become extremely successful, but many others have failed. This study focuses on those strategic choices that founders of crowdfunding platforms need to make early on and which determine the basic characteristics of a platform. Specifically, it examines which combination(s) of these initial strategic choices shape(s) the survival of a platform.

Qualitative comparative analysis is used to analyze the design configurations that are especially relevant for the long-term survival of crowdfunding platforms. Several robustness checks are performed. The empirical setting consists of a unique dataset of all crowdfunding platforms created in Spain over a period of ten years.

Ten configurations are obtained (four in the case of reward and donation platforms, and six for equity and lending), suggesting different paths to platform survival. Although equity and lending platforms tend to be more likely to survive than donation and reward platforms, the type of platform is not definitive. Another interesting observation is that when platforms fail, they do so quite fast.

We acknowledge that strategic choices are a combination of different elements; therefore, our approach offers a holistic view that mirrors the heterogeneity of resources and capabilities of entrepreneurs. Our study derives a different set of recommendations for lending and equity platforms than for reward and donation platforms, underlining the importance of designing and treating each type of platform in a particular way.

Most crowdfunding literature has the individual crowdfunding project as the main level of analysis. Research to date has focused on the characteristics that projects must possess to succeed. The present study explores differences at the platform level. Our research brings new evidence on some of the decisions entrepreneurs need to confront when starting a crowdfunding platform and provides useful recommendations that might help them increase the chances of survival for their platform.

Some firms excel at positively presenting their employer brand (talk), while others excel at effectively implementing human resource management (HRM) practices for the benefit of the employees (walk). Which approach is more effective? Focusing specifically on small and medium-sized hotels (SMHs), this study explores the relation of employer branding (EB) and HRM practices with organizational performance (OP).

Stratified sampling was used to identify 34 top management figures (owners, CEOs, and top HR managers) from SMHs across Greece. These individuals agreed to participate in in-depth, semi-structured, one-on-one interviews, focusing on their hotels’ HRM, EB, and organizational performance. The interviews were subjected to content analysis, further coupled with graphical exploration of the relations between the concepts under study.

The findings reveal a noteworthy pattern: high-performing SMHs tend to prioritize EB, particularly leveraging social media channels. This prioritization is further reinforced by the implementation of HRM practices, including extensive training and rewards. Clustering SMHs into four different levels based on their application of EB and HRM practices and the effect of these practices on OP, enables us to extend this study and gain valuable insights into the interplay of these factors.

This study highlights the need for practitioners to invest in HRM practices, especially in training and rewards, while giving due attention to EB, despite the potential resource limitations SMHs often face. Importantly, when basic levels of HRM are combined with high levels of EB, OP seems to be maximized.

Both HRM and EB deal with the employer – employee interaction, that’s why EB in most companies is the responsibility of the HRM department. Surprisingly, academic research has treated them as distinct fields, in isolation, ignoring their combined effects. This paper is the first to conceptualize EB as communication (“talk”) and HRM as practice (“walk”) and to thus propose that a complementarity relationship between these two dynamics may facilitate OP. Additionally, this study is the first to combine content analysis with a quantitative exploration to gain more holistic and valuable insights on the topic.

Faced with increasing systemic constraints and pressures, secondary school English teachers often implement transactional approaches to pedagogy and curriculum aimed at improving student results on external exams, which are then used to rank schools. Despite the pressure to teach this way, teachers acknowledge the power of literature, literacy and language in the English curriculum as vehicles for educating students to be critical readers of texts for a democratic society. As such, the purpose of this paper is to share perspectives of secondary English teachers in relation to the democratic potential of their subject.

Using a qualitative case study method, this paper shares data from six Australian secondary school English teachers who work in culturally diverse schools. Teachers were interviewed about their perspectives regarding how the Australian English curriculum enabled and/or constrained the teaching of critical and creative thinking in support of a democratic society.

Using Marri’s model of multicultural democratic education, interview data were deductively analyzed to identify elements of the model, including critical pedagogies, disciplinary content and community building. Teachers were concerned that building critical literacy skills was minimized by the system and students’ personal dispositions.

The English teachers in this study held a strong belief that the subject of English could emancipate students, although they felt it might be “the last bastion” for a democratic education.

Purpose: This chapter presents the topics related to environmental, social and governanace (ESG) scoring, with particular emphasis on ESG ratings as a tool for benchmarking the company. The banking sector was selected for the study and comparisons were made against the banking sector in the European Union (EU).

Methodology: Firstly, a literature review and a bibliometric analysis of publications related to ESG scoring were conducted for this chapter. Secondly, the LSEG database were employed and further studied in environmental, social, and governance. The time scope of the research is 2017–2022. Using descriptive statistic tools and comparative studies of scoring, we perform an analysis for all three ESG areas and the value of the total scoring for banks from EU countries.

Findings: ESG scoring for all dimensions in the banking sector in EU countries shows good relative ESG performance and above average degree of transparency in reporting material ESG data publicly. The highest rank for total ESG score has banks from France, Portugal, and Spain (score A). Banks from Sweden, Slovenia, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Greece, Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Austria assessed the scoring, which was situated above the median values, in the third quartile (score B). The last group with satisfactory relative ESG performance (score C) are banks from Slovakia, Denmark, Cyprus, and Belgium. The studies also allow us to formulate the following conclusions: the average and the median values for all ESG disclosure areas are higher in the old EU countries in all ESG dimensions. Moreover, other statistical measures (Q1, Q3) are also higher in banks from the old EU countries.

Implications: Important both for banks’ insiders and stakeholders as it provides a measurement and benchmarking tool. The data can be used as well for further analysis of the banking sector.

Limitations: Comparable ESG scoring among EU countries. Nevertheless, not all banks and countries were included in further analysis because of a lack of data. Unfortunately, the comparative analysis covers only 19 out of 27 counties. The time scope of the research is limited to six years due to regulatory limitations.

Future Research: The relationship between ESG scores and the performance of banks (e.g., return on assets, return on equity, market value).

The performance of business enterprises is an impetus to every nation’s growth and development, as they constitute a multitude of businesses in most countries in the world. While ethical crises in the workplace are causing serious depletion in organizational performance and, in some cases, leading to total bankruptcy and the collapse of business in a developing country. This study aims to empirically examine the interaction effect of Islamic work ethics (IWEs) on the linkage between organization culture (OC) and enterprise performance (EP).

The survey method collected data from 531 managers of firms in the SME category of enterprises, using validated measurement instruments adapted from previous studies, and the data were quantitatively analyzed with Smart PLS SEM.

The results indicate that OC has a positive and significant effect on EP. The study also found that IWEs had a strong positive and significant impact on EP. The investigation revealed a significant effect of IWEs on the OC impact on EP. Therefore, we concluded that increased IWE practice will enhance the OC impact on EP.

This study contributes to the nexus of OC and EP as the first to investigate the interaction effect of IWE in an African context. Furthermore, the study suggests that if enterprise managers can exhibit Islamic work values, it will communicate and stimulate workers’ positive attitudes toward the organization. The creation of a harmonious and unethical behavior-free workplace environment would lead to improved enterprise performance. We presented theoretical and practical implications, along with recommendations for future research.

Green, lean and six sigma (GLSS) practices are widely used and well accepted techniques that have the capability to improve the economic, social and environmental performance of Pakistani small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, implementation of these practices in an integrated approach has not yet been witnessed in Pakistani SMEs due to a variety of challenges. To overcome the implementation challenges, this study has analyzed the impact of GLSS implementation over the sustainability in Pakistani SMEs.

This study consists of two phases. In phase 1, interviews were conducted to scrutinize the elements of GLSS implementation to simplify the model and in phase 2, a questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the data from the SMEs. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach is used to analyze the relationships among the latent variables and constructs.

Results showed that, leadership for GLSS, understanding GLSS techniques and technology upgradation are considered the most important elements for GLSS implementation in Pakistani SMEs. The environmental and social perspectives have been given more weightage compared to economical perspective. This inferred that there is a need to focus more on environmental and social perspectives in SMEs as compared to economic perspectives to achieve sustainable growth. Moreover, the results of the hypothesis testing revealed that GLSS implementation has a significant positive impact over the sustainability in SMEs considering the Pakistani scenario (β = 0.529, STDEV = 0.078, t = 6.81, p = < 0.001).

This study is the first of its kind for Pakistani SMEs. The structural model developed in this study for Pakistani SMEs will help practitioners to understand the important elements of GLSS implementation and sustainability dimensions.

Industry 4.0 or I4.0 has transformed the manufacturing landscape by integrating social and technical factors by means of the sociotechnical framework. However, the sociotechnical aspects of digitalization of total quality management (TQM 4.0), especially in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) remain largely unexplored. This groundbreaking research endeavors to delve into the pivotal role played by social (soft) and technical (hard) TQM 4.0 in driving I4.0 readiness among SMEs.

A research framework has been developed by harnessing the principles of Socio-technical systems (STS) theory. Data collection from a sample of 310 randomly selected SMEs manufacturing in Malaysia through an online survey approach. The collected data is then subjected to analysis using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) through SmartPLS.

The study findings indicate that both hard and soft TQM 4.0 factors are vital to promoting I4.0 readiness (R² = 0.677) and actual implementation (R² = 0.216). Surprisingly, the findings highlight that customer-related construct has no impact on hard TQM 4.0 attributes. Furthermore, hard TQM 4.0 factors have played a partial mediating role on the relationship of soft TQM 4.0 and I4.0 attributes (20% = VAF = 80%).

This is a novel research as it explores the underexplored domain of sociotechnical aspects of TQM 4.0 within SMEs amid I4.0 transformation. The study distinctive contributes include revealing the pivotal role of both soft and hard TQM 4.0 factors in driving I4.0 readiness, emphasizing the primacy of people-related dimensions for successful implementation in manufacturing SMEs.

The research purpose had been to investigate the dominant factors that influenced the success of the development of entrepreneurship courses in cultivating entrepreneurial mindsets and entrepreneurial skills into educational frameworks in universities.

The case study used in-depth interviews with key stakeholders from Indonesian universities, complemented by applying fuzzy logic as a supportive tool to analyse and interpret the complex, often ambiguous data. This method allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the internal and external factors that affected the development and effectiveness of entrepreneurship courses.

The study found that successful entrepreneurship courses in Indonesian universities rely on a well-structured curriculum, strong institutional support, cultural influences and practical experience. Qualitative interviews revealed that integrating theory with hands-on learning, financial and mentorship support, and fostering a supportive entrepreneurial culture was key to fostering entrepreneurial mindsets.

The findings provide valuable insights into enhancing the university entrepreneurship ecosystem in Indonesia. These findings built for a holistic approach that included curriculum development, practical experience and ecosystem support to cultivate future entrepreneurs.

This study provides a unique qualitative perspective on the development of entrepreneurship courses in Indonesian universities. It utilizes in-depth interviews to uncover the nuanced, contextual factors influencing success. By highlighting the roles of curriculum, institutional support, cultural influences and practical experience, this research offers valuable insights into enhancing entrepreneurial education through a comprehensive, qualitative lens.

This review provides a detailed analysis of corporate governance practices across Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, focusing on board characteristics, executive remuneration, capital markets and the integration of ethical and sustainable practices. It evaluates how these governance frameworks influence market performance, investor confidence and corporate sustainability within the region.

The study synthesizes findings from 15 recent research studies, examining corporate governance mechanisms, board composition, executive compensation policies and their impact on market capitalization. The data were collected from major academic databases, including Google Scholar, Springer, Web of Science and Scopus.

The analysis exhibits both similarities and differences in corporate governance frameworks across GCC countries. Important findings include a universal mandate for the separation of chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman roles, varied board composition requirements and differing executive remuneration and transparency policies. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lead in market capitalization, reflecting advanced governance practices, though disparities exist among GCC countries. The review also notes the increasing alignment of corporate governance with corporate social responsibility (CSR) principles, especially in sustainability reporting and ethical practices, highlighting a growing commitment to long-term value creation.

This review uniquely synthesizes recent research on GCC corporate governance, offering insights on board structures, executive pay and market dynamics with a focus on ethical and sustainable practices. It provides valuable perspectives for stakeholders, policymakers and academics interested in enhancing governance frameworks in the region while contributing to the global discourse on aligning corporate governance with sustainability standards.