Jose Arturo Garza-Reyes, Ashley Flint, Vikas Kumar, Jiju Antony and Horacio Soriano-Meier
Problem solving and continuous process improvement are key elements to achieve business excellence. Many problem solving and process improvement methodologies have been proposed…
Abstract
Purpose
Problem solving and continuous process improvement are key elements to achieve business excellence. Many problem solving and process improvement methodologies have been proposed and adopted by organisations, with DMAIC being the most widely used. The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical application of a modified version of DMAIC which enabled a world-class organisation to achieve an optimum reduction in the lead time of its aerospace engine assembly process.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the most commonly used problem solving and process improvement methodologies and specifically, DMAIC, its variations and limitations. Based on this, it presents define, measure, analyse, improve, review, control (DMAIRC). Finally, DMAIRC is empirically applied through a case study, in a world-class manufacturing organisation.
Findings
The results obtained from the case study indicate that DMAIRC is an effective alternative to achieve the maximum improvement potential of a process. In particular, DMAIRC helped the organisation studied to achieve a 30 percent reduction in the lead time of its engine assembly process.
Originality/value
The novel problem solving and process improvement methodology presented in this paper can be used by organisations to undertake a more effective improvement project by assuring that the maximum potential of their improvement initiatives and processes is achieved.
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Işık Özge Yumurtacı Hüseyinoğlu, Metehan Feridun Sorkun and Gülmüş Börühan
This paper introduces the term “omni-channel capability” and tests its validity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of logistics service quality (LSQ) on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper introduces the term “omni-channel capability” and tests its validity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of logistics service quality (LSQ) on omni-channel capability.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was used to evaluate the new concept of “omni-channel capability” and LSQ from the consumer’s perception. A two split sample technique was used to validate omni-channel capability and test the impact of LSQ on it through structural equation modeling. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were performed to introduce, test and validate omni-channel capability, and test the study’s hypotheses. Consumers who had previously shopped from both the online and physical stores of a particular retailer completed a self-administered survey.
Findings
The findings supported the use of the term “omni-channel capability,” which has three elements: channel consistency, cross-channel and social media. The results also revealed the positive impact of operational LSQ on omni-channel capability.
Practical implications
Taking consumer perceptions as a reference point, this study reveals major issues that retailers should focus on while pursuing an omni-channel strategy. The findings also highlight the need for retailers to ensure operational LSQ to implement an omni-channel management strategy.
Originality/value
To improve on the limited theoretical understanding and empirical grounding of omni-channel management, this study described the three elements of omni-channel capability. The impact of operational LSQ on omni-channel capability gives empirical support for the theorized hierarchy of dynamic capabilities (zero- and first-order capabilities).
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Dorit Zimand Sheiner, Ofrit Kol and Shalom Levy
Studying the effect of social media advertising on consumer engagement, this study analyzes the impact of shared-experience versus personal message strategies, informational…
Abstract
Purpose
Studying the effect of social media advertising on consumer engagement, this study analyzes the impact of shared-experience versus personal message strategies, informational versus transformational creative appeals and low-involvement products versus high-involvement products. It aims to determine how best to combine ad elements to affect consumer engagement on different levels.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an online survey among 448 Facebook users, an experimental factorial design of 2 (message strategy conditions) X 2 (creative appeal conditions) X 2 (product types: TV vs. frozen pizza) was used. Each advertisement was evaluated on three facets of engagement: cognitive, psychological and behavioral.
Findings
Results indicate that informational appeal is preferable for all conditions. The effectiveness of message strategy differs by product type, and interactions between message and appeal are significant only for the high-involvement product. Additionally, it indicates that message strategy is most significant in affecting behavioral engagement and not necessarily cognitive or psychological engagement.
Practical implications
To develop effective Facebook ads, practitioners should use a personal/informational combination when working with high-involvement products and a shared-experience/informational combination when working with low-involvement products.
Originality/value
An original grid for integrating message strategy and creative appeal is constructed in this paper. Besides behavioral engagement, it also evaluates cognitive and psychological engagement. By comparing products with a high and low involvement level, it provides marketers with actionable recommendations to increase social media campaign effectiveness.
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This chapter analyses the presence of Russian feminists and female LGBTIQ+ activists within US-American mainstream media. In the course of a multimedia discourse analysis, it…
Abstract
This chapter analyses the presence of Russian feminists and female LGBTIQ+ activists within US-American mainstream media. In the course of a multimedia discourse analysis, it briefly raises questions of who becomes featured and how, to argue that current debates marginalise Russian queer female, trans*gender and intersex voices, compared to those of male queers. One exception to this trend is the case of the journalist and activist Masha Gessen. Together with Nadya Tolokonnikova of the protest group Pussy Riot, Gessen seems to represent Russian queers and feminists within US media. Although marginal, compared to the presence of US feminisms, especially popular culture figures such as Beyoncé Knowles-Carter or Lady Gaga, the two women become frequently featured within US news media and beyond. Frequently, those articles, interviews and discussions of their work open up a debate, or rather comparisons, between US values and Russian values, questions of modernity, progress and civilisation. Equally often, the female Russian dissidents are pictured as ‘Putin’s victims’ – the female versions of David fighting against Goliath – by focussing especially on their physical vulnerability and their female bodies. In this vein, feminism is constructed as inherently ‘Western’, while the bodies that carry out such feminisms and most of all their country of origin is entirely ‘othered’. Comparing the (self-)representations to other voices of female Russian dissent within US media, the author critically discuss the Western gaze of US mainstream media, its victimising strategies and homonationalistic construction of US identity and US nation in rejection of a ‘backward’ homophobic Russia.
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Hannah Grannemann, Jennifer Reis, Maggie Murphy and Marie Segares
Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) across the United States at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic created entrepreneurial opportunities for sewists and makers. In…
Abstract
Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) across the United States at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic created entrepreneurial opportunities for sewists and makers. In the United States in March and April 2020, masks were not readily available to the general public from existing retailers and PPE for medical use was being rationed for healthcare workers. Sewists and crafters, professionals and amateurs alike, began making and selling and/or donating masks. For individuals with sewing skills and time, sewing and selling masks became a lifeline financially, personally, and socially. To understand the experiences of people who made and distributed handmade masks during the early months of the pandemic in the United States, an interdisciplinary team developed an online cross-sectional survey instrument using a qualitative-dominated approach with both open and closed questions. This chapter explores themes identified from a sample of 94 participants, predominantly female-identifying, who created an enterprise or added a product line to an existing business. The sample includes individuals who did not identify as a ‘creative entrepreneur’ prior to the pandemic but did identify as an entrepreneur after starting a mask-making venture. Informed by entrepreneurship literature, the authors observed that these nascent entrepreneurs articulated recognisable motivations for social entrepreneurship, showed signs of pre-existing entrepreneurial mindsets, and employed business models and marketing tactics of entrepreneurs, largely without any business training. Implications for the study include increased recognition of latent entrepreneurial readiness, interest of women in social entrepreneurship, and higher levels of business knowledge among women than previously recognised.
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As students increasingly incur debt to finance their undergraduate education, there is heightened concern about the long-term implications of loans on borrowers, especially…
Abstract
As students increasingly incur debt to finance their undergraduate education, there is heightened concern about the long-term implications of loans on borrowers, especially borrowers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Drawing upon the concepts of cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), this research explores how student debt and social class intersect and affect individuals’ trajectory into adulthood. Based on 50 interviews with young adults who incurred $30,000–180,000 in undergraduate debt and who were from varying social classes, the findings are presented in terms of a categorization schema (income level by level of cultural capital) and a conceptual model of borrowing. The results illustrate the inequitable payoff that college and debt can have for borrowers with varying levels of cultural resources, with borrowers from low-income, low cultural capital backgrounds more likely to struggle throughout and after college with their loans.
In pre‐war Russia the canning industry would seem to have been limited to the preparation of canned meat—beef—for army purposes. The average annual output in round figures was…
Abstract
In pre‐war Russia the canning industry would seem to have been limited to the preparation of canned meat—beef—for army purposes. The average annual output in round figures was 47,500 tons according to K. I. Rubinstein—who last year published a monograph on the canning industry as conducted in Russia—which is equivalent to about 120 millions of standard cans with a nett content of 400 grams each. The demands of the war caused this output to be raised to 150 million cans. Some of the then existing packing centres were at that time moved so as to be nearer to the supply of raw material. Thus new canning centres were opened at Rastov and Stavropol in substitution for some already existing at Petrograd, Moscow, and Kamenetz‐Podolsk.