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Purpose – In this chapter, we explore how normalization of exclusionary practices and of privilege for seemingly same professionals and disadvantage for seemingly different professionals in academic healthcare organizations can be challenged via meaningful culturalization in the interference zone between system and life world, subsequently developing space for belonging and difference.

Methodology – This nested case study focusses on professionals’ narratives from one specific setting (team) within the broader research and research field of the Dutch academic hospital (Abma & Stake, 2014). We followed a responsive design, conducting interviews with cultural minority and majority professionals and recording participant observations.

Findings – In the Netherlands, the instrumental, system-inspired business model of diversity is reflected in two discourses in academic hospitals: first, an ideology of equality as sameness, and second, professionalism as neutral, rational, impersonal and decontextual. Due to these discourses, cultural minority professionals can be identified as ‘different’ and evaluated as less professional than cultural majority, or seemingly ‘same’, professionals. Furthermore, life world values of trust and connectedness, and professionals’ emotions and social contexts are devalued, and professionals’ desire to belong comes under pressure.

Value – Diversity management from a system-based logic can never be successful. Instead, system norms of productivity and efficiency need to be reconnected to life world values of connectivity, personal recognition, embodied knowledge and taking time to reflect. Working towards alternative safe spaces that generate transformative meaningful culturalization and may enable structural inclusion of minority professionals further entails critical reflexivity on power dynamics and sameness–difference hierarchy in the academic hospital.

The objective of this study was to examine the trends in the specialty chemical industry that have led to the rising number of agile practices and “virtual” organizations. The current state of the industry is also presented. An agile company can be defined as an enterprise that is capable of operating profitably in a competitive environment of continually, and unpredictably, changing customer opportunities. The five most prevalent agile practices in the specialty chemical industry can be summarized as, entering niche markets through custom chemicals manufacturing, improving relationships with suppliers (also, a lean manufacturing practice), formation of strategic partnerships, adaptation of advanced technology/research, and the emergence of “virtual” firms. Examples and case studies from other authors are cited and commented upon with respect to these five agile practices. In addition, actual results from the study of a small specialty chemical firm have been used to ascertain the level of agility that this firm utilizes. A comparison of this manufacturing company's practices with the case studies from the literature reveals how a small‐intermediate size manufacturer can properly implement many agile manufacturing practices and position itself for growth and competitiveness in its category and class.

This study aims to minimize the cost and time of blood delivery in the whole blood supply chain network (BSCN) in disaster conditions. In other words, integrating all strategic, tactical and operational decisions of three levels of blood collection, processing and distribution leads to satisfying the demand at the right time.

This paper proposes an integrated BSCN in disaster conditions to consider four categories of facilities, including temporary blood collection centers, field hospitals, main blood processing centers and medical centers, to optimize demand response time appropriately. The proposed model applies the location of all permanent and emergency facilities in three levels: blood collection, processing and distribution. Other essential decisions, including multipurpose facilities, emergency transportation, inventory and allocation, were also used in the model. The LP metric method is applied to solve the proposed bi-objective mathematical model for the BSCN.

The findings show that this model clarifies its efficiency in the total cost and blood delivery time reduction, which results in a low carbon transmission of the blood supply chain.

The researchers proposed an integrated BSCN in disaster conditions to minimize the cost and time of blood delivery. They considered multipurpose capabilities for facilities (e.g. field hospitals are responsible for the three purposes of blood collection, processing and distribution), and so locating permanent and emergency facilities at three levels of blood collection, processing and distribution, support facilities, emergency transportation and traffic on the route with pollution were used to present a new model.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to increased understanding of the concept agile and its potential for hospital managers to optimize design of organizational structures and processes to combine internal efficiency and external effectiveness.

An integrative review was conducted using the reSEARCH database. Articles met the following criteria: first, a definition of agility; second, descriptions of enablers of becoming an agile organization; and finally, discussions of agile on multiple organizational levels. In total, 60 articles qualified for the final analysis.

Organizational agility rests on the assumption that the environment is uncertain, ranging from frequently changing to highly unpredictable. Proactive, reactive or embracive coping strategies were described as possible ways to handle such uncertain environments. Five organizational capacities were derived as necessary for hospitals to use the strategies optimally: transparent and transient inter-organizational links; market sensitivity and customer focus; management by support for self-organizing employees; organic structures that are elastic and responsive; flexible human and resource capacity for timely delivery. Agile is portrayed as either the “new paradigm” following lean, the needed development on top of a lean base, or as complementary to lean in distinct hybrid strategies.

Environmental uncertainty needs to be matched with coping strategies and organizational capacities to design processes responsive to real needs of health care. This implies that lean and agile can be combined to optimize the design of hospitals, to meet different variations in demand and create good patient management.

While considerable value has been paid to strategies to improve the internal efficiency within hospitals, this review raise the attention to the value of strategies of external effectiveness.

The purpose of this study is to systematically review the existing literature on the blood supply chain (BSC) from a network design perspective and highlight the research gaps in this area. Moreover, it also aims to pinpoint new research opportunities based on the recent innovative technologies for the BSC network design.

The study gives a comprehensive systematic review of the BSC network design studies until October 2021. This review was carried out in accordance with preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA). In the literature review, a total of 87 studies were analyzed under six main categories as model structure, application model, solution approach, problem type, the parties of the supply chain and innovative technologies.

The results of the study present the researchers’ tendencies and preferences when designing their BSC network models.

The study presents a guide for researchers and practitioners on BSC from the point of view of network design and encourages adopting innovative technologies in their BSC network designs.

The study provides a comprehensive systematic review of related studies from the BSC network design perspective and explores research gaps in the collection and distribution processes. Furthermore, it addresses innovative research opportunities by using innovative technologies in the area of BSC network design.

Supply chains (SCs) have been growingly virtualized in response to the market challenges and opportunities that are presented by new and cost-effective internet-based technologies today. This paper designed a virtual closed-loop supply chain (VCLSC) network based on multiperiod, multiproduct and by using the Internet of Things (IoT). The purpose of the paper is the optimization of the VCLSC network.

The proposed model considers the maximization of profit. For this purpose, costs related to virtualization such as security, energy consumption, recall and IoT facilities along with the usual costs of the SC are considered in the model. Due to real-world demand fluctuations, in this model, demand is considered fuzzy. Finally, the problem is solved using the Grey Wolf algorithm and Firefly algorithm. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis on the main parameters of the model are used to describe the importance and applicability of the developed model.

The findings showed that the Firefly algorithm performed better and identified more profit for the SC in each period. Also, the results of the sensitivity analysis using the IoT in a VCLSC showed that the profit of the virtual supply chain (VSC) is higher compared to not using IoT due to tracking defective parts and identifying reversible products. In proposed model, chain members can help improve chain operations by tracking raw materials and products, delivering products faster and with higher quality to customers, bringing a new level of SC efficiency to industries. As a result, VSCs can be controlled, programmed and optimized remotely over the Internet based on virtual objects rather than direct observation.

There are limited researches on designing and optimizing the VCLSC network. This study is one of the first studies that optimize the VSC networks considering minimization of virtual costs and maximization of profits. In most researches, the theory of VSC and its advantages have been described, while in this research, mathematical optimization and modeling of the VSC have been done, and it has been tried to apply SC virtualization using the IoT. Considering virtual costs in VSC optimization is another originality of this research. Also, considering the uncertainty in the SC brings the issue closer to the real world. In this study, virtualization costs including security, recall and energy consumption in SC optimization are considered.

1. Investigates the role of IoT for virtual supply chain profit optimization and mathematical optimization of virtual closed-loop supply chain (VCLSC) based on multiperiod, multiproduct with emphasis on using the IoT under uncertainty.

2. Considering the most important costs of virtualization of supply chain include: cost of IoT information security, cost of IoT energy consumption, cost of recall the production department, cost of IoT facilities.

3. Selection of the optimal suppliers in each period and determination of the price of each returned product in virtual supply chain.

4. Solving and validating the proposed model with two meta-heuristic algorithms (the Grey Wolf algorithm and Firefly algorithm).

Investigates the role of IoT for virtual supply chain profit optimization and mathematical optimization of virtual closed-loop supply chain (VCLSC) based on multiperiod, multiproduct with emphasis on using the IoT under uncertainty.

Considering the most important costs of virtualization of supply chain include: cost of IoT information security, cost of IoT energy consumption, cost of recall the production department, cost of IoT facilities.

Selection of the optimal suppliers in each period and determination of the price of each returned product in virtual supply chain.

Solving and validating the proposed model with two meta-heuristic algorithms (the Grey Wolf algorithm and Firefly algorithm).

The study aims at empirically investigating and prioritizing the critical barriers for the successful implementation of agile manufacturing in the medium- and large-scale Indian manufacturing industries.

A literature review of peer-reviewed journals and discussion with experts is used to identify 17 barriers to the implementation of agile manufacturing. An empirical survey is then conducted to collect data regarding the agile manufacturing barriers and is further analyzed using the factor analysis and vlsekriterijumska optimizacija i kompromisno resenje (VIKOR).

Based on the survey of empirical data, the investigated critical barriers were reduced in five critical categories, as follows: Managerial constraints, technological constraints, human resource–related constraints, operational constraints and organizational culture-related constraints, which are further ranked in terms of their severity using VIKOR. This research advocates the development of a strategy for addressing the most critical barriers instead of focusing on all for the successful implementation of agile manufacturing.

This work contributes to agile manufacturing literature by the structured presentation of the barriers to implement agile manufacturing in the Indian manufacturing industry. It also extends the integrated factor analysis and VIKOR method to investigate and rank the barriers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the export‐led growth, growth‐led export, import‐led growth, growth‐led import and foreign deficit sustainability hypothesis in the case of China, using annual time series data from 1978‐2009.

For estimation evidence this study employs the Phillips Perron unit root tests to examine the level of integration and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach is employed to determine the long run relationship, and the direction of long run and short run causal relationship is examined by using modified Granger causality test.

The results confirm the bidirectional long run relationship between the economic growth and exports, economic growth and imports, and exports and imports. These findings guided the authors to conclude that the exports‐led growth, growth‐led exports, imports‐led growth and growth‐led imports hypothesis is valid, and foreign deficit is sustainable for China. The long run elasticities are as follows: the elasticity of economic growth with respect to exports is 0.591, and elasticity of exports with respect to economic growth is 1.635. The elasticity of economic growth with respect to imports is 0.621, and elasticity of imports with respect to economic growth is 1.392. Further more the elasticity of exports with respect to imports is 1.322, and imports elasticity with respect to exports is 0.975.

This study utilizes the relative new cointegration method of ARDL approach. The empirical findings of this study are vital for policy makers of China in the formulation of trade policies.

The purpose of this paper is to present a concise status of niche marketing research and thereby provide a basis for further scholarly enhancement and insights for practitioners.

This paper takes the form of a literature review.

Reasons for why and when to pursue niche marketing, key success factors for implementing niche marketing and the potential problem areas are identified. Avenues for advancing knowledge about niche marketing are discussed.

Practitioners benefit from this comprehensive review of findings and insights from previous research. Scholars benefit from this review, as it summarizes and identifies key areas for future niche marketing research.

There has be no known scholarly article assessing the status of niche marketing research since Dalgic and Leeuw's seminal work.

The purpose of this study is to identify the reasons for visiting the urban park Antonis Tritsis in Athens, Greece, focusing on visitors’ motives and perceived characteristics of the park. When urban parks are located in areas that are particularly densely populated are characterized as green lungs and are easily accessible to the residents of the municipality. Therefore, the aim of the study is to analyze both the motives and perceived characteristics that visitors attribute in the case of the biggest urban park in Athens, Greece.

The survey was conducted from August 2018 to March 2019 and the responses of 377 visitors were collected. Antonis Tritsis Park is the largest metropolitan park in the Attica, Greece. A principal component factor analysis was used and two-factor models were developed to determine the reasons for visiting the Tritsis Park.

The application of factor analysis revealed the presence of three components in case of the motives for the visit and six components concerning the perceived characteristics of the park. Results suggest that visitors’ motives are related to environmental and social benefits. The park contributes to increased real estate value. Educational and cultural activities are also found as important benefits, whereas lack of safety and limited infrastructure are considered important barriers to revisit the park.

Recognizing the motivations of visitors, policymakers will be able to configure the park infrastructure according to the stated preferences.

Recognizing the motivations of visitors and the perceived characteristics of the park, policymakers will be able to configure the park infrastructure according to the stated preferences. If the services provided by the Tritsis Park are based on the preferences of its visitors, their satisfaction can be maximized and consequently improve the quality of life and contribute to sustainable development.

The innovation of the study is to analyze not only the perceived positive characteristics of the park but also barriers that affect visitors’ revisit intention toward the urban park of Antonis Tritsis. This is important in the case of metropolitan areas because the researchers understand what benefits are provided to them and how public administration should manage barriers to visiting urban parks so as to promote effective sustainability.