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This paper aims to address how firms cope when input due to primary uncertainty is unpredictable, and thus timely and adequate supply to customers are impossible to guarantee.

Two sets of data are applied to capture uncertainties, flexibilities and adaption strategies amongst suppliers and producers respectively.

The findings show that flexibility is a prerequisite to cope when faced with unpredictable supply. Flexibility comes in many forms. They are partly firm‐specific and can be conceived as a valuable resource.

The present study is limited to one industry only.

Unpredictability imposes the need for adaptations, which requires flexibility. However, adjustment to the new landscape is a prerequisite to succeed.

This paper offers insight on how firms cope when needed input to operate is unpredictable, i.e. an almost neglected topic in the marketing literature, where adequate supply in most cases is seen as unproblematic.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of current traceability systems in five food sectors: dairy, fish, red meat, fruit and vegetable, and grain. Products were bought within Norway, with national and international origins.

The method used structured interviews and questionnaires at each link in the production and supply chain of 30 products in order to discover the ability to identify the origin of product, the size of batches used during production, the potential product and process information available and the estimated time of recall in an emergency situation.

The results showed that it was possible to trace 53 percent of the products bought through their supply chains to their origin. The results demonstrated that mixing transformations create challenges for traceability that are more severe than other types of transformations. Company motivation is an important factor in creating the conditions for a successful tracing event.

The study presents findings that can be used by the food producing industry and regulators that will aid in improving the ability to track and trace food effectively. This will aid the food producing industry in providing society with better food information so that consumers can make informed choices.

This study presents data on multi sector traceability, which is not only valuable because of its uniqueness, but also because of the possibility to use this in future studies for comparison and measurement of progress. This study is highly valuable to food producing industries, regulators and researchers as it presents new and unique data, regarding recall times and sector specific challenges.

Pope John Paul II named Saint Francis as the “heavenly patron of those who promote ecology.” Revisiting the Franciscan values, as lived by St. Francis, could be of great help in solving our ecological, economic, and social problems. St. Francis can show the way to deal with Mother Earth for the sake of the future of the planet. His passionate love for creation, his adoration of seeing God in everything and everywhere, and therefore the adoration of the beauty of creation, his experience of God in the world as an incarnation theological principle, and his ways and actions of compassion give witness to a brotherly love toward everybody and everything. A Franciscan approach to integral ecology includes vulnerability, being connected, voluntary poverty, compassion, solidarity, contemplation and attentiveness, justice and peace, and prophetical wisdom.

The chapter presents a real life project in the “Klostergarten” of the Capuchin Franciscans in Muenster, Germany. To reestablish biodiversity and knowledge of how to use and preserve rare and old agricultural species, traditional varieties of regional apple trees, a good number of herb and vegetable strains have been reintroduced in the garden of the Capuchin Franciscans in Muenster. The importance of biodiversity and a holistic-spiritual approach toward nature is made clear to people visiting the garden through documentation, guided tours, and educational programs.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

This paper discusses the key features of Generation Alpha from the perspective of their implications for future family business.

The signals perspective is used to review academic and non-academic literature to highlight the key features of Generation Alpha that can be relevant to family business.

Extensive use of digital technology, perceptions of learning, work and a work–life balance and attitudes towards sustainability and social responsibility are the key features of Generation Alpha that hold significant implications for the strategies and operations of future family business.

This is the first paper considering Generation Alpha in the context of future family business, which discusses the key features of this generation from the perspective of succession planning.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

There is a German legend concerning the Tausendfuss (only somewhat less hyperbolised in English as the centipede). Although not exactly swift, the Tausendfuss does get around. How it manages the necessary coordination can be a matter of no small interest. Unable to figure out the answer on any other basis, one investigator decided to ask a representative Tausendfuss. Given this task of self‐reflection, the Tausendfuss rose to the level of his interrogator's confusion and never walked again.

This paper aims to exploit shape memory polymer (SMP) composite as multifunctional coatings for protecting substrates from surface wear and bacterial. The efficiency of added nano or micro-sized particles in enhancing the properties of SMP was investigated. This study also attempts to use a low-cost and effective spraying approach to fabricate the coatings. The coatings are expected to have good conformability with the substrate and deliver multi-functional performance, such as wrinkle free, wear resistance, thermal stability and antimicrobial property.

High-performance SMP composite coatings or thin films were fabricated by a home-made continuous spray-deposition system. The morphologies of the coatings were studied using the scanning electron microscope and the transmission electron microscope. The abrasion properties were evaluated by Taber Abraser test, and thermo-gravimetric analysis was carried out to investigate the thermal properties of prepared composites. The antimicrobial property was determined by the inhibition zone method using E. coli. The thermally responsive shape memory effect of the resulting composites was also characterized.

The morphology analysis indicated that the nanoclay was distributed on the surface of the coating which resulted in a significant improvement of the wear property. The wear resistance of the coatings with nanoclay was improved as much as 40 per cent compared with that of the control sample. The thermo-gravimetric analysis revealed that the weight loss rate of composites with nanoclay was dropped over 40 per cent. The SMP coating with zinc oxide (ZnO) showed excellent antimicrobial effect. The shape recovery effect of SMP/nanoclay and SMP/ZnO composites can be triggered by external heating and the composites can reach a full shape recovery within 60 s.

This study proposed a continuous spray-deposition fabrication of SMP composite coatings, which provides a new avenue to prepare novel multi-functional coatings with low cost.

Most studies have emphasized on the sole property of SMP composites. Herein, a novel SMP composite coating which could deliver multi-functionality such as wrinkle free, wear resistance, thermal stability and antimicrobial property was proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of flexibility, to identify the gaps in theory and to propose a future research agenda.

This paper combines a systematic review and thematic analysis of scholarly articles of flexibility. The articles are analyzed to explicate the dynamics of flexibility in service operations. Thematic analysis was done using NVIVO 10.0 to identify key approaches, trends and future research agenda.

The review reveals ten different themes that highlight the future research avenues and points out that an integrative framework to assess the field of flexibility, particularly in developing countries, is largely missing in the literature. The study also provides a set of research questions to enhance its explanatory power.

Articles that explicitly mention “flexibility” were only included, however, there may be several unexploited areas regarding the influence of different variables on flexibility. The study is based on the inductive analysis of 650 published articles on flexibility retrieved from the electronic database. The framework proposed in the study is conceptual and requires empirical testing in future research.

The study synthesizes the flexibility literature and contributes to a set of ten distinct themes that extricate the dynamics of flexibility. The study provides a comprehensive review of the relevant articles and identifies the theoretical gaps in the research area of service operations flexibility that can be used by academia and industry for promoting flexibility.

The use of quality management (QM) to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) is a topic of growing interest in academia and industry. The IAQ (International Academy for Quality) established Quality Sustainability Award in 2020, a testament to this growing interest. This study aims to investigate how QM philosophies, methodologies and tools can be used to achieve sustainable development in organizations.

Five large manufacturing organizations – three from India and two from China – who reported their achievements about using QM in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were studied using multiple sources of data collection. A detailed within-case and cross-case analysis were conducted to unearth this linkage's practical and theoretical aspects.

The study finds that QM methodologies effectively met the five organizations' UNSDGs. These organizations successfully used OPEX (Operational Excellence) methodologies such as Lean, Kaizen and Six Sigma to meet UNSDGs 7, 11, 12 and 13. Moreover, UNSG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) is the most targeted goal across the case studies. A cross-case analysis revealed that the most frequently used quality tools were Design of Experiments (DoE), Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA), C&E analysis and Inferential statistics, among other essential tools.

The study's sample size was limited to large-scale manufacturing organizations in the two most populous countries in the world. This may limit the study's generalizability to other countries, continents, or micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Additionally, the study's conclusions would be strengthened if tested as hypotheses in a follow-up survey.

This practical paper provides case studies on how to use QM to impact SDGs. It offers both descriptive and prescriptive solutions for practitioners. The study highlights the importance of using essential QM tools in a structured and systematic manner, with effective teams, to meet the SDGs of organizations.

The study shows how QM can be used to impact UNSDGs, and this is very important because the UNSDGs are a set of global objectives that aim to address a wide range of social and environmental issues. This study could motivate organizations to achieve the UNSDGs using essential QM tools and make the world a better place for the present and future generations.

This case study is the first to investigate at a micro-level how QM can impact UNSDGs using live examples. It uses data from the IAQ to demonstrate how QM can be integrated into UNSDGs to ensure sustainable manufacturing.