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This study emphasises the importance of employee participation in total productive maintenance and identifies the key factors influencing employee participation. The Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) framework is adopted to identify and categorise key factors.

An embedded case study with a power plant service provider in England was conducted with a variety of research methods, for example interviews and questionnaire surveys, to gain a wide range of data.

Following the MOA framework, this study shows various key aspects of employees' motivation, opportunity and ability when participating in total productive maintenance. It also compares first-line machine operators and maintenance specialists in terms of the drivers and barriers to total productive maintenance for them, and reveals that they need different mechanical skills in order to participate in total productive maintenance.

The study extends the applications of the MOA framework to total productive maintenance initiatives and provides managers with guidance on how to correctly consider and prioritise employee participation in their implementation. Moreover, this is the first study to identify differences between first-line machine operators and maintenance specialists, in terms of their willingness to participate in total productive maintenance.

While various aspects of the vegetable supply chain (SC) have been increasingly studied, most studies tend to investigate the downstream part of the SC in terms of customer demand and product quality. Relatively fewer studies have focused on upstream suppliers/farmers. This study aims to understand upstream farmers’ positions in different types of vegetable SCs and identify ways of enhancing sustainable vegetable SC collaboration.

This study is based on an in-depth case study of a cooperative SC in Vietnam from the perspectives of both the cooperative and its farmers.

The study found that cooperative SCs are the most appropriate for Vietnamese farmers. It also identified the key activities needed to engage farmers with cooperative SCs and the mechanisms that the cooperative needs to develop. Cooperative SCs can be enhanced only when farmers are motivated to engage in SC activities and when the cooperative implements a robust management mechanism.

This study provides new, insightful results on how to engage with small fragmented farmers for SC collaboration and how to enhance the roles of cooperative SCs in the vegetable industry in Vietnam. It also provides information for policymakers to support sustainable vegetable SC development and maintain its sustainability.

Data mining has been well-applied by maintenance service providers in identifying data patterns and supporting decision-making. However, when applying data mining for analytics-driven maintenance, maintenance service providers often adopt data mining with unstructured “trial-and-error” approaches. In response, we have followed design science to develop a comprehensive approach to diagnosing the problems with the existing data mining processes model for analytics-driven maintenance service.

This study conducted an in-depth case study with Siemens in the UK for data collection in order to apply a two-cycle build-and-evaluate design process. Based on the literature, the preliminary model is built. It is evaluated through the case company in the first cycle. In the second cycle, the model is refined based on the comments from the case company and then re-evaluated from both business management and information technology perspectives to ensure the applicability of the designed model in a real business environment.

Firstly, this study identifies three main shortcomings in the existing data mining process models for analytics-driven maintenance. Secondly, this study develops the “Gear-Wheel Model”, with a customer-oriented cycle, a project planning cycle and a machine comprehension cycle, to overcome all these shortcomings simultaneously and provide improvement solutions. Thirdly, this study highlighted that the data mining processes for analytics-driven maintenance service need interactions from different functional departments and supports of successive data collection.

The study expands data mining analysis beyond a single business function to include interactions with other internal functions and external customers. It contributes to existing knowledge by focusing on the managerial aspects of data mining and integrating maintenance service providers with their business customers.

This study aims to delve into the mechanisms through which managers can enhance employee participation effectively.

This study adopts the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) framework to identify the interrelationships among various drivers. Different levels of Continuous Improvement (CI) maturity were also considered to assess the effectiveness of these drivers on employee participation. An in-depth case study was conducted, involving the selection of four business units from a multinational manufacturer in Germany to represent varying levels of CI maturity.

This study uncovered intermediary variables that mediate the impact of drivers on the high-level MOA variables. It also revealed how the effectiveness of these drivers varies across different levels of CI maturity.

While different facets of CI have been scrutinized, the importance of employee participation stands out as pivotal for achieving enduring and meaningful progress. Despite this recognition, many business organizations continue to grasp with the challenge of motivating their employees to actively engage in CI initiatives. This study extends the applicability of the MOA framework and enriches the CI literature by offering deeper insights into the behavioural perspectives of employees. In practical terms, the findings of this study provide valuable guidance to decision-makers and HR department on staff training and development, enabling them to formulate more effective strategies aimed at fostering and augmenting employee participation in CI endeavours.

The purpose of this study is to explore how tobacco manufacturing companies can improve their sustainability performance via effective supplier relationship management (SRM).

This study has adopted a single case study of an international tobacco company. The primary data involved semi-structured interviews with participants from the case company who are familiar with sustainable SRM in the tobacco industry and are engaging in various techniques to improve sustainability performance.

The drivers for sustainable SRM commonly identified in literature are observable within the case company. There is also clear evidence of integrating sustainability in its SRM processes. However, the perception of sustainability as a requirement to meet stringent regulations limits its scope and drive in pursuing sustainable SRM. It has also limited supplier sustainability evaluation and performance metrics. Furthermore, the findings of this paper reinforce the importance of a procurement team’s ability to work with other functional teams in implementing sustainable SRM. The findings also contribute to the emerging literature on the impact of sustainability on supplier segmentation and multi-tier supplier management.

This study provides insight into the varying SRM methods used in the tobacco industry to ensure compliance and improve sustainability performance. However, further research is required to explore the generalisability of the findings of this study derived from a single case study.

The tobacco industry is an under-researched industry, particularly in terms of sustainable operations and supply chain management practices. The findings of this study seem to be relevant to those comparable industries with stringent regulations as well.

The paper aims to explore the application of manufacturing postponement in a service setting.

In elaborating on the many key differences between goods and services highlighted in the literature, it has been argued that postponement strategies developed in manufacturing have a potential for improving service performance. The authors then examine the implications of postponement for the service push‐pull boundary and the line of visibility.

A focus on postponement at the service push‐pull boundary enables more activities to be performed in advance. Its benefits include reducing costs and shortening service delivery time. Postponement can also assist service providers in re‐locating the line of visibility to develop a more effective service operation.

While the significant economic benefits of postponement have been documented in manufacturing companies, the literature has also mentioned the potential role of postponement in service. However, very little has been written with respect to the exploitation of the transferability and applicability of postponement to a service setting. In this paper, the authors have explored what value postponement might have to offer for service operations. The application of postponement has a potential for service performance akin to what is expected of a manufacturing organisation.

The concept of postponement has a long history of academic literature and practical applications. The recent literature has also well documented that the need for postponement is driven by today's market and business environment. However, its applications are still not as widespread as expected. Therefore, we are interested in what factors enable or hinder the successful implementation of postponement. After a review on postponement, we propose an integrated framework that will help to develop a set of general ideas on which further work can be based. The practical difficulties associated with moving toward postponement are also included in this framework. The objective is also to understand better the challenges that exist in implementing postponement strategies.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effects of postponement in the context of environmentally sound management.

The paper examined the environmental issues for a postponement strategy, with transport as a mediating factor. It also investigated the impact of related practices (e.g. just in time, e‐commerce, vendor managed inventory and factory gate pricing) on transport.

This paper discussed ways of developing a postponement strategy which could benefit the economy, and which are not limited to taking into consideration the trade‐off between inventory and transport costs. Some thoughts were also presented on possible ways of mitigating the effects of the increase in transport on traffic congestion and pollution levels.

The results of the research contribute to better designing the postponement strategy by placing more emphasis on environmental compatibility while conforming to the end market demand.

The paper emphasises the importance of environmental issues in a postponement strategy. It calls for a need to further understand the trade‐offs between optimal supply chain efficiency and its environmental impact.

Research on social media frequently analyze social media usage (SMU)'s positive consequences for organizations and individuals; however, recent innovation studies caution that SMU may not always lead to positive new product development (NPD) outcomes. The competing streams of research highlight a fundamental tension that exists in the social media literature exemplified by the question: Is SMU good or bad for NPD? In this manuscript, the authors suggest that a more appropriate question as follows: What are the positive and negative indirect effects of SMU on NPD performance? The purpose of this paper is to discuss the aforementioned points in detail.

A literature review provides the model and hypotheses. Using a sample of 168 Chinese firms, the authors conducted an empirical test following multiple regression analysis.

The results demonstrate that SMU facilitates business analytics (ability) and social legitimacy (opportunity) but impairs entrepreneurial proclivity (motivation). These three constructs in turn mediate the effect of SMU on NPD performance. Moreover, this paper explores how technological turbulence moderates SMU's effects on business analytics, entrepreneurship proclivity and social legitimacy.

The results may be affected by both the context (solely in China) and type (cross-sectional) of the data set. Future research might take a decompositional approach to study SMU's effect on innovation in different NPD stages. Furthermore, with widely varying purposes (e.g., marketing, information searching, partner collaboration, new product launch, etc.), there is certainly a need for more clarity and understanding of how firms can leverage each of these different social media activities for successful NPD.

First, we suggest that managers in China should be explicitly aware of the double-edged sword effect of SMU on NPD performance. Second, this study encourages managers to use social media carefully when technological turbulence becomes intense.

Drawing on the ability–motivation–opportunity framework, this is one of the first studies to simultaneously examines the benefits and costs of SMU for NPD. In addition, this paper bridges the separate literatures on social media, business analytics, entrepreneurial proclivity and social legitimacy and contributes to the NPD research.