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Based on the assumptions of the social ecological theory (SET), this study aims to identify the factors that influence water consumption by the schoolchildren segment in urban communities in Mexico, to further develop a community-based social marketing intervention.

This study was formative research, quantitative and qualitative in nature, consisting of a survey, focus groups and in-depth interviews. It was conducted in public and private elementary schools in central Mexico (five states), during 2023.

It was identified that parents are aware of the benefits of drinking water for their children’s health. However, various factors in the sociocultural environment, perceptions, customs and habits were noted as barriers to water consumption. Consequently, children’s behaviors are influenced by their family context as the strongest environment. Likewise, the school environment and the social environment are identified as other influential factors. Each system acts as a motivator or barrier in the child’s behavior, creating and supporting consumption behaviors learned from an early age.

Interventions on water consumption should target the most influential SET systems; the microsystem and the mesosystem, achieving the participation and co-responsibility of stakeholders in changing the environment and thus behavior.

World Health Organizations (WHO) (2023) states that governments and employers have a responsibility to uphold that right by providing work that simultaneously prevents workers from experiencing excessive stress and mental health risks. The business environment continues to produce a lot of stress on workers, which includes internal pressures to achieve results and employees suffer the consequences. Some companies have turned to mindfulness as a technique that helps mitigate these consequences and have joined Kaizen as a process improvement technique in the work environment. Therefore, this study has a research purpose: “to comprehend the possible linkage between Kaizen philosophy from an individual perspective, with Mindfulness ZEN Buddhism technique to understand the individual benefit (well-being) of each employee in organizations.” The answer to this represents the research gap in this article. The research questions governing this study are as follows: RQ1: Does Mindfulness is used as Kaizen technique of personal-individual improvement in 21st-century organizations? RQ2: What elements and characteristics of Kaizen and mindfulness can be found working together? And RQ3: Which qualitative impact of mindfulness and Kaizen in the workplace outcome (well-being, performance of the job (process)) and relationships with other employees)?

This research used a qualitative approach due to the recent phenomenon studied. In a certain way, it was used a mixed-method (combination of qualitative data – web search secondary data analysis and qualitative research-Convergence Model). First, it was done an intensive web search with the aim to identify companies' corporate mindfulness programs, along with companies which have applied mindfulness and Kaizen programs. It was identified a group of big companies with global and international presence (“famous” for their products and services) in diverse industrial and service sectors, country of origin and business locations; with the purpose of getting a holistic vision of all organizations which have practice Kaizen and mindfulness. Therefore, this study explored secondary data related to both practices, analyzing reports or briefings published in management magazines and official WEB pages and/or business magazines.

As a result of the triangulation of the data with its secondary data convergence model and qualitative research, a theoretical framework was reached that shows the benefits of the two combined twin techniques of Kaizen and mindfulness. The worker experiences a path that goes from concentrating on the execution of their processes, following their operating standards (Standardize, Do, Check, Act [SDCA] cycle), going through the evolution to continuous improvement or Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, experiencing work with concentration-awareness and reducing your daily stress, maintaining high sensitivity to the work process and your environment and finally, discovering an essential life purpose. Finally, worker experiences benefit when there is wide application of both with the SDCA and PDCA cycles such as high motivation, constant learning from your mistakes, day-to-day learning and the Munen Musso (not using the mind).

The main limitation is the qualitative methodological bias and secondary data research. In addition, to have a theoretical sample. However, the richness of the data helps to overcome this limitation. On the other hand, the qualitative research interviews are for a certain geographical area, therefore, the results cannot be generalized.

The results of this research can shed light on operations managers in the use of techniques for continuous improvement and improvement of people's quality of life, such as mindfulness. In Mexico, they are beginning to be used jointly (twin techniques) to comply with Regulation 035 of psychosocial risk, the researchers are sure that in other countries it will be used in the same way to comply with regulations. However, the research findings show the benefits that can be provided to workers in organizations by applying Kaizen and Mindfulness together.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, according to the literature review, this is the first article that explores the relationship between Kaizen and Mindfulness as twin techniques that help improve the individual quality of life of employees in organizations.

The purpose of this article is to show the importance of joint actions and institutions for collaboration (IFCs) in the development and performance of information technology (IT) business clusters in the context of Mexico.

A review of the literature suggests the types of linkages that the clusters must develop to be successful in the context of emerging countries. Two IT clusters in the region of Puebla and Jalisco are compared to highlight the factors that differentiate successful and less successful clusters in this type of environment.

The presence of an IFC, such as the Jalisco Institute of Information Technology in Jalisco, is a determinant factor of the performance of the IT cluster there, contrary to Puebla. A model of dynamic interactions in clusters is proposed as a result of the analysis of the two cases.

Our analysis included clusters from IT industry in Mexico. It needs to be extended to more clusters, more industries and other emerging countries settings for the sake of comparison and generalization.

In the context of the relative scarcity of formal institutions in emerging country settings, the purposive collaboration of both private and public sectors in IFCs is necessary to ensure a long-standing development and performance of business clusters.

In this article, we show the specific role of institutional arrangements in cluster development and performance in emerging countries, which has seldom been investigated both theoretically and empirically.

The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive qualitative review of the empirical accumulated knowledge on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO).

To systematically review the empirical literature that simultaneously tests the core tenets of EO and MO, this study followed a multi-step approach, which has served as a replicable literature review method in previous studies. A final sample of 121 papers published between 1987 and 2016 was developed.

The results show that EO–MO relationship research has made considerable strides in recent years and is accelerating and broadening. This interest is manifested in the 83 journals and 266 authors that were identified. Additionally, the results confirm that the Anglo region contributed the majority of EO–MO relationships in the study sample. Finally, the 121 papers in the sample were organized into six different approaches, which in turn represent 53 research models where the unidimensional conceptualizations of EO and MO were predominant.

This study has shown that the EO–MO relationship has been studied from different approaches, which revealed several research models that advance the knowledge on relationships between EO and MO. EO and MO are, in turn, also positively associated with firm performance. Thus, the study results highlight numerous and varied fertile areas for future research that may offer a more detailed understanding of the EO–MO relationship.