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The purpose of this paper is to increase the reliability of manufactured electronics and to reveal reliability significant factors. The experiments were focused especially on the influence of the reflow oven parameters presented by a heating factor.

The shear strength of the surface mount device (SMD) resistors and their joint resistance were analyzed. The resistors were assembled with two Sn/Ag/Cu-based and one Bi-based solder pastes, and the analysis was done for several values of the heating factor and before and after isothermal aging. The measurement of thickness of intermetallic compounds was conducted on the micro-sections of the solder joints.

The shear strength of solder joints based on the Sn/Ag/Cu-based solder alloy started to decline after the heating factor reached the value of 500 s · K, whereas the shear strength of the solder alloy based on the Bi alloy (in the measured range) always increased with an increase in the heating factor. Also, the Bi-based solder joints showed shear strength increase after isothermal aging in contrast to Sn/Ag/Cu-based solder joints, which showed shear strength decrease.

The interpretation of the results of such a comprehensive measurement leads to a better understanding of the mutual relation between reliability and other technological parameters such as solder alloy type, surface finish and parameters of the soldering process.

Presently in multicolor fused filament-based three-dimensional (3-D) printing, significant amounts of waste material are produced through nozzle priming and purging each time a change from one color to another occurs. G-code generating slicing software typically changes the material on each layer resulting in wipe towers with greater mass than the target object. The purpose of this study is to provide an alternative fabrication approach based on interlayer tool clustering (ITC) for the first time, which reduces the number of tool changes and is compatible with any commercial 3-D printer without the need for hardware modifications.

The authors have developed an open-source PrusaSlicer upgrade, compatible with Slic3r-based software, which uses the described algorithm to generate g-code toolpath and print experimental objects. The theoretical time, material and energy savings are calculated and validated to evaluate the proposed fabrication method qualitatively and quantitatively.

The experimental results show the novel ITC method can significantly increase the efficiency of multimaterial printing, with an average 1.7-fold reduction in material use, and an average 1.4-fold reduction in both time and 3-D printing energy use. In addition, this approach reduces the likelihood of technical failures in the manufacturing of the entire part by reducing the number of tool changes, or material transitions, on average by 2.4 times.

The obtained results support distributed recycling and additive manufacturing, which has both environmental and economic benefits and increasing the number of colors in a 3-D print increases manufacturing savings.

The paper aims to deal with the analysis of the factor leading to the repeated selection of the specific supplier and the effect of this recurrent selection on overpricing of public contracts.

A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods is used to achieve this goal. To analyze the chances of obtaining repeated contracts, the logistic regression method is used. To analyze the factor of overpriced contracts, the classic ordinary least squares regression model is used. The focus group method is then used to explain the factors acting on the part of the contracting authorities.

The results show that the prior procurement of a given contracting authority, or work for the public sector in general, has a statistically significant effect on the conclusion of contracts. The use of less-transparent forms of input has a strong impact. The non-transparent selection of suppliers rather than repetition of contracts generally results in the over-pricing of contracts. The IT sector is an exception.

This research is also essential for real public policy. Given the amount of GDP allocated to the public procurement market, it makes sense to continually seek room for improvement. Here is an attempt to find this by examining the contracting authorities’ behavior when awarding repeated contracts.

This research is original because it looks at the problem of the contracting authority in the wider context and optics of the path dependency theory, which has not yet been applied to the public procurement environment. The focus is also on IT procurement, which according to this study has not been empirically investigated in this way, is also innovative.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have posed profound challenges to social enterprises and public sector organizations engaged in social service delivery in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This study examines the resilience strategies employed by these organizations and seeks to discern any notable divergences between social enterprises and public sector entities.

We employ a qualitative approach, utilizing semi-structured interviews with key personnel across 28 organizations within the Czech and Slovak Republics, comprising both social enterprises and public sector bodies.

Our findings reveal a consistent pattern: social enterprises primarily utilize offensive strategies, such as seeking new resources, exploring new markets and innovating products or services. In contrast, public sector organizations tend to rely on defensive strategies, focusing on streamlining operations, reducing expenses and supporting staff.

This study addresses a gap in scholarly understanding of how recent crises, including COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, have impacted management practices in the public and nonprofit sectors across Central and Eastern Europe.

This research explores how contextual elements and significant events influence the changing storylines within a company's directors' reports spanning a period of six decades. These elements and events encompass the internal dynamics of the family that owns the company, industry-specific advancements, political and socioeconomic climates, and explicit guidelines related to corporate reporting.

This research employs a case study methodology to analyse the directors' reports of Barilla, a prominent Italian food manufacturer, within the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism. A systematic content analysis is conducted on sixty directors' reports published between 1961 and 2021. The study also identifies and examines significant contextual events within this six-decade period, which are linked to four key institutional factors.

Based on the research findings, the directors' reports exhibited notable fluctuations throughout the studied timeframe in reaction to shifts in the institutional setting. Our investigation highlights that each institutional element experienced crucial pivotal moments, and given their interconnected nature, modifications in one factor impacted the others. It was noted that these pivotal moments resulted in alterations in the directors' reports' content across various thematic areas. Additionally, despite Barilla being a multinational company, it was found that national events within Italy had a more pronounced influence on the evolving narratives than global events.

Previous research on directors' reports or chairman's statements has primarily focused on the influence of macro-level institutional factors on the narratives. In contrast, our study considers both macro-level and micro-level institutions, specifically examining the internal events within a family business and how they shape the content of directors' reports. Our study is also distinctive in its analysis of specific critical junctures and their interactions with the investigated institutional factors. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, few existing studies span a timeframe of sixty years, particularly concerning an Italian company.

This study aims to examine the relationship between institutional logics and specifications quality, and how this relationship is mediated by the legitimacy of the procurement process and stewardship behaviour.

This study draws on insights from institutional logics theory, and legitimacy and stewardship behaviour literature. We conducted an extended literature review to gain a comprehensive understanding of “institutional logics” and their manifestations in organizational contexts, utilizing the 2000–2024 data collected from the EBSCO, Scopus and Web of Science databases, complemented with Google Scholar. We gather that institutional logics manifest in several forms, and that while some organizations may thrive on a single logic, in certain contexts institutional logics can manifest in combinations – “multiple logics or hybrids”. Based on this understanding, we developed testable research hypotheses, predicting the influences of institutional logics – professional logic, efficient service logic and delivery (market) logic, on legitimacy, stewardship behaviour and specifications quality. We then carried out an empirical study, adopting a quantitative cross-sectional survey design with a self-administered questionnaire to test the hypothesized relationships. The empirical data were obtained from 162 procuring and disposing entities in Uganda and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

The study findings reveal that institutional logics exert a strong positive effect on the legitimacy of the procurement process and on stewardship behaviour, which, in turn, both positively influence specifications quality.

The study findings have implications for theory and practice. The study findings provide useful insights that support the conceptual and theoretical development of institutional logics theory and applications in procurement literature. In addition, the study findings enhance procurement managers’ understanding of the mechanisms through which institutional logics can foster specifications quality. However, considering the fact that the study was conducted in a single country context, and focused on the public sector only, the findings of the study might not be generalizable globally.

This study contributes to established knowledge about quality management and procurement by examining the legitimacy of the procurement process and stewardship behaviour of those involved in procurement processes as mechanisms through which procuring entities are able to use institutional logics to enhance specifications quality. In addition, the study highlights areas for future research that may be explored to increase understanding of the value of institutional logics in ensuring specifications quality, and the link between specifications quality and the general performance of procuring entities.

Managerialization – i.e. the institutional and organizational transformation of cultural institutions acknowledging the need for a managerial action to address their value propositions – is radically reshaping the way museums interact with relevant stakeholders and arrange their service offering. The paper aims at making sense out of the manifold implications of managerialization on museum activities.

Secondary data were collected from a sample of 4,073 Italian museums and art institutions. A logit regression model was designed to investigate the implications of museums’ managerialization on pricing strategies, service offering, organizational and marketing policies, inter-organizational relationships and digitalization.

Managerialization triggered an evolution in museums’ service offering and organizational practices. Institutions that underwent a managerial development were more likely to innovate their policies and strategies. However, managerialization may undermine the way museums focus on disadvantaged people, nurturing inequalities in the access to their service offering.

The managerialization of museums should be handled as a double-edged sword. Although it contributes in enriching the museums’ service offering and in differentiating their activities, it may generate drawbacks on the art institutions’ ability to address the demands of underprivileged groups. Tailored correctives are needed to avoid the side effects of managerialization.

This is one of the first attempts to investigate the implications of managerialization on museums’ practices and inter-organizational relationships. The research findings provide some insights into the challenges that are related to the managerialization of museums and art institutions.

This paper aims to develop a framework for switching a service supplier in a supply network.

The study builds on existing literature in the field of purchasing and supply management, public procurement (PP) and the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing approach, as well as on an illustrative example case, from the PP context, of a supplier switch in a service delivery process.

During a switching process, the buyer must simultaneously manage the ending of a relationship with the incumbent supplier and the beginning of a relationship with a new supplier. Collaboration with the focal suppliers to develop a service process with standardized components prevents disruptions in the service processes and reduces the impact of the switch on the wider network.

The conceptualization suggested in this paper needs to be further explored in different empirical contexts to assess its practical adequacy.

Practitioners responsible for service procurement can use the findings to develop collaboration with suppliers, both when it comes to service process development and to the switching process. Furthermore, the authors highlight the importance of ending competencies and the development of an exit plan to conduct a “beautiful exit.”

The paper integrates relationship initiation and ending studies, as well as procurement process models to develop a refined switching process framework. Many PPs rely on short-term relationships due to the legal obligation to frequently invite suppliers to tender, thus understanding the supplier switching process is important both for private and public sector actors.

Despite its potential, warehouse managers still struggle to successfully assimilate autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in their operations. This paper means to identify the moderating factors of AMR assimilation for production warehouses that influence the digital transformation of their intralogistics via AMRs.

Drawing on innovation of assimilation theory (IAT), this study followed an explorative approach using the principles of the case study method in business research. The cases comprised of four AMR end users and six AMR service providers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews.

Four clusters of moderators that affect each stage of AMR assimilation were identified. These clusters include organizational attributes of end users (i.e. production warehouses), service attributes of service providers, technology attributes of AMRs and relational attributes between the AMR service providers and the AMR end users.

The authors extend the IAT framework by identifying various moderating factors between different stages of the AMR assimilation process. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to introduce the perspective of AMR end users in conjunction with AMR service providers to the “Industry 4.0” technology assimilation literature. The study propositions regarding these factors guide future intralogistics and AMR research.

Theories of prosumption offer social marketers an opportunity to improve market segmentation strategies and health campaigns by improving understanding of audiences. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to understand how women produce and consume ideologies of pregnancy.

A total of 19 pregnant women ages 24‐38 years completed qualitative, in‐depth interviews. Data analysis included a grounded theory approach and constant‐comparative method using open and axial coding to reduce the data and identify themes across the data.

This study addressed prosumption in three meaning‐making sites: the physiological basis of pregnancy; perceptions of medicine and the biomedical model during pregnancy; and perceptions of media surrounding pregnancy.

This study applied prosumption theory in a new social context: pregnant women. Findings articulate the importance of gender and the necessity of incorporating women's lived experiences into theories of prosumption.

Social marketers benefit from improved understandings of pregnant women's body identity, perceptions, and opportunities for empowerment and agency in reproductive health. The proposed “purist pregnant woman” myth impacts effective strategies in social marketing and health communication campaigns. Findings suggest that pregnant women may serve as a receptive audience for a range of health issues.

This study extends our understanding of prosumers, suggesting that prosumption of pregnancy reduces alienation, humanizes and demedicalizes health care and the birthing process.

This study offers theoretical and practical implications for social marketing and health communication campaigns to improve pregnancy health outcomes through an improved understanding of prosumers.