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The purpose of the present study was to examine the choice of conflict management strategies made by servant leaders.

The present qualitative study uses the method of narrative enquiry within the framework of interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith et al., 2009) to capture the life experiences as lived.

The study suggests that the servant leaders manifest conflict management styles which are more persuasive, humane and participative. Their chief strategies for resolving subordinate-subordinate conflict are initial diagnosis of the situation; leader’s intervention in facilitating an amicable solution; and impartiality of the leader while effecting resolution of conflict. Diagnosis of the conflict situation, self-restraint, patience, composure and humility of the servant leader have emerged as major leadership characteristics, as well as strategies for dealing with any provocative employee behavior.

Insight provided by this study into alternate strategies for conflict resolution will guide the academicians, working managers and trainers to understand and practice the process of managing conflict in a more humane way.

Despite the presence of a few studies linking leadership style with the choice of conflict resolution strategies, an important gap till now has been the absence of leaders’ personal account of their experiences, reflections and analysis in their choice of conflict resolution strategies. This study seeks to investigate the approach of servant leaders when they handle subordinate-subordinate and superior-subordinate conflict.

In globalized market, organizations of all sizes are having huge opportunities for growth. However, due to various resource constraints, it has become challenging for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of growing economies to survive in this global competition. Effective supply chain management (SCM) can be a major driving factor for success of Indian SMEs in dynamic world economy. SMEs face many operational challenges while implementing effective SCM. The purpose of this paper is to study different strategic issues for successful implementation of SCM in Indian SMEs.

A survey has been conducted in Indian SMEs of different sectors. Major constructs of survey instrument are motivations, hindrances, investment priorities, supply chain practices and performance. In total, 1,500 Indian SMEs have been approached for collecting response through survey instrument. 257 complete responses were finalized. Statistical analysis of data acquired from survey is performed by using SPSS software.

It is observed that managing customers, organization resources, and inventory are main SCM practices. Major investment areas are systems for developing quick response and quality management. Currently, human resource and knowledge management have been found to be less priority areas for SMEs. The major focus of Indian SMEs is on cost and lead time reduction by having effective SCM.

Novelty of this study is that strategic issues for effective SCM in context to Indian SMEs have been analyzed. The findings of the study will help Indian SMEs in doing strategic planning for being competitive in the global market.

The purpose of this study is to apply value stream mapping (VSM) in Malaysian pharmaceutical production warehouse. A current and future state value stream map from the raw material receiving end to the production unit was developed to find out waste and unwanted lead time. It was very much essential to cut down the supply chain lead time at the initial phase as the raw material unloading, sorting, temporary storage and dispatch to production were seen contributing to a huge lead time build-up.

The study was initiated with the selection of a product family, construction of the current state map, identification of various wastes and the development of future state map.

The expected outcomes of the study include the quantification of wastes, improvement in value-added percentage and lead time reduction.

The study was carried out in a single pharmaceutical company. The results of the study are deployable and can be functional in similar production organizations. Contrary to common VSMs that capture core production processes, this study provides strong insights that shall help design lean supply chains, especially in the pharmaceutical domain. This paper has also addressed the viability of the lean in the pharmaceutical warehouse and the reduction in lead time to improve demand forecasting, marketing and sales.

The results of this study have indicated that a significant reduction in pharmaceutical warehouse supply chain lead time is possible as a result of the implementation of VSM from the supply chain’s perspective.

The insights from this study help in understanding the pharmaceutical supply chain risks and their outcomes.

The paper reports a real-time study conducted in a warehouse of a pharmaceutical organization. Hence, the contributions are original.

Practitioners, organisations and policy makers in health and social care settings are increasingly recognising the need for trauma-informed approaches in organisational settings, with morbidity and financial burdens a growing concern over the past few years. Servant leadership has a unique focus on emotional healing, service to others as the first priority, in addition to the growth, well-being and personal and professional development of key stakeholders. This paper aims to discuss Trauma Informed Servant Leadership (TISL).

A targeted review of the servant leadership and trauma-informed care literature was conducted. Relevant studies, including systematic review and meta-analysis, were sourced, with the resulting interpretation informing the conceptual model.

Although there are general guidelines regarding how to go about instituting trauma-informed approaches, with calls for organisational leadership to adapt the often cited six trauma-informed principles, to date there has not been a leadership approach elucidated which takes as its starting point and core feature to be trauma informed. At the same time, there is a paucity of research elucidating trauma outcomes for service users or employees in the literature when a trauma-informed approach is used. However, there is a large body of evidence indicating that servant leadership has many of the outcomes at the employee level that trauma-informed approaches are attempting to attain. Thus, the author builds on a previous conceptual paper in which a model of servant leadership and servant leadership supervision are proposed to mitigate against compassion fatigue and secondary trauma in the health and social care sector. The author extends that research to this paper by recasting servant leadership as a trauma-informed model of leadership that naturally operationalises trauma-informed principles.

A lack of primary data limits the extent to which conclusions can be drawn on the effectiveness of this conceptual model. However, the model is based on robust research across the differential components used; therefore, it can act as a framework for future empirical research designs to be studies at the organisational level. Both the servant leadership and trauma-informed literatures have been extended with the addition of this model.

TISL can complement the trauma-informed approach and may also be viable as an alternative to trauma-informed approaches. This paper offers guidelines to practitioners and organisations in health and social care on how to operationalise important trauma-informed principles through leadership.

This conceptual model may help reduce the burden of trauma and re-traumatisation encountered by practitioners and service users in health and social care settings, impacting on morbidity.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is a novel approach, the first of its kind.

Purpose – This article aims to focus on raising awareness of the limitations of traditional “enterprise‐centric” views of enterprise risk management that ignore the risks that are inherited from key business and supply chain partners. In essence, enterprise systems implementations have allowed organizations to couple their operations more tightly with other business partners, particularly in the area of supply chain management, and in the process enterprise systems applications are redefining the boundaries of the entity in terms of risk management concerns and the scope of financial audits. Design/methodology/approach – The prior literature that has begun to explore aspects of assessing key risk components in these relationships is reviewed with an eye to highlighting the limitations of what is understood about risk in interorganizational relationships. This analysis of the prior research establishes the basis for the logical formation of a framework for future enterprise risk management research in the area of e‐commerce relationships. Findings – Conclusions focus on the overall framework of risks that should be considered when interorganizational relationships are critical to an enterprise's operations and advocate an “extended‐enterprise” view of enterprise risk management. Research limitations/implications – The framework introduced in this paper provides guidance for future research in the area of interorganizational systems control and risk assessment. Practical implications – The framework further highlights areas of risk that auditors and corporate risk managers should consider in assessing the risk inherited through interorganizational relationships. Originality/value – The paper highlights the need to shift from an enterprise‐centric view of risk management to an extended‐enterprise risk management view.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) is a critical technology used in supply chain management systems involving logistics functions. This study explores the construct of “level of EDI implementation” in order to establish its relationship with system success and the criticality of selected implementation factors. Using the survey method that employed a pair of questionnaires for a customer‐supplier dyad engaged in EDI, the final data set consists of 128 firms constituting 64 dyads. Level of EDI implementation is positively related to one out of four EDI system success measures and is associated with the criticality of the following implementation factors: use of cross‐functional EDI teams, the conduct of pilot projects, the inclusion of security and auditing controls, the conduct of training for end users, maintenance of trading partner relationships, use of value‐added network services, and guidelines for digital signatures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the multidimensionality of total productive maintenance (TPM) and its relationship with manufacturing performance improvement in the Malaysian manufacturing sector. Specifically, this study evaluates the contribution of each TPM success factors in improving manufacturing performance.

Data from 89 employees who participated in the survey were used to test the proposed research framework. A structured questionnaire adopted from Ahuja and Khamba (2006) was used to assess the Malaysian context.

The analytical results reveal that traditional maintenance initiatives and TPM implementation initiatives significantly affect manufacturing performance, but not top management leadership and maintenance organisation. Top management roles and commitment are critical in the early stage to determine the master plan and initiate the implementation of the whole programme. However, traditional maintenance and TPM implementation initiatives gradually enable engagement, proper planning, right execution and continuous improvement, ultimately improving the manufacturing performance indicators significantly. The findings further unveil that TPM is not sustainable in Malaysia’s manufacturing organisations in the long run.

This analysis is vital for senior managers of manufacturing organisations that have implemented TPM or are considering introducing TPM in their organisations.

This study contributes to the literature by examining beyond the introduction and stabilisation phase of TPM to provide an insight of whether TPM is sustainable in the long run.