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Discusses a refinement to the process by which manufacturing strategy is created. Builds on an existing strategy process (Platts, 1990) and adapts it to fit more closely within the dynamic manufacturing vision. The method for creating a manufacturing vision allows a business to do this in a two‐ to three‐week period as part of a 10‐12 week manufacturing strategy project. A conceptual model of manufacturing vision has been developed that enables practitioners to explore the factors that influenced the potential competitive contribution of manufacturing and to agree an explicit direction for change. Describes the successful application of the process in six manufacturing organizations and highlights the practical limitations of the approach.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a fast-moving pandemic that has brought about calamities and challenges to the human world. In the field of international higher education (IHE), it problematizes and challenges the operation of neo-liberal mentalities and rationales, while generating disruptions and impediments to the flows of globalization. Drawing upon extant research on IHE across spatial and cultural contexts, this essay aims to: (1) unravel the deficiencies of neo-liberal mentalities and rationales in coping with the challenges of COVID-19 to IHE; (2) assess the impacts of COVID-19 on the developments of globalization and internationalization of higher education with particular focus on the complications therein; and (3) explore the possible spill-over effects on and implications for the re-positioning of IHE in the post-COVID-19 era. Albeit the negative impacts of COVID-19 may not last, its spill-over effects are bound to cast a long shadow over IHE’s future development. This essay explores how IHE can persist in spite of deficiencies in neo-liberalism and fluidity in globalization.

This chapter examines and discusses the unintended outcomes of the production bonus scheme the mine had instituted to motivate and increase the productivity of the frontline mining teams. This is crucial given that the maladministration of the bonus system could lead to a range of undesired outcomes such as deteriorating levels of trust between management and frontline workers, prioritisation of production at the expense of safety, poor work relations and ultimately low levels of organisational, employee and team performance. There are a number of organisational, management and labour factors that can render a production bonus scheme effective or ineffective. These factors influence the nature and extent of worker reactions to the bonus scheme.

This chapter examines and discusses the factors that influenced the reaction of the mining teams to the team-based production bonus scheme and the extent to which mine management fulfilled its side of the bargain in the implementation of the production bonus. The chapter highlights the manner in which the team-based bonus system influenced teams of stope workers to engage in their informal organisational practice of making plan (planisa) in order to offset the snags that jeopardised their prospects of earning the production bonus. The chapter reveals that, to a large extent, the productivity bonus generated conflict rather than cooperation at the point of production down the mine. As a result, the incentive scheme failed to live up to expectations by not eliciting the desired levels of organisational, worker and team performance at the rock-face.

“Consumerism”, for want of a better description, is given to the mass of statutory control (which shows no sign of declining) of standards, trading justice to the consumer, means of redress to those who have been misled and defrauded, advice to those in doubt; and to the widespread movement, mostly in the Western world, to achieve these ends.

Recently, food poverty has been subject to much academic, political and media attention following the recent reduction in consumer purchasing power as a result of food and energy price volatility. Yet the lack of consensus related to food poverty terminology acts as an inhibitor in both identifying and addressing the issue in the UK, specifically as a separate problem to that of food insecurity. Misunderstanding of terminology is an impediment to identifying similarities and differentials with both developed and developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues and enhance political and academic discourse.

An exploratory approach utilising secondary research was conducted to assemble sufficient information to ensure an extensive examination, consisting of several sources inclusive of academia, government and non-governmental organisations. The literature was screened for relevance following a broad search which primarily focused upon UK publications, with the exception of national data relevant to specified countries of USA, Canada, Yemen and United Republic of Tanzania (Tanzania).

Economic access, quality, quantity, duration and social dimensions were the common features identified in the majority of the literature. Based upon these elements the proposed concise definition was constructed as; food poverty is the insufficient economic access to an adequate quantity and quality of food to maintain a nutritionally satisfactory and socially acceptable diet.

This study provides a conceptual approach in defining food poverty. Comparative to the countries examined, the UK has significant gaps in understanding and providing strategies in relation to individuals experiencing food poverty, causes and symptoms, methods of alleviation and coping strategies. There is no peer reviewed paper clearly discussing the definition of food poverty, hence, this review paper is original in three areas: establishing a definition for food poverty; clarifying the relationship between food poverty and food security; and discuss food poverty in UK with international comparison.

The creation of well‐designed products is widely acknowledged as an important contributor to company success. In principle, an effective design process, as part of the wider new product development (NPD) process, should result in well‐designed products. This paper aims to present a tool to enable a design team to evaluate their design process in a workshop setting, with a view to targeting improvements.

This tool is based on literature and has been iteratively developed using a mixed research approach, including detailed exploratory cases and application in action research mode.

The resulting tool comprises two main components. A “process audit” based on process maturity principles, which targets the design‐related activities in NPD. The process audit enables a company team to identify improvement opportunities in the design process. A product audit enables perceptions towards product characteristics to be assessed. The audit tool does not seek to be a benchmarking tool, but aims to capture “good design” principles in a form which is accessible and useful to practitioners.

In use, the tool enabled managers to balance their concern with meeting budget and timescale demands against the importance of producing well‐designed products. By first focusing on the tangible output of the design process – the product – practitioners are better able to understand the way in which design decisions influence product usability, desirability and producibility. Evidence from cases confirms the value and originality of this tool.

Previous tools addressing product development have focused on strategic and managerial concerns. This novel assessment tool focuses explicitly on design issues, within the wider context of NPD.

This paper aims to suggest the use of air or iron intervals between axially magnetized rings to increase the forces and stiffness of permanent magnet passive magnetic bearings (PMBs). The paper calculates the stiffness of such bearings through an analytical method and optimizes the dimensions of the magnets for achieving maximum stiffness.

For determining the magnetic fields distribution, forces and stiffness of the bearings, a 2D analytical method is used, based on the subdomain method. For the sake of generalization, all of the parameters are normalized and optimized for maximum normalized stiffness per magnet volume ratio.

The optimum sizes of the magnets as well as the optimum dimensions of the air or iron intervals are calculated in this paper. The optimum sizes of the magnets are around the air gap length and it is very difficult to realize them. Using iron intervals can improve the stiffness to the extremely high values in practical dimensions of the magnets.

This paper presents a novel configuration for improving the performance of PMBs with alternately axially magnetized rings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the thematic content and inclusive language in leaders' media interviews to maintain legitimacy for organizational sustainability activities.

An exploratory, qualitative content analysis of 24 organizational leaders' media interviews about environmental sustainability was conducted. Inclusive language (i.e. collective focus terms, collective personal pronouns, and metaphors) and thematic content were analyzed.

Legitimacy maintenance entails both describing organizational sustainability activities and conveying, through the use of inclusive language, multiple audiences' connection to the organization. The qualitative content analysis found that leaders discussed both primary and secondary stakeholders. With the exception of the code defending existing practices, leaders consistently highlighted positive sustainability activities of their organizations. The inclusive language analysis found that collective focus terms were used by all the leaders, with the most common term being “everyone.” Collective personal pronouns were found in half the interviews. Metaphors were employed by all leaders; the most common sustainability-related metaphors were journey, structural, personification, military/competition, vision and science.

The sample is limited to 24 organizations and not representative of all industries.

While sustainability communication research focuses on annual reports and website and social media content, this study draws attention to a common but under-examined type of strategic external communication: senior organizational leaders' media interviews. To the authors’ knowledge, scholars have not previously considered the possible legitimacy maintenance function of organizational leaders' use of inclusive language and thematic content to address a broad array of stakeholders in their external communication.

There has been an increasing interest amongst the researchers to work and explore, “Black Swan” events which are not well studied. However, the “Black Swan” events hold an eminent relevance amongst academicians and practitioners. The present study offers nuanced understanding of “Black Swan” events.

We undertook an extensive bibliometric analysis of the extant literature using “Black Swan” as guiding keyword with the help of SCOPUS database.

The search for articles only yielded 59 articles. Our analyses highlight the prominent works, authors and journals. Further, this study reveal the research gaps that may help guide future scholars interested in “Black Swan” events to examine in different context.

The current study develops a research agenda and offers numerous research directions. Research on “Black Swan” events can be apprehended at three different stages – pre-black swan event, about black swan event and post-black swan event with identified sub-themes.

This paper is the pioneer research work to dedicatedly analyse the existing set of literature with “Black Swan”.