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The purpose of this paper is to suggest a lean, agile, resilient, and green (LARG) index as a benchmarking tool to assess the leanness, agility, resilience and the greenness of the automotive companies and corresponding supply chain (SC).

The proposed index incorporates LARG supply chain management paradigms and corresponding practices being both weighted according to their importance for the automotive SC sustainability. The Delphi technique is used to obtain the weights for each SC paradigm and a linear aggregated method is proposed. A case study approach related to the automotive SC is chosen to illustrate the LARG index application.

The case study results confirmed the usefulness and ease of application of LARG index in a real world SC. The application of the suggested index to a set of companies, and consequently to their SC, makes possible to identify: the better and worst performer company in each paradigm, the LARG practices with higher levels of application among the companies, the LARG index for each company and also for the corresponding SC. This becomes an important benchmarking tool since comparative analysis regarding the LARG behaviours are possible to perform with the suggested index.

More LARG practices could be considered to improve the robustness of the index. Future studies should be conducted across more companies for improving the effectiveness of the approach, and more members should be included in the panel of Delphi technique for enhancing the validity of the suggested approach.

SC companies will be able to assess their performance in terms of leanness, agility, resilience and greenness. A study like this could encourage all automotive companies to benchmark their organizations as regards their competitors, the best in class, and also the industry average.

This paper contributes to the literature by introducing a new index for measuring the leanness, agility, resilience and greenness of companies and SCs. This index can be used by managers as a benchmarking tool to identify their LARG behaviour and compare it with their SC partners and seek for improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the deployment of RFID technology in fashion supply chain management (FSCM). It highlights the contribution of RFID to FSCM, supporting faster logistics activities, with greater products quality, cheaper and with more responsiveness, improving customer satisfaction.

An inductive theory building approach is used to develop a conceptual model for RFID deployment in the FSCM context. Secondary data analysis from a sample of six companies supports the identification and discussion of the real advantages, disadvantages and barriers felt by companies in a fashion supply chain when RFID technology is introduced.

The logistics activities in the fashion supply chain where RFID technology is most widely deployed are: shipping operations, tracking of raw materials, semi‐finished components and finished garments, collecting finished goods, handling processes, tracking containers, tracking products from factory to store, receiving operations, monitoring, and sorting of merchandise. In most cases, the tagging operation is performed at some stage in the production process and tag reading occurs at distribution centres or at stores. The main barrier identified to the deployment of RFID is the problem of interoperability. The costs associated with the technology are the main disadvantage pointed out by the companies.

A conceptual framework is proposed exploring the RFID advantages and disadvantages across the fashion supply chain, the main barriers to its introduction and the fashion supply chain logistics activities in which RFID could be found. This represents an important contribution to companies in this industry to become more aware of RFID. Also, new companies which are thinking of introducing this technology could overcome its barriers easily, improving its advantages and minimizing its disadvantages.

This paper explores the deployment of RFID in the fashion supply chain from the perspective of technology users.

Companies need to excel in many areas to achieve a competitive advantage. This, together with pressure imposed by regulators and customers regarding sustainability concerns, leads companies to address sustainability in an integrated fashion across all management processes. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a model for the assessment of the environmental performance of a supply chain, based on four perspectives used in the balanced scorecard. Performance indicators are proposed based on the literature, as well as on the ISO 14031 and GRI standards, and were validated by a panel of experts.

Based on a literature review on models for environmental performance management a novel model to assess the environmental performance of the supply chains (Env_BSC_4_SCPM) is proposed. Data collected from the first tier suppliers of an automotive industry case study are used to test the proposed model.

The model developed was tested in a case study company, showing it ability to benchmark the company first tiers suppliers and products. The model is also useful as a decision support tool to define actions to be taken in order to improve the global environment performance of the supply chain.

The proposed model was developed to evaluate the environmental performance of supply chains. Nevertheless, the case study only takes account of the first tier suppliers, due to difficulties associated to data collecting for the other elements in the supply chain. Widening the frontiers, the next phase may include the application of this model to second, third and lower tier suppliers, as well as the final customer. Improvements in the model could also include the construction of a composite index to measure the environmental supply chain performance.

The paper provides a model that can be used by practitioners to evaluate the environmental performance of their supply chain and to decide on actions to be taken to improve it.

As stated by several authors, there has been limited research conducted in the field of environmental evaluation of supply chains. This paper proposes a novel model for the environmental performance of the supply chain and tests it using industrial empirical data.

In recent years, there has been a growing importance of sustainability communication and the role of the Internet in contemporary corporate communication that has allowed the diversification of information dissemination tools. Thus, the objective of this study is to determine the quantity and nature of the content of the information related to sustainability disclosed through the corporate website of Portuguese metal mould companies. The results obtained based on the content analysis seem to indicate that the number of metal mould companies that discloses sustainability information is quite low. Those who disclose information are in a very limited way whether in quantity or in relation to the type of information disclosed. Considering the various dimensions of sustainability, the information disclosed about environmental and social aspects is scarce. The focus is on aspects related to the economic dimension, particularly in the areas related to products and services and customers.

The purpose of this paper is to study the specialization of regional clusters and their innovative behaviour, in a particular Portuguese region.

A regional case study (Region Centro of Portugal) is used, employing secondary and primary data in order to measure specialized critical mass of a region's clusters and analyze their innovative behavior following the European Cluster Observatory (ECO) methodology.

Combining the different nature of data (primary and secondary), this paper identifies the specialized critical mass of a region's cluster, makes statements about the role of clusters in a regional context, and demonstrates how a regional clustering approach is important to understanding the innovative process. Based on an empirical survey, three types of clusters were found: basic, intermediate and advanced.

Among the research limitations is the undersized sample of primary data which does not allow deep findings to be drawn about the innovative behavior of the clusters in a general way. Therefore, future research should focus on this area, extending the empirical analysis presented here to add qualitative indicators on innovative behaviour, to calculate the impact of absorptive capacity in the case of regional clusters.

This study provides a consistent methodology of cluster operation which could be useful for undertaking comparative work within regions' clusters across different sectors and countries, to reinforce the importance of the current discussion of policy clusters, and to identify specific requirements and needs of each cluster in order to improve the quality of decision making and to draw some policy implications.

This paper is the first to measure specialized critical mass of a region's clusters at the enterprise level and to explain cluster innovative behaviour, combining primary and secondary, based on ECO criteria. Furthermore, it provides initial empirical evidence and an amount of significant findings to support managers and policymakers in the understanding of regional and innovation clustering of small to medium‐sized enterprises.

This paper proposes a framework for the implementation of sustainability practices by individual companies and corresponding supply chains (SCs), considering the various SC tiers, the three dimensions of sustainability and the following critical areas: Governance, Product and Process, Customers and Suppliers Management, and Stakeholder focus.

Using several case studies of small- and medium-size companies, a qualitative methodology is used to develop the proposed framework.

The analysis of these case studies makes it possible to identify the sustainability practices that are the most important for practitioners, thereby reducing the number of sustainability practices specified in the literature and giving some insights regarding which should be used in addressing critical areas. A set of guidelines and actions is also suggested for managers to continue the path of sustainability.

Further studies in other cultural and national realities and industrial contexts are desirable to assess the proposed framework's suitability and the results obtained.

The results of this study show that the practices implemented are highly dependent on the resources that the company can mobilize and, on the choices, and commitment to sustainability on the part of top management.

The authors propose a framework to help individual companies and corresponding SCs to implement sustainability practices considering the various dimensions of sustainability, critical areas and SC's various partners.

The study aims to improve the understanding of the online sustainability disclosure phenomena considering the quantity and nature of the content of the information related to sustainability disclosed in the corporate website of companies, providing evidence about the website sustainability disclosure of different size companies and characterizing the website sustainability disclosure of the Portuguese mold companies.

A content analysis methodology was used to the corporate websites of 83 companies in the sample. A direct approach was followed where the researcher is asked to read and classify the text in a previously defined category, but where the possibility of identifying new categories from the collected data is not excluded.

The information on sustainability disclosed by the mold companies is limited, whether in quantity or concerning the type of information. The information disclosed about environmental and social aspects is scarcer, being the focus more on aspects related to the economic dimension of sustainability, particularly in the areas related to products and services and customers.

The research design can be broadened to include other sustainability dissemination tools and other research methodologies, such as case studies, to provide a deeper understanding of the concerns and initiatives/practices of sustainability of mold companies.

This study contributes to the knowledge of sustainability dissemination practices in SMEs, an area of research that needs to be more explored and, in an industrial sector (molds) that have not received much attention in this area.

Based on the premise of the importance of corporate sustainability communication, the study focuses on the Internet as an information dissemination tool. It provides indications on the theme and information type that can be used to report the company's sustainability.