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This study explores the impact of digital technologies and digitalization management on digitalization performance in Lithuanian manufacturing firms, aiming to unravel the dynamics between digital technology adoption and managerial capabilities in enhancing digitalization performance.

Employing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the research analyzes data from a survey of 506 Lithuanian manufacturing firms, focusing on their digitalization strategies and outcomes.

The findings reveal that while digital technologies alone do not directly influence digitalization performance, digitalization management significantly mediates this relationship, highlighting the pivotal role of managerial practices in maximizing the benefits of digital technologies.

The study acknowledges limitations in its scope, primarily focusing on Lithuanian manufacturing firms, which may affect the generalizability of its findings to other sectors or geographical contexts.

The study offers valuable insights for practitioners and managers, underscoring the importance of strategic management in leveraging digital technologies for enhanced digitalization performance and providing a roadmap for more effective digital transformation practices.

This research elucidates the intricate dynamics between digital technologies, digitalization management and digitalization performance, revealing a pivotal mediating role of digitalization management. It notably demonstrates that digital technologies, contrary to expectations, do not directly influence digitalization performance, underscoring the essential function of digitalization management in harnessing digital technologies for enhanced performance.

Lean manufacturing (LM) is essential for businesses to remain competitive in today’s global economy and to meet the needs of consumers from three separate perspectives: price, dependability and production schedules. A fundamental goal of this research is to how lean management in manufacturing organization may improve product value for the customer, address customer concerns, minimize costs and boost the firm’s profitability.

The extensive literature analysis identified a number of LM enablers and manufacturing industry factors that might favorably affect the organizations operational performance. Initially, 16 enablers of LM and 16 factors operational performance were identified, which were later reduced to 8 factors each. After that, Grey-DEMATEL technique was applied to investigate the relationships between the factors by categorizing elements into two groups (cause and effect) and ranking them within each category.

The results show that F4 (Work Force Development) and F7 (Six Sigma) were the key enablers of LM. Similarly, F12 (Maintain Better inventory control/optimize inventory level) and F14 (Reduce conversion cost) are the key effect factors of operational performance. It eliminates inefficiencies in the production process and internal storage requirements while retaining a high level of dependability and flexibility in response to customer demands.

LM has unquestionably been a popular method for improving the production efficiency of industrial sectors for the last two decades. Despite the fact that LM has helped several firms reduce waste and thereby improve a range of efficiency metrics, many businesses are still struggling to effectively transform into lean firms. While previous studies have explored LM’s significance and its influence on different aspects of organizational metrics in various industries, this research pioneers in probing into the nuanced relationship between LM enablers and OP in a critical and procedure-intensive industry.

The present study aims to identify and evaluate the socioeconomic barriers to effective COVID-19 pandemic transmission control in Pakistan.

The study identifies multiple socio-economic barriers through an extensive literature review. The preliminary analysis unveiled 15 socio-economic barriers. Nine experts were contacted to collect data and finalize the most prominent barriers to COVID-19 transmission control using the DELPHI method. The Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method was used to process and interpret the data collected and a cause–effect relationship was established among the barriers.

The finalized barriers to effective COVID-19 pandemic transmission control were evaluated using DEMATEL which grouped criteria into two grouped criteria – cause and effect. The DEMATEL analysis shows that poor safety culture, lack of strategy and goal setting, lack of resources, late realization and recognition of the pandemic problem and lack of expertise and capacity in disaster and risk management fall into the cause group. These factors are critical as they directly affect the remaining barriers identified in the study.

Despite the collective global efforts, the national economies have been struggling to completely control COVID-19 transmission control. Pakistan’s economy has been facing the third wave of the pandemic. It is mandatory to identify the barriers and evaluate them to develop a comprehensive strategy ensuring that there would be no fourth wave. The study identifies and evaluates the barriers to COVID-19 transmission control in Pakistan using the integrated DELPHI-DEMATEL framework. The findings would help the government, experts and strategists to develop a comprehensive disaster and risk management strategy.

This paper aims to examine the role of owners/managers’ big five personality traits: conscientiousness, openness, extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness on SMEs internationalization.

The research design is a quantitative approach. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 303 owners and managers of Pakistani SMEs. The hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling using AMOS.

The findings reveal that conscientiousness has an insignificant influence on the degree of internationalization while neuroticism has a significant negative influence on internationalization. Extroversion, openness and agreeableness have a significant positive influence on internationalization. The findings disclose that owners and managers with extrovert, openness and agreeable personality are more likely to enter into international markets, while managers and owners with conscientiousness and neuroticism personality do not endorse entry into foreign markets.

The results suggest that not all the personality traits facilitate internationalization process. Hence, firms that intend to enter international markers can benefit from hiring extrovert, open and agreeable personalities as managers to achieve their objectives. While managers with conscientiousness and neuroticism can be gainfully employed in other departments, they should be kept away from the decision-making processes leading to internationalization of a firm’s operations. In addition, the insights gained from this study could facilitate CEOs and executives of large firms operating in developing and developed markets to design effective strategies to promote and get the advantages of internationalization process.

This research contributes to personality literature, upper echelons theory and internationalization theory by testing the model based on the empirical evidence. This research is an intersection of the international entrepreneurship literature and psychological studies that have remained relatively unattended in prior studies. After extensive search, we have concluded that no previous study has as yet explored the role of big five personality traits in SMEs internationalization, particularly in this part of the world. It is believed that lack of studies in this sphere is, to a considerable extent, impeding the pace of internationalization by SMEs in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically investigate the patient flow and waiting time problems in hospital emergency departments (EDs) from an integrated voice of customer (VOC) and voice of process (VOP) perspective and to propose a new lean framework for ED process.

A survey was conducted to better understand patients' perceptions of ED services, lean tools such as process mapping and A3 problem-solving sheets were used to identify hidden process wastes and root-cause analysis was performed to determine the reasons of long waiting time in ED.

The results indicate that long waiting times in ED are major concerns for patients and affect the quality of ED services. It was revealed that limited bed capacity, unavailability of necessary staff, layout of ED, lack of understanding among patients about the nature of emergency services are main causes of delay. Addressing these issues using lean tools, integrated with the VOC and VOP perspectives can lead to improved patient flow, higher patient satisfaction and improvement in ED capacity. A future value stream map is proposed to streamline the ED activities and minimize waiting times.

The research involves a relatively small sample from a single case study. The proposed approach will enable the ED administrators to avoid the ED overcrowding and streamline the entire ED process.

This research identified ED quality issues from the integration of VOC and VOP perspective and suggested appropriate lean tools to overcome these problems. This process improvement approach will enable the ED administrators to improve productivity and performance of hospitals.

The current study provides new insights into the relationships between knowledge development (KD) and sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP) by exploring the mediating effects of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in terms of innovativeness, proactiveness and risk taking.

Data were collected by questionnaire survey from 242 manufacturing organizations. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The results reveal that innovativeness and proactiveness have full mediating effects on the relationship between KD and SSCP. Though KD is negatively related to risk taking and has insignificant indirect effect on SSCP via risk taking, the mediating effect of risk taking remains moderate positive on the relationship between KD and SSCP.

Given that the current study focuses on manufacturing sector, future research is needed for more comparative studies conducted in different sectors and cultural contexts. The negative link between KD and risk taking also warrants future investigation.

Organizations may reduce their level of risk taking due to the increase in KD. However, in order to enhance SSCP, risk taking is still needed as it mediates the relationship between KD and SSCP.

The mediating effects of innovativeness, proactiveness and risk taking on the relationship between KD and SSCP are unknown. Current study aims to address this gap.

Mauritius is a Small Island Development State (SIDS) with limited resources, and it has been witnessed that many containers used for storing household and industrial products are made from plastic. When discarded as waste, those plastic containers pose a serious environmental and economic challenge for Mauritius. Moreover, landfill space is getting increasingly scarce, and plastic waste is contaminating both land and water. Therefore, it is of the utmost necessity to develop solutions for Mauritius' plastic wastes. Due to its abundance and accessibility, plastic waste is a promising material for recycling and energy production. One potential solution is the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to predict household plastic consumption, allowing policymakers to design effective strategies and initiatives to reduce plastic waste. Such information is a critical component to be able to efficiently plan for the collection and routing of trucks when collecting recyclable plastics. The development of new strategies for the recycling of plastic waste and development of new industry can address the import and export potential of the country to achieve self-sustainability as well as contribute to reduction in plastic pollution and amount of waste landfilled. These plastics can thereafter be used effectively for recycling and for the making of 3D printing filaments which fall under the SDGs 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and 12 (Responsible consumption and production).

Politics has three contingent aspects, viz. a role‐play, a Majestic Art and a human social science. We may talk of the first aspect as just politicking. The second aspect was delineated by Aristotle as an art of doing vis‐a‐vis the art of making: He meant by the former a behavioural art and by the latter a productive art; and the third aspect represents a comprehensive analytical study of human social behaviour.

In the past three decades, the expansion of Islamic banking has been recognized as one of the most significant financial developments across the world, and to enhance their market share in the highly competitive global banking market, these Islamic banking institutions must continue to be innovative. Credit cards are popularized worldwide; developing countries are also intrinsically motivated to adopt this product for performing financial transactions; however, understanding the factors influencing Islamic credit card (ICC) adoption remains limited, and the ICC still needs to attain adequate market share in the banking sector. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the determinants of ICC in Pakistan.

For empirical estimation, sample data from 499 respondents, including ICC users and individuals willing to use ICC, is utilized through partial least square structural equation modeling.

The results show that attitude, compatibility, perceived behavioral control and religiosity are positive, while complexity negatively affects ICC adoption. In contrast, social influence, trust and satisfaction are insignificant determinants of ICC’s intention to use in Pakistan.

As a banking service, ICCs are viewed as a new banking product in Pakistan and have limited scope in the literature. Therefore, this study contributes to the existing literature by providing more integrating policy insights to academians and banking managers on ICC service in Pakistan.

A shared set of moral standards, ethical principles and behavioral norms of social structure can be referred to as culture. Many health problems are strongly influenced by one’s cultural background. The purpose of the paper is to examine the scientific explanation of indigenous norms and practice of health healing.

This qualitative study considered in-person interviews to know the Tribals’ indigenous healing practice in Bangladesh. A focus group discussion with five tribal students was conducted to form a baseline on Tribals’ norms, rituals and information-sharing behavior. Around 35 tribal students were interviewed to find out their healing practices, norms and rituals on health issues. All these practicing indigenous knowledge were documented instantly. Peer-reviewed scientific papers from renowned databases were searched to have scientific evidence on each case. All the studies having negative or positive evidence were mentioned with each case.

The findings showed more indigenous knowledge with scientific disagreements on health aspects among the Tribals’ health practice in Bangladesh. However, the positive impact of such knowledge is not negligible. Therefore, showcasing the scientific tribals’ indigenous knowledge to a global audience is a strong recommendation.

Health and health care-seeking behavior among the tribal population in Bangladesh is not a new area of research, few studies have focused on the context, reasons and choices in patterns of health care-seeking behavior; obstacles and challenges faced in accessing health-care provision in the tribal areas in the country. However, research attempts to show the relationship between ecological knowledge and scientific indication is new in nature.