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The purpose of this paper is to characterize the pitting behaviour of sigma-phase-containing duplex stainless steel and investigate the correlation between magnetic susceptibility and pitting potentials.

Use an alternating current (AC) magnetic susceptometer to trace the change in magnetic susceptibility associated with sigma phase formation and systematic study of the effects of sigma precipitation on pitting parameters as obtained using the anodic potentiodynamic polarization test.

The precipitation of sigma phase impairs the general and pitting corrosion resistance of duplex stainless steel. The pitting potential, the corrosion potential and the AC magnetic susceptibility have good correlations. Unlike the pitting potential and the corrosion potential, the passive current and the corrosion current do not seem to possess any trend with annealing time.

The correlation between AC magnetic susceptibility and pitting parameters has not been reported in the literature before.

This study investigated information needs on COVID-19 by identifying topics discussed on social questions and answers (Q&A) about daily routines, problems, and health issues for survival. A layered model of contexts for everyday life information seeking (ELIS) was adapted for interpreting topics to better understand the contexts in which users could relate information needs.

Questions and answers posted on Naver Knowledge-iN were collected and analyzed during the first nine months following the outbreak. Time distribution, topic modeling, and association rule mining were applied to examine the topics on COVID-19 and their temporal variation.

Numerous topics related to the cognitive context (symptoms and masks) and situational contexts (international affairs, financial support, study, and work) were discovered. Topics related to social context were discussed moderately, but the number of questions on this topic increased with time. Strong associations were observed between terms related to symptoms, indicating their importance as a COVID-19 topic in health.

This study investigated topics of information needs using social Q&A data in which not only information inquiry but also information sharing coexist. The findings can help bridge the theory of ELIS to topic modeling in practice. The insights gained from this study can be used by information service providers for developing guidance and programs about how to survive during a pandemic.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-10-2021-0547.

This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by examining the role of family firm succession in shaping the firm's approach to financialisation, which has received limited attention in the previous research. In addition, the study explores the influence of factors such as clan culture, concentration of control and generational differences on the relationship between succession and financialisation.

Data were based on a sample of 7,023 firm-year observations, compiled from the listed family firms in China's A-share. Several tobit models are used for analysing the data and testing the hypotheses.

Family firm succession is negatively related to the level of financialisation, and this relationship is influenced by clan culture, concentration of control and the stage of succession. Specifically, a higher clan culture, a greater concentration of ultimate control by the controlling family member and the dominance of the first generation in management strengthens the negative relationship between family firm succession and financialisation.

This study offers new insights into the consequence of family firm succession on a new area of the firm's strategy, i.e. financialisation. The study further advances the understanding of family firm succession by considering the role of clan culture, the concentration of control and the stage of the succession process.

Supplier evaluation and selection is an essential (multi-criteria decision-making) MCDM process that considers qualitative and quantitative factors. This research work attempts to use a MCDM technique based on merging fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (F-TOPSIS) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) ideas. The study attempts to find the supplier's attributes (HOWs) to accomplish its goals after determining the product's characteristics to suit the company's needs (WHATs).

The proposed research methodology comprises the following four steps: Step 1: Determine the product purchase requirements (“WHATs”) and those pertinent to supplier evaluation (“HOWs”). In Step 2, the relative importance of the “WHAT-HOW” correlation scores is determined and also the resulting weights of “HOWs”. In Step 3, linguistic evaluations of possible suppliers in comparison to subjective criteria are given to the decision-makers. Step 4 combines the QFD and F-TOPSIS techniques to select suppliers.

A fuzzy MCDM method based on fusing and integrating fuzzy information and QFD is presented to solve the drawbacks of conventional decision-making strategies used in supplier selection. Using the F-TOPSIS method, fuzzy positive ideal solution (FPIS) and fuzzy negative ideal solution (FNIS), the relative closeness coefficient values for all alternatives are computed. The suppliers are ranked by relating the closeness of coefficient values. This method permits the combination of ambiguous and subjective data expressed as fuzzy-defined integers or linguistic variables.

QFD and TOPSIS, two widely used approaches, are combined in this article to rank and evaluate suppliers based on the traits that the suppliers choose to prioritize. This study demonstrates that the method employed could address multiple-criteria decision-making scenarios in a computationally efficient manner. The effectiveness and applicability of the method are illustrated using an example.

Lean practices are one of the fundamental practices adopted by health-care organizations to improve service quality and to reduce cost. In this context, the measurement of leanness in health-care organizations has become imperative. The purpose of this study is to measure the leanness of a hospital using fuzzy logic.

The design of the research includes two major steps. First, the identification of enablers, criteria and attributes of leanness constitutes the measures of assessment. Second, the above measures in the case hospital are assessed by using fuzzy logic approach.

This study suggests that leanness assessment is essential to identify the current lean capability of a health-care organization. This would help the health-care organizations to improve their lean performance further. The findings of the study suggest that the leanness of the case hospital is “Lean” (fuzzy range: 5.61, 7.24 and 8.91).

This study brings in three important implications from managerial point of view. First, it helps the management to assess the current level of leanness of the hospital. Second, it identifies the attributes that prevent the organization from being more lean. Third, it provides suggestive measures to address the weaker attributes and enables the enhancement of lean performance further.

The leanness assessment framework developed in the hospital operations is found to be original, and it adds value to the leanness assessment in health-care operations.

The purpose of this paper is to report case studies conducted in a company in Italy that produces packaging systems, in comparison with a Brazilian company within a similar industrial sector. The paper compares those two cases in terms of quality function deployment (QFD) usage and discusses the lessons learned from the cases.

Case‐based research was employed. Data were mostly gathered through semi‐structured interviews with engineers and managers involved with product development. Direct observation and archival data were also used to extract more evidence towards triangulation. Then, the aggregation of results was done a posteriori.

QFD implementation process was found to be similar in both companies but with some differences in terms of managerial aspects of product development, e.g. gathering the voice of customer and a more extensive use of other matrices besides the “house of quality”.

The study was limited in two companies. Although one of the purposes was to analyse if there are contextual differences between those two cases, this study was unable of verifying the context of QFD application. In addition, the study findings are not generalisable to other similar plants.

The research shows the importance of QFD implementation and similarities between the cases, in addition to contributing to application by identifying relevant aspects of its introduction. It enables practitioners to use the findings on factors that should be taken into consideration when applying QFD.

Besides the comparison between two companies, the paper discusses the innovation on QFD projects in one of the companies. In addition, the empirical results found grounding in existing theory to some extent.