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Being acquainted with both lean and action learning in theory and in practice, this study finds that the theoretical complementarity of these two research streams has traditionally been underexploited. In this conceptual paper, this study aims to advance the theoretical understanding of lean by exploring the complementarity of lean thinking and action learning leading to a proposed integrated theory of these two research streams. Target audience is the operations management research community.

By deliberately adopting a process of theorising, this paper explores, reflects upon and combines individual experiences of researching, teaching and engaging in lean and action learning as operations management scholars.

Having taken a gemba walk through the literature and practices of lean and action learning, this study views and notices a systematic and complementary relationship between the two domains. The overlapping theoretical and practical complementarities of lean and action learning suggest that these two research streams are ripe for synthesis into an integrated theory. This finding provides an opportunity to (1) progress towards an integrative design of interventions leading to more sustainable lean system adoptions and (2) add new depth to our theoretical explanation of the success and failures of lean system adoptions.

This paper contributes an original integrated theory perspective on lean and action learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explain why Singapore is a success story today despite the fact that its prospects for survival were dim when it became independent in August 1965.

This paper describes the changes in Singapore’s policy context from 1959 to 2016, analyses the five factors responsible for its success and concludes with advice for policy makers interested in implementing Singapore-style reforms to solve similar problems in their countries.

Singapore’s success can be attributed to these five factors: the pragmatic leadership of the late Lee Kuan Yew and his successors; an effective public bureaucracy; effective control of corruption; reliance on the “best and brightest” citizens through investment in education and competitive compensation; and learning from other countries.

This paper will be useful to those scholars and policy makers interested in learning from Singapore’s success in solving its problems.

The study aims to deal with three theoretical approaches to answer the research question: Does political reform in rentier States (Kuwait as a model) lead to political stability? The first approach: Following the steps of political reform in rentier States leads eventually to political stability. The second approach: Political stability in rentier States does not necessarily lead to political reform. The third approach: In rentier States, the decisive factor in interpreting the correlation between political reform and political stability requires explaining other intermediary factors.

David Easton’s input-output model: Easton defined the political system as the interactions related to the authoritarian allocation of values in society, that is, the distribution of resources by decisions adopted by individuals, and provided a framework for analysis of the political system in which it sees an integrated circuit of a dynamic nature that starts with inputs and outputs feedback, input and output. Inputs refer to the effects of the environment on the system. Outputs are the effects of the system on the environment, which are the decisions and policies taken by the system to meet the demands. Reverse feedback is the flow of information to the system about the results of its actions, the results of its decisions and policies. Generate new inputs in the form of a demand or support, and the system’s feedback feeds a kind of movement.

It can be said that the future of the rentier state is particularly dangerous in the Arab countries where the problem today is the sharp drop in oil prices, which requires the need to enter into the stage of major transformations and work to bring about fundamental changes and enter into radical constitutional, economic, political and social reforms before turning them from the state rent to countries that lack political stability.

The aim of this research is to present a theoretical study of political reform. The study began to consolidate the concept of political reform, which was and still is the goal of many political and social reform leaders and movements, in addition to being a major topic in political theories. Reform can be carried out by violence and by peaceful change. In any case, reform remains a humanitarian need that cannot be ignored or avoided, because the alternative is worsening and deteriorating political and social conditions.

The Arab Spring revolutions set many challenges for the Arab countries. These countries had to start political reforms. The State of Kuwait was one of the most important rentier countries that, after the Arab Spring revolutions, was concerned with ensuring that individuals and groups exercised their political rights through political participation in decision-making. It guarantees the human existence of society and protects it through the law and its legislation, and grants rights and freedoms and does not oppose it.

Political reforms lead to accommodating the demands of the opposition, increasing the political participation of citizens, activating the political role of women, activating the role of civil society and increasing political mobility.

The importance of the research paper is to emphasize the term rentier state and confirm the importance of reform in rentier countries and the paper asks whether the expansion of political rights, citizenship and participation will lead to stability or instability in these countries.

This article analyzes the implementation of anti-corruption reforms in Taiwan by two former presidents, Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008) and Ma Ying-jeou (2008-2016).

A three-tier research approach, including in-depth interviews, questionnaire survey, and descriptive and inferential analysis, is adopted. In addition to Chen and Ma, 11 senior anti-corruption officials who served under both presidents were interviewed by the author. The survey questions cover 12 factors which are later grouped into the five dimensions of ethical leadership, considerate leadership, delegating leadership, participatory leadership, and performance to illustrate the causal relationship between these dimensions and performance.

Ma’s personal ethics are distinct from Chen’s in kind but Ma’s overall leadership and performance outshine Chen’s in degree rather than in kind. While the gap of ethical leadership between two Taiwan presidents is significantly wider than other dimensions of leadership, the outcome of the national integrity is not proportionate to the ethical leadership gap. In other words, personal ethics are not automatically transformed into political will for enhancing anti-corruption effectiveness. Three popular forms of corruption, red envelopes (bribing), influence-peddling, and vote-buying are analyzed in the context of changing political culture through national leadership. Unfortunately, both Chen and Ma produce insignificant contributions based on public surveys.

Policy-makers and scholars can use these research findings to further explore how ethical leadership can enhance a country’s anti-corruption performance.

Looking at the limits of artificial intelligence (AI) and controlling based on complexity and system-theoretical deliberations, the authors aimed to derive a future outlook of the possible applications and provide insights into a future complementary of human–machine information processing. Derived from these examples, the authors propose a research agenda in five areas to further the field.

This article is conceptual in its nature, yet a theoretically informed semi-systematic literature review from various disciplines together with empirically validated future research questions provides the background of the overall narration.

AI is found to be severely limited in its application to controlling and is discussed from the perspectives of complexity and cybernetics. A total of three such limits, namely the Bremermann limit, the problems with a partial detectability and controllability of complex systems and the inherent biases in the complementarity of human and machine information processing, are presented as salient and representative examples. The authors then go on and carefully illustrate how a human–machine collaboration could look like depending on the specifics of the task and the environment. With this, the authors propose different angles on future research that could revolutionise the application of AI in accounting leadership.

Future research on the value promises of AI in controlling needs to take into account physical and computational effects and may embrace a complexity lens.

AI may have severe limits in its application for accounting and controlling because of the vast amount of information in complex systems.

The research agenda consists of five areas that are derived from the previous discussion. These areas are as follows: organisational transformation, human–machine collaboration, regulation, technological innovation and ethical considerations. For each of these areas, the research questions, potential theoretical underpinnings as well as methodological considerations are provided.

As a problem-solving tool, the kaizen event (KE) is underutilised in practice. Assuming this is due to a lack of group process quality during those events, the authors aimed to grasp what is needed during high-quality KE meetings. Guided by the phased approach for structured problem-solving, the authors built and explored a measure for enriching future KE research.

Six phases were used to code all verbal contributions (N = 5,442) in 21 diverse, videotaped KE meetings. Resembling state space grids, the authors visualised the course of each meeting with line graphs which were shown to ten individual kaizen experts as well as to the filmed kaizen groups.

From their reactions to the graphs the authors extracted high-quality KE process characteristics. At the end of each phase, that should be enacted sequentially, explicit group consensus appeared to be crucial. Some of the groups spent too little time on a group-shared understanding of the problem and its root causes. Surprisingly, the mixed-methods data suggested that small and infrequent deviations (“jumps”) to another phase might be necessary for a high-quality process. According to the newly developed quantitative process measure, when groups often jump from one phase to a distant, previous or next phase, this relates to low KE process quality.

A refined conceptual model and research agenda are offered for generating better solutions during KEs, and the authors urge examinations of the effects of well-crafted KE training.

This study aims to identify the location of the micropyle, the role of the micropyle in seed germination and the association between the micropyle size and seed weight of grass peas.

First, the micropyle was identified by cutting the seed in half and observing the seeds under the electron microscope. Second, the micropyle was covered by lanolin to block water imbibition. The rate of imbibition and germination was then observed. Lastly, micropyle sizes of various grass pea genotypes were identified by capturing seed images under a light microscope and converting the sizes to mm² using computer software (ImageJ).

The location of micropyle was located nearby the hilum, similar to soybean seeds. Seed imbibition was significantly lower in lanolin application (<87%) than in the control (>124%) after 24 hours of submergence. Germination was a day delay for lanolin application on the micropyle compared to lanolin application on the non-micropyle. The germination delay resulted in a significantly lower germination percentage at <57% on the micropyle lanolin application than at >79% on the non-micropyle lanolin application after 10 days of sowing. There is no correlation between the micropyle size and seed weight.

These findings add information on the location and the role of the micropyle for grass pea seed germination.

This study aims to examine the diffusion and implementation of trust-based management (TBM) in Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden). TBM is a novel “anti-New Public Management (NPM)” innovation within the realm of New Public Governance (NPG), which asserts that leadership and control in public sector organizations should be practiced and designed based on the assumption that civil servants and employees in general are trustworthy. The research questions are as follows: How has TBM been diffused and implemented in Scandinavia? To what extent can the institutional logics framework increase understanding of similarities and differences between the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden)?

The authors designed and submitted surveys to the municipal directors of the three Scandinavian municipal populations, thereby producing a unique cross-country dataset on TBM diffusion and implementation in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden).

The authors' study shows that TBM has diffused widely among Scandinavian municipalities and has developed into a municipal-level concept across policy fields and sectors. While Denmark stands out as an earlier and more decisive TBM reformer, the results show that similarities in the diffusion and implementation of TBM in Scandinavian countries are more apparent than the differences.

This study contributes to the public management literature and research on anti-NPM and NPG concepts by being the first wide-scale empirical study of TBM diffusion and implementation in the Scandinavian municipal sectors.

This paper aims to characterize the type of support provided to victims of violence against women and domestic violence (VAWDV) during the first lockdown, assessing the training of professionals to use remote support (RS).

This cross-sectional study involves a sample of 196 support professionals, mainly women (91.8%) and who integrate the Portuguese National Support Network for victims of domestic violence (NSNVDV) (Mean age = 36.49; SD = 10.52).

Telephone emerges as the main RS communication media used in the lockdown (43.9%) and the emergency state periods (57.1%). Participants reported to have never used any social applications (41.8% vs 41.8%) or videoconference (46.4% vs 58.2%), in both periods assessed, i.e. lockdown and emergency state, respectively, and 82.7% assumed to have no training with RS to assist VAWDV victims. However, support professionals recognized several advantages in using RS such as dealing with isolation, reducing inhibition, fear and shame and in promoting the victims’ empowerment.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, only descriptive analyzes were conducted.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about effective RS given by professionals to victims of VAWDV in the Portuguese context. The paper aims to add knowledge to the studied field.

Due to increasing supply chain complexity, the supply chain uncertainty has become an imperative issue, which hinders the development of modern logistics and supply chain management. The paper attempts to conceptualize reverse logistics uncertainty from supply chain uncertainty literature and present the types of reverse logistics uncertainty in a triadic model.

The concept of reverse logistics uncertainty is developed based on a triadic model of logistics uncertainty and supply chain uncertainty literature. A desk research is conducted to develop a taxonomy of reverse logistics uncertainty. To better depict the reverse logistics uncertainty, we use case studies to discuss the types of reverse logistics uncertainty in the triadic model.

The study reveals four types of supply chain uncertainties in the reverse logistics. We call them reverse logistics uncertainty. Type-A and Type-B uncertainty are new types of supply chain uncertainty in the reverse logistics.

The types of reverse logistics uncertainty have not been empirically validated in industries. Especially, the two new types including Type-A and Type-B reverse uncertainty need further exploration.

Although reverse logistics has been discussed in the past decades, very few studies have been conducted on the supply chain uncertainty in returns management arena. The paper offers valuable insights to better understand the supply chain uncertainty in the reverse logistics. This also provides suggestions for both managers and researchers to reflect on the reverse logistics uncertainty management and business sustainability.