Editorial

Citation

Huang, Z. (2015), "Editorial", Journal of Modelling in Management, Vol. 10 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JM2-12-2014-0093

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Modelling in Management, Volume 10, Issue 1

Welcome to Volume 10 which is the start of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Modelling in Management (JM2). Thanks to the founder and first Editor-in-Chief, Dr Luiz Moutinho, for his dedication and contribution to the journal’s success since its establishment in 2006.

To reflect the rapid changes in technology and society, we have broadened our coverage. Four major areas are included in the journal: Quantitative Research Methods and Modeling in Marketing and Organizational Systems; Supply Chain and Operation Management; Economic Models and Energy Management; and Finance and Risk Management.

There are six interdisciplinary articles in this issue. The first two deal with performance measures and evaluation in the manufacturing sector. The paper entitled “Modeling the performance measures of world class manufacturing using interpreting structural modeling” by Digalwar, Jindal and Sangwan, presents a blend of theoretical framework and practical applications. From a literature survey and experts’ opinions, the authors identify 16 performance measures; these are validated by a questionnaire survey in India. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to obtain structural relationships among these performance measures of world class manufacturing (WCM). The adoption of the ISM-based model on WCM performance measures in manufacturing organizations would help managers, decision-makers and practitioners of WCM to better understand the performance measures and to focus on appropriate measures when implementing WCM in their organizations.

In the paper “Identification and prioritization of corporate sustainability practices using analytical hierarchy process”, Goyal, Rahman and Kazmi propose a hierarchical model to identify and prioritize corporate sustainability practices, thus improving corporate sustainability performance in the manufacturing sector. The findings of the study would be useful to practitioners in properly allocating scarce resources, thereby optimizing corporate sustainability performance, especially for manufacturing entities.

The third paper tackles supply chain issues in the automobile manufacturing industry. Shamah, Elsawaby and Shamah develop a standardized instrument to assess and analyze the different types of trust required for optimal application of open innovation. Its purpose is to enhance customer satisfaction and to help create better internal-customer performance and the development of innovative products. This exploratory study indicates that Multinational Automobile Assembly lines in Egypt are willing to apply open innovation methods to improve the performance of supply chains.

In the paper “A state-space model of a three tier APVIOBPCS supply chain”, White and Censlive develop a control engineering-based system model that allows for any value of production delay for a three-tier supply chain with information delays between tiers or systems with electronic point of sale (EPOS). A discrete z-transform model of the (Automatic Pipeline, Inventory and Order Based Production Control System) APVIOBPCS three-tier supply chain is obtained using a state-space model using a reachable control formulation. This model provides a discrete time state-space model conversion using an exponential production delay with no loss of generality and is fully controllable and observable. Stability of these models is obtained from the system eigenvalues and agrees with our previously published stability boundaries. The system is described by a linear control model of the production process and does not include production limits or limits on other resources, such as history of sales demand and response.

Aslani and Naaranoja, in the paper entitled “A systematic-qualitative research for diffusion of innovation in the primary healthcare centers”, discuss a model for diffusion of innovation among professionals in primary healthcare centers in Finland. The authors provide answers to important questions of healthcare policy facing public decision-makers, such as: “How can primary healthcare centers move toward systems that continuously improve their innovation?” A systematic-qualitative framework is developed to assess the dynamics of diffusion of innovation in primary healthcare centers (HCC). Based on this framework, the administrative system of Finnish primary HCCs is conceptualized and reviewed using three different diagrams: subsystem diagram, policy structure diagram, and causal loop diagram.

In the paper entitled “ANP based sustainable concept selection”, Jayakrishna, Vimal and Vinodh develop a model to deal with the formulation of sustainable concept selection as a typical MCDM problem and providing a solution using analytical network process (ANP). The methodology for sustainable concept selection proposed in the article enables contemporary managers to scientifically select the best alternative among the available group of alternatives. Besides the selection of best alternatives, the approach will enable managers to understand the various levels of interaction prevailing in the organization. This helps practicing managers better understand the prevailing situation in economic, social and environmental orientations.

Please share your thoughts, work and experiences here and right now. JM2 welcomes paper submissions constructed around the design of pure theoretical and/or conceptual models and the combined use of quantitative and qualitative approaches, and information for model-building and model validation. JM2 also targets key specialized practitioners – e.g. business analysts, system analysts, system engineers and business modelers. The current Aims and Scope of JM2 can be found at http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=jm2

Zhimin Huang

About the author

Zhimin Huang is a Professor of Operations Management at Adelphi University and Xue Teli Chair Professor at Beijing Institute of Technology. He received his BS in Engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MS in Economics from Renmin University of China and PhD in Management Science from the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests are mainly in supply chain management, data envelopment analysis, distribution channels, game theory, chance constrained programming theory and multi-criteria decision-making analysis. He has published more than 55 articles in leading academic and professional journals.