Search results

The external business environment of the organization is always changing at a rapid pace. For a firm to adapt to changing client requirements, it must implement the right business procedures and strategies. To improve competitive advantage, this study investigates the roles that supply chain partnerships, cross-functional integration, responsiveness and resilience play in achieving competitive advantages in Palestine.

Industrial institutions in Palestine constitute the study population. Data are collected by distributing surveys via Google Forms linked to manufacturers in industries such as the Leather and shoe Industry, metal industries, chemical industries, construction industries, textile industries, stone and marble industries, pharmaceutical industry, veterinary industry, food industry, plastic industry, paper industry, major advantages and disadvantages. The SEM-PLS approach is used to analyze the data.

The findings demonstrate that supply chain responsiveness, resilience and cooperation are all improved by cross-functional integration in inventory data integration and immediate operation. Supply chain partnerships improve the supply chain’s responsiveness, resilience and competitive advantage by involving partners in work teams and exchanging best practices. The enhancement of supply chain resilience and competitive advantage is influenced by the company’s capacity to act promptly in response to variations in demands.

This paper faces some limitations and it can be drawn as follows: To enhance supply chain risk management, the study continues to concentrate on manufacturing organizations that have internal integration. It also emphasizes the necessity of supply chain integration, which establishes direct connections with outside partners.

The findings of this study suggest some policy implications, as follows: To provide the manufacturing sector with a competitive edge, operations supervisors must be able to track and assess processes to ensure they are meeting demand. Firms that possess the ability to adjust to novel procedures or advancements in technology gain a competitive edge by guaranteeing consistent and high-quality delivery of products.

By implementing IT integration, this study theoretically and practically advances the understanding of the resource-based view of competitive advantages. This study focuses on providing insights into the nature of the relationship between supply chain partnership, cross-functional integration, responsiveness and flexibility and competitive advantages in the manufacturing sector in the Palestinian market.

I aimed to obtain a deeper insight into the link between supplier involvement in product development (SIPD), supplier relationship resilience and company performance.

To collect data, a survey among 500 Polish manufacturing companies was conducted. I used quantitative methods (structural equation modeling) to test several research hypotheses referring to a single supplier–customer relationship. Thanks to the use of multi-construct measurement of SIPD and supplier relationship resilience, the study provides detailed research results on the topic.

Collaborative practices implemented during SIPD increase procurement flexibility and decrease redundancy in the relationship with the involved supplier. Communication during SIPD increases supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Increased supplier flexibility and increased procurement flexibility in the relationship with the involved supplier as well as collaborative practices during SIPD positively impact company performance. I confirmed the indirect effect between communication during SIPD and company performance when the mediators are supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Decreased redundancy in relationship with involved supplier does not impact company performance.

Supply chain managers need to rethink SIPD practice to effectively ensure supply chain resilience (SCRES), especially in the face of the contemporary global crisis and black swans affecting the supplier base. My article provides important managerial insights into drivers of SCRES and company performance.

To the best of my knowledge, this research is among the first to conclude that SIPD does not have an unequivocally positive or direct impact on supplier relationship resilience. The research fills the gap by analyzing the impact of SIPD on two main SCRES elements. The study examines supplier relationship resilience, understood as flexibility and redundancy elements, in a single supplier–buyer relationship perspective. Thus, the presented considerations go beyond the traditional understanding of flexibility and redundancy in supplier relationship management, that is through the prism of double or multi sourcing and having back up-suppliers.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect and mechanism of the digital economy’s influence on the binary margin of agricultural exports.

Based on the theoretical analysis of the mechanism of the digital economy’s influence on the binary margin of agricultural exports, this study empirically examines the effect and mechanism of the digital economy’s influence on the binary margin of agricultural exports based on China’s customs export data from 2011 to 2016.

The relevant findings are threefold. (1) The digital economy significantly improves the binary margin of agricultural exports, and its effect on the intensive margin is stronger than that on the expansive margin. After the expansive margin is subdivided, the effects on the three sub-variables of the expansive margin are in the following order: old products exported to new markets > new products exported to old markets > new products exported to new markets. (2) The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the digital economy has a stronger role in promoting the binary margin of exports for enterprises in the eastern region, high-income countries as the destination of exports and state-owned enterprises. (3) Mechanism analysis shows that the digital economy promotes the binary margin of agricultural exports by reducing trade costs and intensifying market competition.

First, in terms of research perspective, although there are some studies on the impact of the digital economy on export trade in existing literature, the research objects mainly focus on manufacturing enterprises. In fact, agricultural trade is susceptible to natural conditions and seasonal factors, and countries may impose more SPS measures and TBT measures on agricultural trade due to risk considerations. The relationship between the digital economy and agricultural trade also has its own characteristics, but there are few research studies in this area. At present, only Liu and Gao (2022), based on the data of total imports and exports of different agricultural products from 2004 to 2018, have established a vector auto-regressive model to empirically analyse the heterogeneous dynamic impact of the digital economy on the trade volume of agricultural products. In addition, Ma and Guo (2023) conducted an empirical test on the total effect, regional heterogeneity and threshold effect of the digital economy on agricultural export trade based on China’s provincial panel data from 2011 to 2020. Therefore, under the new circumstances of continuous integration of digital technology and agriculture, this study interprets the impact effect and mechanism of the digital economy on the binary margin of agricultural exports from the perspective of the digital economy, providing new research perspectives and approaches for promoting the growth of agricultural exports. Second, in terms of theoretical analysis, the above studies have not been fully analysed in terms of the specific mechanism of the impact of the digital economy on agricultural exports. Based on the positive and negative characteristics of agricultural trade, this study introduces two kinds of roles into the theoretical analysis framework to comprehensively determine the trade impact effect of the digital economy. Third, in terms of research design, this study empirically examines the impact of the digital economy on the binary margin of agricultural products, passing a series of robustness tests and investigating the mediating roles of trade cost and market competition effects, producing an empirical basis for China to leverage the digital economy to promote the binary margin of agricultural exports.

This study aims to increase the novelty of clothing design and fabric texture. The element library that can be used for design is systematically summarized. The element database can also be continuously filled according to the existing logic to realize the diversity of design. Improve the theory of fashion design, expand the designer's design ideas and improve design efficiency. Clear design steps and logic can help students and machines learn the design process and promote the development of intelligent design. And verify the feasibility of the simulation software to assist pleated clothing design.

Firstly, according to the logical framework of origami theory, different innovative designs and combined designs are made for the basic units of hyperbolic paraboloid, and the element library that can be used for design is systematically summarized. This database can also be continuously filled according to the existing logic to realize the diversity of design. Secondly, it summarizes three methods of pleated element filling clothing – uniform filling method, the irregular filling method and geometric addition method – that improve the theory of fashion design, expand the designer's design ideas and improve design efficiency. Clear design steps and logic can help students and machines learn the design process and promote the development of intelligent design. Finally, the virtual software is used to simulate the effect of pleated clothing, and the three-dimensional simulation software 3dclo is used to make an empirical study on the application of hyperbolic paraboloid origami in clothing pleated design to verify the feasibility of the simulation software to assist pleated clothing design.

The theoretical results of hyperbolic paraboloid origami are collected and arranged to establish the element library of hyperbolic paraboloid origami. The results expand the designer's design ideas and auxiliary design technology and improve the design efficiency using a sample of hyperbolic paraboloid fabric to verify its practicability and three-dimensional clothing simulation software for exploring the design. The design rules of hyperbolic paraboloid clothing and the realization method of fabric are summarized, including the expansion and combing of elements, the application of size and shape and the method of combination.

Owing to the hyperbolic paraboloid origami’s length shrinkage, the loose computation of clothing requires targeted computation. This paper solely applies a paper model for estimating the shrinkage, and then we tend to subsequently explore the way to precisely compute the porosity, to determine the existing differences in the two-dimensional shrinkage of hyperbolic paraboloid creases of varying materials and to know if the clothing after large-scale production is capable of reaching the anticipated value.

The exploration of this experiment brings a new 3D experiment process to the design process.

This experiment brings new possibilities for the development of virtual fitting and virtual display in the industry.

This study combines hyperbolic paraboloid origami and clothing and combs and expands the unit with logical thinking to expand the designer's design ideas.

The study aims to delve into the “phygital customer journey” (PCJ), which merges physical and digital interactions in customer experiences, using a practice-based lens to reveal the underlying dynamics of these blended encounters.

Feedback from 60 individuals established the groundwork for a qualitative analysis. They chronicled customer journeys through diaries and used UXPressia software for journey mapping. This strategy enabled a detailed exploration of the PCJ, focusing on customers’ lived experiences and perceptions.

The study presents an integrative framework for the PCJ, identifying four key elements: hybrid artefacts (the melding of digital and physical tools/interfaces), blended contexts (the seamless integration of digital and physical spaces), circular actions (the non-linear paths of customer engagement) and intertwined emotions (the complex emotional responses to phygital experiences). These elements underscore the intricate and interconnected nature of the PCJ.

This study advances the field by applying a practice-based approach to unravel the complexities of the PCJ, illuminating the nuanced interplay between digital and physical realms. This innovative lens foregrounds the significance of practices in consumer experiences, thereby contributing to a deeper academic and practical understanding of phygital integration.

Playful work design (PWD) is a set of proactive strategies implementing fun and self-challenge at work to actively create better work conditions. Following the job demands-resources theory, this study aims to investigate the effects of PWD’s dimensions – i.e. “designing fun” and “designing competition” – on task and contextual performance (Study 1) and on the dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) – i.e. altruism, conscientiousness and civic virtue (Study 2). Furthermore, the present research investigates the mediating role of work engagement (WE) for both studies.

Two samples of 339 and 141 Italian workers participated by filling in a self-report questionnaire. Measuring models and hypotheses have been tested by structural equation models.

Results suggest that WE partially mediates the relationship of the “designing competition” subdimension of PWD with task and contextual performance (Study 1) and with conscientiousness and civic virtue of OCBs, while “designing fun” shows a positive direct relationship only with altruism (Study 2).

This paper contributes to expanding knowledge about PWD’s effectiveness in facilitating performance and positive behaviors. Furthermore, it disentangles the different effects of PWD’s dimensions on performance. In light of the results, both employees and managers should be aware of the beneficial consequences of introducing fun and self-competitiveness when completing their own work activities.

Operational risks can cause considerable, atypical disturbances and impact food supply chain (SC) resilience. Indicatively, the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions in the UK food services as nationwide stockouts led to unprecedented discrepancies between retail and home-delivery supply capacity and demand. To this effect, this study aims to examine the emergence of digital platforms as an innovative instrument for food SC resilience in severe market disruptions.

An interpretive multiple case-study approach was used to unravel how different generations of e-commerce food service providers, i.e. established and emergent, responded to the need for more resilient operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SC disruption management for high-impact low-frequency events requires analysing four research elements: platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency. Established e-commerce food operators use partner onboarding and local waste valorisation to enhance resilience. Instead, emergent e-commerce food providers leverage localised rapid upscaling and product personalisation.

Digital food platforms offer a highly customisable, multisided digital marketplace wherein platform members may aggregate product offerings and customers, thus sharing value throughout the network. Platform-induced disintermediation allows bidirectional flows of data and information among SC partners, ensuring compliance and safety in the food retail sector.

The study contributes to the SC configuration and resilience literature by investigating the interrelationship among platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency for safe and resilient food provision within exogenously disrupted environments.

This study aims to analyse the influence of digitalisation on the management control function of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular, it aims to illuminate how digitalisation influences management control elements, organisation and roles/competencies and to identify obstacles to digitalisation of management control in SMEs and measures taken to overcome them.

The study is based on guideline-supported expert interviews conducted with 14 financial managers from SMEs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

This study reveals the influence of digitalisation on management control elements, organisation, and roles/competencies. The automation and standardisation of management control processes result in new elements for management control, such as strategic support for management. In addition, the increased availability and transparency of data enable the use of instruments within a company that allow for quick analyses of the company's development. Digitalisation leads to the integration of management control into the corporate network and, thus, a change in the organisation of management control. It also triggers the expansion of management control competencies, especially IT competencies. A shortage of internal digitalisation resources, unclear corporate roadmaps, and a lack of managerial experience loom as central challenges for digitalising the management control function. Measures derived from the interviews can help SMEs overcome the obstacles to the digitalisation of management control.

This research is the first interview-based study of the impact of digitalisation on management control in SMEs, potential obstacles to that digitalisation, and measures to overcome those obstacles. Thus, it contributes to the emerging debate on factors that may explain why SMEs lag in terms of the digitalisation of their internal processes.

In this article, we reflect on how smart technology is transforming service research discourses about service innovation and value co-creation. We adopt the concept of technology smartness’ to refer to the ability of technology to sense, adapt and learn from interactions. Accordingly, we seek to address how smart technologies (i.e. cognitive and distributed technology) can be powerful resources, capable of innovating in relation to actors’ agency, the structure of the service ecosystem and value co-creation practices.

This conceptual article integrates evidence from the existing theories with illustrative examples to advance research on service innovation and value co-creation.

Through the performative utterances of new tech words, such as onlife and materiality, this article identifies the emergence of innovative forms of agency and structure. Onlife agency entails automated, relational and performative forms, which provide for new decision-making capabilities and expanded opportunities to co-create value. Phygital materiality pertains to new structural features, comprised of new resources and contexts that have distinctive intelligence, autonomy and performativity. The dialectic between onlife agency and phygital materiality (structure) lies in the agencement of smart tech–enabled value co-creation practices based on the notion of becoming that involves not only resources but also actors and contexts.

This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework that advances a tech-based ecology for service ecosystems, in which value co-creation is enacted by the smartness of technology, which emerges through systemic and performative intra-actions between actors (onlife agency), resources and contexts (phygital materiality and structure).

Large-scale text-based data increasingly poses methodological challenges due to its size, scope and nature, requiring sophisticated methods for managing, visualizing, analyzing and interpreting such data. This paper aims to propose semantic network analysis (SemNA) as one possible solution to these challenges, showcasing its potential for consumer and marketing researchers through three application areas in phygital contexts.

This paper outlines three general application areas for SemNA in phygital contexts and presents specific use cases, data collection methodologies, analyses, findings and discussions for each application area.

The paper uncovers three application areas and use cases where SemNA holds promise for providing valuable insights and driving further adoption of the method: (1) Investigating phygital experiences and consumption phenomena; (2) Exploring phygital consumer and market discourse, trends and practices; and (3) Capturing phygital social constructs.

The limitations section highlights the specific challenges of the qualitative, interpretivist approach to SemNA, along with general methodological constraints.

Practical implications highlight SemNA as a pragmatic tool for managers to analyze and visualize company-/brand-related data, supporting strategic decision-making in physical, digital and phygital spaces.

This paper contributes to the expanding body of computational, tool-based methods by providing an overview of application areas for the qualitative, interpretivist approach to SemNA in consumer and marketing research. It emphasizes the diversity of research contexts and data, where the boundaries between physical and digital spaces have become increasingly intertwined with physical and digital elements closely integrated – a phenomenon known as phygital.