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The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for people of all ages underscores the vital role of public healthcare facilities (PHFs) in delivering essential healthcare services. However, these facilities often suffer from inadequate maintenance, exacerbated by the insufficient implementation of maintenance strategies. Recognizing the importance of PHFs in enhancing healthcare services, this paper investigates the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in the maintenance strategies of PHFs in South Africa.

Through semi-structured interviews with nineteen purposively selected maintenance personnel from the Limpopo Department of Health (DoH), this study identified and analyzed the CSFs to enhance maintenance operations in PHFs. Thematic content analysis was employed to derive key insights from the collected data.

The study's findings highlight adequate maintenance planning and effective leadership as the two overarching CSFs in the maintenance of PHFs. These factors play a pivotal role in addressing challenges that hinder the current maintenance team from meeting maintenance requirements to the satisfaction of both staff and patients within PHFs.

The study offers valuable insights for policymakers to improve the effectiveness of maintenance operations in PHFs. By addressing the identified CSFs, policymakers can enhance maintenance operations in PHFs, positively impacting healthcare service delivery and the well-being of both staff and patients.

The construction industry shows an increased interest in how to manage logistics within construction projects. Often construction logistics is outsourced to a logistics service provider (LSP). However, construction logistics is normally approached either as a strategic decision or as an operational issue and rarely as a tactical concern. The purpose of this study is to explore how to organize the logistics outsourcing decision at strategic, tactical and operational levels.

This study is performed as a single-case study within a construction corporation, containing (amongst others) a building contractor (BC) and a construction equipment rental company (CERC) offering logistics services.

The study shows that to procure construction logistics service successfully, BCs need logistics capabilities at strategic and tactical levels to maintain an alignment between the use of logistics services and operational characteristics. Simultaneously, CERC’s need to design their service offerings to correspond to the needs of the BC.

This study builds on a single-case study of a Swedish construction corporation. Further research is needed to better understand current logistics outsourcing and development practices and how these can be improved to foster better logistics management at the project level.

BCs find suggestions of different logistics organization structures and suitable outsourcing arrangements. CERCs and LSPs can use the findings to understand their customers’ needs and adapt service offerings.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first studies of how two companies within a corporation can work together to develop construction logistics service offerings.

This paper aims to investigate how firms can enhance their resilience in response to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the study focuses on assessing responsiveness as an antecedent and logistics outsourcing as a boundary condition to resilience.

Survey data collected from 286 manufacturing firms in Finland during 2021 are analysed to examine the relationships between supply chain responsiveness, logistics outsourcing and resilience.

Firm responsiveness is found to improve resilience, while an increasing level of logistics outsourcing weakens this relationship. Surprisingly, geographic dispersion does not significantly affect supply chain responsiveness.

Limitations of the study include the focus on manufacturing firms in Finland and the reliance on survey data. Future research could explore additional factors influencing resilience and consider a broader range of industries and geographical regions.

The findings offer valuable insights for managers seeking to enhance their firms’ resilience in the face of disruptions. By understanding the importance of responsiveness and the potential drawbacks of excessive logistics outsourcing, managers can make informed decisions to improve their firms’ ability to cope with unexpected challenges.

This research contributes to the understanding of resilience in supply chain disruptions by addressing fundamental questions related to efficiency, responsiveness, control and complexity. By examining the interplay between responsiveness, logistics outsourcing and resilience, the study enriches the understanding of how firms can effectively navigate unexpected challenges.

This study aims to investigate why and how shared service centres (SSCs) are implemented as well as how they affect audit firm practice and audit quality.

In this qualitative study guided by the theoretical framework of institutional theory, the authors conducted 25 semi-structured interviews in seven European countries, including 16 interviews with audit partners from Big 4 firms, 6 with audit team members, 2 with interviewees from second-tier audit firms and 1 with a member of an oversight body.

The authors show that the central rationale for audit firms to implement SSCs is economic rather than external legitimacy. The authors find that SSC implementation has substantial effects on audit practices, particularly those related to standardisation, coordination and monitoring activities. The authors also highlight the potential impacts on audit quality.

By exploring the motivation for and effects of SSC implementation amongst audit firms, the authors offer insights into the best practices related to subsequent change processes and audit quality.

In this paper, the authors examine the strategies used to reduce labour costs in three public hospitals in South Africa, which were effective and why. In the democratic era, after the revelations of large-scale corruption, the authors ask whether their case studies provide lessons for how public service institutions might re-make themselves, under circumstances of austerity.

A comparative qualitative case study approach, collecting data using a combination of interviews with managers, focus group discussions and interviews with shop stewards and staff was used.

Management in two hospitals relied on their financial power, divisions between unions and employees' loyalty. They lacked the insight to manage different actors, and their efforts to outsource services and draw on the Extended Public Works Program failed. They failed to support staff when working beyond their scope of practice, reducing employees' willingness to take on extra responsibilities. In the remaining hospital, while previous management had been removed due to protests by the unions, the new CEO provided stability and union–management relations were collaborative. Her legitimate power enabled unions and management to agree on appropriate cost cutting strategies.

Finding an appropriate balance between the new reality of reduced financial resources and the needs of staff and patients, requires competent unions and management, transparency and trust to develop legitimate power; managing in an authoritarian manner, without legitimate power, reduces organisational capacity. Ensuring a fair and orderly process to replace ineffective management is key, while South Africa grows cohorts of competent managers and builds managerial experience.

This work conducts a comprehensive analysis of how to incorporate resilience and sustainability into capacity expansion strategies for business-to-business (B2B) chemical supply chains. This study aims to guide both researchers and managers on ensuring profitability in B2B chemical supply chains while minimizing environmental impacts, complying with regulations and mitigating disruptions and risks.

A systematic literature review is conducted to analyze the interplay between sustainability and resilience in chemical B2B supply chains, specify the quantitative and qualitative methods used to tackle this challenge and identify the drivers and barriers concerning capacity expansion. In addition, a comprehensive conceptual framework is suggested to outline a compelling research agenda.

The findings emphasize the increasing importance of modeling and resolving decision-making challenges related to sustainable and resilient supply chains, particularly in capital-intensive chemical industries. Yet, there is no standardized strategy for addressing these challenges. The predominant solution methods are heuristic and metaheuristic, and the selection of performance metrics tends to be empirical and tailored to specific cases. The main barriers to achieving sustainability and resilience arise from resource limitations within the supply chain. Conversely, the key drivers of performance focus on enhancing efficiency, competitiveness, cost effectiveness and risk management.

This work offers practitioners a conceptual framework that synthesizes the knowledge and tackles the challenges of designing sustainable and resilient supply chains as well as managing their operations in the context of B2B chemical supply chains. Results provide a practical guide for navigating the complex interplay of sustainability, resilience and chemical supply chain expansion.

The key concepts and dimensions associated with capacity expansion planning for a resilient and sustainable chemical supply chain are identified through structured and comprehensive analyses of existing literature. A conceptual framework is proposed for delineating the intersections among sustainability, resilience and chemical supply chain expansions. This mapping endeavor aims to facilitate a future characterized by the deployment of a nexus of resilience and sustainability in chemical supply chains. To this end, a promising future research agenda is accordingly outlined.

This paper aims to explore the impact of fourth-party logistics (4PL) adoption on the agility, adaptability and alignment (AAA) capabilities within humanitarian supply chains (HSCs).

Semi-structured interviews with individuals from a large non-government organisation were combined with secondary data to assess the influence of 4PL adoption on AAA capabilities in HSCs.

The results indicate that HSCs exhibit some of the AAA antecedents but not all are fully realised. While 4PL positively affects the AAA capabilities of HSCs, its adoption faces challenges such as the funding environment, data security/confidentiality and alignment with humanitarian principles. The study suggests an AAA antecedent realignment, positioning alignment as a precursor to agility and adaptability. It also identifies three core antecedents in HSCs: flexibility, speed and environmental uncertainty.

The study shows the positive impact 4PL adoption can have on the AAA capabilities of HSCs. The findings have practical relevance for those wishing to optimise HSC performance through 4PL adoption, by identifying the inhibiting factors to its adoption as well as strategies to address them.

This research empirically explores 4PL’s impact on AAA capabilities in HSCs, highlighting the facilitating and hindering factors of 4PL adoption in this environment as well as endorsing a realignment of AAA antecedents. It also contributes to the growing research on SC operations in volatile settings.

This paper analyzes the ways in which accounting enables operations managers to enter and perform multiple roles in their interplay with organizational groups on the shop floor and in management, and the associated negotiations that operations managers have with “the self.”

Using field-based studies in a mining organization, the study draws on Goffman’s backstage–frontstage metaphor to analyze how operations managers enter and perform several roles with the aid of accounting.

The findings show that accounting legitimizes operations managers when they cross organizational boundaries, as accounting gives them an “entry ticket” that legitimizes their presence with the group. Accounting further allows operations managers to embrace more than one role by “putting on a mask” to become an outsider or insider in relation to a group. In performing their roles, operations managers exhibit varying attributes and knowledge. Accounting can thereby be withheld from, or shared with, organizational groups. The illusion of accounting as deterministic presented frontstage is not necessarily negotiated that way backstage. Rather, alternatives discussed backstage often become silenced in the frontstage performance. The study concludes that operations managers cross boundaries, embrace roles and exert agency as they navigate with accounting, enrolling it into their performance simultaneously as they backstage reflect upon accounting and its role for their everyday work.

This study relies on the frontstage/backstage metaphor to visualize the discrepancies in how accounting is enrolled into role performances and how seemingly categorical fronts do not necessarily share that dominant position backstage.

This paper aims to contribute to the management control systems (MCS) changes in public-private partnerships (PPSs) by developing a conceptual archetype explaining the relationship between trust and MCSs in PPPs, and highlighting how this relationship may evolve over time.

The paper adopts a longitudinal case study methodology focusing on a hospital built and operated under a project finance deal. The methods adopted include semistructured interviews, direct observation and internal documentation analysis. We conducted 15 semistructured interviews from 2019 to 2021. In analyzing different documents and interviews, we triangulated data to ensure solid interpretation.

The case shows how trust can take different configurations depending on the type of MCS used. The results highlight how different patterns of MCSs, about trust, can be combined to govern PPPs. The case also shows the temporal dynamics of how MCS and trust evolve at different organizational levels and how bureaucratic control matched with contractual trust and trust-based control matched with competence trust can coexist at different times and organizational levels.

Managers involved in PPPs will be aware of the role of different types of trust in shaping and managing the relationship between partners at different organizational levels. Furthermore, the findings could help policymakers to adopt more informed decisions and to promote practice-based trust at various organizational levels of PPPs.

The paper proposes a management control archetype based on bureaucracy- and trust-based patterns concerning the level of programmability of tasks, as well as defined risks.

The purpose of the study is to explore the integration of facets of information technology (IT) governance at a professional council in South Africa with the view to develop a framework.

This critical emancipatory study used the Information Governance Initiative pinwheel to explore the architecture facet of information governance at the professional council, with a view to developing a framework for entrenching a culture of good corporate governance. Qualitative data was collected through interviews and document analysis. The study was a participatory action research project that involved collaboration between the researcher and study participants in defining and solving the problem through a needs assessment exercise.

The key findings report on the processes taken by a professional council in identifying and implementing the facets of information governance, that is, records management, IT, content management, data governance, information security, data privacy, risk management, regulatory compliance, long-term digital preservation and, even, business intelligence.

The study was a participatory action research project that involved collaboration between the researcher and study participants in defining and solving the problem through a needs assessment exercise.

The study’s findings suggest that, with the right information governance policy in place, adopting the facets of information governance can be used to address concerns related to information integrity in the short and medium terms. As a long-term option for retaining data and information, it would have various drawbacks and would not, however, ensure the initial dependability of the information.

A framework for information governance to ensure that the professional organisation and board members adopt a tailored governance system is suggested.