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To remain sustainable, open source software (OSS) projects must attract new members—or newcomers—who make contributions. In this paper, the authors develop a set of hypotheses based on the knowledge barriers framework that examines how OSS communities can encourage contributions from newcomers.

Employing longitudinal data from the source code repositories of 232 OSS projects over a two-year period, the authors employ a Poisson-based mixed model to test how community characteristics, such as the main drivers of knowledge-based costs, relate to newcomers' contributions.

The results indicate that community characteristics, such as programming language choice, documentation effort and code structure instability, are the main drivers of knowledge-based contribution costs. The findings also suggest that managing these costs can result in more inclusive OSS communities, as evidenced by the number of contributing newcomers; the authors highlight the importance of maintaining documentation efforts for OSS communities.

This paper assumes that motivational factors are a necessary but insufficient condition for newcomer participation in OSS projects and that the cost to participation should be considered. Using the knowledge barriers framework, this paper identifies the main knowledge-based costs that hinder newcomer participation. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first empirical study that does not limit data collection to a single hosting platform (e.g., SourceForge), which improves the generalizability of the findings.

This study aims to improve a construction company's overall project delivery by utilising lean six sigma (LSS) methods combined with building information modelling (BIM) to design, modularise and manufacture various building elements in a controlled factory environment off-site.

A case study in a construction company utilised lean six sigma (LSS) methodology and BIM to identify non-value add waste in the construction process and improve sustainability.

An Irish-based construction company manufacturing modular pipe racks for the pharmaceutical industry utilised LSS to optimise and standardise their off-site manufacturing (OSM) partners process and leverage BIM to design skids which could be manufactured offsite and transported easily with minimal on-site installation and rework required. Productivity was improved, waste was reduced, less energy was consumed, defects were reduced and the project schedule for completion was reduced.

The case study was carried out on one construction company and one construction product type. Further case studies would ensure more generalisability. However, the implementation was tested on a modular construction company, and the methods used indicate that the generic framework could be applied and customized to any offsite company.

This is one of the few studies on implementing offsite manufacturing (OSM) utilising LSS and BIM in an Irish construction company. The detailed quantitative benefits and cost savings calculations presented as well as the use of the LSM methods and BIM in designing an OSM process can be leveraged by other construction organisations to understand the benefits of OSM. This study can help demonstrate how LSS and BIM can aid the construction industry to be more environmentally friendly.

The purpose of this paper is to review cases of artificial reefs built through additive manufacturing (AM) technologies and analyse their ecological goals, fabrication process, materials, structural design features and implementation location to determine predominant parameters, environmental impacts, advantages, and limitations.

The review analysed 16 cases of artificial reefs from both temperate and tropical regions. These were categorised based on the AM process used, the mortar material used (crucial for biological applications), the structural design features and the location of implementation. These parameters are assessed to determine how effectively the designs meet the stipulated ecological goals, how AM technologies demonstrate their potential in comparison to conventional methods and the preference locations of these implementations.

The overview revealed that the dominant artificial reef implementation occurs in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Seas, both accounting for 24%. The remaining cases were in the Australian Sea (20%), the South Asia Sea (12%), the Persian Gulf and the Pacific Ocean, both with 8%, and the Indian Sea with 4% of all the cases studied. It was concluded that fused filament fabrication, binder jetting and material extrusion represent the main AM processes used to build artificial reefs. Cementitious materials, ceramics, polymers and geopolymer formulations were used, incorporating aggregates from mineral residues, biological wastes and pozzolan materials, to reduce environmental impacts, promote the circular economy and be more beneficial for marine ecosystems. The evaluation ranking assessed how well their design and materials align with their ecological goals, demonstrating that five cases were ranked with high effectiveness, ten projects with moderate effectiveness and one case with low effectiveness.

AM represents an innovative method for marine restoration and management. It offers a rapid prototyping technique for design validation and enables the creation of highly complex shapes for habitat diversification while incorporating a diverse range of materials to benefit environmental and marine species’ habitats.

This study aims to propose a collaborative knowledge-based ontological research model for designing a collaborative product development process (PDP) while considering different design for X techniques.

This study follows a thematic literature analysis to identify the key design concepts needed to assess environmental, service, safety, manufacture and assembly, supply chain and quality concerns in developing a collaborative PDP.

The proposed model provides a guide for methodology, engineering and ontology evaluation metrics (verification, assessment and validation). The findings benefit both practitioners and managers because they address the key knowledge taxonomy needed to assist them in storing information, promoting teamwork and making decisions in a collaborative PDP while incorporating various design for X approaches and product life cycles.

This study introduces a novel knowledge-based collaborative ontological research model, which is specifically designed to tackle the challenges of developing collaborative products in the contemporary landscape. The model presents a significant and valuable contribution to the field by introducing an ontological approach for acquiring, representing and leveraging knowledge in a computer-interpretable format to support the design of collaborative products. In addition, it provides a comprehensive guide for evaluating the effectiveness and efficacy of the ontology developed.

Organisations are investing in systems such as product lifecycle management (PLM) to support product development, collaboration across complex supply chains and to provide a framework for digital transformation. Graduates of apparel programmes would benefit from a knowledge of PLM to help realise the opportunities that PLM offers. The purpose of this paper is to report on an educational research project that used PLM as a context for practice-based learning and as a mechanism to update the learning experience and stimulate the development of future practice.

This paper reports on the experiences, critical reflections and data from an action research study to establish a learning community through an educational partnership for PLM software within an undergraduate fashion business course. The cohort of the first year of the intervention (n = 28) is the main study population.

The findings indicate that PLM provided a stimulating learning context supportive of a detailed understanding of current industry practice, critical and innovative thinking and the development of a professional identity.

The opportunity for the development of both industry and educational practice is outlined.

A general introduction to PLM provides important information to support and advance Fashion Industry 4.0. Educational partnerships can reduce barriers to the integration of advanced technologies into the higher education curriculum.

Applications of PLM are under researched in textiles and apparel. The paper contributes to the broadening of the knowledge base of PLM and its potential to achieve strategic transformation of the sector.

The proliferation of industry platforms has disrupted several industries. Firms adopting a platform business model have experienced a substantial expansion in size and scale, positioning themselves as the foremost valuable entities in market capitalization. Over the past two decades, there has been a substantial expansion in the body of literature dedicated to platforms, and different streams of research have emerged. Despite considerable efforts and the significant progress made in recent years toward a comprehensive understanding of industry platforms, there is still room for further harnessing the field’s diversity. As a result, the aim of this article is to examine the field’s structure, identify research concerns and provide suggestions for future research, thereby enhancing the overall understanding of industry platforms.

We conducted a thorough examination of 458 articles on the topic using bibliometric methods and systematic review techniques.

Through co-citation analysis, we identified five distinct clusters rooted in various bodies of literature: two-sided markets, industry platforms, digital platforms, innovation platforms and two-sided networks. Furthermore, the examination of these five clusters has revealed three key areas that demand further consideration: (1) terminologies, (2) classifications and (3) perspectives.

While previous reviews have provided valuable insights into the topic of industry platforms, none have explored the structure of the field so far. Consequently, as a first step toward advancing the field, we uncover the structure of the literature, identifying three major areas of concern. By addressing these concerns, our goal is to converge different clusters, thereby harnessing the diversity in the field and enhancing the overall understanding of industry platforms.

The purpose of this study is to build a theory on management investigating the relationship between organizational culture and strategic flexibility in firms, and how this relationship is affected through industry 4.0 capabilities and the market orientation of firms.

As a methodological approach, this paper uses a rich combination of literature review and exploratory interviews with managers and academics. Data were collected from 379 industrial managers; confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and finally structural equation modeling (SEM) were performed to validate the data and examine the hypothesized relationships.

The results show that organizational culture drives firms to strategic flexibility, but the introduction of industry 4.0 capabilities and market orientation fully mediate this relationship, revealing their significance to strategic flexibility.

All the respondents of the study's dataset were from Greek firms; the role of national culture should be considered. Moreover, the comprehension of I4.0 is a quite recent concept that is still being formulated, this feature may modify the results of future studies.

Managers should allocate resources for the concurrent adoption of digital technologies capabilities and suitable market-oriented strategies in order for them to be key drivers for enhanced strategic flexibility.

The current state of knowledge of both theory and practise for critical organizational factors such as organizational culture, strategic flexibility, industry 4.0 capabilities and market orientation will be extended.

For business and management higher education (HE) to transition graduates to digital workplaces and careers, it’s crucial they develop competencies (digital and traditional, soft and technical, new and old) that are relevant and applicable.

Insights are obtained from 60 comprehensive interviews with HE business students, educators and industry practitioners.

Six synergistic competencies are described that leverage synergies of (often) divergent competencies in the digital age of business, integrating them with a recently emerged multi-disciplinary competency framework. Each synergy states its target application, purpose and is aligned with specific HE practices.

Scholarship of competencies is re-oriented away from clusters and towards synergies, with a new inter-disciplinary competency framework validated to business in the digital age, with directions provided for HE.

The COVID-19 pandemic started a new era in understanding the topic of resilience and adaptability. The human society has not faced such a widespread global challenge until now. This paper aims to address a context change influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, using a case study in high education. While the character of the issues emerging is the same as in any other domain, in high education, the principles and consequences can be more directly studied and analyzed.

This paper describes a framework to evaluate how the context of the tertiary education service has been disrupted and the influence on the adherence of the students to the educational process, via primary quantitative data collection. This paper tackles the problem of distinguishing the change in context and context change and the possibility of system reconfiguration.

To properly face the evolving conditions induced by the pandemic, the education service system must be aligned to the imposed emergency situations, trying to “find” where the changes have emerged, i.e. what kind of reconfiguration is, whether it appears in the goals or in the service system itself. Furthermore, this study discusses how the findings can be valuable and applied to situations beyond the pandemic, in other cases of context disruption to highlight how general the service activities are within our reconfiguration approach.

From a theoretical point of view, this work is in line with main assumptions of system thinking, by confirming several insights of service systems’ behavior, even in a logic of B2B interactions (from the offer side); first in terms of openness and adaptation, in addition to readiness to change and – when and how – this change can occur. From a practical point of view, this paper’s contribution is directed toward achieving the more successful change management process, as reached together by motivated partners working hard for a common final goal. Realizing that the pandemic has brought a completely new context of education, managers should focus now on monitoring all aspects of the education business, not only directly affected projects and processes.

The circular economy (CE) represents an industry-wide transition from linear to circular processes. There has been a proliferation of literature on CE in the last decade. However, the existing studies on the adaption of CE in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are scarce. This study aims to develop a research agenda and the way forward for future researchers focusing on the adoption of CE.

This article analyses the CE concepts through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Coding and content analysis are performed to generate emergent themes with the help of “Atlas.ti” software.

The authors uncovered the contemporary significance of adopting CE and the state-of-the-art literature on CE. The study's findings fall into four broad themes: Technical know-how, resource and process optimization, reverse practices and technology and innovation. Ten thought-provoking questions were identified in the four themes that researchers can explore further in embracing CE to achieve sustainability in SMEs.

The study has highlighted the importance of CE adoption and CE's benefits to stakeholders across all three dimensions, i.e. social, economic and ecological. Practitioners can use the agenda in four themes to strengthen the practitioners' existing practices in SMEs to promote CE.

The study's uniqueness is the supply of current knowledge from diverse literature and practical consequences for SMEs. This study opens new lines of inquiry to adopt CE in SMEs, streamlining the existing literature into four themes to focus future research.