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The performance evaluation process is a key step in any management system and constitutes the basis for continuous improvement. Resistance to change is considered as a critical factor in any change management project; so, development of employee performance appraisal systems like all of the change management projects has always faced many challenges. This study seeks to illustrate the two-year experience (2018–2020) and lessons learned by developing an employee performance appraisal system in the National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI) as a cultural public sector organization.

This study was carried out by using soft operational research (OR) approaches, using a novel combination of two methods, soft system methodology (SSM) and importance performance analysis (IPA). For this purpose, at the beginning, with the help of the SSM approach, the challenges of implementation was identified, then, using the opinions and experiences of the system's stakeholders, improvement actions were defined and prioritized using the IPA method.

The research findings showed that “coaching development,” “optimizing the forced distribution rating system (FDRS)” and “customizing the system” are the most important improvement actions.

The research has bridged the gap between research and practice in the field of employee performance appraisal system in national libraries.

The purpose of the study is to examine the sliding wear performance of plasma transfer arc (PTA) deposited and laser surface melted (LSM) Mo modified Stellite 12 hardfacings under high contact stresses (i.e. >20 GPa).

For this purpose, after structural characterization, sliding wear tests have been conducted using sphero-conical diamond indenter as the counterface with different normal loads. The wear tracks formed on the hardfacings were examined by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.

Both hardfacings showed severe wear (at high contact stress levels ranging from 24 to 41 GPa), which progressed by plastic deformation, although the wear resistance of LSMed hardfacings was better than the PTA hardfacings by a factor of two due to its near surface microstructure characterized as carbide-rich zone.

Sliding wear characterization of a promising 10 Wt.% Mo modified version of commercial Stellite 12 hardfacings (as reported previously by authors) was done in as PTA and LSMed states using nanomechanical test system. To the best of authors’ knowledge, no report is available in the open literature on such hardfacings under these testing conditions.

Considering the diversity of literary sites, various needs and motivations of literary visitors, and the limited research on literary tourists’ experiences, this study aims to explore the literary gaze at Hafez Tomb in Shiraz, Iran. As the visitor gaze encompasses various dimensions of experience, this study connected the two notions to identify the components of the literary gaze and determine the attributes that best describe it.

Data sources include semi-structured interviews with visitors and user-generated content on Tripadvisor. The deductive thematic analysis and multiple correspondence analysis were used.

The findings revealed the multidimensionality of the literary gaze. The dominant factors that best describe the literary gaze at Hafez’s tomb were the sensory component of the experience, including “seeing”, “smelling”, “hearing”; affective including “anticipation”, “joy”, “trust”; cognitive including “perceiving”, “thinking”, “learning”; behavioural including “literary related”, “general”; and relationship including “tourist-companion”, “tourist-tourist”.

Understanding the literary gaze can assist site managers and destination marketers in designing the literary experience and developing promotional strategies that reflect the multifaceted nature of the literary experience. Tourism authorities should identify and shape tourists’ perceptions of literary sites to build the city’s image and brand as a literary city.

This paper used the orchestra model of experience to analyse the literary tourist’s gaze. This modification could explain that the literary gaze has multiple dimensions and studying all the dimensions gives the literary experience greater significance.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the corrosion properties of laser nitrided Ti‐6Al‐4V alloys that have been reported previously by several researchers.

Different kinds of surface nitriding methods of titanium alloys, such as plasma nitriding, ion nitriding, gas and laser nitriding, are introduced. Microstructure changes, such as phase formation and the influence of laser processing parameters in laser nitriding layers of Ti‐6Al‐4V alloys, were investigated using scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, X‐ray photo‐electron spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction. Based on investigations presented in the literature, the effect of laser nitriding on the corrosion behavior of Ti‐6Al‐4V alloy was reviewed.

By regulating the laser processing parameter, the microstructure of the nitrided layer can be controlled to optimize corrosion properties. This layer improves corrosion behavior in most environments, due to the formation of a continuous TiNxOy passive film, which can retard the ingress of corrosive ions into the substrate and can maintain a constant value of a current density. Therefore, the laser gas nitrided specimens have a relatively noble corrosion potential and a very small corrosion current, as compared to untreated specimens.

This paper comprises a critical review, and its collection of references is useful. It summarizes current knowledge in laser surface treatment research.

This paper intent to design, develop, and fabricate a robust cascaded controller based on the dual loop concept i.e. Fuzzy Sliding Mode concept in the inner loop and traditional Proportional Integral controller in the outer loop to reduce the unknown dynamics and disturbances that occur in the DC-DC Converter.

The proposed Fuzzy sliding mode approach combines the merits of both SMC and Fuzzy logic control. FSMC approach reduces the chattering phenomena that commonly occurs in the sliding mode control and speed up the response of the controller.

In most of the research work, the inner current loop of cascaded controller was designed by sliding mode control. In this paper FSMC is proposed and its efficacy is confirmed with SMC -PI. In most uncertainties, FSMC-PI produces null maximum peak overshoot and a very less settling time of 0.0005 sec.

The presence of Fuzzy SMC in the inner loop ensure satisfactory response against all uncertainties such as steady state, circuit parameter variations and sudden line and load disturbances.

The purpose of this study is to discover the components of virtual leadership in universities and higher education institutions during Covid-19 pandemic.

This research uses the qualitative research design, and semi-structured interviews with senior leaders were conducted with non-random purposeful and snowball sampling methods. Also, grounded theory was used for analyzing, coding and classifying the data.

After analyzing data, five main components influencing virtual leadership including leader's personality traits, followers' characteristics, technological, environmental and organizational components were identified.

As leadership, particularly virtual leadership, highly depends on context such as the level of technology in that certain region, the results cannot be generalized to other sectors or countries.

The research advances leadership development theory by highlighting the main components of virtual leadership in educational sector as a comprehensive perspective and complement the other aspects of virtual leadership such as consequences and challenges investigated by other studies.

Classical models of data envelopment analysis (DEA) calculate the efficiency of decision-making units do not differentiate between efficient units. The purpose of this paper is to present a new method for ranking efficient units and compare it with the other methods presented in this field.

In this paper, a new method is presented for ranking efficient units. To validate the proposed method, a real case, which was studied by Li et al. (2016) is examined and the rankings of the efficient units are compared with four other methods including the Andersen and Petersen’s super-efficiency, game theory and the concept of Shapley value and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution methods.

The results show that there is a high correlation between the rankings of efficient units obtained by the new proposed method and the other methods such as Andersen and Petersen’s super-efficiency, game theory and Shapley value methods.

The problem of ranking efficient units with the DEA method is an important issue for researchers. Extensive studies have been proposed to provide methods for ranking efficient units. This paper proposes a simple and fast method for ranking efficient units that achieves better results.

Comparative shop efficiency within a chain is a key factor in strategic management decisions such as evaluation, promotion and development of shop personnel. Furthermore, overall efficiency of the firm depends on the efficiency of individual shops within the chain. The purpose of this paper is to assess operational efficiency of a bookshop chain in Turkey, and identify efficiency drivers.

The sample includes 79 bookshops within a bookshop chain. The study uses two‐step procedure. In the first stage, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is utilised to evaluate the comparative efficiency of bookshops. The second stage attempts to determine what drives efficiency by using Tobit regression.

After assessment of shops’ efficiency by DEA, the results of Tobit regression revealed that shop age has positive significant influence on bookshop efficiency, whereas manager experience, staff experience, and education level of the shop manager do not.

The findings of the paper are based on a single bookshop chain. Thus, one should be cautious while interpreting results.

The contribution of the paper to the literature is of great importance, since no prior Turkish study has dealt with the subject to this extent. Furthermore, although there are studies conducted on various subsectors of retail industry in other countries, there seems to be no study at all conducted on bookshop chains.

The COVID-19 crisis has created enormous strain in global supply chains. The disruption has caused severe shortages of critical items, including personal protective equipment (e.g. face masks), ventilators and diagnostics. The failure of the industry to meet the sudden demand for these necessary items has caused a severe humanitarian crisis. These situations, resulting from the COVID-19, crisis have led to the informal growth of frugal innovation in sustainable global supply chains. This paper aims to provide a detailed overview of drivers of frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains, following lessons acquired from emerging countries’ attempts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors used a focused group approach to identify the drivers and this paper further validated them using existing literature published in international peer-reviewed journals and reports. The authors adopted total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) to analyze the complex relationships among identified drivers.

The authors present a theoretical framework to explain how the drivers are interlinked. This paper has developed the framework through a synthesis of the TISM modeling and Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment analysis. This paper observed that government financial support, policies and regulations, under the mediating effect of leadership and the moderating effect of national culture and international rules and regulations, has a significant effect on the adoption of emerging technology, volunteering initiatives and values and ethics. Further, emerging technology, volunteering initiative and values and ethics have a significant effect on supply chain talent and frugal engineering. These results provide some useful theoretical insights that may help in further investigating the role of frugal innovations in other contexts.

The authors find that outcomes of the methodical contributions and the resulting managerial insights can be categorized into four levels. Industry and researchers alike can use the study to develop the decision-support systems guiding frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains amid the COVID-19 pandemic and in recovering them thereafter. Suggestions for future research directions are offered and discussed.