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This project presents an opportunity for high school social studies teachers to infuse content on the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit into civics-courses. The federal budget influences countries’ decisions about domestic and foreign policy, making the study of the topic a necessity for understanding economic interdependence, as well as active and engaged citizenship. The national debt plays an important role in efforts to balance competing interests concerning taxes, entitlement programs, and government spending. Social studies teachers have the opportunity to create connections between economic and public policies about the federal budget, national debt, budget deficit, and the content commonly taught in high school civics classes across the United States. Our two-day lesson, Examining the role of citizens in the U.S. budgetary process: A case study, can be infused into the civics curriculum to help high school students begin to understand the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit. We model an inquiry-oriented approach for citizen participation about these topics in high school civics classes.

The paper aims to examine high school students' use of social networking to participate in teledeliberative democratic dialogue and explicates the implications of this dialogue for democratic education that is inclusive of all students.

The case study analyzes the comments of 111 high school students over ten days following what they perceived to be an injustice committed by the administration against one of their fellow classmates.

Analysis of student commentary led to the development of three categories of teledeliberative citizenship: the demagogue, the proselyte, and the egalitarian. Together, these categories serve as a spectrum of sophistication along which democratic discourse can be classified.

The primary limitation of this research is a product of the online medium in which it occurs. Though “observing” students' interactions on Web 2.0 application was beneficial for cataloguing conversations, social cues like body language and tone of voice had to be inferred.

Web 2.0 provides students with an opportunity to build a community of shared belief that crosses gender, racial, religious, and cultural divisions.

Teachers could use Web 2.0 as a forum for teledeliberative democratic dialogue in a multicultural democratic educational framework to engage students and encourage a sophisticated, active citizenship.

The purpose of this paper is to present a critical race theory content analysis of research on technology and social studies education.

This study, using a critical race theory (CRT) framework, investigates how social studies education scholars have critically addressed the intersection between technology and race/ethnicity through a content analysis of articles in the journals Theory and Research in Social Education (TRSE) and Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE) since 1990.

This paper contends that the interaction between technology and race/ethnicity is rarely critically examined in these two prominent social studies education research journals.

In light of this neglect, the paper discusses the need for an in‐depth analysis of the reification of low‐level pedagogical methods with racial/ethnic minority students, an unexplored area of research.

In the current customer-driven market, the manufacturers have to be highly responsive and flexible to deliver a variety of products. Hence, to meet this dynamic and uncertain market changes, the production system, which enables the manufacturing of such variety of products should be able to meet such diverse, dynamic changes. Hence, selecting a suitable manufacturing system is a key strategic decision for today's manufacturing organization, which needs to survive in these uncertain market conditions. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to present a decision-making model for selecting the best manufacturing system and also discuss the criteria on the basis of which the management can select the same.

A case of small- and medium-sized company is presented, in which the management is deciding to establish a most suitable manufacturing system. To supplement this, a suitable multi-criteria decision-making model (MCDM), the grey approach is used to analyze manufacturing system alternatives based on various decision criteria to arrive a comparative ranking.

An extensive analysis of grey-based decision-making model described grey decision matrix, grey normalized decision matrix, grey weighted normalized decision matrix and grey possibility degrees for three alternatives revealed that lean manufacturing systems was found to be the most suitable manufacturing system among three alternatives for a given case.

The same study can be extended by including sub-criteria with main criteria for selection of manufacturing system by utilizing two MCDM techniques such as AHP or ANP with Grey approach.

The Grey approach has been discussed in a detailed way and it will be useful for the managers to use this approach as a tool for solving similar type of decision-making problems in their organizations in the future.

Although, the problem of selecting a suitable manufacturing system is often addressed both in practice and research, very few reports are available in the literature of Grey-based decision models that demonstrated its application for selecting a suitable manufacturing systems.

Lean manufacturing (LM) has attracted the attention of industries all over the world. Many operation managers have implemented or will be implementing LM because of the benefits reported by other companies or because their customers have demanded it. This paper aims to present a case study of a medium‐sized valve manufacturer in which the decision of implementing LM is made by analyzing the capabilities, practices, tools and techniques of alternative manufacturing systems apart from understanding its effect on the decision areas of the operations department.

A multi attribute decision making (MADM) model, namely, the analytic network process (ANP) has been used for this purpose, which structures the problem related to selection of alternative manufacturing systems in a hierarchical network form. In this problem, it links the performance measures or competitive priorities, decision areas, and the elements with alternatives available to the decision maker and provides a holistic framework for the selection of alternative manufacturing systems to achieve the competitive priorities of the organisation under study.

From an extensive analysis of the results, under the given circumstances, it is evident that implementation of a lean manufacturing system (LMS) is a better alternative, as it would result in overall improvement in the performance of an organisation in comparison with the alternatives.

This paper demonstrated a step‐by‐step approach of the ANP model using a case study of a small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise, which makes it more suitable for managers to learn and adopt such MADM models to support their decisions.

To the author's knowledge, there is no paper available in the existing literature that discusses the application of ANP in the field of LM.

In recent years, many manufacturing companies are attempting to implement lean manufacturing systems (LMS) as an effective manufacturing strategy to survive in a highly competitive market. Such a process of selecting a suitable manufacturing system is highly complex and strategic in nature. The paper aims to how companies make a strategic decision of selecting LMS as part of their manufacturing strategy, and on what basis such strategic decisions are made by the managers.

A case study of a small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise is presented, in which the managers are contemplating on implementing either computer integrated manufacturing systems (CIMS) or LMS. To supplement the decision‐making process, a multi‐criteria decision making (MCDM) model, namely, the preference ranking organisation method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) is used to analyse how it will impact the stakeholders of the organisation, and the benefits gained.

An extensive analysis of PROMETHEE model revealed that LMS was the best for the given circumstances of the case.

The same problem can be extended by incorporating the constraints (such as financial, technical, social) of the organisation by utilising an extended version of PROMETHEE called the PROMETHEE V. Since, a single case study approach has been utilised, the findings cannot be generalized for any other industry.

The methodology of PROMETHEE and its algorithm has been demonstrated in a detailed way and it is believed that it will be useful for managers to apply such MCDM tools to supplement their decision‐making efforts.

According to the authors’ knowledge there is no paper in the literature, which discusses the application of PROMETHEE in making a strategic decision of implementing LMS as a part of an organisation's manufacturing strategy.

In this qualitative case study we explored the experiences of low- achieving students responding to an educational blog. Our intention was to leverage the unique affordances of blogs to teach United States history concepts primarily by providing access to digital primary sources and facilitating on-line participation. Overall, our findings point to the positive potential of blogs to enhance instruction with low-achieving students. We found the integration of the educational blog provided an effective instructional format to differentiate content instruction and deliver “equity pedagogy.” In this study student participation increased, students engaged in historical work (although tentative), and the resources activated their prior knowledge. Rather than withholding Web 2.0 technologies from low-achieving students we encourage teachers to use them to meet the unique learning needs of all of their students. With thoughtful scaffolding, it appears teachers might be able to leverage the unique features of blog-based activities to improve student experiences.

Police agencies are under pressure to improve their performance and provide outstanding services for the community. In response, academics and practitioners have called to adopt effective methods that help these agencies to achieve their goals. Studies reported that benchmarking has a role to improve organisational performance. However, poor evidence of using benchmarking within police agencies and very few studies examine the relationship between it and police performance. Motivated by this gap, this study aims to explore and examine this relationship under the mediating role of innovation culture.

A quantitative methodology was utilised in this study. Data used to examine the hypotheses were obtained from the departments and stations of the Dubai Police Force (DPF), and the population comprised head section officers. A total of 338 questionnaires were distributed to respondents, 252 of which were returned. The hypothesised relationships were tested with the data collected by SPSS and SmartPLS statistical software.

Findings clearly show that benchmarking is directly and indirectly associated with the organisational performance of the DPF through innovation culture. Results support the notion that innovation culture facilitates the implementation of proper benchmarking projects in the DPF, which positively affects different aspects of its performance.

This study includes several limitations. Specifically, the generalisability of the findings should be considered. The analysis applies only to the DPF in the UAE. Thus, investigating and analysing variables in different police agencies in the UAE or internationally would be valuable.

Several recommendations are provided in relation to the obtained results to assist managers and decision makers in the DPF and other police agencies. This study includes suggestions for improving police performance by establishing an innovation culture and adopting benchmarking practices.

Although several contributions indicated that benchmarking and innovation culture is a key determinant of success, the literature lacks empirical studies investigating this link in the police field. This study is the only one to date that examined this relationship in police services. Accordingly, this study seeks to bridge this gap and delivers empirical evidence and theoretical insight to better understand this relationship.

Scarcity of resources, ecological imbalance, global warming, rising energy prices and the ever-changing need for variety have attracted the government and manufacturers for sustainable development of the industries. The integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS) provides a solid platform for meeting both the customers’ variety needs and business sustainability requirements. Many organizations opted for ISGLSAMS, but still due to various barriers organizations are not able to fully implement ISGLSAMS. The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to the ISGLSAMS, so that a more sustainable industrial manufacturing system and industrial symbiosis can be developed.

A literature review, from the Web of Science and Google Scholar database, has been carried out to identify the various barriers to the implementation of ISGLSAMS in the entire value chain. A total of 168 research papers have been reviewed for identifying the ISGLSAMS barriers.

This paper elaborates the concept of the ISGLSAMS, its attributes and various barriers and contributes to a better understanding and successful implementation of ISGLSAMS to meet business’ sustainability and market performance goals in the entire value chain. The paper also projects the future research framework and directions for the ISGLSAMS, integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile (ISGLSA) product and ISGLSA supply and value chain.

The study contributes to a better understanding of ISGLSAMS’ barriers. The government, stakeholders and policymakers may plan the policy, road map and strategies to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers. In-depth knowledge of subclauses of ISGLSAMS’ barriers will help the practitioners to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers strategically. By overcoming the ISGLSAMS barriers, a more sustainable 7 Rs based market focused manufacturing system can be designed. This will also increase the opportunities to enhance the industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis and better recovery of the product, process and supply chain residual value. This will reduce the waste to the ecosystem.

This work has been carried out in search of a more sustainable manufacturing system, i.e. ISGLSAMS (which is 7 Rs based, i.e. 6 Rs of sustainability with 7th R, reconfiguration) to meet the customer variety needs along with sustainability in the ever-changing customer market. This study adds value to the practitioners to identify and prioritize the ISGLSAMS’ industry-specific barriers and design the solution for the more sustainable development of (1) industries, (2) the industrial symbiosis system and (3) the ISGLSA product, process, system and supply value chain with minimum resource consumption and environmental impact. The research also contributes to the (a) ISGLSAMS (b) ISGLSA supply chain (c) reconfigurable, sustainable and modular products and (d) redesign, recovery and refurbishing of the product to increase the product life cycle.

A literature review within the manufacturing strategy (MS) discipline with a focus on thematic developments is provided. Based on recent studies, a set of challenges posed to manufacturing enterprise of the future are summarized, and thematic areas are analyzed in relation to meeting those challenges. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Based on a select set of 506 articles published in top-ranked refereed international journals in the discipline of operations management, major and subthemes are identified and the publication trends in these themes are provided with time and across geographical regions, namely: North America, Europe, and other parts of the world.

MS literature is predominantly focussed on the economic objectives of firms without a due focus on the social and environmental perspectives. MS literature covers 11 major thematic areas, namely: MS components and paradigms, manufacturing capabilities (MCs), strategic choices (SCs), best practices (BPs), the strategy process (SP), supply-chain management (SCM), performance measurement, transnational comparisons, global manufacturing, environmental/green manufacturing, and literature reviews. The research in two areas – SCs, and MCs – has been in decline, while the research in BPs, the SP, and transnational comparisons is growing (in absolute figures). Various research opportunities for future studies are identified.

The literature review is limited in its selection of articles and journals, however, the identified trends clarify the state of research by the MS research community at large.

For researchers, multiple new research directions are identified in order to advance knowledge in the field of MS. The publication trends also highlight thematic areas where most of the MS body of knowledge is currently available and can be utilized by practitioners.

The paper’s novelty comes from: first, a broader and deeper review of thematic areas that has not been researched before, second, trends in thematic areas by time, across geographical regions, and including time-region dyads, and third, coverage provided by MS literature in meeting challenges posed to manufacturing enterprise of the future.