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The purpose of this article is to discuss the theme of managing operations and supply chains in the so-called “new normal”. It reflects the themes emerging from recent research and how these might be conceptualized.

The article reviews research presented at the EurOMA 2021 conference and eight papers subsequently developed into full journal papers. It considers conceptual themes contained in these papers and how they reflect recent turbulent events in the external business environment.

The article notes the themes of resilience in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, environmental sustainability, especially climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals, and the significance of digital technologies. Additional themes relating to inter-organizational relationships, complexity and manager cognition are also considered. In order to provide useful insights for future disruptions, general concepts on epistemology and responsiveness are described.

The article discusses general principles across cutting-edge research in operations and supply chain management, to support improved performance to add economic and social value.

Food sector supply chains have significant negative environmental impacts, including the expansion of global food commodity production, which is driving tropical deforestation – a major climate and biodiversity problem. Innovative supply chain monitoring services promise to address such impacts. Legislation also designates “forest-risk commodities”, demanding supply chain due diligence of their provenance. But such data alone does not produce change. This study investigates how theory in performance measurement and management (PMM) can combine with sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and decision theory (DT) via case study research that addresses paradoxes of simplicity and complexity.

Given existing relevant theory but the nascent nature of the topic, theory elaboration via abductive case study research is conducted. Data collection involves interviews and participatory design workshops with supply chain actors across two supply chains (coffee and soy), exploring the potential opportunities and challenges of new deforestation monitoring services for food supply chains.

Two archetypal food supply chain structures (short food supply chains with high transparency and direct links between farmer and consumer and complex food supply chains with highly disaggregated and opaque links) provide a dichotomy akin to the known/unknown, structured/unstructured contexts in DT, enabling novel theoretical elaboration of the performance alignment matrix model in PMM, resulting in implications for practice and a future research agenda.

The novel conceptual synthesis of PMM, SSCM and DT highlights the importance of context specificity in developing PMM tools for SSCM and the challenge of achieving the general solutions needed to ensure that PMM, paradoxically, is both flexible to client needs and capable of replicable application to deliver economies of scale. To advance understanding of these paradoxes to develop network-level PMM systems to address deforestation impacts of food supply chains and respond to legislation, a future research agenda is presented.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the aspects of decision theory (DT) to performance measurement and management (PMM), thereby enabling the theoretical elaboration of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the business environment, which are identified as barriers to effective PMM.

A review of decision theory and PMM literature establishes the Cynefin framework as the basis for extending the performance alignment matrix. Case research with seven companies explores the relationship between two concepts under-examined in the performance alignment matrix – internal dominant logic (DL) as the attribute of organisational culture affecting decision making, and the external environment – in line with the concept of alignment or fit in PMM. A focus area is PMM related to sustainable operations and sustainable supply chain management.

Alignment between DL, external environment and PMM is found, as are instances of misalignment. The Cynefin framework offers a deeper theoretical explanation about the nature of this alignment. Other findings consider the nature of organisational ownership on DL.

The cases are exploratory not exhaustive, and limited in number. Organisations showing contested logic were excluded.

Some organisations have cultures of predictability and control; others have cultures that recognise their external environment as fundamentally unpredictable, and hence there is a need for responsive, decentralised PMM. Some have sought to change their culture and PMM. Being attentive to how cultural logic affects decision making can help reduce the misalignment in PMM.

A novel contribution is made by applying decision theory to PMM, extending the theoretical depth of the subject.

Modern production facilities produce large amounts of data. The computational framework often referred to as big data analytics has greatly improved the capabilities of analyses of large data sets. Many manufacturing companies can now seize this opportunity to leverage their data to gain competitive advantages for continuous improvement. Six Sigma has been among the most popular approaches for continuous improvement. The data-driven nature of Six Sigma applied in a big data environment can provide competitive advantages. In the traditional Six Sigma implementation – define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) problem-solving strategy where a human team defines a project ahead of data collection. This paper aims to propose a new Six Sigma approach that uses massive data generated to identify opportunities for continuous improvement projects in a manufacturing environment in addition to human input in a measure, define, analyze, improve and control (MDAIC) format.

The proposed Six Sigma strategy called MDAIC starts with data collection and process monitoring in a manufacturing environment using system-wide monitoring that standardizes continuous, attribute and profile data into comparable metrics in terms of “traffic lights.” The classifications into green, yellow and red lights are based on pre-control charts depending on how far a measurement is from its target. The proposed method monitors both process parameters and product quality data throughout a hierarchical production system over time. An attribute control chart is used to monitor system performances. As the proposed method is capable of identifying changed variables with both spatial and temporal spaces, Six Sigma teams can easily pinpoint the areas in need to initiate Six Sigma projects.

Based on a simulation study, the proposed method is capable of identifying variables that exhibit the biggest deviations from the target in the Measure step of a Six Sigma project. This provides suggestions of the candidates for the improvement section of the proposed MDAIC methodology.

This paper proposes a new approach for the identifications of projects for continuous improvement in a manufacturing environment. The proposed framework aims to monitor the entire production system that integrates all types of production variables and the product quality characteristics.

This study aims to aid theory building, the use of decision theory (DT) concepts in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) research is examined.

An abductive approach considers two DT concepts, Snowden’s Cynefin framework for sense-making and Keeney’s value-focussed decision analysis, in a systematic literature review of 160 peer-reviewed papers in English.

Around 60 per cent of the papers on decision-making in SSCM come from operational research (OR), which makes explicit use of DT. These are almost all normative and rationalist and focussed on structured decision contexts. Some exceptions seek to address unstructured decision contexts via Complex Adaptive Systems or Soft Systems Methodology. Meanwhile, a second set, around 16 per cent, comes from business ethics and are empirical, behavioural decision research. Although this set does not explicitly refer to DT, the empirical evidence here supports Keeney’s value-focussed analysis.

There is potential for theory building in SSCM using DT, but the research only addresses SSCM research (including corporate responsibility and ethics) and not DT in SCM or wider sustainable development research.

Use of particular decision analysis methods for SSCM may be improved by better understanding different decision contexts.

The research shows potential synthesis with ethical DT absent from DT and SCM research.

Empirical behavioural decision analysis for SSCM is considered alongside normative, rational analysis for the first time. Value-focussed DT appears useful for unstructured decision contexts found in SSCM.

Empirical, behavioural decision analysis for SSCM is considered alongside normative rational analysis for the first time. Value-focussed DT appears useful for unstructured decision contexts found in SSCM.

The purpose of this paper is to conceive the concept of inter-industry creative collaboration; a unique kind of cooperation between business partners from diverse industries. It investigates the motivations that encourage their creation and identifies a method to evaluate consumers’ attitudes towards this kind of partnership. The study analyses consumer-based brand equity and links them to inter-industry creative collaborations within the luxury fashion industry.

Research was conducted using a comparative case design, which was qualitative in nature. Four cases were selected purposively. The data were obtained using semi-structured interviews with industry informants and consumer focus groups. Transcripts were thematically analysed according to common categories identified in the literature to enable cross-case conclusions to be drawn.

The research proposes the existence of a direct relationship between the consumer-based brand equity effects and consumers’ attitudes towards inter-industry creative collaborations. This research not only proves the existence of the stated relationship but also generates a theoretical framework that specifically analyses inter-industry creative collaboration involving luxury fashion brands.

The usage of convenience sampling limited consumer participants to individuals who considered themselves luxury fashion consumers. In addition, the findings are limited to London, UK and cannot be generalised outside the examined cases. That said, the research provides a useful starting point for further empirical research to test the validity and reliability of the model outside of the stated cases.

The proposed theoretical framework serves as a practical guide for luxury managers to assess the planning and execution of inter-industry creative collaborations conducted by their brands.

The research makes a contribution to brand management literature by creating a connection between four topics of academic research: motivations of inter-industry creative collaborations; consumer-based brand equity; consumers’ attitudes towards inter-industry creative collaborations; and the creative and emotional elements of luxury fashion.

If governments are really to stimulate the information society, they must lead from the front. That means redesigning government communications from the ground up, in ways that engage citizens and encourage e‐commerce. Local portals could pave the way, but first they must win over Web users from other communications channels. That means attracting the best content – and one way for governments to do that is to set a standard in pricing and marketing their own data.

The burden social theorists must be willing to accept, respond to, and act upon pertains to the difficulties that predictably accompany all efforts to convey to nontheorists the unwelcome fact of heteronomy – that as actors, we are not as autonomous as we were told and prefer to assume – and to spell out what heteronomy in the form in which it has been shaping the developmental trajectory of modern societies means for professional theorists. I introduce the concept of “vitacide,” designed to capture that termination of life is a potential vanishing point of the heteronomous processes that have been shaping modern societies continuing to accelerate and intensify in ways that prefigure our future, but not on our human or social terms. Heteronomy pointing toward vitacide should compel us as social theorists to consider critically both the constructive and destructive trajectory that social change appears to have been following for more than two centuries, irrespective of whether the resulting prospect is to our liking or not. In this context, the classical critical theorists of the early Frankfurt School, especially Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, pursued what turned out to be an evolving interest in rackets, the authoritarian personality, and the administered society – concepts that served as foils for delineating the kind of theoretical stance that is becoming more and more important as we are moving into an increasingly uncertain future.