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The current research aims to investigate the relationship between supply chain (SC) processes maturity and SC performance in the context of an emerging market (i.e. Morocco). Based on the SCOR model, the authors propose and test a thorough conceptual framework in which information systems moderates the relationship between SC processes maturity and performance. The effects of firm age and size are also taken into account.

Based on data collected from 175 top and middle managers using self-administered questionnaires, the authors empirically assessed the conceptual model using a partial least squares (PLS) estimation.

The study's findings demonstrate that SC processes maturity has a significant effect on SC performance. Second, information systems act as a moderator in the relationship between SC maturity and performance, e.g. the impact of supply chain processes maturity on supply chain performance measures is stronger in the presence of information systems support. Ultimately, firm size and age were found to have no significant impact on supply chain performance.

The study's findings help SC managers to better understand how SC maturity contributes to SC performance. A firm effectively executing maturity factors in its SC processes is more likely to achieve a better SC performance. The authors also established the key role of information systems in strengthening the impact of SC maturity on performance. SC managers should capitalize on the use of information systems to achieve superior SC performance.

The present research bridges a gap pertaining to the impact of supply chain maturity on SC performance, particularly in emerging markets. It is the first of its kind to investigate the influence of SC maturity on SC performance the context of emerging markets.

The South African vocational education and training (VET) sector is required by legislation to redefine postsecondary education, advance industrialisation and expand the job market to address unemployment in the country. Yet, VET leaders' heterogenous educational and occupational backgrounds do not enable them to address the needs of the VET sector. Continuous professional development of leaders in the education sector needs to include support structures such as mentoring.

The present study sought to investigate how VET managers in South Africa perceive three different types of mentoring – individual, peer group and expert-based key performance area (KPA) mentoring – during a part-time professional leadership development programme. Using interactive qualitative analysis (IQA), the authors collected and analysed data from focus group discussions (n = 24) and individual interviews (n = 21) from two cohorts of the programme.

The results revealed that individual mentoring represented the most important driving mechanism, followed by peer group mentoring and expert-based KPA mentoring. Participants identified leadership as a prerequisite for their development. Emotions formed the final outcome of the mentoring framework.

Based on the findings, the authors suggest investigating the role played by leaders' interpersonal competences such as emotional competence in the workplace. Additionally, research needs to clarify if and how mentoring can support leaders to develop interpersonal competences in formal and informal settings.

The study offers empirical evidence on a three-pillar mentoring framework adopted in a professional development programme for leaders in VET in South Africa. It highlights the importance of individual, social and emotional factors.

This study uncovers the challenges and coping mechanisms related to stigma and discrimination experienced by gay professional team sport athletes.

Utilizing interpretive phenomenological analysis, this study recruited six gay athletes in professional team sports. Data were collected through virtual one-on-one semi-structured interviews, along with field notes and reflexive journaling, and were thematically analyzed.

The first theme highlights the discrimination and marginalization experienced by gay athletes in professional team sports, as well as the perceived differences between these athletes and their heterosexual counterparts. The second theme includes anecdotes illustrating their experiences of exclusion, along with counter-stories that resist marginalization. The last theme comprises stories that underscore the lack of acceptance and advocacy, emphasizing the awareness education aimed at making the sporting realm more inclusive.

Despite the extensive recruiting efforts for this study, numerous sports and countries remain unexplored. Follow-up studies are required to fill this gap. As this study was initiated, additional research is needed to provide information on athletes who are still in the closet. Cross-comparisons between gay athletes and their heterosexual teammates can help bridge the gap in perspectives.

Participants emphasized collective efforts in creating inclusive and welcoming environments for gay athletes, including anti-discrimination policies related to language use, showers and relocation adjustments.

Participants have put forth concrete recommendations for enhancing inclusivity within team sport environments and society at large, including proposals for early educational initiatives within the school systems.

This is the first empirical study that focuses on the experiences of gay professional team sport athletes.

The non-fungible token (NFT) market has been multiplying in recent years. NFTs are tokens stored on a blockchain network based on smart contract technology that can be used to represent ownership of digital assets and cannot be changed like-for-like. With NFTs, all recorded digital properties can be freely traded and stored with values, making them possible to increase content transactions' privacy and security. In addition, NFTs engender new ways to organize, consume, share and store digital content. Despite the rapid growth of the NFT market, related consumer behaviors have yet to be well-known and relevant academic research results are very scarce. This study aims to explain how NFT fits with blockchain and cryptocurrency and how consumers accept it. This paper also develops a structured causal model with multiple paths to explain the antecedents and attitude variables for NFT acceptance.

The data collection was conducted from 542 young consumers in Korea via an online survey. The structural equation modeling method was used to analyze the hypotheses.

Attitudes toward technology and assets positively affect NFT purchase behavioral intentions. Additionally, symbolic driver affects behavioral intention directly.

The results expanded the understanding of the NFT market and consumers, which are still in their early stages. They also provide valuable insights for establishing future market strategies for NFT.

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation follows a structured approach called define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC). Earlier research about its application in emergency healthcare services shows that it requires organizational transformation, which many healthcare setups find difficult. The Kotter change management model facilitates organizational transformation but has not been attempted in LSS settings till now. This study aims to integrate the LSS framework with the Kotter change management model to come up with an integrated framework that will facilitate LSS deployment in emergency health services.

Two-stage Delphi method was conducted by using a literature review. First, the success factors and barriers of LSS are investigated, especially from an emergency healthcare point of view. The features and benefits of Kotter's change management models are then reviewed. Subsequently, they are integrated to form a framework specific to LSS deployment in an emergency healthcare set-up. The elements of this framework are analyzed using expert opinion ratings. A new framework for LSS deployment in emergency healthcare has been developed, which can prevent failures due to challenges faced by organizations in overcoming resistance to changes.

The eight steps of the Kotter model such as establishing a sense of urgency, forming a powerful guiding coalition, creating a vision, communicating the vision, empowering others to act on the vision, planning for and creating short-term wins, consolidating improvements and producing still more change, institutionalizing new approaches are derived from the eight common errors that managers make while implementing change in the institution. The study integrated LSS principles and Kotter’s change management model to apply in emergency care units in order to reduce waste and raise the level of service quality provided by healthcare companies.

The present study could contribute knowledge to the literature by providing a framework to integrate lean management and Kotter's change management model for the emergency care unit of the healthcare organization. This framework guides decision-makers and organizations as proper strategies are required for applying lean management practices in any system.

The proposed framework is unique and no other study has prescribed any integrated framework for LSS implementation in emergency healthcare that overcomes resistance to change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of cloud computing (CC) on supply chain management (SCM).

The paper is conceptual and based on a literature review and conceptual analysis.

Today, digital technology is the primary enabler of supply chain (SC) competitiveness. CC capabilities support competitive SC challenges through structural flexibility and responsiveness. An Internet platform based on CC and a digital ecosystem can serve as “information cross-docking” between SC stakeholders. In this way, the SC model is transformed from a traditional, linear model to a platform model with the simultaneous cooperation of all partners. Platform-based SCs will be a milestone in the evolution of SCM – here conceptualised as Supply Chain 3.0.

Currently, SCs managed holistically in cyberspace are rare in practice, and therefore empirical evidence on how digital technologies impact SC competitiveness is required in future research.

This research generates insights that can help managers understand and develop the next generation of SCM with the use of CC, a modern and commonly available Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tool.

The paper presents a conceptual basis of how CC enables structural flexibility of SCs through easy, real-time resource and capacity reconfiguration. CC not only reduces cost and increases flexibility but also offers an effective solution for disruptive new business models with the potential to revolutionise current SCM thinking.

Institutional framings of doctoral education mostly do not recognize the existential dimension of doctoral experience. This paper aims to offer an expanded understanding of experiences of doctoral researchers in the humanities with the concept of entangled becoming. This concept is developed through an existential lens by using Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy – particularly his emphasis on emotions such as passion, anxiety and despair – and Denise Batchelor’s derived concept of vulnerable voices.

The conceptual framing is used for an empirical study based on ethnographic interviews with 10 doctoral researchers and supplementary observational notes from fieldwork at a university in Denmark. Two of the interview cases were selected to showcase variation across lived experiences and how doctoral researchers voice their entangled becoming.

Common experiences such as loneliness, insecurity(ies), vulnerability(ies) or passion for one’s research were identified across the interviews. On the other hand, this study shows that each doctoral journey in the humanities envelops a distinct web of entanglements, entailing distinct navigation, that makes each case a unique story and each doctoral voice a specific one.

Combining an existential philosophical perspective with a qualitative study, the paper offers an alternative perspective for doctoral education. It connects the humanities doctoral experience to the broader condition of human existence and the sophisticated uniqueness of each researcher’s becoming.

Supply chain vulnerability (SCV) analysis is vital for manufacturers globally because it creates a pathway for building resilient supply chains in uncertain environments. This study aims to identify drivers of SCV in the Indian manufacturing sector.

Sixteen drivers were identified from the literature review and followed by expert interviews. Interpretive structural modeling was used to determine the hierarchical structural relationship among identified SCV factors.

It was found that risk is not a board room agenda. Misaligned performance measures with incentives and lack of risk dashboard are the causal factors of SCV. Supply chain security, centralized production and distribution and lack of trust in the supply chain were driven factors.

This provides new insights to assess and prioritize initiatives for supply chain sustainability in terms of continuing business operations. The structural model provides a systemic view of SCV and helps reduce vulnerability.

This article aims to comprehensively review the measurement and management of supply chain performance (SCP) and strategic performance (SP). It strives to identify integrable features regarding frameworks, measurement approaches, practices and emerging research issues in these areas to integrate SCP and SP for measuring and managing performance. It intends to develop a dynamic-integrated-performance-system by incorporating integrable aspects of SCP and SP to link these domains for organizational performance improvement.

Using systematic-literature-review, this study analyzes 154 articles published in selected peer-reviewed international journals from 2000 to 2023 regarding SCP and SP. It assesses existing knowledge regarding research-design followed, challenging areas and imperatives in these critical business domains to investigate the prior conceptual, empirical, case study-based and literature-review-based articles.

The study identifies integrable features regarding key theoretical and measurement frameworks, critical objectives, significant measures, effective practices for measuring and managing SCP and SP and emerging research issues common to these areas. The findings help develop a dynamic-integrated-performance-system that uses the theoretical lenses of resource-based-view/dynamic-capability-theory and adopts a comprehensive framework like DBSC (system-dynamic-model with BSC perspectives). It incorporates identified integrable measures and best practices to monitor, measure, manage and improve organizational performance for sustainable competitive advantage. The article reveals that earlier studies have overlooked analyzing SCP and SP integration aspects.

From the theoretical viewpoint, the present SLR is unique in three ways: first, in investigating both the measurement and management of SCP and SP holistically; second, in identifying integrative features of these two; and third, in proposing a DIPS to link SCP and SP for performance improvement. The study reveals that existing literature has focused on measuring and managing SCP and SP in isolation without attempting a comprehensive and unified approach to integrate the respective domains. The present SLR adopts a holistic approach to link SCP and SP from SCM and strategic-management perspectives. The study proposes a dynamic-integrated-performance-system to measure, manage and improve performance in a unified method.

This study provides SC and strategy practitioners with an understanding of strategy-performance pathways for achieving strategic objectives and executing risk mitigation initiatives to counter disruptions. It enables SC managers to comprehend SC practices and SCP leading to dynamic SC capabilities development. Operationalizing the proposed DIPS will help firms link SCP and SP, align operational SC practices with strategic sustainability and circularity objectives and meet sustainable development goals while benefiting social and environmental stakeholders.

Assessing relationships and identifying a unified approach integrating SCP with SP have not been addressed earlier. This study's uniqueness is finding integrable features of SCP and SP and constructing a dynamic-integrated-performance-system to link these domains for achieving strategic competitiveness.

Despite the extent of working from home (WFH) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, research exploring its positive or negative effects is exceptionally scarce. Unlike the traditional positive view of WFH, the authors hypothesize that WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered work–life imbalance and work–family conflict (WFC) for employees. Furthermore, the authors suggest that work–life imbalance and WFC elicit burnout in employees.

Using a time-lagged design, the authors collected data in three waves during the peak of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to test the authors' hypotheses.

Overall, the authors found good support for the proposed hypotheses. WFH had a significant positive relationship with burnout. WFH was negatively related to work–life balance (WLB) and positively related to WFC. Both WLB and WFC mediated the effects of WFH on burnout.

This is one of the earliest studies to explore the harmful effects of involuntary WFH and identify the channels through which these effects are transmitted. The practical implications can help managers deal with the adverse effects of WFH during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

The authors' results significantly contribute to the research on WFH and burnout and present important implications for practice and future research.