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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of fitness in production as something different from leanness and show that building fitness puts a factory on a course of developing cumulative capabilities and improving its ability to respond to changing market and business conditions.

The paper examines the process of design, launch, and management of a fitness program in 42 factories of the Hydro Aluminum Extrusion Group on five continents between 1986 and 2001. The design was based on the “sandcone model” proposed by Ferdows and DeMeyer but the sequence of capabilities was modified to improve safety, reduce process variability, codify and share tacit production know‐how, improve responsiveness, and improve labor and machine efficiency.

Most factories showed improvements higher than industry average in these capabilities during the 15 years. Moreover, they improved the capabilities listed earlier in the above sequence faster than those listed later, indicating that they were becoming more fit.

Observations were in only one company and industry, which limits general applicability of the model. However, measurements were taken over a relatively long period, factories were spread on five continents, and the authors had access to the actual data during the 15 years, which together provided a unique opportunity to gain deep insights from this case. Future research should test the applicability of the model in other industries and companies.

A fitness regimen provides a roadmap for improving core capabilities in a factory. It is different from building leanness. Fitness helps the factory become leaner, but the opposite is not always true. A factory can become too lean but never too fit.

This paper is the first, to the authors' knowledge, to introduce the notion of fitness in production in the literature. Results observed in this case suggest that a better understanding of how factories become fitter provides insights into some of the deeply ingrained practices of superior manufacturers, especially those that stay competitive over long periods.

Research on the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained momentum in various industry contexts. However, the literature lacks broad empirical evidence on the factors that influence users' intention to adopt this cutting-edge technology, especially in the food and beverage industry (F&BI) – a significant yet unexplored setting. Therefore, the authors aim to extend the “Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)” model by coupling it with perceived collaborative advantage, organizational inertia and perceived cost and explore the key determinants of IoT adoption for the digital transformation of the F&BI.

This study employs a cross-sectional quantitative approach, where a sample of 307 usable responses was drawn from the senior managers of the Australian F&BI.

The authors have found that performance expectancy, perceived collaborative advantage, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions have a strong positive influence on the behavioural intention to adopt IoT for the digital transformation of the F&BI. Furthermore, while high perceived costs and organizational inertia are often considered negative factors in adopting new technology, our results reveal the insignificant influence of these factors on the adoption of IoT, which is interesting. The findings also suggest that age and voluntariness significantly moderate most of the relationships, while gender is an insignificant moderator.

The study provides several novel insights into the existing body of knowledge by extending the UTAUT model with three variables and applying it in a unique context.

Large public companies restructure themselves on a regular basis with the primary goals of achieving better financial performance and demonstrating responsiveness to shareholder interests. However, it is well know that such discontinuities typically result in great stress and confusion amongst employees, particularly over how to achieve new stretch goals. Key functions such as engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, quality, and finance often pursue separate paths to achieve function‐specific goals. This paper utilizes the principles and tools of lean production to decode the CEO’s mandates and deliver practical, solutions‐oriented tools to employees to help achieve stretch business goals. This creates an effective bridge between the language of the CEO and engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, quality, and finance functions. Coupled with LEAN BEHAVIORS^SM, an environment can be created that enables widespread employee alignment and commitment to challenging business conditions. The result is the first framework that unifies technical and behavioral components of management.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

The purpose of this paper is to present exciting and innovative research questions in service operations that are aligned with eight key themes and related topics determined by the Journal of Service Management (JOSM) Service Operations Expert Research Panel. By offering a good number of such research questions, this paper provides a broad range of ideas to spur conceptual and empirical research related to service operations and encourage the continued creation of deep knowledge within the field, as well as collaborative research across disciplines that develops and incorporates insights from service operations.

Based on a Delphi study, described in the companion article, “Service Operations: What Have We Learned?,” the panel identified eight key research themes in service operations where leading-edge research is being done or has yet to be done (Victorino et al., 2018). In this paper, three or four topics within each theme are selected and multiple questions for each topic are proposed to guide research efforts. The topics and questions, while wide-ranging, are only representative of the many ongoing research opportunities related to service operations.

The field of service operations has many interesting research topics and questions that are largely unexplored. Furthermore, these research areas are not only increasingly integrative across multiple themes within operations but often transcend functional disciplines. This creates opportunities for ever more impactful research with a greater reach throughout the service system and suggests that service researchers, regardless of functional affiliation, can contribute to the ongoing conversation on the role of service operations in value creation.

Leveraging the collective knowledge of the JOSM Service Operations Expert Research Panel to expand on the research themes generated from the Delphi study, novel questions for future study are put forward. Recognizing that the number of potential research questions is virtually unlimited, summary questions by theme and topic are also provided. These questions represent a synopsis of the individual questions and can serve as a quick reference guide for researchers interested in pursuing new directions in conceptual and empirical research in service operations. This summary also serves as a framework to facilitate the formulation of additional research topics and questions.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evolution of service supply chain management from a behavioural operations perspective, pointing out future research directions for scholars.

This study searched five databases for relevant literature published between 2009 and 2018, selecting 64 papers for this review. The selected literature was categorised according to two dimensions: a service supply chain link perspective and a behavioural factor perspective. Comparative analysis was used to identify gaps in the literature, and five future research agendas were proposed.

In terms of the perspective of service supply chain link, extant literature primarily focuses on service supply and service co-ordination management, and less on service demand and integration management. In terms of the behavioural factor’s perspective, most focus on classic behaviour factors, with less attention paid to emerging behaviour factors. This paper thus proposes five research agendas: demand-oriented management and integrated supply chain-oriented behavioural research; broadening the understanding of the scope of behavioural operations; integrating the latest backgrounds and trends of service industry into the research; greater attention to behavioural operations in service sub-industries; and multimethod combination is encouraged to be used to dig into the interesting research problems.

This study constitutes the first systematic review of service supply chain research from a behavioural perspective. By categorising the literature into two dimensions, the state of existing research is evaluated with an eye towards future research avenues.

Discussions about conflict at work generally tend to revolve around examples of overt industrial action, taken against an employer by a group of well‐organised employees. As the service sector becomes increasingly prominent within the UK, this model is no longer adequate – if it ever was – since much action is covert and individualistic in nature. Moreover, managers themselves may also engage in activities designed to defy or subvert central policy initiatives. This monograph is concerned with an analysis of such activities in a night‐club environment, and is based on six years research during which one of the authors worked as an employee for a large service sector organisation. It illustrates graphically the way in which employees resisted management instructions, or sought to “get even” with individuals who had alienated them. The implications which this research suggests for improving systems of management in an environment such as this are assessed.