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This study aims to examine the effect of supply chain agility (SCA) on operational performance (OP) measurements of steel manufacturing firms. It also investigates the role of cost efficiencies concerning enhance OPs.

The study is based on an experimental research design by collecting data from responses 398 responses of key officials of India’s steel manufacturing firms. Analyses are carried to explore this modern concept with the help of Smart-partial least square (PLS) version 3.3.2 with confirmatory factor analysis and PLS structural equational modelling.

SCA factor (SCAF) directly has influenced the firm’s OP. It also represents cost efficiencies that have partial mediation between the SCAF and OP. The impact of cost efficiencies on OPs is strongly significant as compared to the impact of SCAF on cost efficiencies.

Management teams in the manufacturing industry should stress the role of SCA as a comprehensive concept in responding to market needs in a volatile environment. SCA reflects one of its winning strategies in today’s dynamic and competitive world. Managers must thoroughly know the ramifications of agility to develop a mechanism for determining the procedures and identifying inequality in SC operation.

This study speaks explicitly about the linkage between SCAF, OP, CE. It is an addition to the existing theories of RBV. Enhancements in OP measurements, specifically performance and flexibility, will lead to better firm performance. study conceptualizing the complementing effects of SCA (IS capability) and OPs and second cost efficiencies play positive partial mediating effect in between the link. The achievement of SC agile is especially a critical approach to Boost customer satisfaction and differentiate market position.

The supply chain literature highlights chains that are activated by actual or forecasted demand, and has largely overlooked those that are activated by the supply source. This paper aims to position supply driven chains as a distinct class and to develop their properties.

Supply driven examples are given and their structural and behavioral properties are developed. Their properties are compared with those of demand driven chains using Fisher's classification scheme. The paper is conceptual in nature.

Four properties of supply driven chains are advanced. They show that supply driven chains differ significantly from their demand driven counterparts. As example, supply driven chains are prone to a reverse form of the standard bullwhip effect that is associated with demand driven chains.

Investigating supply driven chains opens several research avenues. Further properties and examples can be developed, along with methods to mitigate the reverse bullwhip effect. Research into synergies and boundary issues between supply and demand driven chains will likely yield operational efficiencies overall.

Differentiating between supply and demand driven phenomena helps practitioners design more efficient supply chains. For example, superimposing a demand driven operational structure on a supply driven phenomenon can be disruptive. Also, an efficiently operated supply driven chain may enhance the operations of related demand driven chains.

This paper highlights and develops supply driven supply chains. It extends supply chain theory and practice by providing additional structural characteristics that can be incorporated into supply chain designs.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically identify the key intellectual developments of the lean supply chain management (LSCM) field from its very first beginning by analyzing the publications that have been highly cited.

The citation classics method has been used to examine the origins and evolution of the research field. In total, 74 articles have been identified as having the highest impact on LSCM research published from its beginnings to the present day. Key aspects and links among the scientific contributions are studied by descriptive, bibliometric, network and content analysis.

Publication and citation trends, methodologies used, top journals, most influential authors, institutions and countries, collaboration patterns and evolution of the most used keywords are some of the aspects studied. Three main research areas are identified: LSCM foundations and implementation, lean-agile supply chain and performance assessment and the role of sustainability, which offers a holistic view of the field and enables the identification of potential avenues for future research susceptible to contribute to advancing the knowledge on LSCM.

This study provides a useful insight into the development of the LSCM field and can help researchers as it explores the state-of-the-art of LSCM by identifying the most relevant contributions in the area, the main research lines addressed by the scientific community in this topic and opportunities for further research on LSCM for years to come.

The purpose of this study is to learn how the incorporation and use of leanness, agility and innovation in Indian manufacturing micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) affect their bottom lines and how much these factors contribute to the MSMEs’ ability to meet their long-term sustainability goals.

The suggested model was subjected to data validation and additional empirical validation using a sample of 411 Indian manufacturing MSMEs. The analysis of construct measures is conducted through the utilization of confirmatory factor analysis, a statistical technique that is grounded in the theoretical framework of structural equation modeling (SEM). In addition, path model analysis was applied for the purpose to validate the assumptions that were included in the structural models.

Consistent with the proposed model, the findings of this study demonstrate that leanness, agility and innovation have a substantial favorable impact on the sustainability of a company’s performance. These findings may be helpful in gaining professionals, academics and policymakers to acknowledge the significance of leanness, agility and innovation in enhancing the long-term sustainability of MSMEs and enhancing the overall performance of a particular company. This research excluded the service industries-based research papers.

Many research in the field of manufacturing industries that have adopted leanness, agility, innovativeness and sustainability as individual approaches or as a collective methodology of two or more were considered in the current study. This research excluded the service industries-based research papers.

This literature review has recognized and analyzed various dimensions and roles of leanness, agility, innovativeness and sustainability that are prevalent in manufacturing industries that include the positive and negative effects on the performance of the industries. The research enlightens the path and shows future directions for research to develop efficient, effective and sustainable manufacturing industries.

By promoting the concept of focusing on the “human factor”, namely, stakeholder perspectives, the MSME sector is propagating a strategy that moves away from an excessive focus on technology and toward a more humane one. Through the application of the three key concepts of leanness, agility and innovation, this work aims to create a framework for measuring the sustainability performance of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), with the ultimate goal of assisting the country in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the fields of industry, innovation and infrastructure by supporting environmentally friendly and resource-conserving businesses that give back to society and the natural environment.

The objective of this research is to assess the importance and effectiveness of integrating various approaches such as leanness, agility, innovativeness and sustainability within the framework of manufacturing micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The authors hope that by going further into these concepts, they will be able to broaden their understanding and get a more comprehensive insight into the role that these concepts play and how they might be successfully used within this environment.

Developing a lean supply chain is a continuous improvement effort, so it requires tracking the implementation progress by assessing the achieved level of leanness. However, lean supply chain practices depend on firm-to-firm relationships and an assessment method should consider these network interactions. Given the absence of such a method, this study aims to propose an alternative approach for assessing the leanness level of supply chains.

The authors extracted 18 typical lean supply chain practices from the literature, constituting the leanness assessment parameters. Then, the authors developed an assessment method based on the graph-theoretic approach due to its properties of capturing the interdependencies between elements of a system. The authors tested the proposed method in an automotive supply chain, selecting the focal firm and three of its first-tier suppliers.

The authors positioned partial and overall results in a visual classification scale and the supply chain presented a moderate leanness level. After empirical testing, the proposed method demonstrated its practical feasibility.

This paper contributes to the literature with a novel approach for supply chain leanness assessment. However, to increase its generalizability, it would be beneficial to test the method in non-automotive supply chains, extending the assessment scope to downstream firms and second-tier customers and suppliers.

For practitioners, this paper provides a self-assessment tool to monitor the supply chain leanness and set priorities for improvement.

Besides tackling the interrelationships between firms, the proposed method considers the interdependencies between lean practices, providing partial and overall feedback to enable a systemic assessment.

June 30, 1966 Damages — Assessment — Loss of expectation of life— Death of healthy, happy young man — Settled prospects of employment — Decline in value of money — Extent to which to be considered — Whether Award of £500 too low — Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1934 (24 & 25 Geo. V, c. 41), s.1(1).

Many consumer-focused corporate social responsibility (CSR) studies suggest a positive link between the responsibility demonstrated by a company and consumers’ intention to favor the company in their purchases. Yet an analogous causal effect between corporate social and financial performances is not evident. This chapter conceptualizes how social desirability and cynicism contribute to the discrepancy between consumers’ attitudes and their actual purchase behavior, and analyzes why consumer choices indicated in surveys do not consistently convert into actions.

We develop a conceptual framework based on hybrid choice modeling to estimate the impact of two new variables, Corporate Social Desirability and Corporate Social Cynicism, on CSR research. The model presented synthesizes research findings from the fields of CSR and psychology with a discrete choice methodology that allows inclusion of psychological aspects as latent variables.

The goal of the framework is to bridge the gap between choices stated by consumers in CSR surveys and their actual choices by quantifying and extracting the effects of biases that otherwise threaten the validity of such survey results. As the next step, the practical value of the model must be evaluated through empirical research combining a CSR choice study with social desirability and cynicism measurement.

The framework proposes a novel way of controlling CSR surveys for potential biases created by social desirability and cynicism and enables quantification of this impact, with potential application to other fields where psychological aspects may distort research results. Future empirical evidence based on the framework may also offer new insights into the mechanisms by which the two biases distort findings.

Maquiladoras operations along the Mexico‐US border are an oft‐studied example of a lean supply chain strategy that allows US manufacturers to benefit from lower labour costs in Mexico while being able to supply to assembly plants in the industrial US Midwest, with a minimum of safety stock. This study examines an alternative strategy of the subsidiary of a North American automotive parts producer, which purchases raw and semi‐finished materials from approved North American automotive 2nd tier suppliers, manages the shipment of the materials to a plant in Thailand where the semi‐finished materials are converted in a labour‐intensive process into higher‐value sub‐assemblies. These sub‐assemblies are then shipped back to the US for installation into automobiles at an assembly plant in the Detroit area. The additional logistics costs of using Thailand as a production base are overcome by demonstrable quality advantages and lower wages, as compared to competitors performing similar operations in Mexican maquiladoras. This case study illustrates that international logistics management strategies must also incorporate product characteristics in addition to customer requirements for meeting optimum logistical performance.

This paper reports on a systematic review of the published literature on the effectiveness of whole‐school behavioural interventions, which aim to promote emotional and social well‐being among young people in secondary education. The findings are based on 27 studies of varying designs with some limitations. The results suggest that the literature is not well developed, and has a substantial skew towards interventions conducted in the United States. However, it does suggest that conflict resolution training is successful in promoting pro‐social behaviours in the short term, and that the use of peer mediators may be effective for longer‐term outcomes. The evidence relating to preventing bullying and disruptive behaviour is more varied, with evidence of mixed effectiveness being identified for the roles of the community, teachers, young people, external agencies and parents.

The purpose of this paper is to share reflections on the frontline delivery of a wrap-around secondary school re-engagement programme on compounding digital inequality during the COVID-19 lockdown.

This paper presents a deliberative reflection on practice and policy lessons learned while negotiating the digital divide during the COVID-19 lockdown in the delivery of the yourtown education youth engagement programme.

Frontline youth worker practice lessons highlight the compounding effect of digital inequality on vulnerable young people who are already disengaged or disengaging from secondary education and the necessity for a reflexive, agile and adaptable practice response, particularly during unprecedented events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper presents a wraparound service perspective and outlines important practice lessons gained from adapting an education re-engagement programme to respond to the COVID-19 lockdown in the Greater Brisbane area, Australia.