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The purpose of this paper is to discuss recent trends in the circular economy and investigate how value stream mapping (VSM) can be extended to more fully include some of the critical aspects of circular economy.

The findings are based on previous research that has explored the usage of VSM to include aspects of the environment and sustainability aspects. These ideas are then expanded to new ways to use VSM by mapping value of a product as it is; used, maintained, re-used, remanufactured, recycled, incinerated or used for landfill. The authors test out this approach through application in the waste management sector to identify possibilities for improvement and new business opportunities in what now is considered waste.

This paper introduces an expanded version of VSM that refines the existing Lean toolbox for exploring value and mapping value in a circular economy.

The aim of this paper is to expand the relevance and practical value of VSM as the world economy increasingly moves toward a circular one.

Today, VSM is a widespread method within Lean manufacturing that scrutinizes value creation within an organization or within a value chain. This paper describes how VSM can be refined to explore value streams in the afterlife of a product and explore waste as a resource utilization opportunity.

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the results from the appreciative inquiry (AI)-inspired interviews to explore the underlying values held by top managers and to identify soft aspects of leadership.

Top managers were interviewed as a part of a research project with the aim to support the development of value-based leadership that integrates company values, organizational culture, customer needs and sustainable development. A structured interview guide, inspired by AI, was developed and used to pinpoint their motivation and vision of a good organization to understand the values that the managers had and to identify soft aspects of leadership. The interviews were analyzed in workshops with the whole research team and structured and visualized through affinity diagrams.

The results showed the underlying values held by top managers and identified soft aspects of leadership.

The presented interview guide can be used to identify the top managers’ underlying values, and the presented results from the interviews can be used to inspire other managers and leaders to develop their leadership in their striving of good leadership and effective organizations.

The paper explains how to apply an AI-inspired interview guide in finding out value-based leadership and soft aspects of leadership for enhancing organizational culture.

Metaphors are a powerful and human way of understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. In quality management (QM), several metaphors are used to describe and bring to life the often-abstract QM concepts and systems. These metaphors are of great importance for how QM is understood, communicated and practiced. However, the metaphors of QM have seldom been systematically screened or put in focus, neither the topic of a critical discussion. The purpose of this paper is hence to contribute with a screening of the metaphors currently used, within QM literature and in practice among QM leaders, and then elaborate on their potential for improvement and development.

The paper is based on a literature review combined with interviews of QM leaders.

The paper highlights that the current QM metaphors provide intuitive associations to properties such as stability, shelter, and structure, but not to the important dynamic properties of QM, such as learning, or to the critical role of people in QM. What can be seen as core properties of QM are communicated by texts or labels added on to metaphors with properties that often are in sharp contrast to them. The paper also provides suggestions for further improvements and development.

The paper highlights the area of metaphors within QM as an important area for future research. It also provides insights concerning the successful use and selection of metaphors in future QM practice.

The purpose of this paper is to identify constraints and possibilities to develop a value-based leadership in manufacturing using storytelling as a co-creative method and process.

A multi-site case study was conducted in which storytelling was used as a data collection tool and co-creative process to explore dimensions in the company’s cultures that could provide a deeper understanding about the constraints and possibilities that exist for developing value-based leadership in manufacturing.

Storytelling has a positive impact on leadership and communication highlighting important aspects of the organizational culture to support sustainable development and innovation.

This study demonstrates how storytelling can be used by leaders in manufacturing to build cultures of innovation and sustainability. And identifies constrains and possibilities for developing value-based leadership.

The scientific publishing process has during the past few years undergone considerable changes. The socio‐economic structures have, however, not changed much, and many academics and librarians view the current situation as highly unsatisfactory. This has triggered a number of initiatives to set up e‐print repositories and electronic peer reviewed journals, which usually offer the full text for free on the Web. Serious in‐depth research studying the way the scholarly communication system is affected by the Internet is needed. In this article a formal process model of the scientific publishing process is presented (the Scientific Publication Life‐Cycle Model). The model has been developed in particular to provide a basis for studying the cost implications of different business models. It describes the life‐cycle of the single publication, in particular the refereed journal article, from the research leading to it and writing it, to being read by other researchers years later or used as a catalyst for practical implementation. Conclusions are drawn about the usefulness of the modelling methodology for this particular purpose as well as of future uses of the model itself. In addition to providing a basis for cost studies the model could function as a road map for different types of open access initiatives.

The role of information middlemen, or infomediaries, in the construction sector in producing and delivering value for their customers is explored. Today, virtually all major participants in construction use and produce their data in some kind of digital form. The same is true of infomediaries, who provide them with digital information services. The emergence of the Internet has radically changed the boundary conditions for enterprising infomediaries, creating new business opportunities in the networked value chains that have evolved and threatening the existence of those infomediaries who fail to re‐engineer their operations. The construction sector is often described as a value chain that produces buildings. The construction value chain also produces information and this aspect is often overlooked. The paper presents, through the medium of an IDEF0 model, parts of the construction value chain relevant to the pursuit of customer value. The focus of the model is not on the physical building, but on the production of information and of product information in particular. The viewpoint is that of the infomediary and is based on the case of a national enterprise. The model is used to explore in detail how value is aggregated, how it is delivered and received. It compares the creation of product information by manufacturers with that of infomediaries and proposes transaction cost theory as a tool for the analysis. Overall, the findings indicate that the model needs to be extended to several customer groups downstream and upstream in the value chain. It also reveals a need for a deeper understanding of the concept of customer value. The paper concludes that the model has proved useful in gaining a deeper understanding of customer needs among information providers as well as users. The model has been validated through action research which has helped to strengthen existing strategies and led to new insights. It has also had an impact on existing and proposed services of the enterprise being studied.

The interest for hosting the Olympic Games is now at its historical peak. Heads of states, culture elites, top athletes and professional marketers are engaged in selling their cities to the deciding International Olympic Committee. This host selection process has recently been in the focus of public interest due to the bribery allegations against the winner of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, Salt Lake City.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a bibliometric study of journal articles in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) related to open access journals. Publication trends from 1993 to 2016, core journals, prolific authors and article citation frequencies were examined to provide librarians and scholars with a basic reference of relevant resources.

Among articles published in journals which have been listed in SSCI during 1993-2016, titles were searched for the term “open access journal”. The data were evaluated in response to five research questions concerning topics including publication trends from 1993 to 2016, core journals, prolific authors and article citation frequencies.

In total, 115 articles on open access journals were authored by 215 individuals from 1993 to 2016. The 115 articles analyzed were cited 842 times in 57 journals.

This paper describes a bibliometric study on open access journal publication, which has rarely been performed within the specific context of document supply issues. It provides a foundation for further research on titles as well as resources for librarians and scholars.