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The purpose of this paper is to present a four‐phase dynamic feedback model for supply partner selection in agile supply chains (ASCs). ASCs are commonly used as a response to increasingly dynamic markets. However, partner selection in ASCs is inherently more complex and difficult under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity as supply chains form and re‐form.

The model draws on both quantitative and qualitative techniques, including the Dempster‐Shafer and optimisation theories, radial basis function artificial neural networks (RBF‐ANN), analytic network process‐mixed integer multi‐objective programming (ANP‐MIMOP), Kraljic's supplier classification matrix and principles of continuous improvement. It incorporates modern computer programming techniques to overcome the information processing difficulties inherent in selecting from amongst large numbers of potential suppliers against multiple criteria in conditions of uncertainty.

The model enables decision makers to make efficient and effective use of the vastly increased amount of data that is available in today's information‐driven society and it offers a comprehensive, systematic and rigorous approach to a complex problem.

The model has two main drawbacks. First, practitioners may find it difficult to match supplier evaluation criteria with the strategic objectives for an ASC. Second, they may perceive the model to be too complex for use when speed is of the essence.

The main contribution of this paper is that, for the first time, it draws together work from previous articles that have described each of the four stages of the model in detail to present a comprehensive overview of the model.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an optimal control solution with prescribed degree of stability for the position and tracking control problem of the twin rotor multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) system (TRMS). The twin rotor MIMO system is a benchmark aerodynamical laboratory model having strongly non-linear characteristics and unstable coupling dynamics which make the control of such system for either posture stabilization or trajectory tracking a challenging task.

This paper first describes the dynamical model of twin rotor MIMO system (TRMS) and then it adopts linear-quadratic regulator (LQR)-based optimal control technique with prescribed degree of stability to achieve the desired trajectory or posture stabilization of TRMS.

The simulation results show that the investigated controller has both static and dynamic performance; therefore, the stability and the quick control effect can be obtained simultaneously for the twin rotor MIMO system.

The articles on LQR optimal controllers for TRMS can also be found in many literatures, but the prescribed degree of stability concept was not discussed in any of the paper. In this work, new LQR with the prescribed degree of stability concept is applied to provide an optimal control solution for the position and tracking control problem of TRMS.

This study aims to examine the effects of levee construction and tropical storms on regional economic growth of a coastal community. The study's goal is to highlight feedbacks important to climate change adaptation in the coastal zone.

The research utilizes a dynamic feedback model that includes coastal engineering, urban economic development, and natural ecosystem response. The model is a tool to help discuss important long‐term issues and to highlight areas of policy intervention. The data for the model come from US Census data, the global DIVA coastal database, and IPCC projections.

The results show urban areas facing elevated levels of exposure because of residents' low understanding of climatic risks. Coastal managers may actually increase long‐term exposure by attempting to protect coastal regions from long‐term sea‐level rise. Coastal defenses lead to a false sense of safety, increasing economic development in the short term, but causing larger economic losses in the long term, especially after a storm. Storm intensity and levee protection are important in determining an “economic tipping point” of long term growth – whether a community continues to grow or faces economic stagnation or decline. If storm damage is large enough, the community passes the tipping point and economic growth never recovers. The presence of levees changes the tipping point dynamic, making communities more resilient as long as there is no levee breach.

Coastal communities face increasing risk from accelerated sea‐level rise and tropical storms. Understanding the long‐term dynamics of protection decisions is important for creating effective adaptation policies.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of work group diversity dynamics as a novel approach for studying diverse work groups. The authors profile the dynamic processes within diverse work-groups and provide an overview of main objectives.

The paper draws on years of accumulated diversity research to cast a temporal and dynamic lens on the processes taking place within diverse work groups. After outlining the state of the art in work group diversity research, the definition, overall framework and profile of work group diversity dynamics is offered.

The paper argues that by adopting a temporal and dynamic perspective for studying diverse work groups, one can shift focus from the traditional perspective of “what is diversity” to “what happens within diverse work groups”. The paper disentangles the activities taking place within diverse work groups, defines the actual team processes and finally highlights how these processes might be affected by time and dynamism.

After almost 30 years of diversity research the mechanisms and processes through which diversity is translated into individual and organizational outcomes are not yet sufficiently understood and studied. This paper highlights a temporal and dynamic perspective for studying work group diversity, a view that is yet uncharted in diversity literature.

Through a detailed review of Literature, the purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the state-of-the-art research about the process of information technology business value (ITBV) creation, a less-traversed direction in ITBV research, from the perspective of causality since a lack of causal reasoning may be disastrous for ITBV creation.

With the help of eight keywords, ten databases were searched which fetched about 415 articles of which 22 were selected based on their relevance and proved as the base papers for classifying available literature. A further forward and reverse search fetched an additional 34 articles, resulting in a total of 56 articles which were reviewed in detail.

The five main categories of literature which emerged are ITBV (General), ITBV benefits, mediating factors and synergy (which use of organization dynamic capability (ODC) as first stream of ITBV research), and IT-enabled organizational transformation (ITOT as second stream). ODC is fairly mature, however, ITOT will benefit from a further research. Research in the ITBV (General) category suggests the development of dynamic models as opposed to the prevalent static models of ITBV creation.

For the period 1990-2008, only the most important articles were included in the study and hence certain pre-2008 articles’ view might have been overlooked.

The literature review will give practitioners a perspective to look at specific areas in the context of their organization to develop capabilities which will lead to enhanced ITBV creation.

This review focusses on ITBV creation and helps move toward building of a dynamic holistic model of ITBV creation by providing only a bird’s eye view is provided of the most important articles from 1990 to 2008 but a comprehensive view of literature from 2008 to mid-2014.

The production of a good or service requires that the supplier performs a wide range of activities. Many companies are trying to fit outsourcing with the dimensions of their organization. Outsourcing is increasingly being used among Iranian companies in the field of the electric power industry. Human resources are among the factors that consider outsourcing as an obstacle for their growth because staffs declare that the development of outsourcing is a serious threat for unemployment of them and ultimately expulsion from work. Thus, this study surveys the dynamic effects of human resources and work experience on outsourcing decisions. This paper aims to propose a model for dynamic strategic outsourcing focusing on human resource and work experience.

Presenting a model for strategic outsourcing can help organizations to resolve their outsourcing problems. The data needed for examining the dynamic impact of human resources and work experience on outsourcing have been compiled using library and field studies. The method used in this study is an integrated approach, so the model could consider the general effects of manpower and present a systematic view. After interviewing with experts in power industry, the causal relationships of the variables were determined, and a dynamic model based on the applications of the dynamic system was developed in VENSIM software. The research model will be completed in a three-year period (2016-2019) in the power industry of Iran.

For completing projects in an organization, cooperation between internal employees and external contractors is needed; thus, results based on both external contractors and internal staff have shown that outsourcing through working of a number of contractors will be more effective than frequent use of one contractor. On the other hand, improving the quality of projects could be done by training new employees using skilled and expert employees.

Existence of one-dimensional models (only with qualitative factors or only with quantitative factors) in the context of outsourcing in the past studies has prompted to study different types of factors together as a dynamic model. This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative model in the field of strategic outsourcing with emphasis on human resources and work experience. In the past studies, there was no way to formulate the qualitative factors, and they simply used the data from the organization, and the only formulation in their works was based on quantitative factors. But in this study, both factors with dynamic modeling have been formulated.

The purpose of this paper is to present retrospective, current and prospective aspects of social marketing and systems science integration.

The paper uses a periodization methodology, based on turning points of conceptual integration between social marketing and systems science.

The paper identifies three periods of integration between social marketing and systems science: initialization of marketing and systems science integration; further conceptualization of the link between marketing and systems science, coupled by permeation of systems thinking into social marketing; and deep integration of social marketing with systems science. The latter period is ongoing and focuses on the origination of strategic systems-based theories and practices for sustainable social change.

The use of a periodization methodology might be biased by subjectivity, as chronological sequences of conceptualization-related events can be hard to decipher and can be reluctant to structural analysis. The necessity to examine the link between marketing and systems science, in so far as social marketing draws upon marketing theory regarding integration with systems science, has social marketing overshadowed by marketing at some points in time.

Historical research of social marketing and systems science integration provides a robust platform for large-scale practical manifestation of system-based strategic projects in social marketing.

This paper demonstrates that the permeation of systems thinking into the social marketing paradigm is gaining momentum and describes the trends, prospects and complexities associated with the accelerating integration.

Large supply and computer networks contain heterogeneous information and correlation among their components, and are distributed across a large geographical region. This paper aims to investigate and develop a generic knowledge integration framework that can handle the challenges posed in complex network management. It also seeks to examine this framework in various applications of essential management tasks in different infrastructures.

Efficient information and knowledge integration technologies are key to capably handling complex networks. An adaptive fusion framework is proposed that takes advantage of dependency modelling, active configuration planning and scheduling, and quality assurance of knowledge integration. The paper uses cases of supply network risk management and computer network attack correlation (NAC) to elaborate the problem and describe various applications of this generic framework.

Information and knowledge integration becomes increasingly important, enabled by technologies to collect and process data dynamically, and faces enormous challenges in handling escalating complexity. Representing these systems into an appropriate network model and integrating the knowledge in the model for decision making, directed by information and complexity measures, provide a promising approach. The preliminary results based on a Bayesian network model support the proposed framework.

First, the paper discussed and defined the challenges and requirements faced by knowledge integration in complex networks. Second, it proposed a knowledge integration framework that systematically models various network structures and adaptively integrates knowledge, based on dependency modelling and information theory. Finally, it used a conceptual Bayesian model to elaborate the application to supply chain risk management and computer NAC of this promising framework.