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Interferences to supply chains (SC), regardless of whether they are regular, unplanned or intentional, are progressively distorting SC execution. As such, risk mitigation in SCs has received sufficient attention in the academic literature. However, there is scant research done on this topic within the African context, and none on the SC of electrical energy on that continent. In an effort to address this gap, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the SC department of Eskom, the primary utility company of South Africa and one of the largest on the continent.

Adopting a non-probability sampling approach utilising the purposive sampling technique to choose the sampling components from the target population, data were collected through semi-structured interviews as well as additional documentation in various forms. Data interpretation and codification thereof were done using ATLAS.ti 8 from which ten themes emerged.

The ten themes that emerged from the analysis of data show that SC risks emanate from value streams, information and affiliations, SC activities and external situations. Furthermore, these are brought into relief within the African context through examples and quotes from Eskom managers.

Based on the findings, the paper makes five major recommendations that would broadly apply not only to SC risk management (SCRM) in Eskom, but also other African utility companies.

Companies in emerging economies such as South Africa and other Sub-Saharan countries face a unique set of challenges with regards to SCRM. Some of these are identified in this paper and appropriate recommendations have been made.

Being the largest utility provider in Africa, services offered by Eskom are vital for economic development of South Africa as well as neighbouring countries. As such, the findings of this paper as well as the recommendations have social implications for economic development in that country as well as the region.

While SC risk management has been studied extensively in the academic literature, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that attempts to study it within the context of South Africa with focal emphasis on one of the largest corporations in that country.

The purpose of this paper is to provide sector-specific empirical evidence on the comparative evaluation of total productive maintenance (TPM) and total quality management (TQM) approaches, implemented exclusively and collectively on improving manufacturing business performance.

This paper develops a multi-sector analysis framework to comparatively assess the synergistic and standalone effect of TPM and TQM improvement approaches. A total of 231 manufacturing organizations from food and beverages, textiles and electrical and electronics sectors have been extensively surveyed. These firms were further clustered into TPM focus, TQM focus and integrated TPM×TQM on the basis of their primary manufacturing strategy. Comparative assessment of these three manufacturing approaches has been evaluated using t-test statistics.

This paper highlights that adoption of integrated TPM×TQM approach is beneficial for food and beverages and electrical and electronics sectors. However, this supposition is rejected for firms operating in the textile sector.

The findings of this research are still exploratory. Future research using countrywide and cross-country approach can be undertaken to statistically generalize the findings of the present research. In-depth case studies are needed to further validate the findings of the study empirically.

The result of this study help managers and practitioners to make manufacturing strategic decision based on the nature of their operating business sector regarding adoption of TPM and TQM practices, which will further revive their firm’s competitiveness.

Every operating sector embraces a diversity of manufacturing activities based upon their competing priorities. This paper makes an attempt to present a multi-sectoral evaluation of joint implementation and effect of manufacturing programs.

The purpose of the study is twofold. First, to examine the domain of green marketing construct in the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in emerging economies (i.e. India) across electrical industries and, second, to assess its impact on the SMEs performance.

All the owners of electrical industries (SMEs) operating in Jammu District, that is, 152, were contacted using census method.

The study identifies and confirms five factors, namely, greening the process, green supply chain management, green strategic policy initiative, proactive energy conservation and green innovation of green marketing as important dimensions of green marketing orientation (GMO) scale. All the dimensions of the GMO scale have positive and significant impacts on performance of the firms. In addition, there exists stronger impact of green marketing dimensions on the customer business to business (B2B) satisfaction and employee retention.

The research has certain unavoidable limitations. First, the study is based on only one sector, that is, electrical industries operating in developing industrial region of India and hence future research is suggested to comprehend green marketing in other green-savvy manufacturing sectors like pharmaceutical sector and service sector like hotels and hospitals. Further, the study has focussed on the development of GMO scale and future studies need to extend research to include variables like green satisfaction, green trust and green loyalty to understand their mediating role in green marketing and performance relationship. Furthermore, the moderating role of variables such as nature and age of the SMEs can also be studied in future research.

GMO allows managers to understand how their firms facilitate green environment and they affect the business outcomes. Furthermore, GMO takes into consideration all important aspects (greening the process, green supply chain management, green strategic policy initiatives, proactive energy conservation and green promotion) which provide better explanatory power and identification of priority areas for managerial attention. GMO can be used by managers to determine which strategies and practices will have the most positive influence on employees’ outcome.

This paper can help managers in identifying the perspectives of GMO in electrical sector for the developing countries. Unlike the three dimensions confirmed by studies, this study established five dimensions of green marketing, namely, greening the process green supply chain management, green strategic policy initiatives, proactive energy conservation and green promotion.

This paper presents a method for estimating the macro‐economic cost of a firm‐level information system disruption within a supply chain.

The authors combine field study estimates with a Leontief‐based input‐output model to estimate the macro‐economic costs of a targeted internet outage that disrupts the supply chain.

The authors find that supply chain vulnerability or resiliency to cyber disruptions is not necessarily dependent on the types of technology employed, but rather how the technology is used to enable supply chain processes and the type of attack experienced. The authors find that some supply chains like oil and gas could be significantly impacted by certain cyber disruptions. However, similar to other causes of supply chain disruptions such as labor disputes or natural disasters, the authors find that firms can be very resilient to cyber disruptions.

The validity of the approach is limited by the accuracy of parameters gathered through field studies and the resolution of government economic data.

Managers should examine how information technology is used to enable their supply chain processes and develop capabilities that provide resilience to failures. Lean supply chains that focus on minimizing inventory may be more vulnerable to major information system failures unless they take special steps to build resilience.

This paper provides a new approach to estimating economic vulnerability due to supply chain information failures.

Renewables such as sugar-energy biomass can contribute to national electrical security, job creation and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. However, after the auction of reserve energy, in 2008, exclusive biomass, in the regulated contracting environment (RCE), the authors observe that this energy environment has lost competitiveness in the auctions. Thus, a study on the present theme is justified, based on the problem: What are the reasons for the lack of competitiveness of sugar-energy bioelectricity in the Auctions of the RCE of the National Electric Energy Agency? The purpose of this study is to understand the situation of sugar-energy bioelectricity in the Brazilian market.

Literature review was conducted through the Scientific Electronic Library Online database, as well as the survey of primary documents at Sugarcane Industry Union and Electric Energy Trading Chamber.

The reasons for lack of competitiveness in RCE electricity auctions are: distant location of transmission lines; difficulties in obtaining licensing; delay in responses from environmental agencies; difficulties in securing financing for electricity generation projects for distilleries; non-pricing of positive environmental externalities as adequate disposal of waste; and the non-recovery of the cost of retrofit of the plants. The present situation may create economic, social and ecological circumstances adverse for Brazilian development, such as a lack of employment and income generation, loss of international currencies from imports of technologies not developed and produced in the country and more significant inefficiency greenhouse gas mitigation.

The originality of this study is in the contribution to the scarce literature on the understanding of the reasons for the lack of competitiveness of the Brazilian sugarcane sector in auctions of the regulated energy environment, based on SWOT analysis and, based on this understanding, to propose solutions for the expansion of this important matrix energy.

This paper applies the decomposition method proposed by Wang et al. (2013), together with the multi-national input-output tables from World Input-Output Database (WIOD) to estimate the value-chain transition in East Asian production network. Specifically, we calculate and examine the domestic value-added absorbed abroad, foreign value-added embodied in country’s gross exports, and vertical specialization measures to explore the relative positions of major East Asian countries in the global production chain over the period of 1995-2011. The analyses are at country-aggregate, country-sector, bilateral-aggregate and bilateral-sector levels. Based on our results, we answer the important question of whether Taiwan and South Korea have used China’s production chains as an intermediary to re-export their products to other countries in the world. Furthermore, we answer the question that over the 1995-2011 periods, have Taiwan and South Korea exploited cheap labor from China to add value to their products before re-exported them to the rest of the world?

The retail electrical goods sector registered an estimated £1,400m turnover for 1973, but is at the moment facing problems. The general downturn in consumer expenditure on durable goods is a factor, plus the reduced disposable income of the middle and lower income groups. But supplies from manufacturers are reported to be easing now, and there should be fewer lost sales from this source.

The paper describes six major approaches within strategic groups research: the industrial organization perspective (the IO-view), the strategic choice perspective, the strategy types perspective, the cognitive perspective, the customer perspective, and the business definition perspective. The two most promising perspectives to make real advances in the strategic management discipline seem to be the cognitive view and the business definition perspective. The purpose of a grouping based on business definitions is to provide an insight, as objective as possible, of the industry’s substructure which also corroborates with the cognitive maps of the industry which the CEOs have in mind. From a practical point of view, the classification of firms in groups based on commonality in business definition (buyer scope, product scope, geographical scope and degree of vertical integration), allows managers to compare their own firms with comparable firms (the firms within the same group). The research concerning strategic groups in the Belgian beer brewing sector and the Belgian electrical wholesale sector is presented. The major problems within the strategic groups research are discussed.

The paper assesses the extent to which China's comparative advantage in manufacturing has shifted towards higher‐tech sectors between 1987 and 2005 and proposes possible explanations for the shift.

Revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indices for 27 product groups, representing high‐, medium and low‐tech sectors have been calculated. Examination of international market attractiveness complements the RCA analysis. Findings for selected sectors are evaluated in the context of other evidence.

While China maintains its competitiveness in low‐tech labour intensive products, it has gained RCA in selected medium‐tech sectors (e.g. office machines and electric machinery) and the high‐tech telecommunications and automatic data processing equipment sectors. Evidence from firm and sector specific studies suggests that improved comparative advantage in medium and high‐tech sectors is based on capabilities developing through combining international technology transfer and learning.

The quantitative analysis does not explain the shifts in comparative advantage, though the paper suggests possible explanations. Further research at firm and sector levels is required to understand the underlying capability development of Chinese enterprises and the relative competitiveness of Chinese and foreign invested enterprises.

Western companies should take account of capability development in China in forming their international manufacturing strategies. The rapid shifts in China's comparative advantage have lessons for other industrialising countries.

While RCA is a well‐known methodology, its application at the disaggregated product group level combined with market attractiveness assessment is distinctive. The paper provides a broad assessment of changes in Chinese manufacturing as a basis for further research on capability development at firm and sector levels.

Purpose – This chapter explores the actual situation of women as patent originators in the European Union (EU) and provides insights into the innovation climate in companies by presenting best-practice examples.

Methodology/approach – Based on a gendered secondary patent database analysis from the European Patent Office (EPO), gender-specific patent data were obtained by a first name assignment, followed by a statistical analysis and input–output comparisons with a focus on high-technology sectors. The best-practice examples are based on expert interviews with male and female inventors.

Findings – The success of women in patenting is lower than their participation in research and development would otherwise predict. The production of technological knowledge depends also on scientific subcultures with dramatic input–output gaps even in feminised sectors. Exemplarily, the case studies reveal success factors on the organisational as well as on team and individual levels which enhance women's performance in the innovation arena.

Research limitations/implications – Further qualitative research is needed to investigate factors in the innovation area which have an impact on the patenting behaviour of men and women.

Social implications – Women are contributing significantly to European patents. Yet overall, their high potential is not being fully included in the innovation process. Their under-representation in patenting should be a concern to policy makers in the EU.

Originality/value of chapter – The availability of gender-disaggregated data in innovation supports the political commitment for the long-term promotion of women's participation in science and technology.