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The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of an empirical research on the leanness of the home services sector in the Czech Republic. The automotive sector provides reference to argue the numerical outcomes.

The research uses a specifically designed assessment tool (Lean Index – LI) to determine the sector’s leanness level. Referring to the results from both sectors, the paper draws conclusions about the current leanness level of home services providers.

The proposed LI indicates a value of 69.50 per cent for home services providers, whereas the LI for the automotive industry suppliers is 82.88 per cent. This suggests that there are large opportunities for the implementation of lean management in the home services sector. However, the main challenge is to introduce a continuous improvement approach to these companies.

The sample size limits the generalisation of the research results. However, this paper represents the first empirical attempt to implement a large-scale survey. The results are limited to the Czech Republic. However, parties from other countries have indicated interest to replicate the research.

This research provides first empirical findings on the possibilities of implementing lean in the home services sector. Future research projects in other sectors will have the opportunity to make use of the LI assessment tool.

The paper presents the first approach of lean management into the home services sector. It provides valuable information to specialised institutions in the sector about the possibilities of lean management in the sector. It also provides an overview of the sector for practitioners and academics willing to pioneer lean in the sector.

The new digital era brings several opportunities and challenges that accelerate the need to implement digital solutions in organisations. This speed of change creates many questions, but unfortunately, references cases to answer them or general guidelines to succeed are still rare. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present four cases that illustrate the procedure followed by companies to introduce digital elements in their operations (automotive industry supplier, toy industry, catering company and circuit trainings company). Each case offers inspiration and knowledge about the procedure to introduce digital elements and facilitates the proposal of a general procedure that aims to become guidance for practitioners.

The research implements comparative analysis in a multi-case design. It sensitises the concept of “digitalisation path” as a research instrument. Projects documentation and informal conversational interviews allow the researchers to describe each organisation and their digitalisation path. The interviewees review, enhance and approve the cases. Furthermore, the research compares the paths and summarises the findings into a digitalisation path model that explains the digitalisation of these organisations and it serves as a guide for other organisations.

The digitalisation paths evidence the necessity of business process management to develop digitalisation. Technology is not the goal, but the instrument and process excellence is the driver to introduce new technologies in the operations. Furthermore, the four organisations share a similar pattern and activities within their digitalisation paths.

The multi-case methodology lacks generalisation, but it provides detail over the digitalisation paths.

The paper presents a guideline for practitioners to introduce digital elements in the organisation.

The paper presents a practical perspective to introduce digitalisation in organisations, which is currently rare in literature.

Exploring the Lean and Green relationship goes back to the beginnings of Lean manufacturing. Most cases established that companies implementing Lean have Green results. However, there are Lean practices with a higher impact on Green, but others with less impact. Therefore, this paper presents research that explores the relationship between Lean and Green in manufacturing companies and aims to determine whether Lean practices have a higher association with Green aspects.

A survey was conducted amongst manufacturing firms to determine their Lean Index (LI). The internally related elements of the Lean construct determined each firm’s LI, whilst Cronbach alpha determined internal LI consistency. The survey also identified firms developing six Green aspects: International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001, ISO 50001, general Green aspects and the specific aspects of materials, energy and water. An individual sample t-test shows different LI levels of association for each Green aspect. Binomial logistic regression shows the LI element association for each Green aspect.

LI is higher at firms reporting the inclusion of Green aspects. More than half of LI components have a statistically relevant association with the six Green aspects. In general, Ishikawa diagrams had the highest association with Green aspects whilst the lowest was seen in workers as improvement initiators. By grouping the LI elements into their categories, the Lean practices related to controlling processes have a higher association, whilst the involvement of employees has the lowest.

Further research found in this paper identifies the possibilities for investigating the specificities of each Lean tool to develop Green aspects in companies.

Practitioners learn that Lean and Green are not separate issues in business. This article provides evidence that Lean practices in place at companies are already associated with Green aspects, so integration may already be happening.

This paper provides specifics on the relationship between each Lean practice and developing Green aspects. Thus, this paper specifies the Lean practices that contribute most to Green efficiency to support the joint development of both themes.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the main decisions for designing distribution centers (DCs) and the contextual characteristics of the distribution networks.

Experts were surveyed and responses analyzed quantitatively through multivariate data techniques. This study considered four contextual characteristics that were deemed as influential for DC design: types of routes in the distribution network, quantity of DCs, distribution network levels and company size.

This paper evidenced which decisions are affected by each contextual characteristic encompassed in this study. This paper identified that the characteristic types of route in the distribution network must be carefully considered, as it had the greatest amount of associations with the decisions for designing a DC.

Despite its importance, most studies on design of DCs disregard the effect of the context in which DCs are inserted. This research provides arguments to support decision-making process of DCs design, increasing assertiveness of their planning. This work fulfills a literature gap by empirically examining the effect of contextual variables on the decisions related to DC design. Regarding practice, this paper addressed a fundamental issue for managers looking to design a DC, as it evidenced how contextual characteristics impact the decision-making.

The paper aims to decipher, through intertwined external and internal perspectives, how female and male owners of family businesses (FB) that have been affected by the pandemic develop new capabilities to respond to the market's crisis-related needs. Specifically, this study seeks to decipher the role of external support, mediated by the owner's psychological capital (i.e. internal perspective) and moderated by gender, on the development of capabilities related to the market's changing needs, drawing on the dynamic capabilities conceptualization.

A sample of responses from 261 Canadian FB owners was generated during the pandemic, and online questionnaires were distributed.

Regression analyses and Hayes' PROCESS tool revealed that while external support directly invigorates capability development, external support is also mediated by psychological capital and moderated by gender, so that female owners were found less likely to use external support for capability development than men. These findings are explained by women's traditional responsibility in FB of protecting the family from external circumstances. Nevertheless, both women and men orchestrated external support, due to the higher psychological capital of FB, to develop capabilities that respond to pandemic-related market needs.

This study explores and demonstrates the unique navigation of FB owners during crises, and the role of the owner's gender in pursuing capability development. The study's value is in interconnecting external and internal perspectives while probing FB during crises. Implications for the ecosystem's conduct toward FB are discussed.

Research shows that innovation is imperative for business competitiveness and that entrepreneurs are stimulators of innovation. This is particularly true for younger entrepreneurs, who are recognized as having technological savvy, high dependency on the web, low fear of change and high zeal for challenges. However, not all businesses headed by younger entrepreneurs innovate, and research on younger entrepreneurs' innovation is lacking. This study assessed the main drivers of innovation in a sample of young Canadian entrepreneurs leading businesses in the initiation phase.

A sample of young Canadian entrepreneurs leading businesses in the initiation phase has been employed. This study is based on younger entrepreneurs and draws on the definition of generations Y and Z (Taylor and Keeter, 2010). It examines the initial stage of a business, up to 3 years. The sample includes 100 adults (65% female), whose ages ranged from 18 to 34 years. The drivers to innovate included external support (e.g. mentoring, funds, accelerators) and internal factors, including psychological attributes (i.e. risk-taking) and entrepreneurial motivations. Regression and structural equation modeling analyses have been conducted.

The findings revealed that entrepreneurial motivations for achieving self-fulfillment and contributing to the world, which are prevalent among younger generations, fostered innovation both directly and indirectly through the mediating effect of external support and risk-taking. External support fostered innovation not directly but through the mediating effect of risk-taking; in contrast, internal factors directly propelled innovation. This finding demonstrates the significance younger generations attribute to internal factors over external factors in the quest for innovation.

This study can be an intriguing starting point for future studies to examine in more depth the intertwined role of external and internal factors in accelerating innovation among younger entrepreneurs. Studies could examine various psychological attributes and professional and business capabilities (Zahra, 2021) as well as external factors.

Our findings add to this literature in stressing the need to strengthen risk-taking among younger entrepreneurs, which is affected by external support and produces innovation; and reinforce the relevance of the resource-based view in revealing younger entrepreneurs' avenues to develop innovation, pinpointing external support as contingent on motivation and demonstrating the role of risk-taking in the pursuit of innovation.

The implementation of digital technologies shifts the way firms manage their supply chains with the objective of obtaining closer relationships with their partners. The main improvement is that each partner can access others’ information in real time. This gives rise to the concept of digital supply chain where interconnectedness is the link. Applying digital technologies has reported innumerable benefits, and despite the fact that only a few firms make full use of them, they have become a very promising future trend.

This study aims to review the literature on supply chain and digital technologies in relation to the different benefits that each of these technologies provides in the different stages of the supply chain. Eventually, this will provide a guide to determine and select those technologies that best suit the needs of a firm according to their characteristics within the supply chain.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on the 74th General Conference and Council Meeting of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), which took place on August 10‐14, 2008 in Quebec, Canada. Design/methodology/approach – This is a descriptive report. Findings – The conference discussed libraries without borders: navigating towards global understanding. Originality/value – Will be of interest to library and information professionals.

The winter 1991 issue of Reference Services Review featured an annotated bibliography of literature on Christopher Columbus from 1970 to 1989. That literature covered such topics as Columbus' ancestry, heraldry, and the locations of both his American landfall and burial site. This annotated checklist focuses mainly on Columbus' legacy, on works that offer a dissenting point of view from most previous writings about Columbus (and on works that react to the dissenters), on material written by Native American and other non‐European authors, and on materials published by small and noncommercial presses.

Members attending a mass meeting at the American Library Associations's 1990 annual conference passed a resolution calling for libraries to “provide Columbus Quincentennial programs and materials which examine the event from an authentic Native American perspective, dealing directly with topics like cultural imperialism, colonialism, and the Native American holocaust.” But have libraries done anything since then to provide alternatives to the likes of Samuel Eliot Morison's purple prose? What attempts have been made to confront the omissions, half‐truths and myths about Columbus?