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Severe disruptions to maritime supply chains, including port closures, congestion and shortages in shipping capacity, have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper’s purpose is to explore flexibility-based countermeasures that enable actors in maritime supply chains to mitigate the effects of disruptions with different characteristics.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with shipping lines, shippers, forwarders and ports. Data on the COVID-19 pandemic's effects and countermeasures were collected and compared with data regarding the 2016–2017 Gothenburg port conflict.

Spatial, capacity, service and temporal flexibility emerged as the primary countermeasures, whilst important characteristics of disruptions were geographical spread, duration, uncertainty, criticality, the element of surprise and intensity. Spatial flexibility was exercised in both disruptions by switching to alternative ports. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring capacity flexibility included first removing and then adding vessels. Shipping lines exercising service flexibility prioritised certain cargo, which made the spot market uncertain and reduced flexibility for forwarders, importers and exporters that changed carriers or traffic modes. Experience with disruptions meant less surprise and better preparation for spatial flexibility.

Understanding how actors in maritime supply chains exercise flexibility-based countermeasures amid disruptions with different characteristics can support preparedness for coming disruptions.

Comparing flexibility-based measures in a pandemic versus port conflict provides insights into the important characteristics of disruptions and the relevance of mitigation strategies. The resilience of maritime supply chains, although underexamined compared with manufacturing supply chains, is essential for maintaining global supply chain flows.

I aimed to obtain a deeper insight into the link between supplier involvement in product development (SIPD), supplier relationship resilience and company performance.

To collect data, a survey among 500 Polish manufacturing companies was conducted. I used quantitative methods (structural equation modeling) to test several research hypotheses referring to a single supplier–customer relationship. Thanks to the use of multi-construct measurement of SIPD and supplier relationship resilience, the study provides detailed research results on the topic.

Collaborative practices implemented during SIPD increase procurement flexibility and decrease redundancy in the relationship with the involved supplier. Communication during SIPD increases supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Increased supplier flexibility and increased procurement flexibility in the relationship with the involved supplier as well as collaborative practices during SIPD positively impact company performance. I confirmed the indirect effect between communication during SIPD and company performance when the mediators are supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Decreased redundancy in relationship with involved supplier does not impact company performance.

Supply chain managers need to rethink SIPD practice to effectively ensure supply chain resilience (SCRES), especially in the face of the contemporary global crisis and black swans affecting the supplier base. My article provides important managerial insights into drivers of SCRES and company performance.

To the best of my knowledge, this research is among the first to conclude that SIPD does not have an unequivocally positive or direct impact on supplier relationship resilience. The research fills the gap by analyzing the impact of SIPD on two main SCRES elements. The study examines supplier relationship resilience, understood as flexibility and redundancy elements, in a single supplier–buyer relationship perspective. Thus, the presented considerations go beyond the traditional understanding of flexibility and redundancy in supplier relationship management, that is through the prism of double or multi sourcing and having back up-suppliers.

Drawing upon a political economy approach, this article aims to analyze the transformations in the labor market within the context of contemporary capitalism, focusing on the phenomenon of financialization.

Financialization is defined as a distinct wealth pattern marked by a growing proportion of financial assets in capitalist wealth. Within financial markets, corporate performance is continuously assessed, in a process that disciplines management to achieve expected financial results, with consequences throughout corporate management.

We find that this phenomenon has implications for labor management, resulting in the intensification of labor processes and the adoption of insecure forms of employment, leading to the fractalization of work. These two mechanisms, added to the indebtedness of workers, constitute three elements for disciplining labor in contemporary capitalism.

We argue that these forms of discipline constitute a subsumption of labor to finance, resulting in an increase in labor exploitation. This formulation of the relationship between financialization and changes in the realm of labor also contributes to understanding the unrealizing potential of social free time in contemporary capitalism.

Technology and market pressures are encouraging localized and small-series production in customer-driven industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the supply chain-, product- and process-design factors for small-series production in EU’s textile and apparel industry, to understand configuration decisions, priorities and challenges.

An interview study was undertaken with ten companies that represent diverse small-series production models and value chain roles. Interview data was analysed to identify supply network configuration characteristics, decision priorities and challenges.

Three small-series production models emerged from the analysis, differing with respect to adoption of process postponement and customization. The findings confirm and extend past research regarding diverse decision priorities and product, process, supply chain structure/relationship configurations. Challenges identified relate to planning (priorities) and implementation (configuration). Whereas competence availability and digital technology challenges are common, several difficulties are linked to production model like tensions related to priorities and small volumes, which are not found with customization.

Future research can make comparisons with other industry and location contexts; adopt dynamic approaches to distinguish between design and reconfiguration processes; and address indicated paradoxical-tensions.

The study findings can provide guidance for companies regarding identification of priorities and management of (planning/implementation) challenges impacting small-series production in T&A.

The paper brings a configuration perspective at the supply chain level to the problem of small-series production implementation, which demands holistic and context-specific understanding.

This study aims to analyze how startups organize their purchasing activities to improve operative excellence and become attractive customers.

The authors use a two-phase exploratory approach with semistructured interviews and a World Café. In total, 20 startup purchasers and suppliers participated. It is an international study with participants from eight countries (Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA).

The authors find that startups organize the purchasing function in five ways: partial outsourcing, transactional-oriented, strategic only, outsourced purchasing and full department. Each type has advantages and disadvantages regarding operative excellence. The authors identify type-specific antecedents to operative excellence: forecasting, payment habits, ordering process, contact accessibility and quick decision-making.

The value of this paper is that it offers entrepreneurs a framework to organize startup purchasing activities, including outsourcing options. Furthermore, it provides theoretical contributions that expand the topic of purchasing and supply organization and operative excellence to the startup context.

The value of this paper is that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first to explore purchasing organization and operative excellence in startups.

Cloud computing originated in central data centers that are connected to the backbone of the Internet. The network transport to and from a distant data center incurs long latencies that hinder modern low-latency applications. In order to flexibly support the computing demands of users, cloud computing is evolving toward a continuum of cloud computing resources that are distributed between the end users and a distant data center. The purpose of this review paper is to concisely summarize the state-of-the-art in the evolving cloud computing field and to outline research imperatives.

The authors identify two main dimensions (or axes) of development of cloud computing: the trend toward flexibility of scaling computing resources, which the authors denote as Flex-Cloud, and the trend toward ubiquitous cloud computing, which the authors denote as Ubi-Cloud. Along these two axes of Flex-Cloud and Ubi-Cloud, the authors review the existing research and development and identify pressing open problems.

The authors find that extensive research and development efforts have addressed some Ubi-Cloud and Flex-Cloud challenges resulting in exciting advances to date. However, a wide array of research challenges remains open, thus providing a fertile field for future research and development.

This review paper is the first to define the concept of the Ubi-Flex-Cloud as the two-dimensional research and design space for cloud computing research and development. The Ubi-Flex-Cloud concept can serve as a foundation and reference framework for planning and positioning future cloud computing research and development efforts.

Machine learning (ML) analytical tools are increasingly being considered as an alternative quantitative methodology in management research. This paper proposes a new approach for uncovering the antecedents behind product and product–service innovation (PSI).

The ML approach is novel in the field of innovation antecedents at the country level. A sample of the Equatorian National Survey on Technology and Innovation, consisting of more than 6,000 firms, is used to rank the antecedents of innovation.

The analysis reveals that the antecedents of product and PSI are distinct, yet rooted in the principles of open innovation and competitive priorities.

The analysis is based on a sample of Equatorian firms with the objective of showing how ML techniques are suitable for testing the antecedents of innovation in any other context.

The novel ML approach, in contrast to traditional quantitative analysis of the topic, can consider the full set of antecedent interactions to each of the innovations analyzed.

This paper aims to examine the concept of standardization beyond its traditional use in generating and implementing standards and good practice guidelines (S&GPG) by looking at existing and emerging trends.

This paper utilizes two primary approaches to categorizing S&GPG for better comprehension: categorization based on provenance as well as based on subject matter.

A significant concern related to categorizing S&GPG based on provenance or subject is the constant proliferation of standards being developed and introduced every year. This rapid growth in standards requires frequent re-categorization to keep up with the dynamic nature of this field. To tackle this problem, this paper explores emerging concepts such as ontological representation and frameworks that offer archives and records management (ARM) professionals.

Standardization refers to establishing uniform rules through mutual agreement to ensure consistency. The study of standardization goes beyond the development of individual S&GPG, encompassing their practical application in work settings. Categorizing standards alone may not fully capture their actual use. However, abstraction mechanisms like ontological representations, models and frameworks can demonstrate how these standards have been leveraged. This paper provides illustrative examples rather than an exhaustive list to showcase how these mechanisms have been applied in research projects or as practical tools.

This paper explores the emerging topic of standardization from the perspective of ontological representations and models or frameworks. In addition, it also contributes to the discussion of the 2022 version of ARMA International’s Information Governance Implementation Model and the 2020 version of the World Bank Group's Records Management Roadmap, providing unique insights into these topics.

This paper aims to clarify how organizations manage their participation in networks to share and jointly create knowledge but also risk unwanted knowledge spillovers at the same time. As formal governance, trust and observation are less applicable in informal networks, the authors need to understand how members address the need to protect knowledge by informal practices. The study aims to investigate how the application of knowledge protection practices affects knowledge sharing in networks. The insights are relevant for organizational and network management to control knowledge risks but harvest the benefits of network engagement.

The authors opted for an exploratory study based on 60 semi-structured interviews with members of 10 networks. In two rounds, network managers, representatives and members of the networks were interviewed. The second round of interviews was used to validate the intermediate findings. The data were complemented by documentary analysis, including network descriptions.

Through analyzing and building on the theory of psychological contracts, two informal practices of knowledge protection were found in networks of organizations: exclude crucial topics and share on selected topics and exclude details and share a selected level of detail. The authors explored how these two practices are enacted in networks of organizations with psychological contracts.

Counter to intuition that the protection of knowledge can be strengthened only at the expense of knowledge sharing and vice versa, networks benefitted from more focused and increased knowledge sharing while reducing the risk of losing competitive knowledge by performing these knowledge protection practices.

This paper aims to analyze the ethical responses of the fashion industry to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when the entire world was shocked by the rapid spread of the virus. The authors describe lessons from emergency ethics of care in the fashion industry during the initial months of COVID-19, which can assist fashion managers in improving ethical decisions in future operations.

Rapid qualitative research methods were employed by conducting real-time, in-depth interviews with key informants from multinational fashion companies operating in Spain, a severely affected region. A content analysis of news articles published during the first months of 2020 was conducted.

Five critical disruptions in the fashion industry were identified: (1) changes in public needs, (2) transportation and distribution backlogs, (3) defective and counterfeit supplies, (4) stakeholder relationships at stake and (5) managers' coping challenges. Additionally, five business survival responses with a strong ethics of care component were identified, implemented by some fashion companies to mitigate the damage: (1) adapting production for public well-being, (2) enhancing the flexibility of logistic networks, (3) emphasizing quality and innovation, (4) reinventing stakeholder collaborations and (5) practicing responsible leadership.

Despite the well-documented controversies surrounding unethical practices within the fashion industry, even during COVID-19, our findings inform managers of the potential and capability of fashion companies to operate more responsibly. The lessons learned can guide fashion companies' operations in a post-pandemic society. Furthermore, they can address other grand challenges, such as natural disasters, geopolitical conflicts and climate change.