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Looks into the quality practices of a cross‐section of firms in the western Michigan area. Large and small firms were studied. Using a survey questionnaire, the study explores the relationship of a number of variables to the implementation process. Studies the relationship between firm size, competition and the implementation process by studying the degree of implementation. In the area of statistical process control (SPC) the respondents were asked to provide the percentage of production lines utilizing SPC. Similarly, in the area of vendor management the degree of implementation is related to the percentage of incoming material which no longer goes through inspection. In the area of quality costs the types of quality cost systems were documented. The major conclusions are that degree of implementation of quality programmes is not uneven. Larger firms and those firms facing strong import competition are more likely to have a higher degree of implementation. The usefulness of quality costs is questionable as most firms are proceeding with quality improvement programmes without a well defined quality costs system.

An industry‐wide analysis of quality management methods was conducted in the chain saw industry. It was found that all other firms have within the past five years followed the industry leader in implementing statistical quality control, vendor management and reliability engineering. The study found that the dollar amount spent on quality assurance capital equipment, the amount of training, the proportion of engineering personnel and the sophistication of the data processing capability to rank correlate well with the product quality. In terms of quality costs, the inverse relationship between the traditional ASQC quality costs and product quality was observed. It was also observed that the amount devoted to the capital equipment in the quality assurance budget grew both proportionally and absolutely. Finally, it was observed that in terms of relative quality, the costs of the engineering personnel and market research personnel were higher for firms with high product quality.

Examines the preventive maintenance practice at four Japanese transplant operations in the USA. Illustrates the application of the total productive maintenance concept, kaizen, employee training and employee empowerment. The benchmarking of Japanese practices serves to enhance quality management practices everywhere. The philosophy underpinning the effort at the Japanese transplants is the key to understanding the role of preventive maintenance in quality manufacturing.

The purpose of this study Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the important emerging trends in information technology and is slowly being implemented in libraries. The researchers have presented a brief strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of the application of AI in Pakistani university libraries.

This study uses an ethnographic approach for data retrieval. Five chief librarians were interviewed by phone, during which they were asked to identify one key strength, weakness, opportunity and threat in terms of introducing AI technologies. The researchers have used a standard SWOT matrix to report the respondents’ comments.

AI is already slowly being introduced into Pakistani university libraries. While commenting on ways in which AI could help their libraries deliver more innovative services and better meet user needs, respondents expressed concern about the investment required in funding, time and staff.

Further study is indicated to identify existing AI implementations in Pakistani university libraries and to assess relevant library users’ perspectives. This study is limited to brief, qualitative data; its main purpose is to validate the use of a SWOT analysis.

Given that AI-based tools are already being used in libraries to some degree regardless of location, now is an opportune time to develop strategies for implementing AI technologies more widely. A SWOT analysis can be used to identify and categorize challenges and risks specific to AI in a logical way to support strategic decision-making.

To date, no SWOT analysis has been conducted in the context of AI applications in libraries, let alone specifically university libraries in Pakistan.

New product development (NPD) is a noteworthy field that has attracted the attention of scholars for its relevance for firm success. Based on bibliometric indicators and spatial distance network analysis, the authors outline the general structure overview of NPD research through the last 40 years of scientific production; identify and categorize key articles, authors, journals, institutions, and countries related to NPD research; identify and map the research subareas that have mostly contributed to the construction of NPD intellectual structure. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The work uses the Web of Science Core Collection and the visualization of similarities viewer software. The analysis searches for all the documents connected to NPD available in the database. The graphical visualization maps the bibliographic data in terms of bibliographic coupling and co-citation.

The general NPD citation pattern evidences a construction of knowledge and learning, as evidenced in different subjects, such as biology or physics. Relevant contributions and contributors are highlighted as journals, articles, researchers, countries and institutions in overall NPD research and in its constituent subfields. Five subareas related to the NPD field based on journals and authors network are identified: marketing; operations and production; strategy; industrial engineering and operations; and management.

This paper contributes to the NPD literature by offering a global perspective on the field by using bibliometric data graphical networks, providing insights about the influence of individual actors and its contributions to build bridges between the different subfields of research in NPD.

I consider the significance of just one silence in strategy research – it revolves around the ‘I’ which brings in matters of biography, epistemology and reflexivity. While different epistemic communities have their investigative conventions or protocols and allied evaluative criteria which either silence or give voice to an ‘I’, developments in the philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge suggest the need to account for two particular and intertwined aspects of reflexivity. The first rests on C. Wright Mills' assertion that ‘craftsmanship is the centre of yourself’, and in this paper I share four snippets of autobiographical reflection outlining the crystallization of my interests and the sociological ‘eye’ which I bring to the study of strategic management. Second, the ways the established or taken-for-granted socio-politico-ethical orders routinely reproduce as legitimate (or not) particular ways of seeing-researching and thus, particular I's, is also woven into this account. My own intellectual ‘home’ of ethnomethodology is one where constitutive reflexivity is central and shows that the field of research interest – strategy work/strategizing – and our own practice of trying to understand this field are both a reflexive accomplishment.

This chapter opens up a question central to the mission of the business in society field as it has evolved since the formation of division in the Academy of Management (AOM): What are the (future) distinctive competencies of business in society scholarship? We first empirically demonstrate that core topics to the business in society field, as represented by the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the AOM, are now disseminated broadly throughout the management academy, represented by AOM. We call this dissemination the popularity paradox, because it demonstrates that SIM is not well connected with other divisions, that is, sub-disciplines of management despite that they are now regularly dealing with its core questions. Given that SIM’s (and business in society’s) traditional foci are now widely dispersed, the authors argue that it is time for business in society scholars, with SIM as proxy, to begin tackling new core issues that put growing civilizational threats around sustainability and the consequent need for system change and transformation front and center. In a sense, the authors argue that business in society scholars need to return to their roots of seriously questioning the roles and functions of businesses in society through a critical lens that asks and seeks to answer – today’s emerging new and tough questions, though the questions now emphasize the sustainability of human civilization as we know it.

Given advances in digitalization and automation, manufacturing employees are facing the increasing threat of being substituted by smart machines and robots. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework that explains as well as can be used to study career sustainability of workers in the fast-paced, continuously changing manufacturing landscape.

After tracing the evolution of manufacturing sector in China, the authors review existing literature on career sustainability and then propose a new framework. The authors then describe two fictive cases and illustrate the applicability of the four-dimensional framework in helping understand the lived experience of objects in these fictive cases.

The proposed dynamic framework of career sustainability constituted by four intricately interconnected dimensions (i.e. resourceful, flexible, renewable and integrative) is useful in understanding the fictive cases and hopefully will guide future research on career sustainability in manufacturing or similarly fast-past, dynamically changing environments.

The framework of career sustainability facilitates manufacturing employees to accurately evaluate the sustainability of their careers, whereby they can choose to continue, shift or re-orient their career paths during the transitional period toward digitalized manufacturing; it also enlightens employers to think about how to enhance the job security and engagement of workers by helping prolong their careers and re-design their career plans.

This paper proposes a novel yet context-specific framework to understand and study sustainability of careers. In addition to helping us understand how careers evolve during transformational periods, it also offers fruitful avenues for further research.

This chapter examines how key management theories in management and organization studies (MOS) have addressed kindness. Beginning with a definition of kindness, the chapter reviews the primary works of Frederick Taylor, Elton Mayo and Henri Fayol to surface an alternate account of MOS. ANTi-History is adopted to examine how each of these management theories present kindness providing an alternate account of MOS that predominantly focuses on efficiency and effectiveness. The chapter then re-evaluates MOS using a lens of kindness and the impact to contemporary organizations.

The objectives of the study were to identify the effects of blockchain technology (BT) on the university librarians, the impact of BT on the university library services and to reveal the challenges to adopt BT in the university libraries.

A systematic literature review was applied to address the objectives of the study. Around 25 studies published in peer-reviewed journals were selected to conduct the study.

The findings of the study revealed that blockchain technology (BT) has positive effects on the university librarians as it assists them in digital resources management, provision of integrated library services, effective records management and continued professional development. The study also displayed that BT has a positive impact on the university libraries through effective information management, user privacy, collaboration, technological innovation and access control. Results also revealed that technical issues, financial constraints, security problems, skill issues and sociocultural issues created challenges to adopt BT in the university libraries.

The study has offered theoretical implications for future investigators through the provision of innovative literature on the prospectus and challenges associated with blockchain in the context of librarianship. The study has also provided practical implications for management bodies by offering recommendations for the successful adoption of blockchain in the university libraries. Additionally, a framework has been developed to adopt BT successfully in the university libraries for the delivery of smart library services to library patrons.