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Quality 4.0 is being presented as the new stage of quality development. However, its overlying concept and rationale are still hard to define. To better understand what different authors and studies advocate being Quality 4.0, a systematic literature review was undertaken on the topic. This paper presents the results of such review, providing some avenues for further research on quality management.

The documents for the systematic literature review have been searched on the Scopus database, using the search equation: [TITLE-ABS-KEY (“Quality 4.0”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (Quality Management” AND (“Industry 4.0” OR “Fourth Industr*” OR i4.0))]. Documents were filtered by language and by type. Of the 367 documents identified, 146 were submitted to exploratory content analysis.

The analyzed documents essentially provide theoretical discussions on what Quality 4.0 is or should be. Five categories have emerged from the content analysis undertaken: Industry 4.0 and the Rise of a New Approach to Quality; Motivations, Readiness Factors and Barriers to a Quality 4.0 Approach; Digital Quality Management Systems; Combination of Quality Tools and Lean Methodologies and Quality 4.0 Professionals.

It was hard to find studies reporting how quality is actually being managed in organizations that already operate in the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Answers could not be found to questions regarding actual practices, methodologies and tools being used in Quality 4.0 approaches. However, the research undertaken allowed to identify in the literature different ways of conceptualizing and analyzing Quality 4.0, opening up avenues for further research on quality management in the Industry 4.0 era.

This paper offers a broad look at how quality management is changing in response to the affirmation of the Industry 4.0 paradigm.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of light intensity and sources of carbon and nitrogen on the cultivation of Spirulina maxima.

Cultures were carried out in a modified Zarrouk medium using urea, sodium acetate and glycerol. A Taguchi experimental design was used to evaluate the effect on the production of biocompounds: productivities in biomass, carbohydrates, phycocyanin and biochar were analyzed.

Statistical data analysis revealed that light intensity and sodium acetate concentration were the most important factors, being significant in three of the four response variables studied. The highest productivities in biomass (46.94 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹), carbohydrates (6.11 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹), phycocyanin (3.62 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹) and biochar (22, 48 mg.L⁻¹.d⁻¹) were achieved in experiment 4 of the Taguchi matrix, highlighting as the ideal condition for the production of biomass, carbohydrates and phycocyanin.

Sodium acetate and urea can be considered, respectively, as potential sources of carbon and nitrogen to increase Spirulina maxima productivity. From the results, an optimized cultivation condition for the sustainable production of bioproducts was obtained.

This work focuses on the study of the influence of light intensity and the use of alternative sources of nitrogen and carbon on the growth of Spirulina maxima, as well as on the influence on the productivity of biomass and biocompounds. There are few studies in the literature focused on the phycocyanin production from microalgae, justifying the need to deepen the subject.

This study aims to understand how consumers evaluate downscale vertical line extensions of a prestige/luxury original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the European automotive market. The authors investigate the moderator effects of innovativeness and the need-for-status traits on the relationships between consumers' extension perceived fit (EPF), extension attitude (EA) and extension perceived value (EPV).

Experimental design with quantitative analyses based on a sample of 419 participants. Participants were randomly assigned to two treatments: low-fit and high-fit extension simulations.

The purchase intention of the downscale vertical extension of a luxury OEM brand is directly influenced by EPV and indirectly influenced by consumer EA and EPF with the parent brand. Findings also suggest that parent brand equity is transferable to extensions that present closeness and consistency with the brand’s heritage. Moreover, the need for status strengthens the relationship between the EPF and the extension perceived social value (EPSV).

The authors developed a realistic simulation of a downscale model of a well-known prestige/luxury car brand. The authors test the influence of innovativeness and need-for-status personal traits on consumer extension acceptance.

Credit is essential in the farm business because it facilitates the adoption of productive technologies such as irrigation. However, access to credit remains a significant hurdle for sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghanaian farmers. Therefore, the authors assessed credit utilization and the intensity of borrowing by irrigated rice farmers in the Upper East region. In addition, how extension moderates the amount borrowed was analysed.

The multistage sampling approach was used in the study. The Tono and Vea irrigation schemes were purposively selected. Proportionally, 318 rice farmers were sampled from the Tono irrigation scheme and 159 from the Vea irrigation scheme. Cragg's double hurdle and moderation analysis were used.

It was uncovered that gender, age, years of farming, total farm size, rice farm size, contract farming and off-farm employment explain farmers' decision to borrow. On the other hand, the intensity of borrowing was influenced by gender, age, years of farming, rice farm size, contract farming and the number of extension contact. The moderation analysis revealed that extension contact improves the amount borrowed by farmers.

While there are irrigated rice farmers in other regions of Ghana, this study was limited to rice farmers under the Tono and Vea Irrigation schemes in the Upper East region.

This study investigated the moderating role of extension contact on amount borrowed in Ghana. This makes a modest addition to the limited literature on the moderating role of extension and credit access.

This study intends to investigate drivers and consequences of supply chain coordination (SCC) towards green to highlight some convincing evidence for an emerging country's exporters to promote sustainable coffee development.

Data were gathered from surveying 189 managers of coffee exporters in Vietnam and then applied PLS-SEM for analysis.

This study demonstrates that top management sensitivity, along with institutional forces of regulation, market and competition, strongly stimulate exporters' supply chain coordination towards green. Additionally, that coordination boosts the export financial and market performance.

The findings may not be generalizable because the current study only included data from Vietnamese coffee exporters.

This study contributes to the current literature by looking from the perspective of coffee exporters – leading players in supply chains for export. The research findings represent the first solid argument for Vietnam coffee exporters to encourage SCC towards green and reveal several implications for managers and policymakers to support sustainable development in an emerging country.

This study aims to analyze the effects of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions on the behavioral intention of using mobile health applications, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

A survey was developed using an online survey platform and distributed to Indonesian consumers for three weeks, and 149 usable responses were obtained. The principal component analysis, linear regression and analysis of variance tests were performed to test the validity and reliability of the measurement model and the hypothesized relationships among constructs.

Surprisingly, unlike previous studies on IT adoption, the findings show that social influence has no significant impact on behavioral intention. Facilitating conditions have a very weak to almost no significant impact on behavioral intention to use mobile health applications.

This research is conducted during pandemic COVID-19 where using mobile health apps is a must. In the future this research can be expanded as comparison study after the pandemic COVID-19 stated.

The result implies that digital technologies adoption intention is strongly affected by performance expectancy and effort expectancy, with performance expectancy as the most significant predictor. Nonetheless, the interaction of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions influences behavioral intention significantly. Therefore, social influence and facilitating conditions are still important even with very insignificant effects.

To improve consumers’ behavioral intention to use mobile health applications, application providers should promote mobile health applications as useful telemedicine tools by primarily focusing on the application performance and usage experience.

The digitalization of schools has intensified in recent years. It is reflected in policy documents as well as in extensive investments in digital technology and professional development initiatives to promote digitalization. At the same time, attempts are being made to “tame” the same digitization sometimes by regulations banning smartphones in class. This study aims to examine how smartphones are interpreted by vocational teachers in Sweden using the theoretical lens of technological frames.

The data consist of ten semi-structured interviews with vocational teachers, representing eight vocational programs in Sweden.

The results show breadth in how teachers understand, interpret and relate to the smartphone in vocational education. The authors show how the smartphone often forms an integral part of professional work and is thus difficult to separate from vocational teaching and nurturing vocational competencies.

The authors’ contributions include using technological frames to explore how smartphones are interpreted and understood by vocational teachers by demonstrating how they relate to the nature of the smartphone, the strategy for the smartphone and the smartphone in use. The theoretical framework is used to interpret restrictions on technology use, in this case a smartphone, in education. The results could be of interest to researchers as well as to teachers, school leaders and policymakers.

This pan-Canadian study examines the information practices of STEM-trained immigrant women to Canada as they navigate workfinding and workplace integration. Our study focuses on a population of highly skilled immigrant women from across Canada and uses an information practice lens to examine their lived experiences of migration and labour market integration. As highly trained STEM professionals in pursuit of employment, our participants have specific needs and challenges, and as we explore these, we consider the intersection of their information practices with government policies, settlement services and the hiring practices of STEM employers.

We conducted a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 74 immigrant women across 13 Canadian provinces and territories to understand the nature of their engagement with employment-seeking in STEM sectors. This article reports the findings related to the settlement and information experiences of the immigrant women as they navigate new information landscapes.

As immigrants, as women and as STEM professionals, the experiences of the 74 participants reflect both marginality and privilege. The reality of their intersectional identities is that these women may not be well-served by broader settlement resources targeting newcomers, but neither are the specific conventions of networking and job-seeking in the STEM sectors in Canada fully apparent or accessible to them. The findings also point to the broader systemic and contextual factors that participants have to navigate and that shape in a major way their workfinding journeys.

The findings of this pan-Canadian study have theoretical and practical implications for policy and research. Through interviews with these STEM professionals, we highlight the barriers and challenges of an under-studied category of migrants (the highly skilled and “desirable” type of immigrants). We provide a critical discussion of their settlement experiences and expose the idiosyncrasies of a system that claims to value skilled talent while structurally making it very difficult to deliver on its promises to recruit and retain highly qualified personnel. Our findings point to specific aspects of these skilled professionals’ experiences, as well as the broader systemic and contextual factors that shape their workfinding journey.

The operation mode of enterprises will affect its resource commitment in the host country, involving different costs and time, as well as risks. Yet, the current state of knowledge about how the institutional environment affects the operation mode change of international construction enterprises is equivocal. This study aims to explore the impact of a host country's institutional environment on the operation mode change of international construction enterprises.

First, this study proposes a model on the impact of the institutional environment on the operation mode change of international construction enterprises. Second, this study used the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) published by the World Bank and a questionnaire survey to collect data. Finally, the study employs a multiple regression methodology to test the hypothesis and discusses the results.

Results highlight that the important impact of the institutional environment on the operation mode change of international construction enterprises. The results showed that enterprises are more willing to increase resource commitments under the condition of stable institutional environment. In addition, enterprises' market-specific experience and general international experience, as moderating variables, weaken the impact of the institutional environment on the operation mode change. However, general international experience has no significant moderating effect.

The findings of this study provide practical implications for the investment risk assessment of international construction enterprises. Enterprises need to consider the change in institutional quality and institutional instability of the host country, as well as their own international experience when changing operation mode.

This study extends internationalization theory to the international construction field and provided theoretical guidance for the mechanism of operation mode change of international construction enterprises.

This paper investigates school library services in the digital age for students with dyslexia and explores the impact of current library services on students’ learning.

A qualitative study with semi-structured interviews was designed according to the LAFE (Look and listen, Assistance and accessibility, Format and fit, and Environment) framework for learners with dyslexia and the 5E instructional model and conducted with 11 school librarians.

Results indicated that participants lacked knowledge of dyslexia for appropriate library services. Awareness, IT skills, school administration, funding and parental attitudes would influence the library’s tailored services to dyslexic children, despite the rich resources in these participants’ libraries, including paperbacks, digital resources and electronic devices. Adaptations are necessary to provide accessible services, especially by applying digital technologies, and school libraries can positively impact students’ reading interests, promote knowledge inquiry and strengthen information literacy skills.

While students with dyslexia spend significant time in schools, limited studies focus on school library services in the digital age, especially in Asia. This study fills the gap by systematically exploring the issue with the 5E instructional model.