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The purpose of this paper is to employ agility concept to develop a contingency perspective of relationship between suppliers' involvement, absorptive capacity (AC) and product innovation ( PI ). While the moderating effect of AC on the relationship between supplier involvement and PI performance is investigated, a firm's agility in PI is entered as one dimension of the firm's performance to accommodate a multidimensional perspective.

The paper formulates six hypotheses extracted from the relevant literature. The survey was conducted over the internet by using web-based questionnaire. A sampling frame of 1,200 manufacturing UK-based companies provided 233 usable responses. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to test a validity and reliability of constructs and further the paper employed hierarchical multiple regression to test the research hypotheses.

The results while reaffirm some of the existing theories of the subject provide some differing view of the issues allowing projection of new insight on the approach to PI and involvement of suppliers. The results support the proposition of PI performance multidimensionality where achievements beyond financial and market-related factors play a critical role. Furthermore, research findings suggest AC as a competitive factor that can provide the grounds for proactively winning in the PI game through increasing agility capabilities.

This study uses a random sample of UK manufacturing companies, which could be extended to firms from outside the UK too.

The paper provides a new insight into the existing literature on “new product innovation” and its relationship with suppliers' involvement as well as the firm's AC by employing agility perspective, as a leading theory to explain dynamics and uncertainties in the business environment.

To examine the application of the principles of “agile manufacturing” to marketing strategy, planning and management, in the context of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

Uses the case‐study method to test the development and deployment of “agile marketing” by applying the marketing techniques normally practised only by larger companies, within the “hard” and “soft” constraints imposed by one small company's managerial attitudes, corporate resources and time horizons. The host company was a UK supplier of technological products to other manufacturers; it had no history of marketing. The focus of the study was on the third stage of the agility framework: how a proactive marketing approach can be used to generate new custom.

“Agile marketing” innovations released latent capacity, and a strategic marketing plan was devised to win new custom. After follow‐up, four new customers had been recruited, and the potential for developing long‐term relations with them was good. This proactive approach was recognised by the company to be a cost‐effective route to business growth, as was the ease with which the plan could be reconfigured when new market niches were to be targeted.

The case study provides one “snapshot” of the outcome of transferring agility principles from manufacturing to marketing. The findings are nonetheless indicative and thought‐provoking.

Such marketing as small companies practise is more likely to be reactive than proactive. They rarely have the resources to take advantage of marketing ideas transferred from the big‐business setting. There are thus many constraints on their ability to respond cost‐effectively and swiftly to changes in their operating environment. The more flexible and reconfigurable the manufacturing and marketing systems, the more likely that growth will be achieved. Any spare capacity can then be channelled into recruiting new customers.

Transfers a planning framework and set of procedures from manufacturing management to marketing strategy and planning in the challenging environment of SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a generic method and tool for assessing the reliability and robustness of the product development process.

By extending the integrated definition for function modelling (IDEF0)‐based modelling approach, the paper demonstrates how to calculate the effectiveness of the process and the quality of the process output based on the quality of inputs, the controls and the tools used within the process. To illustrate and validate the proposed approach, it is applied to a case study of a product development process incorporating incomplete, fuzzy and uncertain inputs and resources.

Demonstrates the effectiveness of the tool in providing a quantified assessment of the process as well as its ability to identify those critical areas which will yield a significant improvement in the outcome of the product development process.

The technique is a valuable tool to assess the robustness and sensitivity of the process to changes in the quality of inputs, controls and tools, and can be integrated into businesses processes and management systems, and used as a tool to support continuous business and manufacturing decisions at any point of time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine some recent developments in the field of new products innovation. As a starting point, the reader is introduced to a brief history of management, setting innovation in its historic context. Some major issues facing new products managers are then briefly reviewed, and three recent developments in the innovation literature are discussed. These are: the growing role of improvisation in new product development as a reaction to conventional planning models; the role of “heart” in the workplace as a means of improving the creative potential of organisations; and the importance of qualitative‐based approaches as a means of tapping into the latent and unmet needs of consumers.

Crowded urban regions pose a complex urban challenge that can adversely affect urban residents, encompassing aspects like mental and physical well-being, overall livability and quality of life. The complexity in determining the factors influencing the crowding perception, which encompass subjective and situational psychological factors alongside physical and environmental attributes, imparts ambiguity to planners' approach. This study aims to unravel the intricate interplay between crowding and the physical attributes inherent in the built environment.

This literature review analyses theories linking urban planning and environmental psychology to uncover gaps in the relationship between urban design principles and residents' perceptions of crowding. It also explores influential variables affecting crowding perception and diverse methodologies across contexts.

The study built upon a broad literature review which is expected to summarise and classify the variables of urban planning components and approaches according to their impacts on the psychological perception of crowding. Furthermore, highlighting a number of recommendations that can be considered a guide for planners and urban designers to enhance the urban experience and reduce the perception of crowding.

This study seeks to improve the overall experience of crowding in densely populated urban areas. It accomplishes this by identifying influential factors and comprehending the associated outcomes in such contexts. Furthermore, it bridges perspectives from various fields to examine relevant policies and strategies to mitigate crowding consequences.

This paper aims to determine and assess leadership styles in six government general hospitals.

This is a cross-sectional study that uses a self-administered questionnaire to determine the leadership styles by self or followers’ rating. The participants were 66 leaders and 1,626 followers. The data were analyzed using suitable statistical methods.

The prevailing leadership style of hospitals’ leaders is the transformational style, where self-rating as transformational is higher than followers’ rating. The demographic characteristics of leaders are statistically insignificant.

Other health-care settings were not included in the study. In addition, the study is designed to determine the relationship between variables, not to identify cause and effect. However, effective leadership has a substantial value and impact in health care. The paper confirms the existence of a transformational style effect on all organizational outcomes and represents a baseline for future studies in determining leadership styles and organizational culture types to highlight improvement areas.

The paper recommends designing training programs to improve transformational leadership behavior. Moreover, investment in research is needed to understand how to build transformational leaders. In addition, leaders' recruitment must be conditioned by obtaining a leadership certification.

This topic is under-researched in Kuwait health-care system. The use of leadership style as an indicator for a health-care organization's performance is still not well known in Kuwait.

Corrosion of fresh water systems are studied. Immersion tests under flowing water conditions were performed for periods upto 7 days. Pipe materials selected for this study included commercial alloys commonly used in fresh water systems such as mild steel. At the end of the long term experiment the materials exposed to the water flow were investigated using the SEM technique. The results showed that the morphology of the surface was dependent on the corrosion behaviour during experimentation. Heat treatment plays an important role in material stability in contact with flowing water.

This study aimed to measure the effects of the Russian–Ukrainian war on the value of imports and the food trade balance in Saudi Arabia.

Estimating the suggested model using econometric analysis for the years 1990–2021.

The amount of deficit increased in the food trade balance from 11.58 billion riyals in 1990 to 72.98 billion riyals in 2021. As for the increase in the index of food production by 10%, it leads to a decrease in the value of food imports for Saudi Arabia by 1.88%. Also, the value of the deficit in Saudi Arabia's food trade balance decreases by 5.24% as a result of a 10% rise in food exports to the country.

In light of the increase in the food price index to 145.8, the value of food imports and the deficit in the food trade balance exceed their counterparts in the current situation for the year 2021, at a rate of 37.1% and 44.5% for each respectively. In view of achieving huge financial surpluses as a result of the rise in oil prices, the Saudi Arabia is able to bear the high import bill and the amount of food trade balance deficit. Finally, the Russian–Ukrainian war leads to an increase in the cost of obtaining food commodities and their unavailability in the markets and thus affects the food security environment. Therefore, this study recommends the necessity of conducting more studies on the impact of the war on the food security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of the psychological contract, relational psychological contract and transactional psychological contract on organisational commitment as mediated by transactional leadership in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) context. The paper also explores the contractual status to determine if the theory remains valid, regardless of the fact whether one is employed as a contingent or permanent worker.

This research made a longitudinal study spanning a 24-week time period. Data were collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire prepared in English and Arabic, at three stages representing three visits to the participating companies in the UAE. Pearson’s correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to examine the research hypotheses.

The results show that the psychological contracts (transactional and relational) are positively related to transactional leadership. This study categorizes several consequential relationships between transactional leadership and organisational commitment. It also advocates that transactional leadership has only a fractional mediating role in relation to relational psychological contract, transactional psychological contract and organisational commitment.

The findings suggest that practitioners and academics alike should note that the nature of the psychological contract employed will impact upon commitment and retention.

This study makes a significant contribution to the body of literature, being the second part of a longitudinal study that aimed at testing the mediating effect of transactional leadership on organisational commitment within the context of the UAE. In the earlier study, the intent was to analyse the role of transformational leadership as a mediator between the psychological contract and organisational commitment. Typically, transformational leadership has been found to partially mediate the above mentioned relationships. In addition, it also advocates that there may be some value in considering the employees’ contractual status with regard to the psychological contract and its impact on organisational commitment.

Parallel developments in the areas of agile systems and manufacturing, and supply chain management led to the introduction of the agile supply chains (ASC) concept. How to achieve agility in supply chain is, however, a subject of question and research. This paper proposes a framework for the development of ASC that is based on the integration of existing supply chain analysis and development models and techniques with those of the supply chain design (SCD) and also the design for the supply chain (DfSC).

The framework mainly relies on research previously carried out by the authors in the areas of developing agile manufacturing and systems and models for demand network alignment. An extensive literature survey is carried out to support the ideas and derive the constructs of the conceptual model as a basis for further empirical research.

The model suggest that responding proactively to the market and business environment changes, agility, can be facilitated by simultaneous development of supply chain and the output/product of the chain. The concept of DfSC, built on the success of existing “design for X” techniques, would increase the reactive and proactive capabilities of organisations.

The research provides a theoretical ground for achieving ASC which facilitates reconciliation between two usually separately approaches of SCD and DfSC, as well as suggesting practical solutions for developing agility in supply chains. This view can make the ASC concept understandable and practical, and open a new way of viewing the subject in research circles.