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The purpose of this paper is to determine the critical factors (CRFs) of IS/ISO/IEC 17025:2005 laboratory accreditation and indicators of the performance (IOPs) in the testing/calibration laboratories. The impact of accreditation on the performance is analyzed using the level of presence of critical factors that can be used to benchmark the best practices in the accredited testing and calibration laboratories.

A questionnaire is designed on the basis of an extensive literature review on laboratory accreditation and performance. Based on the responses from pilot study, the developed instrument is tested for its unidimensionality, reliability and validity. Multiple regression analysis is carried out to analyze the impact of critical factors on the IOPs.

The findings reveal that the six distinct critical dimensions of laboratory accreditation (which are the independent variables) have a significant impact on the performance of the accredited testing/calibration laboratories. The performance is measured by the dependent variables which are the IOPs. The customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, laboratory performance, image of the laboratory, the number of increased customers and loyalty of the existing customers are highly influenced by the accreditation which in turn improves the performance to gain the competitive advantage.

Contribution to research is in the area of laboratory accreditation and the performance measurement by the development of a comprehensive instrument to analyze the Laboratory Quality Management System. The results are dependent on the number of respondents who are the quality/technical managers.

This instrument would enable the accredited laboratories to analyze their performance through the feedback from the quality/technical managers to gain credibility and to continually improve and benchmark the quality management system in alignment with the quality policies.

This paper proposes an instrument to measure and benchmark the performance of the accredited testing and calibration laboratories.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors (CFs) of ISO 14000; to determine if ISO 14000 certification results in improved organizational performance; and to analyze the levels of and changes in these CFs and levels of and changes in the indicators of organizational performance (IOPs) in relation to firm attributes considered in the present study.

The study employs questionnaire‐survey approach to obtain the practitioners' perceptions of ISO 14000 certification, levels of presence of CFs and changes in CFs due to certification, levels of presence of IOPs and changes in IOPs due to certification. The data collected have been analyzed by using statistical techniques.

The firms regard the preparation for emergencies as an integral part of environmental management system (EMS), and they seem to initially struggle to identify environmental issues that are to be given higher importance. Further, the certified firms find it difficult to continuously improve their environmental management processes. There are significant changes in all the CFs and IOPs due to ISO 14000 certification. Furthermore, more‐experienced firms have higher mean values of levels of all CFs, in comparison with less‐experienced firms. In the course of time, these firms appear to understand the EMS and effectively implement it in order to realize long‐term benefits.

Results of the study are dependent on the nature and number of respondents, i.e. on the perceptions of the top management responsible for quality certification, and the sample size (number of respondents in the current study is 36 due to limited response rate and other operational constraints).

The present study would enable the practitioners to benchmark their organizations (in respect of levels of presence of CFs and levels of presence of IOPs) with those of their competitors, with the best‐in‐class, and also with the industry's mean level. The study also enables one to compare different categories of firms (e.g. firms with low, medium and high levels of turnover; national and international firms; etc.). Since, there is a significant improvement in the organizational performance due to certification, the study provides a strong empirical justification for non‐certified firms to go in for ISO 14000 certification.

The study conceptualizes ISO 14000 as a seven dimensional framework. Further, it has also identified several IOP related to ISO 14000 certified firms. A questionnaire has been developed to obtain the perceptions of top management about the ISO 14000 certification and related factors and indicators; the proposed instrument can be used for several purposes such as functional benchmarking.

This study aimed to discuss issues related to the process for validating a performance management system for design (PMSD) in three product development companies.

The use of multifunctional groups becomes important because it favors viewing the organization as a whole, thereby reducing existing gaps between segments of the company. To support this study, focus group research was used.

Viewing design as a resource that contributes to increased competitiveness offers companies benefits, such as improved performance measurement. This measurement is based on indicators and, to be useful, an indicator system should stimulate the company's interest. In addition, the present study made it possible to conclude that the validation process is essential in preimplementation stages because validation allows the PMSD to be adapted to bring it closer to the reality of companies, thus increasing the chances of success during the implementation stage.

Validation of the metrics from the perspective of senior management enabled critical analyses of the applicability of the PMSD, as well as its suitability and approximation to the reality of businesses, by selecting the most relevant data.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether implementing certain innovation strategies and adopting a portfolio of innovations improve the relationship between supplier integration (SI) and operational performance (OP).

The authors test several research hypotheses by using a data set of 173 firms. Data were collected by interviewing managers, presidents and directors, from ten European countries and across nine different industries. The authors use structural equation modeling to estimate the relationships between SI and OP. The authors apply multi-group analysis to test the effects of certain innovation strategies and a portfolio of innovations on these relationships.

The authors show that SI improves internal OP but has no direct effect on external OP. The latter can only be improved through well-performing internal operations. The adoption of an incremental product innovation strategy improves the relationship between internal and external OP and leads to more effective SI. Other types of innovations do not help in improving the impact of SI on OP. Finally, the adoption of a portfolio of innovations does not enhance the influence of SI on OP. Thus, firms should focus on a small number of innovations rather than expanding their innovation portfolio to improve the effectiveness of SI on OP.

When firms aim to improve the impact of SI on OP, they should concentrate on incremental product innovations. Other strategies obtained by combining process, incremental and radical innovations are not adequate for that purpose. An expanded portfolio of innovations does not improve the effect of supplier innovation on OP.

This research suggests how the impact of SI on OP can be improved by adopting certain innovation strategies and without diversifying the portfolio of innovation projects.

Purpose – The concept of equality of opportunity (EOp) goes back to Roemer (1993, 1998) who argues that a society should guarantee its members equal access to advantage regardless of their circumstances, while holding them responsible for turning that access into actual advantage by the application of effort. First, this chapter investigates how family background influences income acquisition in 17 European countries. Second, it particularly scrutinizes how governments affect EOp through redistributive policies.

Methodology – We apply two different methods in order to measure EOp: the Gini opportunity index defined by Lefranc et al. (2008) and a parametric estimation method. Effective redistribution is measured via income concepts at different stages of the tax-and-transfer schemes.

Findings – We find clear country clustering in terms of EOp for Nordic, Continental European, and Anglo-Saxon countries. For Eastern Europe our results are less definitive. By examining the impact of redistributive policies in the countries under analysis, it can be concluded that both taxes and transfers reduce inequality of opportunity (IOp), with social benefits typically playing a key role. Furthermore, the equalizing impacts of the tax-benefit system on IOp differ substantially from the ones observed in the traditional notion of inequality of outcomes.

Originality – We systematically compare two approaches used to identify the extent of EOp. Our results reveal that both methods yield rather robust country rankings for various circumstance sets. Furthermore, the impact of tax-benefit policies on EOp is rarely addressed in the existing literature. We contribute by focusing on effective redistribution directly related to different income concepts.

This article aims to measure inequality of income and opportunities at the national and state levels in Brazil, highlighting their acceptable and unacceptable components.

To this end, a lower-bound estimate of income inequality (MLD) and inequality of opportunity (IOp) was developed using data from the National Household Sample Survey between 2001 and 2014.

It shows that the disparity of income measured by the MLD decreased 26.7 percent, while IOp measured by the IOp decreased 25.6 percent during that period. The decline in total inequality can be attributed to a 48.5 percent decrease of its unfair component and 51.5 percent decrease of its fair component. The average income of the most disadvantaged group (non-white women working in the informal sector) is shown to be only 29.5 percent of the income of the most advantaged group (formally employed white men). The groups at the greatest disadvantage were most benefited by the increase in income.

Beyond comparisons among countries, analysis at the subnational level make it possible to identify how the process that generates inequality acts in each state, revealing patterns undetected in the aggregate analysis. Its decomposition generates two products that are useful to policy-makers. The first is a base estimate of the degree of IOp present in society, which may be expressed as an indicator of the degree of IOp. The second examines the portion of total inequality attributable to IOp.

Introduction: Regional economies are significantly shaped by the new developments in technology, digital transformations, as well as by the demographic processes (the ageing population and international migration), all of these being amplified by the Covid-19 pandemics and requiring tailored strategies to bridge regional welfare gaps and enhance sustainable economic development.

Aim: This research provides a review of the interplay between the regional economic welfare and digitalisation, with a keen focus on digital transformations, education, digital skills and risk management strategies in filling development gaps and enhancing regional economic growth in a sustainable development framework, with a keen focus on Romania. In this approach, the study undertakes several essential research questions and designs an advanced theoretical and empirical research to inforce the knowledge in this scientific field.

Method: The methodological framework consists of robust regression models and spatial analysis with two types of spatial models, namely spatial lag-autoregressive and spatial error. National data compiled for Romania during the 2010–2019 lapse of time were exploited.

Findings: Main results encompass that digitalisation coordinates, education and digital skills are essential for enhancing the economic development and labour market performance of various regions in Romania, with beneficial spill-overs on sustainable economic welfare and poverty reduction. These advances bring to the fore important shifts in both demand and supply sides across regional economies that affect the equilibrium and overall performance, while public discourse, regulatory authorities, policy-makers and business representatives render global the keen need to strengthen the understandings in this scientific field.

Over past decades, the fossil fuel reserves in the world have been decreasing at an alarming rate and a lack of crude oil is expected in the early decades of this century. Also, the eco-neutral pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrigen (NOx) and unburnt hydrocarbons (UHC) are also increasing. This calls for innovative research in non-conventional fuels to replace fossil fuels. Hydrogen is one such fuel which has an exceptional combustion property and appears to be proving itself as the best transportation fuel of the future. On the other hand, compressed natural gas(CNG) has already been credited as a remarkable fuel for its better emission characteristics and has been implemented as a transportation fuel in metros. Therefore, the use of hydrogen blended with natural gas seems to be a viable alternative to pure fossil fuels because of the expected reduction of the total pollutants and increase of efficiency. This paper aims to investigate this issue.

In the present experimental investigation, 10 and 20 per cent of hydrogen–CNG mixture(HCNG) by mass of fuel is inducted into the combustion chamber in conjunction with air in HCNG–diesel dual fuel mode. The variation in injection opening pressure is assessed to optimize the performance and emission characteristics.

Experiments were conducted at three different injection opening pressures, i.e. 200, 220 and 240 bar, at full-load condition and the performance characteristics were calculated. The effect of injection operating pressure(IOP) on emissions were measured and compared with pure diesel mode.

Brake thermal efficiency (BTE) was increased by 1.2 per cent at 220 bar. Minimum BSFC of 0.2302 kg/kWh, 0.2114 kg/kWh was noticed for 220 bar with a changing ratio of 20 per cent of HCNG. It was noticed that CO and UHC decreased with variation in IOP and HCNG content in the blend. However, there was an increase in NOx emissions.

First, the paper aims to explore the ability of the actor sitting on the structural hole to achieve the additional rent, which is modeled as the outcome of joint effect between the relational performances of two dyads (supplier–buyer and buyer–customer) within the triadic supply chains. Second, the paper seeks to empirically compare the value of additional rent among different structural hole states of triadic supply chains.

Building upon the theoretical tenets of social capital theory, complemented by the underpinnings of relational view, this research uses survey data gathered from the triadic supply chains in Europe. To conduct necessary processing, the multivariate statistical analyses have been performed.

The findings suggest that the rent is actually yielded by the actors bridging the structural hole in the triadic supply chain; however, its value, as evidenced in the study, is diverse regarding the specific structural hole state. More specifically, the highest value of rent is generated by the buyer establishing cooperative posture of both dyads in the triadic supply chains. The value of rent close to zero is revealed in the triadic supply chains with negative relational posture of both dyads. Interestingly, the lowest level of rent produced by the buyer from bridging the structural hole is reported with the triadic supply chains in which one dyad demonstrates a more cooperative relational posture, whereas the other one indicates an adversarial relational posture. Not only does this result suggest that there is no rent, but it even goes further to indicate a negative return (or loss) derived by the manufacturer in this group of triadic supply chains.

The study is limited to the relational posture, either strong or weak; therefore, it would be worthwhile to examine a wider spectrum of behaviors, based on the adversarial relationships, deprived of mutual trust, when both actors in a dyad act opportunistically and antagonistically. Moreover, regarding the research method used, the case study is usually deemed to be more appropriate to deeply grasp the complex issues of social behavior. Finally, caution should also be exercised while generalizing the results obtained from the research.

For practicing supply chain managers, this study points that that it is likely that both actors collaborating with the buyer (the supplier and the customer) also enjoy additional benefits offered by the rent. Importantly for managers, regardless of the effort made by the focal actor, the careless attitude and independence of suppliers and customers may make it hard or even impossible for the buyer to establish triads that include relationships of high quality.

In terms of social implications, this study brings to the fore that not only are the buyers driven by self-interest but they may be also guided by ethical and social rules when interacting with suppliers and customers in their triads. This research evidenced that the buyer in the triadic supply chain can act as the moderator that tends to simultaneously establish a strong relational posture to two other actors in such a way that the joint effect of relational performance generated by both dyads significantly contributes to the higher level of buyer’s individual performance.

The study investigates whether and how establishing relational posture of two dyads in the triadic supply chains can affect the additional rent for the buyer derived from bridging the structural hole.