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Existing research evidence shows a fragmented understanding of the roles of first-line employees (FLEs) as essential factors for successful lean implementation in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), provoking recent calls for additional research on the identification of enablers and barriers for lean acceptance among workers. Therefore, this paper aims to identify related enablers and barriers to lean implementation among FLEs and determine future research avenues for improving the understanding of lean methodology implementation in SMEs.

Relying on a systematic literature review methodology, the authors aimed to synthesize and evaluate available peer-reviewed papers on the role of FLEs in lean implementation in SMEs. General descriptive and thematic analysis comprehensively depicted the selected research topic and identified the main themes within collected papers and potential future research questions.

The authors identified four main themes related to FLEs’ role in lean implementation: cultural change factors, employee characteristics, management involvement and lean job design. Within each theme, the authors present a comprehensive overview of FLE-related factors and associated enablers and barriers that should be considered for a successful lean implementation in SMEs.

The research outcomes are important to practicing managers in SMEs, helping them facilitate lean acceptance and enhance the likelihood of successful lean implementation.

The insights from this study present building blocks in developing a lean implementation model for SMEs that considers the FLEs’ role more comprehensively.

The construct of psychological capital or PsyCap (consisting of the positive psychological resources of hope, self-efficacy, optimism and resilience) has been demonstrated to relate to employees’ attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of positive psychological capital on mental health, readiness for organizational change, and job insecurity in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

Data were collected from 567 hotel employees working in hotels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A quantitative approach was used and employees were requested to fill the questionnaires.

Results show that psychological capital enhances an employee’s mental health and readiness for the organizational change. Moreover, PsyCap is found to negatively impact the perceptions of job insecurity among hotel employees. The study has useful managerial implications for hoteliers, especially, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the first study of its kind to link hotel employees’ positive psychological capital with their perceptions about job insecurity and mental health. COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world fiercely and new normal expects employees to be ready to embrace changes in organizations. This study contributes to the literature on hospitality management by linking psychological capital with hotel employees’ readiness for organizational change in the context of Coronavirus.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role individual innovativeness along with e-learning self-efficacy play in predicting the e-learning readiness of first- and second-year students of an open and distance education institutions in an African context.

Therefore, building on previous related research in this area, a quantitative approach was adopted to address the research questions and to establish whether a statistically significant relationship existed between individual innovativeness, e-learning self-efficacy, the independent variables; and e-learning readiness, the dependent variable. In total, 476 first- and second-years students of the university participated in the four-Likert-type scale survey. The research instrument which comprises 74 survey items was completed by 217 of the students. Statistical tools used for analysing data included both Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficients and t-tests.

It was discovered that a strong positive and significant relationship was observed between individual innovativeness and e-learning readiness of first- and second-year students of the Yenagoa Study Centre of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN); a statistically significant relationship was also found between e-learning self-efficacy scores and the e-learning readiness of the first- and second-year students of the Yenagoa Study Centre of NOUN; there was a statistically significant joint relationship between the three variables under investigation; findings equally revealed that male respondents had higher e-learning readiness than their female counterparts.

Like every other study of this nature, this one also suffers some limitations. First, NOUN is a very large university with over half a million students spread across almost 78 study centres. This means that observation from just one study centre amounts to a very small sample size. This according to Schweighofer, Weitlaner, Ebner and Rothe (2019) jeopardises the generalisability and validity of study results. The authors also maintain that empirical data generated from surveys that usually rely participants' abilities to read and select responses without further interpretation by the researchers suffer from cognitive biases like social desirability. To address the above limitations, detailed studies involving all studies centres of NOUN be undertaken and other qualitative and or mixed research methodologies be adopted in the future.

The implications for this study are that people who are innately innovative will willingly accept technology and by extension, learning in technology-rich environments like those found in like NOUN whose mode of study is blended learning inherently found in open and distance learning (ODL) institution. Therefore, this study is significant as it will provide relevant information to the management and administrators of NOUN, policymakers and regulatory institutions for the development, deployment and implementation of e-learning strategies. Findings will also benefit e-learning initiatives undertaken by similar institutions that adopt the ODL mode of education in Nigeria and other developing countries.

Even though, studies on the antecedents of e-learning readiness have been widely conducted across diverse contexts, studies exploring the associations between individual innovativeness, e-learning self-efficacy and e-learning readiness are relatively hard to come by. The above two variables as predicting the e-learning readiness in the study context are comparatively new. This study thus focuses on the relationships between the individual innovativeness levels, e-learning self-efficacy beliefs of students and their e-learning readiness which ultimately determines their ability to sustain studies in an ODL institution.

Manufacturing firms delivering complex products and systems are increasingly offering advanced data-based services. Customers, however, are not always willing to adopt manufacturers’ advanced services, so manufacturers need knowledge of how to promote customers’ service readiness. The purpose of this paper is to further develop the concept of service readiness by proposing a framework for industrial customers’ organizational dimension of service readiness and by increasing the understanding of the conditions underpinning that service readiness.

This case study explores service readiness among customers of a manufacturer delivering complex systems and related services. Interviews were conducted within the company and among key customers as the potential users of those services.

Customers use versatile processes, engage multiple people and use different evaluation criteria when considering adoption of data-based services. The organizational component of service readiness involves requirements in the service context, supplier relations and organizational habits and culture. Actions are proposed for manufacturers to promote customers’ readiness for new services.

The research is limited through its qualitative design and case selection. Mapping of the organizational dimension of service readiness further develops the concept of service readiness and offers a framework for further research. This research offers novel understanding of organization-level service adoption to complement individual-centric technology adoption.

New knowledge is offered to manufacturing firms about customers’ challenges and requirements in adopting advanced services. This knowledge will help manufacturers to support customers and develop the activities of their own salespeople when introducing advanced services.

The findings expose the contents of the organizational dimension of customers’ service readiness. The study provides a more complete picture of service readiness and shows it to be a multilayered concept with interdependencies between its levels, between individuals in customer organizations and even between the manufacturer and the customer organization.

The main factor that leads organizations to implement Building Information Modeling (BIM) is customer demand. While this is a frequent topic in the BIM literature, few studies address BIM organizational readiness. Due to this gap in BIM implementation literature, this paper aims to understand what affects organizational BIM readiness and how the BIM readiness process occurs.

The present paper adopts design science research as a methodological approach. A literature review examined 69 journal articles. The analysis focused on multiple theories, such as organizational readiness for change, adoption and diffusion of innovations and project management.

By investigating BIM organizational readiness, this study presents a construct and a conceptual model for driving BIM readiness.

This study can benefit researchers and organizations. The results presented may drive further research and discussions on the topic. But it is important to state that these results must be tested on real situations.

This study aims to assess readiness for climate change mitigation in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Two stages were followed aiming at understanding the situation related to climate change mitigation in Bahrain and assessing the mitigation readiness. Baseline and mitigation scenarios for the period 2019–2040 were developed using the Low Emissions Analysis Platform software based on historical emissions and energy data for the period 1990–2018. Using the analytic hierarchy process, the mitigation readiness was assessed by 13 experts, and priority areas for mitigation action were identified.

CO₂e emissions are projected to grow continuously. However, no explicit climate change strategy is in place yet. Mitigation is tackled implicitly through energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives. These initiatives can make 23% reduction in CO₂e emissions by 2040. Adopting additional measures is needed to achieve the recently set emission reduction target of 30% by 2035. The findings revealed potential areas for improving mitigation efforts in Bahrain. Priority areas for mitigation actions, as identified by experts, were mainly related to policy and governance. Focus needs to be paid to the social aspect of climate change mitigation.

Literature on mitigation readiness in developing countries is sparse. Knowledge of the requirements for climate change mitigation and assessment of the country’s performance can prioritize areas for improving mitigation action. Several lessons can be learnt from the case of Bahrain. In addition, the adopted methodology can be applied to other developing or Arab countries at local or institutional levels. However, its application to specific sectors may require adjustments.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on three fundamental human-related behaviour factors associated with Lean Six Sigma (LSS) projects in German manufacturing small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the readiness of people (managers and their staff) to commence LSS projects. These are core personal competence, strategic vision of the people and the organisational culture of the specific organisation.

Based on a thorough review of the academic literature a set of hypotheses were constructed to examine the level of association between people’s competence, vision and culture with LSS readiness within SMEs. This was done using correlation and regression analysis. Data collection were carried out in seven different German manufacturing SMEs involved in aerospace supply and agro-food manufacturing using a survey instrument.

It was found that there is a strong positive association between the core competence of people and organisational culture with readiness for commencing LSS in the manufacturing SMEs studied. The core values of people, education level and the vision of making continuous quality improvement were identified as key variables in promoting LSS readiness in these manufacturing SMEs. This study indicates that these “softer” variables can be essential to successful LSS implementation and need to be explored further before undertaking the process.

From the perspective of the implementers of LSS the results of this research could be of interest to different manufacturing SMEs intending to embark upon an LSS journey as it highlights the significance of human-related behavioural factors in the process. SME organisations may consider carrying out development or training with their managers and employees around personal and organisational values, addressing core competence and strengthening organisational culture in order to facilitate LSS readiness and enhance the prospect of its success.

It would appear that this LSS research has not been carried out within the German manufacturing SME context before and although discrete in nature has surfaced the “softer” variables of core competence of staff and organisational culture as important readiness issues to address when undertaking LSS. This integrated approach of human behavioural factors, organisational culture, LSS and manufacturing SMEs demonstrates the originality of the research.

Managers must make numerous strategic decisions in order to initiate and implement a business model innovation (BMI). This paper examines how managers perceive the management team interacts when making BMI decisions. The paper also investigates how group biases and board members’ risk willingness affect this process.

Empirical data were collected through 26 in-depth interviews with German managing directors from 13 companies in four industries (mobility, manufacturing, healthcare and energy) to explore three research questions: (1) What group effects are prevalent in BMI group decision-making? (2) What are the key characteristics of BMI group decisions? And (3) what are the potential relationships between BMI group decision-making and managers' risk willingness? A thematic analysis based on Gioia's guidelines was conducted to identify themes in the comprehensive dataset.

First, the results show four typical group biases in BMI group decisions: Groupthink, social influence, hidden profile and group polarization. Findings show that the hidden profile paradigm and groupthink theory are essential in the context of BMI decisions. Second, we developed a BMI decision matrix, including the following key characteristics of BMI group decision-making managerial cohesion, conflict readiness and information- and emotion-based decision behavior. Third, in contrast to previous literature, we found that individual risk aversion can improve the quality of BMI decisions.

This paper provides managers with an opportunity to become aware of group biases that may impede their strategic BMI decisions. Specifically, it points out that managers should consider the key cognitive constraints due to their interactions when making BMI decisions. This work also highlights the importance of risk-averse decision-makers on boards.

This qualitative study contributes to the literature on decision-making by revealing key cognitive group biases in strategic decision-making. This study also enriches the behavioral science research stream of the BMI literature by attributing a critical influence on the quality of BMI decisions to managers' group interactions. In addition, this article provides new perspectives on managers' risk aversion in strategic decision-making.

This research aims to identify and organise the conditions of organisational readiness for digital transformation.

This qualitative study comprises three case studies within manufacturing companies from different sizes and industries located in Sweden. Plant visits and in-depth interviews bring to light companies' experiences with initial steps towards digital transformation. A set of conditions for digital organisational readiness was translated into a questionnaire and tested with one of the studied companies.

This paper organises and tests digital organisational readiness conditions to support companies' initial steps on digital transformation. The results are put in perspective of established change management theory and previous studies about digital transformation. The findings will conclude in a questionnaire to support dialogue and digital organisational readiness assessments.

Additional conditions for the initial phase of digital transformation could possibly be found if more cases had been included in the study.

The article identifies a set of conditions translated into a questionnaire that should be used as a dialogue tool to create strategic alignment and support companies in their initial discussions. If this process can be faster and more efficient, the company can achieve a competitive advantage against competitors.

This research's relevance relies on the fact that companies are advancing in adopting digital technologies without being ready from an organisational perspective. This gap creates barriers for companies' digital maturing processes, stopping them from having full access to digital technologies' benefits.

In the present fast-paced and globalized age of war, special operations forces have a comparative advantage over conventional forces because of their small, highly-skilled units. Largely because of these characteristics, special operations forces spend a disproportionate amount of time deployed. The amount of time spent deployed affects service member’s quality of life and their level of preparedness for the full spectrum of military operations. In this paper, the authors ask the following question: How many force packages are required to sustain a deployed force package, while maintaining predetermined combat-readiness and quality-of-life standards?

The authors begin by developing standardized deployment-to-dwell metrics to assess the effects of deployments on service members’ quality of life and combat readiness. Next, they model deployment cycles using continuous time Markov chains and derive closed-form equations that relate the amount of time spent deployed versus at home station, rotation length, transition time and the total force size.

The expressions yield the total force size required to sustain a deployed capability.

Finally, the authors apply the method to the US Air Force Special Operations Command. This research has important implications for the force-structure logistics of any military force.