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This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Industrial heritage is considered an essential part of cultural heritage in the world. This heritage suffers from continued marginalisation in the Arab world, particularly in Jordan, where many industrial heritage sites have not been protected or studied well due to the lack of a clear definition of cultural heritage. Most of these sites, built in the 20th century, are gradually disappearing or scheduled for demolition. This paper explores the de-industrialisation discourse and the loss of modern industrial heritage in the Arab world, especially in Jordan.

This research investigates the modern industrial heritage in Jordan as a case study in the Arab world. A comprehensive understanding of the industrial heritage has been obtained by adopting a case study approach and using a reconnaissance survey of potential industrial heritage sites in Jordan.

Seven categories were used in the analysis of the de-industrialisation phenomenon of heritage sites: ownership, location, design and types; structure, significance, deterioration and physical condition and conservation attempts and alterations. Three main approaches to industrial heritage were identified: demolition, occasional maintenance and rare examples of conservation and adaptive reuse.

This study sheds light on the ownership issue of industrial structures in Jordan and invites policymakers, relevant authorities, private organisations and the public to consider the challenges and impact of de-industrialisation of such sites.

This research raises awareness of the de-industrialisation discourse, and highlights the value of industrial architecture dating back to the modernity period, which was short-lived in Jordan. It also calls for serious consideration of these sites to support sustainable development in the Arab World.

The desired outcome in the new product development (NPD) effort is the timely commercialization of a profitable product. Whether marketing can benefit from the NPD case study is a critical but underresearched issue. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usage and quality of NPD case studies in business and industrial marketing.

To investigate the prevalence and research quality of case studies on NPD in business and industrial marketing, 317 case studies published in mainstream journals over the past decade (2010–2020) are reviewed.

This study finds that the distribution of quantity and quality of case studies fluctuates across journals. The scores on the evaluation template for the different case study stages vary widely across journals. This indicates that different journals have different criteria and priorities for NPD case studies. By focusing on different issues, enterprises can quickly find appropriate journals and case results according to their own needs.

This paper can help spark a debate about the implementation and quality of NPD case studies, including future studies and practical applications. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no similar study has been found in existing studies.

The purpose of this paper is to present possible strategic actions that aim to recover the value still remaining in industrial waste.

The research method is a multiple case study. The sample included six Brazilian companies of the footwear, metal-mechanics, pulp and paper, beverages, chemical and food industries. The study investigated the production process, waste generation, internal reuse, the destination of unused waste, difficulties and strategic challenges.

Possible strategies to recover the value remaining in industrial waste are increasing the internal reuse, developing new routes to other industries, reducing the waste generation, increasing the destination to cooperatives or recycling companies, which require studies to understand the legislation and agility in licensing and reducing the logistical cost of the destination.

The study relies on six case studies. Further research shall encompass an entire industry, starting with hypotheses derived from the cases.

The main barriers observed for reuse and recycling are uncertainties and ambiguities in the interpretation of legislation, the difficulty for the environmental licensing for recycling operations, excessive logistics costs for exploration opportunities and the lack of research to reduce the waste generation and to increase the internal reuse.

Waste managed by scavengers’ cooperatives can offer jobs to the people of vulnerable communities.

The study offers robust hypotheses to be tested in a survey on the capacity of a waste management strategy to create competitive advantage in the industry. The study establishes a relationship between waste management and three competitive enablers, compliance, corporate image and green market.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how industrial robotics fits into lean manufacturing systems. This paper presents results from case studies where Swedish and Japanese manufacturing industries have been compared in order to identify differences on how advanced manufacturing technologies and industrial robotics are utilized.

The research has been conducted via case studies where researchers from academia have worked together with industrial companies. During the case studies, the results of interviews, observations and data collection in the form of performance measures and historical production data have been analyzed.

This paper highlights some of the differences between how Swedish and Japanese companies work with industrial robotics. It also proposes some key areas where development could lead to better integration of industrial robotics into lean manufacturing systems.

This research has been performed with the intention of identifying how manufacturing industries could increase their competitiveness through industrial robot automation. The companies involved in the research project have received feedback on their automation solutions. The overall goal is to create a guideline for how to design industrial robotic work cells that can easily be integrated into lean manufacturing systems. This research area is important in order to increase competitiveness in industry. It is thus of value for both industry and the scientific community.

Companies inevitably interact and entrench in complex organic systems of business relationships with other. These business networks are not objectively defined, instead they are shaped by the subjective perception of actors. This inherent subjectivity is associated with the notion of network pictures, that is, a research tool that researchers or managers can use to grasp practitioner theories. In this chapter, we discuss how the importance of identifying these theories results mainly from underlying principles of sense-making theory, as well as from the idea around performativity. Drawing on these theoretical groundings, this chapter has two objectives: to explore how practitioners actually perceive their business surroundings and to assess the extent of overlapping between (IMP Group) academic theories and practitioner theories. To achieve these objectives, the researchers use a dimensional network pictures model previously developed in the literature to analyze the network pictures of 49 top-level managers across 17 companies from two very distinct contexts or networks: a product-based network and a project-based network. Among other practices, findings illustrate how practitioners tend to simplify what is going on in their complex surroundings, to personalize their relationships with those surroundings, and to think in a stereotyped way. Moreover, the juxtaposition between the captured practitioner theories and academic (IMP Group) theories show that these are not always overlapping, and are in some cases quite the opposite. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion of the importance of grasping actors’ views of the world, arguing that sense-making theory and the notion of performativity are the two main conceptual drivers justifying the urgency in making those views more visible. This research also adds to the research on the impact and suitability of IMP Group theories on managerial thinking and practice. Finally, this research reinforces the current call for further practice-based research in business network contexts.

Lean manufacturing (LM) concepts have been widely adopted in diverse industrial sectors. However, no literature review focusing on case studies describing LM implementation is available. Case studies represent the actual implementation and provide secondary data for further analysis. This study aims to review the same to understand the pathways of LM implementation. In addition, it aims to analyse other related review questions, such as how implementing LM impacts manufacturing capabilities and the maturity level of manufacturing organisations that implemented LM, to name a few.

A literature review of case studies that discuss the implementation of LM during the last decade (from 2010 to 2020) is carried out. These studies were synthesised, and content analyses were performed to reveal critical insights.

The implementation pattern of LM significantly varies across manufacturing organisations. The findings show simultaneous improvement in manufacturing capabilities. Towards the end of the last decade, organisations implemented LM with radio frequency identification, e-kanban, simulation, etc.

Reviewing the case studies documenting LM implementation to comprehend the various nuances is a novel attempt. Furthermore, potential future research directions are identified for advancing the research in the domain of LM.

For decades now, industrial manufacturers’ complex product development (CPD) activities have seen various improvement approaches as well as product development (PD) support processes all in the quest to achieve shorter PD lead-times and higher return on investments. CPD process improvements, in terms of complex engineering design and delivery, still lack a lot more variance to be addressed on the “better, faster and cheaper” paradigm for efficient communication and information exchange flow processes. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper presents employing social network theory analysis and statistical Pearson (r) correlation analysis in a triangulation approach to a proposed optimum conceptual information technology systems’ architecture and a “best practice” information flow process toward enhancing an industrial sustainable competitive advantage. Closed-end questionnaires were used to collect data for the scale or level of communication network from a sample size of eight Ship Power supply chain network complex engineering design and delivery systems-design teams with at least five members from each team.

Two extremely interesting findings and observations were identified from the analysis carried out (isolates and close-harmonic analysis) as well as the findings from the hypotheses’ testing. These essential analyses of the engineering systems-design teams were conducted by using the triangulation or mixed-method described in the abstract methodology identified above.

Effective and efficient real-time communication is seen as the vehicle for effective organization management. Although there may be some studies on effective technical communication in organizational and enterprise supply chain management settings, this research identifies a new robust and extensive analysis and feasible solutions to most of the communication bottlenecks and inefficient socio-industrial information flow processes, which need enhancement for industrial competitive advantage. Furthermore, the contribution of this paper further enhances the level 4 implementation aspect of the supply chain operation reference model in a replicable industry-specific perspective.

A prerequisite for the successful adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies in industry is the identification of areas, where such technologies could offer a clear competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unique value-adding characteristics of AM, define areas of viable application in a firm value chain and discuss common implications of AM adoption for companies and their processes.

The research leverages a multi-case-study approach and considers interviews with AM adopting companies from the Swiss and central European region in the medical and industrial manufacturing industries. The authors rely on a value chain model comprising a new product development process and an order fulfillment process (OFP) to analyze the benefits of AM technologies.

The research identifies and defines seven clusters within a firm value chain, where the application of AM could create benefits for the adopting company and its customers. The authors suggest that understanding the AM process chain and the design experience are key to explaining the heterogeneous industrial maturity of the presented clusters. The authors further examine the suitability of AM technologies with agile development techniques to pursue incremental product launches in hardware. It is clearly a field requiring the attention of scholars.

This paper presents a value-driven approach for use-case identification and reveals implications of the industrial implementation of AM technologies. The resultant clustering model provides guidance to new AM adopters.