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Lean manufacturing (LM) constitutes a consolidated alternative that has been successfully used to increase company effectiveness and performance. However, different studies have shown that many companies that attempt to integrate LM into their manufacturing operations fail in their efforts. Recent studies have shown that soft practices are a key factor for a successful LM implementation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze an in-depth review of the different human-related lean practices (HRLP) referenced in the recent literature and to identify which of them are more relevant to a successful LM implementation.

The findings presented in this paper are based on the results of a study about the situation of LM in Spain carried out with lean production managers and frontline supervisors of 202 Spanish companies with a high percent (74 percent) of international firms with factories in different countries. The implemented methodology uses factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results shows statistical evidence of the relationship between management’s HRLP (fostering a lean culture, providing support to lean), employees’ HRLP (employee involvement and employee empowerment) and operational performance (OP) (waste reduction and flexibility).

The results have academic and practical relevance for clarifying lean phenomena, helping managers to define a sequence in which a company should implement HRLP to successfully implement LM and increase its OP.

This study fills a research gap by exploring the existing causal relationships between a greater number of variables, both dependent and independent in relation to human factors in LM implementations.

This paper aims to explore the differences in first-year and senior engineering students’ engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainable development. The authors also sought to understand how topics related to sustainable development in engineering courses affect senior engineering students’ goals to address these issues in their careers. This work provides evidence of how students’ agency beliefs may be shaped by higher education, which is essential to workforce development.

Findings stem from two national surveys of engineering first-year (Sustainability and Gender in Engineering, n = 7,709) and senior students (Student Survey about Career Goals, College Experiences, n = 4,605). The authors compared both groups using pairwise testing by class standing.

The results indicate that undergraduate studies tend to reinforce students’ engineering agency beliefs to improve their quality of life and preserve the environment. Significantly more senior students selected career goals to address environmental issues compared to first-year students. In general, students undervalue their roles as engineers in addressing issues related to social inequities. Those topics are rarely addressed in engineering courses. Findings from this work suggest discussing sustainability in courses positively impact setting career goals to address such challenges.

The study compares results from two distinct surveys, conveyed at different periods. Nonetheless, the sample size and national spread of respondents across US colleges and universities are robust to offer relevant insights on sustainable development in engineering education.

Adapting engineering curriculum by ensuring that engineering students are prepared to confront global problems related to sustainable development in their careers will have a positive societal impact.

This study highlights shortcomings of engineering education in promoting social and economic sustainability as related to the engineering field. Educational programs would benefit from emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. This approach could increase diversity in engineering education and the industry, and by ripple effect, benefit the communities and local governance.

This work is a first step toward understanding how undergraduate experiences impact students’ engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainability. It explores potential factors that could increase students’ engineering agency and goals to make a change through engineering.

Purpose – This chapter focuses on the role evolution has played in our development of politics and public policy and reviews the theoretical approaches and studies of the last decade that address biopolitics and evolution, such as the “gene-culture co-evolution theory.”

Design/methodology/approach – In this chapter some of these theoretical developments will be reviewed, including what has been called the “Synergism Hypothesis,” with particular emphasis on what is relevant for understanding the role of politics and public policy in the evolutionary process.

Findings – A new, multileveled paradigm has emerged in evolutionary biology during the past decade, one which emphasizes the role of cooperative phenomena in the evolution of complexity over time, including the evolution of socially organized species such as humankind. I refer to it as “Holistic Darwinism.”

Practical implications – This study develops an understanding of the complicated relationship between human biology and the role of evolution in shaping politics and public policy.

Originality/value – This study addresses several existing biopolitical concepts and presents new explanations and terminology for its understanding.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the causes and implications of potential negative consumer response to music in broadcast commercials. It aims to accomplish this by introducing a new consumer response variable, attitude toward the advertising music (A_am) and relating A_am's components to advertising goals. It also aims to propose that A_am is a significant component of attitude toward the ad (A_ad).

The paper takes the form of an integrative review of the relevant literatures in the psychology of music, consumer marketing, and advertising to formulate A_am.

Favorable A_am is a necessary but insufficient condition for favorable A_ad in ads employing music. Furthermore, a negative A_am might cause a negative A_ad. Given the numerous possible negative responses to music in a TV or radio commercial, achieving a favorable A_am among most target audience members is very challenging, especially when music‐message fit is lacking.

The paper offers cautionary advice for advertisers using music and directions for future research.

The paper provides a novel integration of literatures in psychology and marketing/advertising. Whereas most scholars and practitioners assume that music adds value to commercials, the authors demonstrate key ways in which music can cause adverse listener reactions.

There is no argument among serious researchers that a mongoloid stock first colonized the New World from Asia. Nor is there controversy about the fact that these continental pioneers used the Bering Land Bridge that then connected the Asian Far East with Alaska.– Gerald F. Shields, et al.American Journal of Genetics (1992)

The purpose of this paper is to identify the party most preferred to take the risks associated with the target cost contracts and guaranteed maximum price contracts (TCC/GMP) in the Hong Kong context.

An empirical questionnaire survey was conducted with the relevant industrial practitioners to solicit their preferences of risk allocation in TCC/GMP construction projects in Hong Kong.

The survey findings indicated that risks on tender documentation and project design are better borne by clients, while construction related risks are perceived to be taken by contractors. The research findings are consistent with other similar studies on risk allocation in construction projects in general.

This paper has developed a preferred risk allocation scheme for the delivery of future TCC/GMP projects, taking Hong Kong as an example. It can serve as a useful guide for decision makers to determine an optimal risk allocation at the planning stage of a TCC/GMP scheme.

The paper can benefit both academic researchers and industrial practitioners in generating an equitable risk sharing mechanism for TCC/GMP projects. It provides sufficient empirical evidence, added to the growing body of knowledge and lays a solid foundation for further research such as an international comparison of various risk allocation schemes associated with this kind of contractual arrangement.

A considerable amount of research has been undertaken with regard to the dispute causation within construction project management. Research has eschewed identifying the interrelatedness of variables, which has blurred researchers understanding of dispute causation and lead to latent work practices being embedded within the contracting environment within which projects are procured. With this in mind, this paper attempts to identify the underlying dynamics influencing disputes through the use of causal modeling.

Using the concept of system dynamics a series of causal models are developed from the literature to demonstrate the complexity associated with dispute causation.

It is revealed that project management, organization and people are the main sources of disputes. Causal models are constructed for each of these constructs and a series of strategies for avoiding disputations identified.

The research has demonstrated the inherent complexity associated with disputes and identified the interrelatedness of factors that can lead to their causation. It is suggested that further empirical research is required to determine the recurring latent conditions that contribute disputes. Once these conditions are examined then effective strategies for dispute avoidance can be identified and advancement toward improving the performance of construction projects made.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the continued media attention surrounding defects, and the resulting “rework”, in new build projects, especially homes.

This paper evaluates the literature on defects and rework in new build projects, with an emphasis on housing, and identifies a number of issues within the underlying research agenda.

Suggestions are put forward as to how predictor models may be focused to drive impetus for the development of a greater number of analytical tools which industry participants can use to characterize, model, evaluate and inform, decisions about defects and rework.

The house‐building segment of the construction industry is important since it is clearly outward facing and monitored by a range of interested stakeholders. The findings of this study will hopefully provide impetus to the search for alternative approaches to be taken to the elimination or reduction in new house defects.

There is a lack of information on defects and rework management models that the industry may utilize when considering how to minimize the occurrence and impact of defects and rework on future developments. As such, there is a need for a model(s) and approach(es) which help to eliminate or mitigate the underlying characteristics of defects and rework. In particular, there is relatively little research on defects and rework that focuses specifically on measurement and modelling and reduction in new housing.