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Key success factors (KSFs) of total productive maintenance (TPM) have historically played a vital role in attaining economic and ecological sustainability but have overlooked social sustainability. Hence, this study analyses and ranks the most significant TPM KSFs for attaining social sustainability in manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The research employs a deductive methodology to identify the relevant TPM KSFs and social sustainability indicators and then uses Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to rank the TPM KSFs in order to achieve social sustainability, followed by a sensitivity analysis to assess the methodological robustness.

The findings indicate that the top five TPM KSFs influencing social sustainability are employee health and safety, organizational culture, top management commitment, employee engagement and effective communication and effective workplace management. In addition, the results indicate that effective equipment utilization is the least significant TPM key factor affecting social sustainability.

SME manufacturing managers do not need to worry about all of the TPM KSFs if they only concentrate on the ones that will have the most impact. If managers use the top 5 TPM KSFs as a starting point, they may create customized TPM training programs for their companies. As a result, this will facilitate the efforts of their personnel toward social sustainability.

In the existing literature, little emphasis has been paid to social sustainability and how SMEs may implement these practices. This research adds to the current theory of TPM and social sustainability and sheds light on how SMEs might use TPM to advance toward more socially sustainable operations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the critical failure factors (CFFs) linked to various types of process improvement (PI) projects such as Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma and Agile. Proposing a mitigation framework accordingly is also an aim of this study.

This research undertakes a systematic literature review of 49 papers that were relevant to the scope of the study and that were published in four prominent databases, including Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO.

Further analysis identifies 39 factors that contribute to the failure of PI projects. Among these factors, significant emphasis is placed on issues such as “resistance to cultural change,” “insufficient support from top management,” “inadequate training and education,” “poor communication” and “lack of resources,” as primary causes of PI project failures. To address and overcome the PI project failures, the authors propose a framework for failure mitigation based on change management models. The authors present future research directions that aim to enhance both the theoretical understanding and practical aspects of PI project failures.

Through this study, researchers and project managers can benefit from well-structured guidelines and invaluable insights that will help them identify and address potential failures, leading to successful implementation and sustainable improvements within organizations.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first study of its kind to examine the CFFs of five PI methodologies and introduces a novel approach derived from change management theory as a solution to minimize the risk associated with PI failure.

This paper aims to shed light on the perception of the consequences of implementing home teleworking (TW) for employers and employees amid the pandemic. By doing so, the research analyzes the factors that explain employers' and employees' perceptions of home TW and the symmetry of their impact on its acceptance and rejection.

The analysis is done over the survey “Trends in the digital society during SARS-COV-2 crisis in Spain” by the Spanish “Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas.” The explanatory variables were selected and classified using the well-known taxonomy of Baruch and Nicholson (i.e. individual factors, family/home, organizational and job-related).

The global judgment of HTW is positive, but factors such as gender, age, children in care or being an employer nuance that perception. While some factors, such as the attitude of employees toward information communication technologies (ICTs), perceived productivity or the distance from home to work, have a significant link with both positive and negative perceptions of HTW, other factors can only explain either positive or negative perceptions. Likewise, the authors observed that being female and having children on care had a detrimental influence on opinions about HTW.

A clearer regulation of TW is needed to prevent imbalances in rights and obligations between companies and employees. The authors also highlight the potentially favorable effects of telecommuting on mitigating depopulation in rural areas.

The authors have also measured not only the significance of assessed factors on the overall judgment of HTW for firms and workers but also whether these factors impact acceptance and resistance attitudes toward TW symmetrically.