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Both technological and human-centric perspectives need to be acknowledged when combining lean production practices and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies. This study aims to explore and explain how lean production practices and I4.0 technologies may coexist to enhance the human-centric perspective of manufacturing operations in the era of Industry 5.0 (I5.0).

The research approach is an explorative and longitudinal case study. The qualitative data collection encompasses respondents from different job functions and organizational levels to cover the entire organization. In total, 18 interviews with 19 interviewees and five focus groups with a total of 25 participants are included.

Identified challenges bring forth that manufacturing organizations must have the ability to see beyond lean production philosophy and I4.0 to meet the demand for a human-centric perspective in socially sustainable manufacturing in the era of Industry 5.0.

The study suggests that while lean production practices and I4.0 practices may be considered separately, they need to be integrated as complementary approaches. This underscores the complexity of managing simultaneous organizational changes and new digital initiatives.

The research presented illuminates the elusive phenomena comprising the combined aspects of a human-centric perspective, specifically bringing forth implications for the co-existence of lean production practices and I4.0 technologies, in the transformation towards I5.0.

The study contributes to new avenues of research within the field of socially sustainable manufacturing. The study provides an in-depth analysis of the human-centric perspective when transforming organizations towards Industry 5.0.

Prior to managing a company’s processes in the presence of a combination of paradigms, there is a need to understand their underlying interaction. This paper systematically reviews the existing literature that discusses the interaction between lean production (LP) and the fourth industrial revolution (i.e. Industry 4.0). The study aims to understand how the interaction unfolds and whether it is synergistic.

The research relies on a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles from Scopus and Web of Science that discuss the interaction between the two paradigms. The final set of articles pertaining to the topic was analysed.

The article presents that the interaction between the two paradigms occurs through a representation of the pillars of the House of Lean (HoL) interacting with the nine technological pillars of Industry 4.0. There is a consensus on the synergistic nexus among the pillars and their positive impact on operational performance. We also demonstrate the weights of the interactions between the two paradigms and the areas of operations management where this interaction takes place through Sankey charts. Our research indicates that the largest synergistic interaction occurs between just-in-time and industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and that companies should invest in IoT and cyber-physical systems as they have the greatest weight of interactions with the pillars of the HoL.

This research facilitates a deeper insight into the interaction between LP and Industry 4.0 by organising and discussing existing research on the subject matter. It serves as a starting point for future researchers to formulate hypotheses about the interaction among the various pillars of LP and Industry 4.0, apply these interactions and test them through empirical research.

It could serve as a guide for managers to understand with which interactions they should start the digitalisation process.

With the rise in discussions on the interaction between the two paradigms, there is still an opportunity to understand the specificity of this interaction. Compared to the initial seminal works on the subject, such as Buer et al. (2018b), which investigated the direction of interaction between the two paradigms, this research contributes to further investigating this specificity and gaining a better understanding of the relationship governing the interaction between LP and Industry 4.0 by delineating the interaction state among the pillars of the two paradigms and its relevant importance.

Buoyed by the increasing demand for improved productivity and environmentally conscious manufacturing, research in the area of lean production and green manufacturing has experienced significant growth since Dües et al. (2013). Taking the latter as the point of reference, a review of recent developments in the complementary and conflicting areas between lean production and green manufacturing that has been missing is presented.

A systematic search was done to identify articles on lean production and green manufacturing from Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. The population-intervention-outcome format was used to develop and answer the research questions. ATLAS.ti 22 was used to analyse 141 qualifying papers and identify the research themes.

Lean production and green manufacturing have strong synergy, and when integrated, they tend to deliver superior organisational performance than their individual implementations. This is consistent with the pre-2013 results, and other areas of synergy and divergence were also identified.

The study considers only papers published in the manufacturing sector after Dües et al. (2013). A review of lean production and green manufacturing in integrated product-service systems may also be relevant, especially due to the continuing trend since its introduction.

Any new adopter of lean production should consider implementing it simultaneously with green manufacturing.

This study establishes the persistence of the pre-2013 patterns of synergy and divergence between lean production and green manufacturing, and identifies new considerations for their joint implementation.

The results indicate that land prices exert pressure on retail performance (RP) and that the enhancement of digital means has a positive effect on RP. Additionally, digital instruments (DI) play a significant moderating role in the relationship between land prices and RP.

This paper empirically examines the impact of land prices on RP using panel data from 239 Chinese cities between 2011 and 2022.

The use of lagged land prices as instrumental variables effectively alleviates endogeneity issues. Both two-stage least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) regression results suggest that higher land prices are associated with improved RP. Further analysis reveals that the increase in land prices leads to scale effects, structural effects and technological effects, contributing to the enhancement of RP. The impact of land prices on RP becomes more pronounced in larger cities and economically developed regions experience the pressure from land prices earlier.

The findings of this study have practical implications for discussions on retail industry development, site selection for retail businesses and the establishment of sustainable mechanisms for expanding domestic demand.

Given the controversial nature of the effectiveness of loyalty programs (LPs), this paper examines the effect of a new type of LP, namely green LPs, on consumers' perceived value of LPs. Specifically, the authors identify three types of green LP design and test their impact on perceived value.

An experimental protocol involving 1,016 shoppers was adopted in order to analyze the three types of green LPs identified in the literature.

Supported by social exchange theory (SET), the results show that a green LP can influence the perceived value of LPs. Such programs can drive psychological value in addition to the economic value linked only to monetary incentives. LPs rewarding sustainable behavior appear to be the most significant generators of value.

Since corporate social responsibility (CSR) is now critical to a company's success, this study investigates how firms can integrate it in order to improve the effectiveness of their LP design.

This study aims to investigate the influence of the interrelationship between the deployment of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and the application of lean production (LP) practices on the degree of organizational sustainability performance (SP) enhancement of the Bangladeshi ready-made garment (RMG) sector.

Previously, researchers have applied the resource-based view (RBV) or dynamic capability view (DCV) to describe the interaction of resources and capacities (technologies, management practices, SP) to analyze their effectiveness. However, in light of several contemporary academic discussions, this study contends that these organizational views are inappropriate for explicating SP. Hence, as the foundation of this study’s theoretical framework, the authors used the practice-based view (PBV), which is recommended as a useful window to evaluate the function of practices that are common and simple to emulate in execution. To test the theoretical framework and research hypothesis, this study used partial least square (PLS) analysis. For that, the authors carried out a systematic survey to collect data from 80 Bangladeshi RMG factories.

The results of this research imply that LP is a crucial factor in enhancing organizational SP. Moreover, the results also indicate that the adoption of I4.0 technologies along with LP can assist in delivering the lean objectives more efficiently and, therefore, the combined application of LP practices and I4.0 technologies play a significant role in enhancing organizational SP.

Though the present literature indicates the probable significant association between LP and SP or I4.0 technologies and SP, no study, with the best of the authors’ knowledge, has empirically examined the combined impacts of correlation between LP and I4.0 on SP. This is also a unique study to apply the PBV theory to explain the organizational SP through the combination of common resources and technologies.

A paradigm shift of industry revolution 4.0 is made possible by technological advances that constitute a reversal of conventional lean production (LP) processes. In addition, there is increasing pressure on the manufacturing industry to manage operations responsibly towards the environmental and social impact, on top of the economic. These have motivated the manufacturing industry to identify approaches to implementing LP to achieve sustainable organizational performance. Hence, this study aims to examine the moderating role of industry 4.0 technologies adoption in the relationship between LP and sustainable organizational performance.

This study proposed a research framework on the relationship between LP and sustainable organizational performance supported by LP theory and triple bottom line theory, with industry 4.0 technologies adoption as a moderator. A quantitative survey method was used in this study for data collection. The respondents in this study were middle or top management in manufacturing companies, including directors, managers, supervisors and coordinators. To investigate the demographic variables of respondents, descriptive statistics were generated by using IBM Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences. For measurement and structural model evaluations, partial least square structural equation modelling was used.

Based on the proposed research framework in this study, supplier feedback, just-in-time delivery, supplier development, customer involvement, pull system, continuous flow, set-up time reduction (STR), statistical process control, total productive maintenance (TPM) and employee involvement are the dimensions for LP. This study revealed that industry 4.0 technologies adoption positively moderated the relationships of five LP dimensions towards a sustainable organizational performance, namely, supplier feedback, supplier development, continuous flow, STR and TPM.

This study provided insights that would enable practitioners to better strategize the co-existence of LP and industry 4.0 technologies adoption in mutually supporting sustainable organizational performance (environmental, social and economic).

This study aims to examine the full mediating role of supply chain flexibility (SCF) between lean production (LP) and business performance (BP) found in the previous literature. This effect negates the direct LP-BP effect (the so-called “total eclipse effect”). The authors analyze the individual contributions that the different SCF dimensions (sourcing flexibility; operating system flexibility, distribution flexibility and information system [IS] flexibility) make to the “total eclipse effect” between LP and BP produced by SCF. The relational resources-based view and resource orchestration theory are used to support the theoretical framework.

Covariance-based structural equations modeling (CB-SEM) is used to test the SCF LP-BP total eclipse hypothesis and four additional mediation hypotheses, one for each of the SCF dimensions. Data obtained via a questionnaire given to 260 companies are analyzed with CB-SEM, and SPSS Process is used to evaluate the mediation effect.

Research results indicate that only one of the dimensions (operating system flexibility) has a full mediation effect between LP and BP and is, therefore, the main contributor to the eclipse effect. Two other dimensions (sourcing flexibility and distribution flexibility) have partial mediation effects, so they also contribute to developing the eclipse effect, although to a lesser extent. Finally, IS flexibility is neither a full nor a partial mediation factor and does not contribute to the eclipse effect.

These findings have some important implications. For academia, they generate new knowledge of the role that each of the SCF dimensions or components plays in the LP-BP relationship. For company management, the findings offer supply chain managers specific information on the individual effects that the different types of SCF flexibility have between LP and BP. This will allow companies to target their efforts to develop certain types of flexibility in LP contexts depending on the outcomes that senior managers want to achieve with their SCs.

The tightening of environmental measures and policies in various countries around the world is forcing manufacturing companies, particularly those that make up the automotive industry, to improve their production processes, through the implementation of approaches such as lean production (LP) and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies, to reduce industrial waste. However, the literature indicates that the implementation of LP and I4.0 does not always lead to an improvement in the level of operational performance (OP). Therefore, this study analyzes the effects of the implementation of LP practices and I4.0 on a green supply chain (GSC) and the operational performance of manufacturing companies in the Mexican automotive industry.

A theoretical research framework consisting of six hypotheses was developed and validated by applying partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and using a sample of 460 companies from the Mexican automotive industry.

The results show that the level of OP of manufacturing companies increases substantially with the implementation of LP and I4.0 practices, as well as a GSC.

Managers of manufacturing companies will be able to use the results of this study to improve their production systems and to demonstrate the effects of these practices on OP.

This study contributes to the literature on LP and I4.0 by providing robust empirical evidence of the positive effects of implementing these approaches on the GSC and OP of manufacturing companies.

The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine whether media richness (MR), human-system interaction (HSI) and human-human interaction (HHI) as technological feature antecedents to medical professionals’ learning engagement (LE) can affect their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Sample data for this study were collected from medical professionals at six university-/medical university-affiliated hospitals in Taiwan. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, and 309 (51.5%) usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.

This study certified that medical professionals’ perceived MR, HSI and HHI in MOOCs positively affected their emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE elicited by MOOCs, which together explained their LP in MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses and the research model accounts for 84.1% of the variance in medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs.

This study uses the S-O-R model as a theoretical base to construct medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs as a series of the psychological process, which is affected by MR and interaction (i.e. HSI and HHI). Noteworthily, three psychological constructs, emotional LE, cognitive LE and social LE, are adopted to represent medical professionals’ organisms of MOOCs adoption. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more commonly adopted as organisms in prior studies using the S-O-R model and psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study enriches the S-O-R model into an invaluable context, and this study’s contribution on the application of capturing psychological constructs for completely explaining three types of technological features as external stimuli to medical professionals’ LP in MOOCs is well-documented.