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The purpose of this paper is to present a new hybrid approach based on criticality analysis and optimisation to deal with spare parts inventory management in the initial provisioning phase in the mining industry. Spare parts represent a significant part of mining companies' expenditures, so it is important to develop new approaches to reduce the total inventory value of these items.

This hybrid approach combines qualitative and quantitative methods based on VED (vital, essential and desirable) analysis, analytical hierarchical process (AHP), and e-constraint optimisation method to obtain the spare parts to be stocked. The study was applied to a large mining company. The mineral sector was chosen due to the great importance to the emerging Brazilian economy and the lack of researches in this sector. In addition, the spare parts have a relevant weight on the total inventory cost.

Present a novel approach combining multi-objective optimisation and multi-criteria evaluation approaches to tackle the inventory decision in spare parts management. This work also defines and classifies relevant criteria for spare parts management in the mineral sector validated by specialists. The proposed approach achieves an average increase of 20.2% in the criticality and 16.6% in the number of items to be stocked compared to the historical data of the surveyed company.

This paper applies the proposed approach to a mining company in Brazil. Future research in other companies or regions should analyse the adequacy of the criticality criteria, hierarchy and weights adopted in this paper.

The proposed approach is useful for mining industries that deal with a large variety of resource constraints as it helps in formulating appropriate spare part strategies to rationalise financial resources at both tactical and strategic levels.

The paper presents a new hybrid method combining the AHP a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach coupled with e-constraint optimisation to deal with spare parts inventory management allowing for a better spare parts inventory analysis in the initial provisioning phase and providing managers with a systematic tool to analyse the trade-off between spare parts criticality and total inventory value.

This paper aims to discuss the dynamic interactions among knowledge management, strategic foresight and emerging technologies, resulting in a framework that can help companies to shape these interactions for achieving positive outcomes.

This conceptual paper is based on prior literature streams, which were interrelated through an abductive research process. This iterative conceptualization approach led to the formation of testable propositions that advance the understanding on the interactions among knowledge management, strategic foresight and emerging technologies.

The framework demonstrates the existence of an actions cycle between strategic foresight and knowledge management through a constructivist perspective, where one can improve the other. These interactions can be useful both for the development of emerging technologies and for identifying these innovations in market that can be applied in companies. Hence, all these dynamic interactions do not point to a hegemonic relationship of one construct over the others, but for the value equality among them.

Although current literature points to the existence of relationships among knowledge management, strategic foresight and emerging technologies, the dynamism inherent in these interactions as well as their positive effects for companies’ results are not properly discussed. This paper fills such a gap and proposes directions for future research.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.