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The purpose of this paper is to suggest how firms could use big data to facilitate product innovation processes, by shortening the time to market, improving customers’ product adoption and reducing costs.

The research is based on a two-step approach. First, this research identifies four potential key success factors for organisations to integrate big data in accelerating their product innovation processes. The proposed factors are further examined and developed by conducting interviews with different organisation experts and academic researchers. Then a framework is developed based on the interview outputs. The framework sets out the key success factors involved in leveraging big data to reduce lead times and costs in product innovation processes.

The three determined key success factors are: accelerated innovation process; customer connection; and an ecosystem of innovation. The authors believe that the developed framework based on big data represents a paradigm shift. It can help firms to make new product development dramatically faster and less costly.

The proposed accelerated innovation processes demand a shift in traditional organisational culture and practices. It is, though, meaningful only for products and services with short life cycles. Moreover, the framework has not yet been widely tested.

This paper points to the vital role of big data in helping firms to accelerate product innovation processes. First of all, it allows organisations to launch new products to market as quickly as possible. Second, it helps organisations to determine the weaknesses of the product earlier in the development cycle. Third, it allows functionalities to be added to a product that customers are willing to pay a premium for, while eliminating features they do not want. Last, but not least, it identifies and then prioritises customer needs for specific markets.

The research shows that firms could harvest external knowledge and import ideas across organisational boundaries. An accelerated innovation process based on big data is characterised by a multidimensional process involving intelligence efforts, relentless data collection and flexible working relationships with team members.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how social media can provide important platforms to facilitate organisational learning and innovation in new product development (NPD) process.

Using a multiple case-study approach, this study assesses qualitative data collected via 56 interviews from 13 world-leading Chinese companies in the high-technology industry.

The study identified three distinct types of organisational learning mechanisms for firms to extract potential innovation inherent in social media. It further determined various organisational enablers that facilitate the connections between these mechanisms and NPD performance.

This research contributes to the emerging literature on digital product development and organisational learning. The cases were conducted in the Chinese context, hence, the results may not be fully generalisable to other organisations, industries and countries without appropriate re-contextualisation.

The empirical evidence showcases the various mechanisms adopted by managers in different NPD phases. It identifies several technological and organisational adaptations that managers can apply to smartly scale their social presence and facilitate NPD.

Despite the exponential growth of social media use in identifying and interacting with external stakeholders, managerial practice and academic research have paid little attention to how social media can be leveraged for NPD. The value of this research comes from applying a qualitative method to gain in-depth insights into the mechanisms for leveraging social media to facilitate innovation in NPD.

Fast-changing customer demands and rising requirements in product performance constantly challenge sports equipment manufacturers to come up with new and improved products to stay competitive. Additive manufacturing (AM), also referred to as 3D printing, can enhance the development of new products by providing an efficient approach of rapid prototyping. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current adoption of AM technologies in the innovation process of the sports industry, i.e. level of awareness; how it is implemented; and it impact on the innovation process.

This work followed a qualitative research approach. After conducting a research of the current literature, this paper presents findings that include case studies from different companies, as well as a semi-structured interview with an outdoor sports equipment manufacturer. Companies from all over the world and of different sizes from under 100 employees to over 70,000 employees were considered in this research.

Literature research shows that AM brings many possibilities to enhance the innovation process, and case studies indicated several obstacles that hinder the technology from fully unfolding. AM is still at the early stage of entering the sports equipment industry and its potential benefits have not been fully exploited yet. The findings generated from the research of real-life practices show that AM provides several benefits when it comes to the innovation process, such as a faster development process, an optimised output, as well as the possibility to create new designs. However, companies are not yet able to enhance the innovation process in a way that leads to new products and new markets with AM. Limitations, including a small range of process able material and an inefficient mass production, still restrain the technology and lead to unused capability. Nevertheless, future prospects indicate the growing importance of AM in the innovation process and show that its advancement paves the way to new and innovative products.

Limitations exist in the qualitative approach of this study, which does not include the quantitative verification of the results.

Very few studies have been conducted to investigate how firms can harvest AM to increase their innovation capabilities. How firms can use AM to shorten product development time is an emerging topic in business and operations but has not been studied widely. This paper aims to address this gap.

Digital transformation (DT) in the semiconductor industry goes beyond traditional business operations and supply chain management (OSCM) to the digital world. Despite significant developments in recent years, blockchain implementations for OSCM remain relatively underdeveloped in the semiconductor industry. Therefore, this research aims to examine the relationships between blockchain visibility, supply chain integration (SCI) and supply chain performance (SCP) in the era of DT in Malaysia's semiconductor industry to shed light on this emerging area.

A convenience sampling of 71 operations and supply chain managers attached to semiconductor manufacturing firms in Malaysia were invited to participate in a survey. In assessing blockchain visibility within the industry, key terms namely business intelligence gathering, information exchange, information technology (IT) and knowledge of asset status, were conceptualised from the literature review. The questionnaires developed to collect data were validated by industry and academic experts.

The results from the analysis confirmed that SCI mediates the link between blockchain visibility (information exchange, business intelligence gathering and knowledge asset status) and SCP. Likewise, the importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) outcomes revealed that IT played a minor role. The results suggested that semiconductor manufacturers should pay less attention to IT since this was identified as having the least priority towards improvement.

The outcomes from this research enable policymakers to strategise and integrate blockchain technology in the era of DT to ensure sustainable SCM in the semiconductor industry in Malaysia.

The research bridge the knowledge gap by revealing the value that blockchain visibility can facilitate SCP and explore SCI as the prevailing factor and demonstrates how Resource-Based Theory and Network Theory can be applied in this study.

This paper aims to find the best tools to influence the improvement of sustainability in food supply chains (FSCs) by conducting a systematic review of articles. The reader will learn how the different industry 4.0 tools (I4.0T) benefit the FSC and the limitations of each tool.

A review of 436 articles published during the period 2019 to 2022 referenced in the Scopus and Web of Science databases was performed. The review was limited to articles published in English and directly related to Industry 4.0, circular economy and sustainability in the food supply chain.

The results show different contributions of I4.0, with some being more influential than others in improving sustainability in FSCs; for example, Internet of Things and Blockchain have been shown to contribute more toward transparency, traceability, process optimization and waste reduction.

The paper's contribution consisted of ranking according to their importance and the I4.0T that affect sustainability in FSCs by classifying the aspects of each tool and the sustainability factors through a categorization by the Analysis Hierarchy Process.

Motivated to know more about the internal means through which accountability for sustainability takes shape within organisations (in what ways and by whom), this paper aims to explore how accountability for sustainability is constructed within an organisation during a process of establishing a control system for sustainability.

This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach of a decentralised industrial group, operating mainly in Scandinavia, between 2017 and 2020. Both primary and secondary data are used (e.g. document analyses, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and site visits) to inform the findings and analysis.

The findings reveal a multi-faceted path towards accountability for sustainability that involves several concerns and priorities at organisational and individual levels, resulting in a separate sustainability control systems within each subsidiary company. Although hierarchical structures for accountability exist, socialising accountability activities are needed to (further) mobilise sustainable accounts.

Successful sustainable control systems require employees making sense of formalised accountability instruments (e.g. policies and procedures) to establish their roles and responsibilities in organisations.

This paper proposes socialisation processes as important for driving forward sustainability solutions.

This study elaborates on the internal accountability dynamic for the construction of sustainable accounts. Its novelty is built upon the interaction of hierarchical and socialising accountability forms as necessary for establishing a control system for sustainability. It furthermore illustrates the relationship between the external and internal pathways of accountability.

This paper aims to better understand how accountability for sustainability takes shape within organisations and specifically, what makes employees act in a Swedish local authority. This aim moves beyond the prevalent external face of accountability in social and environmental accounting research by observing how employees understand and act upon their multiple accountability demands.

This paper adopts a single case study approach within a Swedish local authority, drawing from qualitative data including semi-structured interviews, site visits and governing documents.

Sustainable action is not only the product of hierarchically enforced structural accountabilities and procedures but often must be reconciled with the personal perspectives of the public sector employees involved as part of an accountability dynamic. Additionally, the findings reveal that hierarchical accountability, rather than serving to individualise and isolate employees, acts as a prompt for the more practical and personal reconciliations of accountability with the ethics and experiences of the individual involved.

Greater consideration to employee socialisation processes in public sector organisations should be given to reinforce organisational governance systems and controls, and thus help ensure sustainable behaviour in practice.

Employee socialisation processes are important for the development of sustainable practices both within and beyond organisational boundaries.

This study considers the interrelatedness of hierarchical and socialising accountability measures and contributes towards the understanding of the relationship between these two accountability forms, contrary to previous understandings that emphasise their contrasting nature and incompatibility.

This chapter examines adolescent metacognitive knowledge in a fresh light and answers some methodological questions related to the investigation of the deepest layers of thinking during the information search. It does so by presenting a study that used an ethnographic approach to investigate the metacognitive knowledge of 10 adolescents, aged 16 to 18, over the course of four months, and in a variety of settings –– home, school, public libraries –– as they searched for, collected, and then used information for a school project. The study was framed by Flavel's model of metacognition (1977) and Kuhlthau's information search process (ISP) model, a six-stage, multidimensional model of information problem solving (1991, 2004). The chapter begins with a discussion about the ISP, metacognitive knowledge, and its potential for information seeking. The chapter then presents the findings of the study as a set of gaps and strengths of adolescent metacognitive knowledge, and concludes with commentary about the challenges and rewards related to conducting research with young people and suggestions for future areas of research.