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Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, has been witnessing rapid urban transformation processes during the 20th century, which have had various kinds of impact on the evolution of its urban identity. This paper therefore attempts to investigate how the new urban concepts, which were introduced by modernization and globalization, caused a conflict of identities and how this has resulted in dividing Riyadh into opposing urban entities. The main challenge in establishing a cohesive urban identity in Riyadh is based on the long-term conflict between traditional forms of urbanism and modern ways of urban development. The paper thus investigates the urban transformation of Riyadh from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present day. The main objective of this historic analysis is to capture the various ways inhabitants have perceived surrounding urban environments and how this has been influencing urban planning activities. The applied methodologies include the evaluation of historic documents, such as official reports and plans.

The systems approach is an exemplar of design science research (DSR), whereby specific designs yield generic knowledge. DSR is increasingly being adopted in logistics and operations management research, but many point to neglect of the human aspects of solutions developed. The authors argue that it is possible to look back at the history of the systems movement to seek precedent for ‘dealing’ with the social components, providing a methodologically pluralistic ‘research design’ framework. Thereby, systems approaches are foundational to providing a design-based ‘science’ to progressing the logistics and supply chain management field, dealing with contemporary topics such as resilience.

The authors undertake a discursive assessment of relevant streams of engineering, social science and systems research, with a conceptual development of how the latter influences supply chain design approaches.

Building on a phenomenological framework, the authors create a generic design science research design (DSRD) that enables researchers to choose and integrate the right tools and methods to address simple, complicated and complex problems, dealing with technological, process and social problems.

The DSRD provides a framework by which to exploit a range of methodological stances to problem solving, including quantitative modelling perspectives and ‘soft’ systems social science approaches. Four substantive gaps are identified for future research – establishing the root cause domain of the problem, how to deal with the hierarchy of systems within systems, establishing appropriate criteria for the solution design and how best to deal with chaotic and disordered systems.

The authors argue that the systems approaches offer methodological pluralism by which a generic DSRD may be applied to enhance supply chain design. The authors show the relevance of the DSRD to supply chain design problems including in reducing supply chain dynamics and enhance resilience. In doing so, the study points towards an integrated perspective and future research agenda for designing resilient supply chains.

The customer order decoupling point (CODP) concept addresses the issue of customer engagement in the manufacturing process. This has traditionally been applied to material flows, but has more recently been applied to engineering activities. This later subject becomes of particular importance to companies operating in “engineer-to-order” (ETO) supply chains, where each order is potentially unique. Existing conceptualisations of ETO are too generic for practical purposes, so there is a need to better understand order penetration in the context of engineering activities, especially design. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to address the question “how do customer penetration concepts apply to engineering design activities?”

A collaborative form of inquiry is adopted, whereby academics and practitioners co-operated to develop a conceptual framework. Within this overarching research design, a focus group of senior practitioners and multiple case studies principally from complex civil and structural engineering as well as scientific equipment projects are used to explore the framework.

The framework results in a classification of nine potential engineering subclasses, and insight is given into order penetration points, major uncertainties and enablers via the case studies. Focus group findings indicate that different managerial approaches are needed across subclasses.

The findings give insight for companies that engage directly with customers on a one-to-one basis, outlining the extent of customer penetration in engineering activities, associated operational strategies and choices regarding the co-creation of products with customers. Care should be taken in generalising beyond the sectors addressed in the study.

The paper refines the definition of the ETO concept, and gives a more complete understanding of customer penetration concepts. It provides a comprehensive reconceptualization of the ETO category, supported by exploratory empirical research.

Between traditional and contemporary there are two contradictory visions. The first adopts originality and returning to the traditional, while the second advocates modernity and liberation from the old. The present paper discusses how to benefit from the present facilities without losing features of the past when developing new neighbour-hoods. Al-Dira', a traditional quarter in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia, is elected as a case study within which the housing unit and the urban pattern are analysed. Visual documentation, surveying, mapping, and interviews constitute essential tools to get an insight on the traditional planning and design process. On the other side, Al-Rabwa, a typical contemporary officially planned district, is investigated. It is concluded that the need for modernization should be balanced with originality. Understanding forces that shaped traditional quarters and are still embedded in the community offers a stream of information that can be utilized in contemporary development. A responsive development needs to consider local identity while formulating compact low rise buildings with courtyards and carefully positioned openings, small scale open space system, straight roads for cars and protected walkways for pedestrians, well distributed parking lots, and integrated relationship between housing, mosque and market.

Flexibility is a fundamental performance objective for manufacturing operations, allowing them to respond to changing requirements in uncertain and competitive global markets. Additive manufacturing machines are often described as “flexible,” but there is no detailed understanding of such flexibility in an operations management context. The purpose of this paper is to examine flexibility from a manufacturing systems perspective, demonstrating the different competencies that can be achieved and the factors that can inhibit these in commercial practice.

This study extends existing flexibility theory in the context of an industrial additive manufacturing system through an investigation of 12 case studies, covering a range of sectors, product volumes, and technologies. Drawing upon multiple sources, this research takes a manufacturing systems perspective that recognizes the multitude of different resources that, together with individual industrial additive manufacturing machines, contribute to the satisfaction of demand.

The results show that the manufacturing system can achieve seven distinct internal flexibility competencies. This ability was shown to enable six out of seven external flexibility capabilities identified in the literature. Through a categorical assessment the extent to which each competency can be achieved is identified, supported by a detailed explanation of the enablers and inhibitors of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.

Additive manufacturing is widely expected to make an important contribution to future manufacturing, yet relevant management research is scant and the flexibility term is often ambiguously used. This research contributes the first detailed examination of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework of development, commitment, and retention of Generation Y employees.

Based on a review of existing literature and using social exchange and social constructivist approach, this study presents a conceptual framework with mentoring, strategic leadership, social media, and knowledge sharing as its key constructs to retain Generation Y employees.

Mentoring, strategic leadership, social media, and knowledge sharing have a great potential to foster competency development. Competency development is critical to evoke affective commitment of Generation Y employees, which in turn results in intention to stay forth.

The proposed conceptual framework should be empirically validated in the future research.

Organisations should incorporate mentoring, strategic leadership, social media, and knowledge sharing into their talent management strategy for Generation Y employees. Competency development then in turn evokes commitment of Generation Y employees, leading to intention to stay forth. The framework suggests an approach for generation-specific retention strategy.

This is one of the first studies to propose a holistic framework to retain Generation Y employees. This paper adds a new dimension to the talent management literature by focusing on young generation employees.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between empowering leadership and the holistic well-being construct, i.e. flourishing-at-work.

On the basis of an extensive review of literature and using conservation of resource (COR) theory and self-determination theory (SDT), this study proposes a conceptual framework with employee work passion (EWP) as a link connecting empowering leadership and flourishing-at-work.

Empowering leadership has the ability to enhance EWP and thereby increase the overall well-being of employees (flourishing). Moreover, the study demonstrates that EWP serves as a potential mechanism connecting empowering leadership and flourishing-at-work.

Being a conceptual paper, the proposed framework lacks empirical validation.

Organizations should focus on leaders with empowering behaviours and strive towards increasing EWP.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to propose the role of EWP as a possible conceptual link between empowering leadership and employee flourishing-at-work. This paper emphasizes the importance of flourishing-at-work in the current climate of rising mental tensions among employees, which leads to adverse organizational outcomes.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between workplace use of social media, collaboration and Gen Y employees’ engagement.

A sample of 209 Indian Gen Y employees from information technology industry participated in the survey. Structural equation modelling is used to test the research hypotheses.

Findings reveal that social media has a significant positive effect on collaboration, which leads to Gen Y employees’ perceived learning, in turn impacting Gen Y employees’ engagement.

Findings suggest a social media-enabled approach of collaboration to satisfy Gen Y employees’ perceived learning leading to their engagement. However, this study only examines the employees’ perspective; it will be prudent to examine management perspective as well in future studies.

Organisations must integrate social media into their talent management strategy.

This study contributes to the literature in human resources pertaining to social media as an asset to promote collaboration and develops a linkage between social media and Gen Y employees’ engagement via perceived learning.

Considers the dynamical effect of lateral emergency transhipments within a supply chain. It tests various different strategies for improving customer service via the MIT Beer Game. Four distinct strategies are considered. “Electronic point of sales (EPOS)”, where marketplace information is forwarded to all players throughout the supply chain; “Excel”, where the stock levels in all echelons are controlled by the factory; “Emergency transhipments”, where an express transportation route bypassing an echelon in the supply chain is permitted; “Eliminate”, where an echelon is removed from the supply chain. The Beer Game strategies are also studied via a simulation exercise. Results show that the Excel strategy is flawed, whereas the EPOS strategy has a strong impact on inventory cost, Emergency transhipments has a strong impact on customer service level and Eliminate results in less stock for an improved customer service level. Combinations of the three viable strategies are also tested. This paper concludes that the three strategies can be integrated to significantly improve supply chain performance.

The purpose of this study is to determine the distraction factors based on their contributions in affecting seafarers’ physical and psychological well-being.

A systematic average mean value technique incorporated with quantitative data collection is applied to determine the contributions of the involved factors in establishing the distraction problems among seafarers.

Element of “Food and nutrition” is recorded as the highest contributing factor to Malaysian seafarers, for deck and engine department, respectively, in establishing the distraction-related problem among five other factors involved.

This paper is only providing a scope of knowledge regarding the contribution of potential distraction factors existing on board the offshore ships. However, the potential distraction factors and their contributions, respectively, are very dynamic and may vary, depending on the situation of a particular area and who are being involved.

The result assists the shipping industry in recognizing the actual causes of the occurrences of marine casualties and incidents related to human factors.

The benefits are addressed to seafarers’ community where their well-being and work performances could be enhanced, thus reducing the occurrences of marine casualties and incidents. Local community at the shores also will be less threatened by marine pollution caused by the accidents of ships at sea.

The result provides a scope of knowledge regarding distraction-related factors in shipboard operation and also the introduction to a systematic assessment approach to determine and rank the parameters by using the systematic average mean value technique which is also a straightforward method and can be applied in any other circumstances.