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Completing construction projects within the planned schedule has widely been considered as one of the major project success factors. This study investigates the use of technologies to address delays in construction projects and aims to address three research questions (1) to identify the adopted technologies and proposed solutions in the literature, (2) to explore the reasons why the delays cannot be prevented despite disruptive technologies and (3) to determine the major strategies to prevent delays in construction projects.

In total, 208 research articles that used innovative technologies, methods, or tools to avoid delays in construction projects were investigated by conducting a comprehensive literature review. An elaborative content analysis was performed to cover the implemented technologies and their transformation, highlighted research fields in relation to selected technologies, focused delay causes and corresponding delay mitigation strategies and emphasized project types with specific delay causes. According to the analysis results, a typological framework with appropriate technological means was proposed.

The findings revealed that several tools such as planning, imaging, geo-spatial data collection, machine learning and optimization have widely been adopted to address specific delay causes. It was also observed that strategies to address various delay causes throughout the life cycle of construction projects have been overlooked in the literature. The findings of the present research underpin the trends and technological advances to address significant delay causes.

Despite the technological advancements in the digitalization era of Industry 4.0, many construction projects still suffer from poor schedule performance. However, the reason of this is questionable and has not been investigated thoroughly.

Existing conceptual, empirical and case studies evidence suggests that manufacturing industries find the joint implementation of Kaizen philosophy initiatives. However, the existing practices rarely demonstrated in a single framework and implementation procedure in a structure nature. This paper, therefore, aims to develop, validate and practically test a framework and implementation procedure for the implementation of integrated Kaizen in manufacturing industries to attain long-term improvement of operational, innovation, business (financial and marketing) processes, performance and competitiveness.

The study primarily described the problem, extensively reviewed the current state-of-the-art literature and then identified a gap. Based on it, generic and comprehensive integrated framework and implementation procedure is developed. Besides, the study used managers, consultants and academics from various fields to validate a framework and implementation procedure for addressing business concerns. In this case, the primary data was collected through self-administered questionnaire, and 244 valid questionnaires were received and were analyzed. Furthermore, the research verified the practicability of the framework by empirically exploring the current scenario of selected manufacturing companies.

The research discovered innovative framework and six-phase implementation procedure to fill the existing conceptual gap. Furthermore, the survey-based and exploratory empirical analysis of the research demonstrated that the practice of the proposed framework based on structured procedure is valued and companies attain the middling improvements of productivity, delivery time, quality, 5S practice, waste and accident rate by 61.03, 44, 52.53, 95.19, 80.12, and 70.55% respectively. Additionally, the companies saved a total of 14933446 ETH Birr and 5,658 M² free spaces. Even though, the practices and improvements vary from company to company, and even companies unable to practice some of the unique techniques of the identified CI initiatives considered in the proposed framework.

All data collected in the survey came from professionals working for Ethiopian manufacturing companies, universities and government. It is important to highlight that n = 244 is high sample size, which is adequate for a preliminary survey but reinforcing still needs further survey in terms of generalization of the results since there are hundreds of manufacturing companies, consultants and academicians implementing and consulting Kaizen. Therefore, a further study on a wider Ethiopian manufacturing companies, consultants and academic scale would be informative.

This work is very important for Kaizen professionals in the manufacturing industry, academic and government but in particular for senior management and leadership teams. Aside from the main findings on framework development, there is some strong evidence that practice of Kaizen resulted in achieving quantitative (monetary and non-monetary) and qualitative results. Thus, senior management teams should use this research out to practice and analyze the effect of Kaizen on their own organizations. Within the academic community, this study is one of the first focusing on development, validating and practically testing and should aid further study, research and understanding of Kaizen in manufacturing industries.

So far, it is rare to find preceding studies proposed, validated and practically test an integrated Kaizen framework with the context of manufacturing industries. Thus, authors understand that this is the very first research focused on the development of the framework for manufacturing industries continuously to be competitive and could help managers, institutions, practitioners and academicians in Kaizen practice.

This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

This paper aims to develop a method based on artificial intelligence capable of predicting the due date (DD) of job shops in real-time, aiming to assist in the decision-making process of industries.

This paper chooses to use the methodological approach Design Science Research (DSR). The DSR aims to build solutions based on technology to solve relevant issues, where its research results from precise methods in the evaluation and construction of the model. The steps of the DSR are identification of the problem and motivation, definition of the solution’s objectives, design and development, demonstration, evaluation of the solution and the communication of results.

Along with this work, it is possible to verify that the proposed method allows greater accuracy in the DD definition forecasts when compared to conventional calculations.

Some limitations of this study can be pointed. It is possible to mention questions related to the tasks to be informed by users, as they could lead to problems in the performance of the artifact as the input data may not be correctly posted due to the misunderstanding of the question by part of the users.

The proposed artifact is a method capable of contributing to the development of the manufacturing industry to improve the forecast of manufacturing dates, assisting in making decisions related to production planning. The use of real production data contributed to creating, demonstrating and evaluating the artifact. This approach was important for developing the method allowing more reliability.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how hierarchical accountability can be enacted and accounting control systems mobilized in a way that promotes a sense of felt responsibility.

The paper draws on interviews, shadowing and observations to explore the implementation of a strategy for “increasing accountability” in a Norwegian Oil Company. The case provided an opportunity to explore the dynamics of hierarchical accountability and felt responsibility, and in particular Roberts (2009) concept of “intelligent accountability”, in an empirical context.

The case study explores how the strategy of increasing accountability at OilCo was enacted around three operational issues; the control of costs, roles and relationships in the complex matrix structure, and the operation of the management system. It traces how the long history of Beyond Budgeting practices and philosophy in OilCo resulted both in an explicit recognition of the incompleteness of accounting numbers, and trust-based practices which avoided many of the dysfunctional individual and organizational effects typically associated with the exercise of hierarchical control.

The paper explores empirically how OilCo’s embrace of Beyond Budgeting practices and philosophy had created the conditions under which a more intelligent form of accountability could emerge. As a European case study, it calls into question the Anglo-American tradition of accounting research which suggests that externally imposed accountability within a hierarchy mitigates against employees’ felt responsibility.

In recent years, there has been significant interest in adopting XR (extended reality) technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), particularly in retail. However, extending activities through reality-mediation is still mostly believed to offer an inferior experience due to their shortcomings in usability, wearability, graphical fidelity, etc. This study aims to address the research gap by experimentally examining the acceptance of metaverse shopping.

This study conducts a 2 (VR: with vs. without) × 2 (AR: with vs. without) between-subjects laboratory experiment involving 157 participants in simulated daily shopping environments. This study builds a physical brick-and-mortar store at the campus and stocked it with approximately 600 products with accompanying product information and pricing. The XR devices and a 3D laser scanner were used in constructing the three XR shopping conditions.

Results indicate that XR can offer an experience comparable to, or even surpassing, traditional shopping in terms of its instrumental and hedonic aspects, regardless of a slightly reduced perception of usability. AR negatively affected perceived ease of use, while VR significantly increased perceived enjoyment. It is surprising that the lower perceived ease of use appeared to be disconnected from the attitude toward metaverse shopping.

This study provides important experimental evidence on the acceptance of XR shopping, and the finding that low perceived ease of use may not always be detrimental adds to the theory of technology adoption as a whole. Additionally, it provides an important reference point for future randomized controlled studies exploring the effects of technology on adoption.

Knowledge is companies’ crucial asset, especially when they are inserted in continuous collaboration and value co-creation. However, problems related to knowledge may occur without proper management, which can compromise the strategic objectives associated with a business collaboration network. Given the presented gap, this study aims to propose and test a business-to-business (B2B) knowledge management (KM) framework focused on value co-creation. Therefore, this study seeks to answer the following guiding questions: what are the main elements that a KM model should present in a context of value co-creation between companies? What are the limitations? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Is there any group that would benefit most from it?

This is an exploratory study grounded on mixed methods, having a qualitative approach (systematic literature review and content analysis) followed by a quantitative approach (exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis), which grounded the proposed framework.

The qualitative approach grounded on the systematic literature review resulting in 38 articles that were submitted to content analysis, which resulted in six record units: active communication between the organization, employees and other stakeholders; documents and organizational knowledge stored; knowledge map; collaborative network; searching tools and database, which provided the KM elements to develop and test the proposed framework by the quantitative approach. The results have shown that the framework may assist in managing knowledge in B2B value co-creation relationships.

As an exploratory study, the chosen research approach used nonprobabilistic for convenience sampling. Therefore, the results may lack generalizability. Thus, researchers are encouraged to use probabilistic sampling techniques to ensure generability. Also, more and better items should be used to upgrade the initial questionnaire, improving it and, by doing so, have a better scale.

Assuming the proposed framework’s effectiveness, company managers can use it to drive knowledge within the network of interested parties to promote cooperative products and services. In addition, due to the theoretical framework’s broad vision, it can serve as a strategic aid to leverage innovation, productivity and competitive advantage. This study also provides an initial instrument that assists in understanding KM elements, which may assist in value co-creation.

It was learned that the elements, tools, concepts and KM preconized solutions can assist in value co-creation. Considering that value assists business performance, and value co-creation is one way to enhance it, furthermore, by knowledge sharing, the value co-creation may occur in the B2B ecosystem. Also, it is the first theoretical KM framework proposed to assist companies to understand better ways that could get advantages on structuring knowledge, meaning mapping it, sharing it through a system that can retain what is needed and release it to the ones that need and have the defined access to receive it.

This study investigates the relationships between knowledge management capabilities (KMC), supply chain agility (SCA) and disruption mitigation performance (DMP) in the U.S. fashion retail industry (FRI) during turbulent times, such as a pandemic.

An online survey was used to collect 320 responses from U.S. fashion retail professionals. Structural equation modeling was used for analysis.

Among the two KMCs, knowledge infrastructure capabilities act as enabling factors for knowledge process capabilities (KPC) in U.S. fashion retail settings. The KPC were found to be positively associated with SCA, and SCA was positively associated with both pre- and post-DMP of U.S. fashion retailers.

This study adds to the literature on KMC, SCA and DMP from the FRI context and illustrates the impact of effective organizational knowledge management for supply chain (SC) disruption mitigation through agility in a volatile market.

The results inform fashion retail companies on how to transform their organizational dimensions through effective management of knowledge, i.e. digital escalation and innovation, to establish an agile and sustainable SC to mitigate future market disruptions.

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is disrupting various industries, including the tourism sector. This paper aims to outline the applications, benefits and risks of ChatGPT and large language models in general on tourism. It also aims to establish a research agenda for investigating the implications of these models in tourism.

Drawing on the available literature on ChatGPT, large language models and artificial intelligence, the paper identifies areas of application of ChatGPT for several tourism stakeholders. Potential benefits and risks are then considered.

ChatGPT and other similar models are likely to have a profound impact on several tourism processes. They will contribute to further streamline customer service in front-of-house operations and increase productivity and efficiency in back-of-house operations. Although negative consequences for human resources are expected, this technology mostly enhances tourism employees.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies that explore the potential implications of ChatGPT in tourism and hospitality.

人工智能的快速发展正在颠覆包括旅游业在内的各个行业。 本文旨在概述ChatGPT和大型语言模型在旅游业中的应用、好处和风险。同时, 旨在建立一个研究议程, 以调查这些模型在旅游业中的影响。

本文借鉴了关于ChatGPT、大型语言模型和人工智能的现有文献, 确定了ChatGPT在几个旅游利益相关者中的应用范围, 然后考虑了潜在的好处和风险。

ChatGPT和其他类似的模型可能会对一些旅游过程产生深远的影响。它们将有助于进一步简化前台业务的客户服务, 并提高后台业务的生产力和效率。虽然对人力资源的负面影响是可以预见的, 但这项技术主要是增强旅游业的员工能力。

这是首批探索ChatGPT在旅游业和酒店业潜在影响的研究之一。

A partir de la bibliografía disponible sobre ChatGPT, grandes modelos lingüísticos e inteligencia artificial, este artículo identifica las posibles áreas de aplicación de ChatGPT y actores que se pueden beneficiar. De igual forma, se examinan los posibles beneficios y riesgos.

El rápido crecimiento de la inteligencia artificial está afectando diversas industrias, incluyendo la del turismo. Este artículo pretende esbozar las aplicaciones, ventajas y riesgos de ChatGPT, así como los grandes modelos lingüísticos, en turismo. También pretende establecer una agenda de investigación para estudiar las implicaciones de estos modelos en el turismo.

Es probable que ChatGPT y otros modelos similares tengan un profundo impacto en varios procesos turísticos, contribuyendo a racionalizar, aún más, el servicio al cliente en las operaciones de front-of-the-house y aumentando la productividad y eficiencia en el back-of-the-house. Aunque se prevén consecuencias negativas para los recursos humanos, esta tecnología servirá sobre todo para potenciarlos.

Éste es uno de los primeros estudios que exploran las implicaciones potenciales de ChatGPT en el turismo y la hostelería.

Supply chains are among the most important, complex and risky systems in the modern world. Thus, managing risk is no longer an option, but a fundamental process in organizations. Given the lack of pathways that guide companies toward supply chain risk management (SCRM), the purpose of this study is to provide a conceptual reference, in the form of a maturity model, to support them in the evolution and improvement of this process.

The proposal covered a broad literature review, a survey and a multiple case study. The research was conducted in the aerospace industry and included companies from the supply chain of a leading aircraft manufacturer.

The model elaborated with the research results has eight attributes and four levels, addressing critical issues for SCRM to achieve its scope and purposes. The attributes include the structuring and scope of the SCRM process, the importance it receives within the organization, the resources used and the qualification of employees, the role of leadership and the inter-organizational collaboration.

Managing risk along supply chains is particularly challenging, demands resources and knowledge and requires a continuous effort. The proposed model offers a reference for improvement, helping to identify areas that need to be strengthened and practices to be implemented. Thus, it can guide the focus and efforts in a more efficient and systematic way, in addition to support evaluations and comparisons.

Although maturity models are abundant in different fields and several are available for risk management, models specifically developed for SCRM are scarce. This study broadens the understanding of SCRM with novel insights about how to improve this process in an evolutionary way. While many researchers focused their efforts on the SCRM process steps, this study identified critical issues that transcend these steps. The research was carried out in a sector with a long tradition in risk management and included companies belonging to a same supply chain, that is, using an approach still little explored in studies on SCRM or risk management maturity models.