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Bootstrapping is a practitioner-based term adopted in entrepreneurship to describe the techniques employed in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to minimise the need for external funding by securing resources at little or no cost and applying strategies to effectively use resources. Working capital management (WCM) is a term used in financial management to define a set of practices used to manage business resources, including cash management. This paper explores the overlap and divergence between these two disciplinary distinct concepts.

A dual methodology is employed. First, the usage of the two terms in prior literature is analysed and synthesised. Second, the study uses factor analysis to explore how bootstrapping practices described by owners of 167 established MSMEs relate to the components of WCM in financial management.

The factor analysis identifies two main bootstrapping practices employed by MSMEs: (1) delaying payments and owner-related bootstrapping and (2) customer-related bootstrapping. Delaying payments is an integral practice in trade payables management and customer-related bootstrapping includes practices that are integral to trade receivables management. Therefore, links between bootstrapping practices and WCM practices are firmly established.

The study is not without limitations. Based on cross-sectional evidence for established firms in Ireland only, future studies could explore cross-country longitudinal panel data to fully examine life cycle and sectoral effects, as well as other external shocks (for example, COVID-19) on bootstrapping and WCM practices. This study does not explain why some factors (for example, joint utilisation and inventory management) are present in some bootstrapping studies and not in others; further case study research might help explain this. Finally, changes in the business environment facing start-ups and established enterprise, including increased digitalisation, online trading, self-employment, remote hub working and sustainability, offer new avenues for bootstrapping research.

This is the first study to comprehensively explore the conceptual and empirical links between bootstrapping and WCM. This study will enable researchers and practitioners in these two distinct disciplines to learn from each other. Accounting researchers and practitioners can broaden their understanding of how WCM “works” in MSME settings. Similarly, entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners can deepen their understanding of how bootstrapping can be adopted by businesses to manage resources effectively.

This study aims to examine the blockchain landscape in supply chain management by drawing insights from academic and industry literature. It identifies the key drivers, categorizes the products involved and highlights the business values achieved by early adopters of blockchain technology within the supply chain domain. Additionally, it explores fingerprinting techniques to establish a robust connection between physical products and the blockchain ledger.

The authors combined the interpretive sensemaking systematic literature review to offer insights into how organizations interpreted their business challenges and adopted blockchain technology in their specific supply chain context; content analysis (using Leximancer automated text mining software) for concept mapping visualization, facilitating the identification of key themes, trends and relationships, and qualitative thematic analysis (NVivo) for data organization, coding and enhancing the depth and efficiency of analysis.

The findings highlight the transformative potential of blockchain technology and offer valuable insights into its implementation in optimizing supply chain operations. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of product provenance information to consumers, with blockchain technology offering certainty and increasing customer loyalty toward brands that prioritize transparency.

This research has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, there is a possibility that some relevant investigations may have been missed or omitted, which could impact the findings. In addition, the limited availability of literature on blockchain adoption in supply chains may restrict the scope of the conclusions. The evolving nature of blockchain adoption in supply chains also poses a limitation. As the technology is in its infancy, the authors expect that a rapidly emerging body of literature will provide more extensive evidence-based general conclusions in the future. Another limitation is the lack of information contrasting academic and industry research, which could have provided more balanced insights into the technology’s advancement. The authors attributed this limitation to the narrow collaborations between academia and industry in the field of blockchain for supply chain management.

Practitioners recognize the potential of blockchain in addressing industry-specific challenges, such as ensuring transparency and data provenance. Understanding the benefits achieved by early adopters can serve as a starting point for companies considering blockchain adoption. Blockchain technology can verify product origin, enable truthful certifications and comply with established standards, reinforcing trust among stakeholders and customers. Thus, implementing blockchain solutions can enhance brand reputation and consumer confidence by ensuring product authenticity and quality. Based on the results, companies can align their strategies and initiatives with their needs and expectations.

In essence, the integration of blockchain technology within supply chain provenance initiatives not only influences economic aspects but also brings substantial social impacts by reinforcing consumer trust, encouraging sustainable and ethical practices, combating product counterfeiting, empowering stakeholders and contributing to a more responsible, transparent and progressive socioeconomic environment.

This study consolidates current knowledge on blockchain’s capacity and identifies the specific drivers and business values associated with early blockchain adoption in supply chain provenance. Furthermore, it underscores the critical role of product fingerprinting techniques in supporting blockchain for supply chain provenance, facilitating more robust and efficient supply chain operations.

This study reviews scholarly work in sustainable green logistics and remanufacturing (SGLR) and their subdisciplines, in combination with bibliometric, thematic and content analyses that provide a viewpoint on categorization and a future research agenda. This paper provides insight into current research trends in the subjects of interest by examining the most essential and most referenced articles promoting sustainability and climate-neutral logistics.

For the literature review, the authors extracted and sifted 2180 research and review papers for the period 2008–2023 from the Scopus database. The authors performed bibliometric and content analyses using multiple software programs such as Gephi, VOSviewer and R programming.

The SGLR papers can be grouped into seven clusters: (1) The circular economy facets; (2) Decarbonization of operations to nurture a climate-neutral business; (3) Green sustainable supply chain management; (4) Drivers and barriers of reverse logistics and the circular economy; (5) Business models for sustainable logistics and the circular economy; (6) Transportation problems in sustainable green logistics and (7) Digitalization of logistics and supply chain management.

In this review, fundamental ideas are established, research gaps are identified and multiple future research subjects are proposed. These propositions are categorized into three main research streams, i.e. (1) Digitalization of SGLR, (2) Enhancing scopes, sectors and industries in the context of SGLR and (3) Developing more efficient and effective climate-neutral and climate change-related solutions and promoting more environmental-related and sustainability research concerning SGLR. In addition, two conceptual models concerning SGLR and climate-neutral strategies are developed and presented for managers and practitioners to consider when adopting green and sustainability principles in supply chains. This review also highlights the need for academics to go beyond frameworks and build new techniques and instruments for monitoring SGLR performance in the real world.

This study provides an overview of the evolution of SGLR; it also clarifies concepts, environmental concerns and climate change practices, particularly those directed to supply chain management.

This study aims to examine the relationship between knowledge management and career development in an era characterized by high levels of youth unemployment and a demand for specialized skills. Despite the increasing transition to a knowledge-based economy, there is a significant gap between young people’s skills and career readiness, necessitating an in-depth analysis of the role of knowledge management at the individual, organizational and national levels.

The authors conducted a qualitative study using the theory-context-characteristics-methodology approach based on a systematic literature review. The authors created an ecological framework for reflecting on knowledge management and career development, arguing for a multidisciplinary approach that invites collaboration across sectors to generate innovative and reliable solutions.

This study presents a comprehensive review of the existing literature and trends, noting the need for more focus on the interplay between knowledge management and career development. It emphasizes the need for businesses to promote the acquisition, storage, diffusion and application of knowledge and its circulation and exchange to create international business human capital.

The findings may help multinational corporations develop managerial training programs and recruitment strategies, given the demand for advanced knowledge-based skills in the modern workspace. The study also discusses the influences of education, experience and job skills on business managers’ performance, guiding the future recruitment of talents.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review is among the first to assess the triadic relationship between knowledge management, career development and the global unemployment crisis. The proposed multidisciplinary approach seeks to break down existing silos, thus fostering a more comprehensive understanding of how to address these ongoing global concerns.

Quality 4.0 is being presented as the new stage of quality development. However, its overlying concept and rationale are still hard to define. To better understand what different authors and studies advocate being Quality 4.0, a systematic literature review was undertaken on the topic. This paper presents the results of such review, providing some avenues for further research on quality management.

The documents for the systematic literature review have been searched on the Scopus database, using the search equation: [TITLE-ABS-KEY (“Quality 4.0”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (Quality Management” AND (“Industry 4.0” OR “Fourth Industr*” OR i4.0))]. Documents were filtered by language and by type. Of the 367 documents identified, 146 were submitted to exploratory content analysis.

The analyzed documents essentially provide theoretical discussions on what Quality 4.0 is or should be. Five categories have emerged from the content analysis undertaken: Industry 4.0 and the Rise of a New Approach to Quality; Motivations, Readiness Factors and Barriers to a Quality 4.0 Approach; Digital Quality Management Systems; Combination of Quality Tools and Lean Methodologies and Quality 4.0 Professionals.

It was hard to find studies reporting how quality is actually being managed in organizations that already operate in the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Answers could not be found to questions regarding actual practices, methodologies and tools being used in Quality 4.0 approaches. However, the research undertaken allowed to identify in the literature different ways of conceptualizing and analyzing Quality 4.0, opening up avenues for further research on quality management in the Industry 4.0 era.

This paper offers a broad look at how quality management is changing in response to the affirmation of the Industry 4.0 paradigm.

With the change in climate and increased pollution, there has been a need to reduce environmental carbon emissions. This research aims to develop a framework for reducing environmental carbon footprints to improve business performance.

This study uses Scientific Procedures and Rationales for the Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) approach. Articles are searched in the Scopus database using various keywords and their combinations. It resulted in 651 articles initially. After applying different screening criteria, 61 articles were considered for the final study.

This study provided four themes and sub-themes within each category. This research also used theories, methodologies and context (TMC) framework to provide future research questions. This study used the antecedents, decisions and outcomes (ADO) framework for synthesising the findings. The ADO framework will help to achieve carbon neutrality and improve firms' supply chain (SC) performance.

This study provides theoretical implications by highlighting the various theories that can be used in future research. This study also states the practical implications for the achievement of carbon neutrality by the firms.

This study contributes to the literature linking carbon neutrality with business performance.

This research aims to systematically review studies on significant risks for Critical Infrastructure Projects (CIPs) from selected top-tier academic journals from 2011 to 2023.

In this research, a three-step systematic literature review methodology was employed to analyse 55 selected articles on Critical Infrastructure Risks (CIRs) from well-regarded and relevant academic journals published from 2011 to 2023.

The findings highlight a growing research focus on CIRs from 2011 to 2023. A total of 128 risks were identified and grouped into ten distinct categories: construction, cultural, environmental, financial, legal, management, market, political, safety and technical risks. In addition, literature reviews combined with questionnaire surveys were more frequently used to identify CIRs than any other method. Moreover, oil and gas projects were the subjects most often explored in the reviewed papers. Furthermore, it was observed that publications from Iran, the USA and China dominated CIRs research, making significant contributions, accounting for 49.65% of the analysed articles.

This research specifically focuses on five types of CIPs (i.e. roadways, bridges, water supply systems, dams and oil and gas projects). Other CIPs like cyber-physical systems or electric power systems, were not considered in this research.

Governments and contracting firms can benefit from the findings of this study by understanding the significant risks associated with the execution of CIPs, irrespective of the nation, industry or type of project. The results of this investigation can offer construction professionals valuable insights to formulate and implement risk response plans in the early stages of a project.

As a novel literature review related to CIRs, it lays the groundwork for future research and deepens the understanding of the multi-faceted effects of these risks, as well as sets practical response strategies.

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has been expanding rapidly in recent years, gaining the attention of academics and practitioners. This study provides a structured literature review (SLR) on AI and management decisions (MDs) by analysing the scientific output and defining new research topics.

The study uses a rigorous methodological approach to summarise the state of the art of the past literature. The authors used Scopus as the database for data collection and utilised the Bibliometrix R package. In total, 204 peer-reviewed English articles were collected and analysed.

The results showed that literature in this field is emerging. Studies are focused on using AI as forecasting and classification for management decision-making, AI as a tool to improve knowledge management in organisations and extract information. The cluster analysis revealed the presence of five thematic clusters of studies on the topic.

The study’s originality lies in providing a new perspective on AI for MDs. In particular, the analysis reveals a new classification of research streams and provides fruitful research questions to continue research on the topic.

This study aims to extend and explore patterns and trends of research in the linkage of big data and knowledge management (KM) by identifying growth in terms of numbers of papers and current and emerging themes and to propose areas of future research.

The study was conducted by systematically extracting, analysing and synthesizing the literature related to linkage between big data and KM published in top-tier journals in Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus databases by exploiting bibliometric techniques along with theory, context, characteristics, methodology (TCCM) analysis.

The study unfolds four major themes of linkage between big data and KM research, namely (1) conceptual understanding of big data as an enabler for KM, (2) big data–based models and frameworks for KM, (3) big data as a predictor variable in KM context and (4) big data applications and capabilities. It also highlights TCCM of big data and KM research through which it integrates a few previously reported themes and suggests some new themes.

This study extends advances in the previous reviews by adding a new time line, identifying new themes and helping in the understanding of complex and emerging field of linkage between big data and KM. The study outlines a holistic view of the research area and suggests future directions for flourishing in this research area.

This study highlights the role of big data in KM context resulting in enhancement of organizational performance and efficiency. A summary of existing literature and future avenues in this direction will help, guide and motivate managers to think beyond traditional data and incorporate big data into organizational knowledge infrastructure in order to get competitive advantage.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first study to go deeper into understanding of big data and KM research using bibliometric and TCCM analysis and thus adds a new theoretical perspective to existing literature.

Quality management practitioners have yet to cease the potential of digitalisation. Furthermore, there is a lack of tools such as frameworks guiding practitioners in the digital transformation of their organisations. The purpose of this study is to provide a framework to guide quality practitioners with the implementation of digitalisation in their existing practices.

A review of literature assessed how quality management and digitalisation have been integrated. Findings from the literature review highlighted the success of the integration of Lean manufacturing with digitalisation. A comprehensive list of Lean Six Sigma tools were then reviewed in terms of their effectiveness and relevance for the hybrid digitisation approach to process improvement (HyDAPI) framework.

The implementation of the proposed HyDAPI framework in an industrial case study led to increased efficiency, reduction of waste, standardised work, mistake proofing and the ability to root cause non-conformance products.

The activities and tools in the HyDAPI framework are not inclusive of all techniques from Lean Six Sigma.

The HyDAPI framework is a flexible guide for quality practitioners to digitalise key information from manufacturing processes. The framework allows organisations to select the appropriate tools as needed. This is required because of the varying and complex nature of organisation processes and the challenge of adapting to the continually evolving Industry 4.0.

This research proposes the HyDAPI framework as a flexible and adaptable approach for quality management practitioners to implement digitalisation. This was developed because of the gap in research regarding the lack of procedures guiding organisations in their digital transition to Industry 4.0.