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The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an assessment into how well the Lean Management method will support continuous improvement in the world of Industry 4.0.

Using thematic analysis of literature, the Lean Management method and Industry 4.0 were deconstructed into their constituent elements. Semi-structured interviews were then carried out with five Quality Specialists in manufacturing to gather opinions on how well each Lean element supported each theme of Industry 4.0.

This initial research highlighted that the Lean method can integrate new technologies, to allow it to better support continuous improvement in the world of Industry 4.0. It was found the supportive elements of Lean in the world of Industry 4.0 would include Continual Improvement, Engaging the Supply Chain, Pull Systems and having a Customer Focus.

This was a scoping study as a precursor to further research and was based on the opinions of five Quality/Lean Specialists. However, the results determine that Lean can be supported by Industry 4.0 technologies.

Those constituent elements of Lean which might be updated to better support quality improvement in the world of Industry 4.0 have been identified. A methodology by which expanded research may be undertaken has been demonstrated.

The findings contribute to knowledge by providing a focus on the key supporting elements of Lean implementation for Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing sector.

The Scottish economy was experiencing steady growth prior the hit of the COVID-19, with the pandemic causing the government to announce extreme lockdown measures with unprecedented impact on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Whilst some of the industry sectors in Scotland took a lighter hit, a large part of the organizations had to either adapt or completely disrupt their business. An essential aspect of their survival, risk management (RM) was among the areas requiring the most significant acceleration. This study compared the RM practices implemented by Scottish SMEs prior and after the outbreak as well as examined the attitudes of key decision-makers in the SMEs in relation to risk, including their perceived readiness for another crisis of similar significance.

An online survey based on ISO 31000 RM guidelines was distributed to 232 Scottish SMEs. Based on the official government reports and existing knowledge on how SMEs around the world have handled crisis events within the past 20 years, the authors developed the hypothesis that crisis events significantly accelerate SMEs' RM implementation. Around 13 items were tested in relation to the hypothesis and responses were tested via two-tailed T-test to establish significant statistical difference.

The research provides insight into the current state of risk management practices implemented by Scottish SMEs. As expected, SMEs showed significant difference in their RM implementation prior and after the COVID-19 outbreak. Whilst this has been viewed as a positive, motivations, priorities and approaches in managing risk demonstrated by the SMEs is questionable with views to their sustainable long-term recovery. The study highlights the lack of confidence instilled within the SMEs that they can handle another crisis of similar significance and provides directions for further investigation and improvements with the aim of helping the SMEs prepare better to mitigate the consequences of future crisis events.

In academic sense, the study offers a tested universal framework and a detailed questionnaire for assessment of RM strategy, applicable to organisations of various type, size and geography. Several implications with regards to managerial practices have been highlighted, including the neglect of the SMEs’ own internal environments and its significance in their risk strategies, the predominantly reactive approach to RM displayed by most Scottish SMEs as well as the neglect of compliance risk leading to potential quality and customer satisfaction issues preventing SMEs from full post-crisis recovery.

Building on previous work (Cano and Moyes, 2013; Douglas and Moyes, 2013; Moyes, 2012) this study further develops the proposition that word-of-mouth and customer retention are enhanced through the ‘3 Rs’ of service quality; viz. reliability, responsiveness and recovery. Work to date in this field has developed and tested the model in two different rural locations. However, there may be underlying factors in rural areas which cause the correlation between customer satisfaction and loyalty behaviour to be overstated. Therefore, to control for the possibly distorting effects of rurality, this study examines the loyalty responses of urban service-users.

Using the Critical Incident Technique a study of young, relatively affluent women was carried out in a city-centre in Scotland. The study was carried out in spring 2014 over a one week period. Results were analysed using qualitative analysis software.

Results confirmed the validity of the 3 Rs model. Findings demonstrate that the model is valid for different population densities.

The qualitative method yields rich, insightful data, but the results cannot be generalized to a wider population. The findings provide service providers with a clear set of quality dimensions used by respondents to evaluate their service experiences. Loyalty behaviors were found to be highly responsive to quality evaluations; both repeat purchase intentions and word-of-mouth behaviors are highly quality-elastic.

The results confirm that a business which provides the quality of service which customers expected to receive, which demonstrates responsiveness to customer needs and which remedies failings in service delivery appropriately, will benefit from increased loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations. Those which fail to provide these three essential elements will suffer loss of loyalty and incur negative word-of-mouth.

A clear set of dimensions is presented which reflect service priorities of consumers.

Sommario: 1° Il bisogno di viaggiare per motivi turistici. 2° Turismo nei tempi antichi e nei tempi moderni in relazione ai nuovi mezzi di trasporto. 3° Turismo sociale. 4° Forme di viaggi collettivi: treni turistici, crociere marittime e fluviali, servizi automobilistici di gran turismo. 5° Politica delle tariffe e miglioramenti nei trasporti ferroviari. 6° La rivincita della strada con lo sviluppo della motorizzazione e del turismo automobilistico. 7° Le autolinee nel sistema dei trasporti terrestri. 8° Azione propulsiva a vantaggio del turismo nei trasporti marittimi ed aerei. 9° Gli effetti economici del turismo.

This paper aims to present a survey concerning the accuracy of thermoplastic polymeric parts fabricated by additive manufacturing (AM). Based on the scientific literature, the aim is to provide an updated map of trends and gaps in this relevant research field. Several technologies and investigation methods are examined, thus giving an overview and analysis of the growing body of research.

Permutations of keywords, which concern materials, technologies and the accuracy of thermoplastic polymeric parts fabricated by AM, are used for a systematic search in peer-review databases. The selected articles are screened and ranked to identify those that are more relevant. A bibliometric analysis is performed based on investigated materials and applied technologies of published papers. Finally, each paper is categorised and discussed by considering the implemented research methods.

The interest in the accuracy of additively manufactured thermoplastics is increasing. The principal sources of inaccuracies are those shrinkages occurring during part solidification. The analysis of the research methods shows a predominance of empirical approaches. Due to the experimental context, those achievements have consequently limited applicability. Analytical and numerical models, which generally require huge computational costs when applied to complex products, are also numerous and are investigated in detail. Several articles deal with artificial intelligence tools and are gaining more and more attention.

The cross-technology survey on the accuracy issue highlights the common critical aspects of thermoplastics transformed by AM. An updated map of the recent research literature is achieved. The analysis shows the advantages and limitations of different research methods in this field, providing an overview of research trends and gaps.

This paper aims to examine the European Union (EU) 95/2014 Directive’s impact on large public companies. It chose Italy as a pivotal country that made non-financial information assurance mandatory, going beyond the EU Directive’s original requirements. Specifically, it investigates how the UE Directive fosters institutionalisation of the non-financial reporting (NFR) process in organisations.

Two large public companies in Italy are used as case studies. Data are gathered from annual and integrated reports, institutional websites and semi-structured interviews with the managers and employees involved in different organisational positions. The authors adopted the neo-institutional theory as a theoretical lens to identify the organisations’ response to the (external) institutional pressures influencing corporate reporting practices.

The findings demonstrate how the EU Directive fostered changes to large public companies’ reporting practices and external pressures contributed to influencing changes to internal organisational practices in terms of new internal processes, procedures and structures. These changes are motivated by the companies’ need to guarantee reliable information to be produced in their non-financial reports.

This paper helps academics and policymakers to advance NFR practices by understanding regulatory factors that can foster changes in the internal reporting process and responsibility within organisations.

The findings provide some empirical insights to foster reflections on the EU Directive’s effectiveness in changing reporting practices. This paper contributes to enriching the literature on institutional theory in shaping mandatory non-financial disclosure by identifying the institutional pressures influencing the effectiveness of regulations to change NFR practices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategic importance of visual aesthetics and presentation modality for consumer responses to fashion luxury brand content posted on Instagram.

A content analysis of 40,679 posts on the official Instagram accounts of 15 global luxury brands was conducted.

Brand posts using expressive aesthetic image received more likes and comments on Instagram than those with classical aesthetics. Brand video content received more likes and comments than static content. There was also a significant interaction between visual aesthetics and presentation modality in generating likes and comments. Brand content adopting expressive aesthetic and audio-visual modality generated more responses when using audio-visual modality, while content using classical aesthetics produced more responses in a visual-only format.

As visual aesthetics and modality resulted in different responses to Instagram ads, luxury marketers should consider using appropriate approaches when creating brand posts on Instagram.

This is one of the few studies examining the effectiveness of visual aesthetics and presentation modality in Instagram advertising, especially in luxury fashion brand context.

This aim of this study is to identify the ways of helping public authorities bring about change to environmentally sustainable household food practices.

The authors identified the practices involved in this concept from the consumer perspective and measured their diffusion among French households. The analyses were conducted following two successive data collection campaigns comprising 571 and 501 respondents in France. The methodology involved two complementary scaling techniques: factor analysis and item response theory.

The results show that consumers understand sustainable food through five food practices: buying and cooking products with sustainable attributes, anti-waste storage, self-production, plant protein consumption and anti-waste cooking.

The findings suggest that while at the individual level people appear to have incorporated anti-waste practices into their daily lives, at the household level, there is still work to be done for improving diets and stimulating the production of home-grown food. It is also worth noting that the emerging vision typically involves sustainable foods that are organic, locally grown, seasonal, based on fair trade and packaging-free.