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This paper aims to examine the relationship between supply integration and firm performance by first, investigating the mediating effects of manufacturing flexibility and mass customization; and second, exploring the moderating role of innovation orientation on the link between internal capabilities and performance.

Resource orchestration and contingency theories are used to address the mediating and moderating effects. A cross-sectional data set on 242 Swedish manufacturers is used to test for the hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The findings provide support for the mediating roles of manufacturing flexibility and mass customization in the relationship between supply integration and firm performance. However, the results point to contrasting contingent effects of innovation orientation. While innovation orientation positively moderates the association between mass customization and firm performance, it shows a negative impact on the link between flexibility and performance.

The study contributes to the literature on the integrative activities with upstream supply chain actors. Specifically, the authors highlight how specific capability configurations comprising of supply integration, manufacturing flexibility and mass customization lead to firm performance. Moreover, the authors provide insights on the contingency role of innovation, especially if firms consider flexibility or customization capabilities.

While the individual impacts of flexibility and customization on performance have been addressed previously, there is a paucity of research on how these two capabilities are integrated with supply integration. Moreover, there is little known regarding the role of innovation orientation on these integrated relationships.

The study aims to test the success of university-industry (U-I) collaboration in terms of innovation process efficiency. Then, this study explores the moderating role of a set of organizational routines in the U-I relationship, which can help in overcoming the issues undermining the collaboration success.

The study is based on an international Open Innovation (OI) survey. The survey investigated the items to build the main variables of the conceptual framework, measured through seven-point Likert scales. Steps to ensure the reliability and validity of the variables were conducted. Then, hypotheses were tested with an ordinary least squares regression.

Results show that the higher the collaboration intensity (depth) with universities, the higher the innovation process efficiency. Furthermore, organizational routines aimed at improving firms' assimilation absorptive capacity further strengthen the positive effects of intensive collaboration on innovation process efficiency.

Findings indicate that R&D managers should strive to build deep collaborations with universities to enhance process efficiency and invest in the quality of these relationships. Managers should create and maintain an internal environment that further enhances the positive effects of intensive collaboration on innovation process efficiency.

The OI literature has not reached a shared view on the positive contribution of universities toward industrial firms' innovation performance. The study adopts a process-efficiency view, rarely used by other OI studies usually focused on output indicators; this study unpacks, respectively, the role of the intensity of collaboration and the organizational routines, thus disclosing the benefit of U-I collaboration on innovation efficiency.

This paper aims to address the need for managerial and organizational approaches to knowledge integration with customers in collaborative product development projects. The purpose is to identify the roles of customers in terms of the customer’s knowledge contribution and timing of customer collaboration in the product development process.

This study is based on a multi-case study approach, comprising four product development projects from two large international suppliers. The cases were selected following the theoretical replication logic. Data consist of interviews, workshops and secondary information. For each of the cases, a within-case analysis was performed followed by a cross-case analysis.

The study shows that the customer’s knowledge contribution is aligned with the specific requirements of each phase of the product development. Three specific customer roles are identified and connected to the customer’s knowledge contribution and the timing of customer collaboration. The technical capability of the customer and the locus of initiative of the product development project are affecting the prerequisites for knowledge integration with customers.

The study is performed from the perspective of supplier firms. The authors have not been able to capture the perspective of the customer in detail. As it is expected that both customers and suppliers benefit from a systematic knowledge exchange, future studies could examine knowledge contributions in both directions.

The findings can be used to devise effective approaches for collaborative product development with customers related to the customer’s knowledge contribution and the timing of customer collaboration and provide guidance to firms seeking to benefit from knowledge residing at customers.

This is one of the first studies to focus on the integration of customers’ knowledge in product development processes. This paper contributes to the customer–supplier collaboration literature by presenting further insight into customers’ knowledge contributions, the timing of customer collaboration in product development processes and the prerequisites for knowledge integration with customers.

A nanosilica adsorbent was prepared and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and BET.

The optimum conditions for the highest adsorption performance were determined by kinetic modeling. The adsorbent was used for the adsorption of acetaminophen (ACT), and the parameters affecting the adsorption were discussed like pH, initial concentration, contact time and adsorbent dosage. The adsorbent have been characterized by SEM, XRD and BET analysis. The kinetic models including pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were applied to investigate the kinetic and isotherms parameters.

The adsorption of ACT increased to around 95% with the increase of nanosilica concentration to 30 g/L. Moreover, the adsorption process of ACT follows the pseudo-second-order kinetics and the Langmuir isotherm with the maximum adsorption capacity of 609 mg/g.

This study provided a simple and effective way to prepare of nanoadsorbents. This way was conductive to protect environmental and subsequent application for removal of emerging pollutants from aqueous solutions.

The novelty of the study is synthesizing the morphological and structural properties of nanosilica-based adsorbent (specific surface area, pore volume and size, shape and capability) and improving its removal rate through optimizing the synthesis method; and studying the capability of synthesis of nanosilica-based adsorbent for removal of ACT as a main emerging pharmaceutical water contaminant.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between operational risk management and customer complaints. It also determines whether product complexity moderates the relationship between the operational risk management and customer complaints.

This study utilizes a quantitative method: quantitative data were collected using a questionnaire. The population of this study is 1,845 local conventional bank branches based in Malaysia.

The findings revealed that components of operational risk management, namely practice of hazard identification and formulation of implementation of risk control, have negative and significant relationships with customer complaints. Empirical evidence confirmed the moderating effects of product complexity on the relationship between operational risk management and customer complaints.

From the perspective of developing countries, the main contribution of this study is the elucidation of the effect of operational risk management on customer complaints in commercial banks in Malaysia. This study confirmed the usability of the resource-based view theory in the banking industry, as well as operational risk management as a bank resource.

This paper aims to investigation of processes for Pb²⁺ elimination from water/wastewater as a significant public health issue in many parts of world. The removal of Pb²⁺ ions by various nanocomposites has been explained from water/wastewaters. ZnO-based nanocomposites, as eco-friendly nanoparticles with unique physicochemical properties, have received increased attention to remove Pb²⁺ ions from water/wastewaters.

In this review, different ZnO-based nanocomposites were reviewed for their application in the removal of Pb²⁺ ions from the aqueous solution, typically for wastewater treatment using methodology, such as adsorption. This review focused on the ZnO-based nanocomposites for removing Pb²⁺ ions from water and wastewaters systems.

The ZnO-based nanocomposite was prepared by different methods, such as electrospinning, hydrothermal/alkali hydrothermal, direct precipitation and polymerization. Depending on the preparation method, various types of ZnO-based nanocomposites like ZnO-metal (Cu/ZnO, ZnO/ZnS, ZnO/Fe), ZnO-nonmetal (PVA/ZnO, Talc/ZnO) and ZnO-metal/nonmetal (ZnO/Na-Y zeolite) were obtained with different morphologies. The effects of operational parameters and adsorption mechanisms were discussed in the review.

The findings may be greatly useful in the application of the ZnO-based nanocomposite in the fields of organic and inorganic pollutants adsorption.

The present study is novel, because it investigated the morphological and structural properties of the synthesized ZnO-based nanocomposite using different methods and studied the capability of green-synthesized ZnO-based nanocomposite to remove Pb²⁺ ions as water contaminants.

The current review can be used for the development of environmental pollution control measures.

This paper reviews the rapidly developing field of nanocomposite technology.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new homotopy perturbation method (NHPM) to solve Cauchy problem of unidimensional non‐linear diffusion equation.

In this paper a modified version of HPM, which the authors call NHPM, has been presented; this technique performs much better than the HPM. HPM and NHPM start by considering a homotopy, and the solution of the problem under study is assumed to be as the summation of a power series in p, the difference between two methods starts from the form of initial approximation of the solution.

In this article, the authors have applied the NHPM for solving nonlinear Cauchy diffusion equation. In comparison with the homotopy perturbation method (HPM), in the present method, the authors achieve exact solutions while HPM does not lead to exact solutions. The authors believe that the new method is a promising technique in finding the exact solutions for a wide variety of mathematical problems.

The basic idea described in this paper is expected to be further employed to solve other functional equations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and control the flutter vibrations of a thermoelastic functionally graded material (FGM) beam subjected to follower force using the piezoelectric sensors/actuators.

The beam is made of FGM properties which are functionally graded in the thickness direction according to the volume fraction power law distribution and change with temperature. As the two sides of the beam are located in two different temperatures, the thermoelastic effects are considered in the governing equation of motion. The beam is fixed from one end and a follower force is applied to the free end of it. An active control is applied to the system to suppress the flutter vibration of the beam.

After the simulation, the effects of the temperature gradient, magnitude of the follower force and piezoelectric lengths on the dynamic stability and the response of the system are studied. Simulation results show that the vibration of the system has been damped rapidly by applying the controller to the system.

Stability analysis and robust control of a thermoelastic FGM beam subjected to a follower force using piezoelectric sensors and actuators is the novelty of this study.

This study aims to investigation of the guar gum-manganese dioxide (GG/MnO₂) nanocomposite (NC) synthesized using an environment-friendly method and the degradation of reactive yellow (RY 145) dye in the UV system.

Characterization of the GG/MnO₂ NCs were conducted using field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Experiments were conducted using a 1 L glass reactor coupled with Ultraviolet (UV-C) blue light bulb of wavelength 250 nm and power of 8 W.

The NC (2.25 g/L) displayed high RY 145 dye degradation (81%) with 10 mg/L of concentration at pH 3. The coefficient of determination (R² 0.99) also depicted that the model fits the experimental data. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the F-values of 464.75, 276.04 and 5.15 are related to the dose of GG/MnO₂ NCs, initial concentration of RY 145 dye and solution pH, respectively.

The GG/MnO₂ NCs followed by photo oxidation process (UV-process) could be used to degrade the RY 145 dye from synthetic wastewater.

There are two main innovations. One is that the novel process is performed successfully for RY 145 dye degradation. The other is that the optimized conditions are obtained by Box–Behnken design. Also, the effects of different variables on the RY 145 dye removal efficiency were investigated.