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The present paper concerns the domestic and international accreditations of business schools to find the commonalities in various accreditation standards. The study also addresses cost involvement and comparisons between various accreditations.

The research examined the requirements, methods and preparations for many national and international accrediting authorities. The accreditation criteria, history and guidelines were collected from secondary data sources. The content analysis was used to draw conclusions about the similarities and differences between the data sources and identify any differences and similarities between various accreditations.

The study found commonalities across accreditation standards and cost analyses, helping institutions achieve suitable accreditations. To unify the administrative procedure at the institutional level and reduce duplicates for schools seeking multiple accreditations, similarities in all accreditation requirements are analysed. The comparison helps organisations determine which accreditation standard best suits their needs and goals. Schools with limited budgets might compare accreditation costs to determine which are worth pursuing.

This study is limited to comparing a few accreditation bodies related to management education. In future research, the study may be extended to other areas. The use of the approach developed in this study for evaluating accreditation agencies of different streams, such as engineering, science and medicine, will be the study's future implications.

The research indicates that schools can streamline accreditation by identifying commonalities, aligning procedures, comparing standards and conducting cost assessments. These insights aid efficient accreditation and inform accrediting bodies' framework enhancements. Standards facilitate global performance comparisons.

This is likely the first study to compare Indian and international accreditations using the accreditation frameworks and cost analyses using comparative analysis. The study recommends strategies for achieving academic benchmarks through continuous improvement activities and success in international competition.

This empirical study explores the intricate relationships between Industry 4.0 (I4), Lean practices and sustainable operational performance (SOP) within the dynamic context of the services sector. Rooted in the theoretical framework of Resource Orchestration Theory (ROT), the research investigates the nuanced interplay between these paradigms and their collective impact on firm performance.

The research methods included creation of a structural model, hypothesis formulation and advanced data analysis. Primary data were gathered through an online questionnaire distributed among service sector professionals. Analysis was completed using Partial Least Squares (PLS) Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using the Smart-PLS software.

The results underscore the mediating role of Lean practices between I4 and SOP, emphasizing the imperative of harmonized integration to enhance overall firm performance. In alignment with ROT principles, the study illuminates the positive influence of Lean practices on sustainable operational outcomes.

The study contributes to the scholarly discourse on I4, Lean and Services, emphasizing the strategic necessity of integrating I4 capabilities with Lean practices. Practical insights guide practitioners in orchestrating a balanced adoption of I4 and Lean practices for SOP. This research offers actionable insights for industry leaders seeking to cultivate SOP within their organizational contexts.

This study contributes to the evolving understanding of the interplay between I4, Lean practices and SOP within the services sector, offering novel insights for both academia and industry practitioners.

The purposes of this paper are (1) to identify and rank the various enablers for an integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS), and (2) to study their correlations and their impact on organizational performance.

Three tiers methodology is used to analyze the enablers for the successful adoption of ISGLSAMS. First, a total of 32 ISGLSAMS enablers are identified through a comprehensive literature review. Then, data are collected with a structured questionnaire from 108 Indian manufacturing industries. Then, an analytic approach is used to analyze (1) the relevance and significance of enablers and (2) their correlations (1) with each other, and (2) with the organizational performance outcomes, to strengthen the understanding of ISGLSAMS.

The findings suggest that top management commitment, sustainable reconfigurable manufacturing system, organization resources for 6 Rs, customers' and stakeholders' involvement, corporate social responsibility (CSR), customers and stakeholders-focused strategic alliances, dynamic manufacturing strategies, use of information and communication technology, concurrent engineering, standardized tasks for continuous improvement, virtual network of supply chain partners, real-time monitoring and control, training and education, employees' involvement and empowerment enablers are the higher level enablers for the adoption of ISGLSAMS. Findings also suggest that there is a scope for research in the incorporation of lot size reduction, Keiretsu-Kraljic supply chain relationship strategy, external collaborations with the stakeholders other than supply chain members, matrix flatter organization structure, employees' career development, justified employees' wages, government support for research fund and subsidies and vendor-managed inventory practices for ISGLSAMS. Top management commitment, sustainable reconfigurable manufacturing system, organization resources for 6 Rs, corporate social responsibility (CSR), dynamic manufacturing strategies, use of information and communication technology, concurrent engineering, virtual network of supply chain partners, real-time monitoring and control, training and education, employees' involvement and empowerment have a significant effect on (1) sustainable product design, (2) sustainable production system, (3) improvement in the sale, (4) improvement in market responsiveness, (5) improvement in the competitive position and (6) improvement in the global market image.

Through this study of ISGLSAMS enablers and their interdependence, and their impact on ISGLSAMS performance outcomes government, organizations, stakeholders, policymakers and supply chain partners may plan the policy, roadmap and strategies for the successful adoption of (1) ISGLSAMS in the organizational value chain, and (2) Industrial ecology and industrial symbiosis in India. The study also contributes to the industrial managers, and value chain partners a better understanding of ISGLSAMS.

This study is the first attempt to understand (1) the ISGLSAMS enablers and their correlations, and (2) the effect of ISGLSAMS enablers on ISGLSAMS performance outcomes to get the competitive and sustainability advantage. The study contributes to the practitioners, policymakers, organizations, government, researchers and academicians a better understanding of ISGLSAMS enablers and its performance outcomes.

This study aims to recognize the significant barriers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh, hindering the adoption of total quality management (TQM). Additionally, this research intends to explore the interrelations among these barriers to develop essential managerial insights for promoting TQM implementation in SMEs.

The interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach and Matrice d'impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment (MICMAC) a cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification show the relationship among the barriers and classification of the barriers to TQM implementation respectively, and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is applied for ISM model validation.

This study examined previous literature and conducted interviews with professionals to identify 17 barriers. The study then develops and investigates a model that outlines the relationships and priorities among these barriers and categorizes them based on their impact and interdependence. This analysis can assist SMEs in implementing TQM during their operations successfully.

This research emphasizes the crucial obstacles that greatly affect other barriers and require immediate attention. Furthermore, this study provides valuable information for SMEs to effectively prioritize their resources and efforts to overcome these obstacles.

This study delves into the primary obstacles impeding the integration of TQM in SMEs through a novel approach. Additionally, this study constructs a verified contextual framework that depicts the hierarchies and interconnections among these barriers.

Scarcity of resources, ecological imbalance, global warming, rising energy prices and the ever-changing need for variety have attracted the government and manufacturers for sustainable development of the industries. The integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS) provides a solid platform for meeting both the customers’ variety needs and business sustainability requirements. Many organizations opted for ISGLSAMS, but still due to various barriers organizations are not able to fully implement ISGLSAMS. The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to the ISGLSAMS, so that a more sustainable industrial manufacturing system and industrial symbiosis can be developed.

A literature review, from the Web of Science and Google Scholar database, has been carried out to identify the various barriers to the implementation of ISGLSAMS in the entire value chain. A total of 168 research papers have been reviewed for identifying the ISGLSAMS barriers.

This paper elaborates the concept of the ISGLSAMS, its attributes and various barriers and contributes to a better understanding and successful implementation of ISGLSAMS to meet business’ sustainability and market performance goals in the entire value chain. The paper also projects the future research framework and directions for the ISGLSAMS, integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile (ISGLSA) product and ISGLSA supply and value chain.

The study contributes to a better understanding of ISGLSAMS’ barriers. The government, stakeholders and policymakers may plan the policy, road map and strategies to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers. In-depth knowledge of subclauses of ISGLSAMS’ barriers will help the practitioners to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers strategically. By overcoming the ISGLSAMS barriers, a more sustainable 7 Rs based market focused manufacturing system can be designed. This will also increase the opportunities to enhance the industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis and better recovery of the product, process and supply chain residual value. This will reduce the waste to the ecosystem.

This work has been carried out in search of a more sustainable manufacturing system, i.e. ISGLSAMS (which is 7 Rs based, i.e. 6 Rs of sustainability with 7th R, reconfiguration) to meet the customer variety needs along with sustainability in the ever-changing customer market. This study adds value to the practitioners to identify and prioritize the ISGLSAMS’ industry-specific barriers and design the solution for the more sustainable development of (1) industries, (2) the industrial symbiosis system and (3) the ISGLSA product, process, system and supply value chain with minimum resource consumption and environmental impact. The research also contributes to the (a) ISGLSAMS (b) ISGLSA supply chain (c) reconfigurable, sustainable and modular products and (d) redesign, recovery and refurbishing of the product to increase the product life cycle.

The purpose of this study is use a bibliometric analysis to explore the relational nature of knowledge creation in WFM in operations. Companies live under constant pressure to find the best ways to plan their workforce, and the workforce emangement (WFM) is one of the biggest challenges faced by managers. Relevant research on WFM in operations has been published in a several range of journals that vary in their scope and readership, and thus the academic contribution to the topic remains largely fragmented.

To address this gap, this review aims to map research on WFM in operations to understand where it comes from and where it is going and, therefore, provides opportunities for future work. This study combined two bibliometric approaches with manual document coding to examine the literature corpus of WFM in operations to draw a holistic picture of its different aspects.

Content and thematic analysis of the seminal studies resulted in the extraction of three key research themes: workforce cross-training, planning workforce mixed methods and individual workforce characteristics. The findings of this study further highlight the gaps in the WFM in operations literature and raise some research questions that warrant further academic investigation in the future.

Likewise, this study has important implications for practitioners who are likely to benefit from a holistic understanding of the different aspects of WFM in operations.

This paper aims to determine the hierarchical relationship between building partnership competencies for public sector educational leaders (ELs) administering and running the education system.

An interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique was used to develop a hierarchical structural model for building partnership competencies. Nominal group technique (NGT) was used with the help of experts’ suggestions and opinions at the beginning of ISM to identify building partnership competencies. Also, the NGT was used to rank the competencies. A structural self-integration matrix was developed based on experts’ voting and agreement. Cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis was used to analyse the relationship among the building partnership competencies. A total of 11 experts were chosen for NGT and ISM sessions.

A total of 16 building partnership competencies were identified for this study. The competencies were compartmentalised into four domains: creative collaboration, create network, develop collective culture and encouraging constructive dialogue. MICMAC analysis shows each domain of the model of its key competencies ranked at the highest level in the ISM model and dependent competencies.

ISM is a modelling approach that is based solely on expert opinions and responses. Its limitation can be overcome with the help of empirical analysis.

This study supports the public sector ELs’ professional development and upskilling. In addition, the model developed in the study will be helpful for stakeholders, human resources division and policymakers to incorporate building partnership competencies in the training and development of ELs.

This study helps to identify and prioritise building partnership competencies using NGT and ISM. Literature shows that numerous authors have used the ISM approach. Still, the combination of NGT approach is limited. Therefore, the model developed in the study was based solely on experts’ opinions and suggestion based on their experiences and knowledge.

This study aims to examine decision factors for global sourcing, differentiated into transcontinental and continental sourcing to obtain insight into locational aspects of sourcing decisions and global trends. This study analyzed various country perceptions to reveal their influence on sourcing decisions. The country of origin (COO) theory explains why certain country perceptions and images influence purchasing experts in their selection of suppliers.

This study used a two-study approach. In Study 1, the authors conducted discrete choice card experiments with 71 purchasing experts located in Europe and the USA to examine the importance of essential decision factors for global sourcing. Given the clear evidence that location is a factor in sourcing decisions, in Study 2 the authors investigated purchasers’ perceptions and images of countries, adding country ranking experiments on various perceived characteristics such as quality, price and technology.

Study 1 provides evidence that the purchasers’ personal relationship with the supplier plays a decisive role in the supplier selection process. While product quality and location impact sourcing decisions, the attraction of the buying company and cultural barriers are less significant. Interestingly, however, these factors seem as important as price to respondents. This implies that a strong relationship with suppliers and good quality products are essential aspects of a reliable and robust supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Examining the locational aspect in detail, Study 2 linked the choice card experiments with country ranking experiments. In this study, the authors found that purchasing experts consider that transcontinental countries such as Japan and China offer significant advantages in terms of price and technology. China has enhanced its quality, which is recognizable in the country ranking experiments. Therefore, decisions on global sourcing are not just based on such high-impact factors as price and availability; country perceptions are also influential. Additionally, the significance of the locational aspect could be linked to certain country images of transcontinental suppliers, as the COO theory describes.

The new approach divides global sourcing into transcontinental and European sourcing to evaluate special decision factors and link these factors to the locational aspect of sourcing decisions. To deepen the clear evidence for the locational aspect and investigate the possible influence of country perceptions, the authors applied the COO theory. This approach enabled authors to show the strong influence of country perception on purchasing departments, which is represented by the locational effect. Hence, the success of transcontinental countries relies not only on factors such as their availability but also on the purchasers’ positive perceptions of these countries in terms of technology and price.

In this study, the authors examine artificial knowledge as a fundamental stream of knowledge management for sustainable and resilient business models in supply chain management (SCM). The study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of artificial knowledge and digitalization as key enablers of the improvement of SCM accountability and sustainable performance towards the UN 2030 Agenda.

Using the SCOPUS database and Google Scholar, the authors analyzed 135 English-language publications from 1990 to 2022 to chart the pattern of knowledge production and dissemination in the literature. The data were collected, reviewed and peer-reviewed before conducting bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review to support future research agenda.

The results highlight that artificial knowledge and digitalization are linked to the UN 2030 Agenda. The analysis further identifies the main issues in achieving sustainable and resilient SCM business models. Based on the results, the authors develop a conceptual framework for artificial knowledge and digitalization in SCM to increase accountability and sustainable performance, especially in times of sudden crises when business resilience is imperative.

The study results add to the extant literature by examining artificial knowledge and digitalization from the resilience theory perspective. The authors suggest that different strategic perspectives significantly promote resilience for SCM digitization and sustainable development. Notably, fostering diverse peer exchange relationships can help stimulate peer knowledge and act as a palliative mechanism that builds digital knowledge to strengthen and drive future possibilities.

This research offers valuable guidance to supply chain practitioners, managers and policymakers in re-thinking, re-formulating and re-shaping organizational processes to meet the UN 2030 Agenda, mainly by introducing artificial knowledge in digital transformation training and education programs. In doing so, firms should focus not simply on digital transformation but also on cultural transformation to enhance SCM accountability and sustainable performance in resilient business models.

This study is, to the authors' best knowledge, among the first to conceptualize artificial knowledge and digitalization issues in SCM. It further integrates resilience theory with institutional theory, legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory as the theoretical foundations of artificial knowledge in SCM, based on firms' responsibility to fulfill the sustainable development goals under the UN's 2030 Agenda.

This paper explores the role of Internet of things (IoT) enabling factors in adopting digital supply chain.

Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used to rank performance measures and prioritise the enabling factors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to validate and support key research findings from the AHP analysis.

The results show that level of customer demand is the most important indicator in adopting IoT while the level of product/process flexibility is the least important. System integration and IoT infrastructure are the top two enabling factors in increasing the level of process stability, supply chain connectivity, and product/process flexibility, respectively. Furthermore, the study suggests that the enabling factors for IoT adoption are directly connected with organisational resources/technological capabilities that support the resource-based view theory. This research identified interdependencies between IoT enabling factors and key performance measures for IoT adoption success in managing the digital supply chain.

Supply chain managers can use the empirical findings of this study to prioritise IoT adoption, based on the relative importance of enabling factors and performance measures. The research findings are focused on broader supply chain practices of large companies rather than a specific industry and SMEs. Hence, any industry-specific adoption factors and SMEs were not evident from this study.

This research study empirically established priorities of enabling factors for IoT adoption, along with inter-dependencies among enabling factors as a basis for developing guidelines for IoT adoption.