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This paper aims to illustrate the growing role of robots in the electronics industries.

Following a short introduction, this paper discusses robotic applications and products in three sectors of the electronics industry: semiconductor processing, printed circuit manufacture and electronic product assembly. Finally, conclusions are drawn.

The major application in semiconductor manufacture is the handling of silicon wafers during both front- and back-end processes and products include cleanroom certified multi-axis robotic arms, some mounted on mobile platforms, and automated guided vehicles. Applications in printed circuit board production include component handling and insertion, soldering, inspection, testing and packing. These exploit Cartesian, SCARA and six-axis articulated robots and cobots play an important role where automated and manual processes operate in close proximity. Electronic product assembly applications include part handling, soldering, bonding and sealing, screw driving, test and inspection and packaging. Cobots offer the benefits of a small footprint which allows deployment in the often limited space and use in proximity to humans. As yet, robotic assembly of complex electronic products such as smartphones and computers has not been realised for technical reasons.

This study provides a detailed review of robotic products and applications in three key sectors of the electronics industries.

Jarsh Safety received an order of 500 units of its Model S helmet. However, the order must be delivered within 15 days. Jarsh Safety was founded by three engineering college peers, who conceptualized air-conditioned, industrial safety helmets. This innovative revolutionary product offered industrial workers not only safety but aesthetics and comfort. The founders hoped that the product could change the perception of safety helmets from mandatory wear to desired wear. The case details the production process, staffing, raw material required and procurement lead time.

Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) is a process used to determine activities to be taken to ensure an asset continues to perform asset's function in asset's present operating context by identifying asset's function, failure modes that could preclude performing asset's intended function, prioritizing failure modes and determining effective preventative maintenance tasks that can be cost effectively and efficiently implemented to reduce the likelihood of a failure.

A comprehensive survey of literature was undertaken to examine the current industry state of practice. Various industries were examined to better understand applications of RCM within the various industry sectors and determine those industries that RCM has not historically been readily adopted. A case study example of RCM applied to radial gates for water control in open channel canals for water conveyance is presented to demonstrate a civil infrastructure application.

The results found that RCM has been used since RCM's inception in the airline industry during the 1960s to reduce the cost of maintaining aircrafts. Over the past 40 years, an assortment of industries has begun implementing cost effective preventative maintenance tasks identified during RCM analysis. However, there is a noticeable lack of civil assets being analyzed by RCM, such as water conveyance systems and other civil infrastructure systems vital to the health and well-being of today's societies.

The comprehensive literature review of the current state of practice will provide a better understanding of the various applications of RCM to facilitate RCM's application to other industries, thereby reducing failure due to early identification of maintenance tasks. An example RCM demonstrates the application to a radial gate, used in water conveyance for the drinking water and irrigation sectors, which have not historically used RCM for developing maintenance strategies.

The ongoing paradigm shift in the energy sector holds paramount implications for the realization of the sustainable development goals, encompassing critical domains such as resource optimization, environmental stewardship and workforce opportunities. Concurrently, this transformative trajectory within the power sector possesses a dual-edged nature; it may ameliorate certain challenges while accentuating others. In light of the burgeoning research stream on open innovation, this study aims to examine the intricate dynamics of knowledge-based industry-university-research networking, with an overarching objective to elucidate and calibrate the equilibrium of ambidextrous innovation within power systems.

The authors scrutinize the role of different innovation organizations in three innovation models: ambidextrous, exploitative and exploratory, and use a multiobjective decision analysis method-entropy weight TOPSIS. The research was conducted within the sphere of the power industry, and the authors mined data from the widely used PatSnap database.

Results show that the breadth of knowledge search and the strength of an organization’s direct relationships are crucial for ambidextrous innovation, with research institutions having the highest impact. In contrast, for exploitative innovation, depth of knowledge search, the number of R&D patents and the number of innovative products are paramount, with universities playing the most significant role. For exploratory innovation, the depth of knowledge search and the quality of two-mode network relations are vital, with research institutions yielding the best effect. Regional analysis reveals Beijing as the primary hub for ambidextrous and exploratory innovation organizations, while Jiangsu leads for exploitative innovation.

The study offers valuable implications to cope with the dynamic state of ambidextrous innovation performance of the entire power system. In light of the findings, the dynamic state of ambidextrous innovation performance within the power system can be adeptly managed. By emphasizing a balance between exploratory and exploitative strategies, stakeholders are better positioned to respond to evolving challenges and opportunities. Thus, the study offers pivotal guidance to ensure sustained adaptability and growth in the power sector’s innovation landscape.

The primary originality is to extend and refine the theoretical understanding of ambidextrous innovation within power systems. By integrating several theoretical frameworks, including social network theory, knowledge-based theory and resource-based theory, the authors enrich the theoretical landscape of power system ambidextrous innovation. Also, this inclusive examination of two-mode network structures, including the interplay between knowledge and cooperation networks, unveils the intricate interdependencies between these networks and the ambidextrous innovation of power systems. This approach significantly widens the theoretical parameters of innovation network research.

This historical example of the creation of the arms industry in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s provides new insights into the value of government venture capital (GVC) and government demand in creating a new industry. Since current theoretical explanations of the best uses of governmental venture capital are still under development, there is considerable need for further theory development to explain and predict the creation of an industry and especially those industries where failures in private capital supply necessitates governmental involvement in new firm creation. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in depth historical review of how the arms industry evolved spurred by GVC and government created demand.

This study uses abductive inference as the best way to build and test emerging theories and advancing theoretical explanations of the best uses of GVC and governmental demand to achieve socially required outcomes.

By observing this specific historical example in detail, the authors add to the understanding of value creation caused by governmental venture capital funding of existing theory. A major contribution of this paper is to advance theory based on detailed observation.

The relatively limited research literature and theory development on governmental venture capital funding and the critical success factors in startups are enriched by this abductive investigation of the creation of the historically important arms industry and its spillover into creating the specialized machine industry.

Following the ‘Sarkozy’ era (2007–2012), France has engaged in ‘zero-tolerance’ policies, which have brought an increasing number of people into the criminal justice system (CJS). In an already extremely impoverished CJS, these policies have led to serious financial problems and have made an already existing prison overcrowding problem worse. Consequently, the CJS has gradually opted for a McDonald (Ritzer, 2019; Robinson, 2019) type of offender processing, whether in prosecutor-led procedures (representing roughly half of all penal procedures: Ministry of Justice, 2019) or in the sentencing phase (Danet, 2013). A similar trend has been found in probation and in prisoner release (in French: ‘sentences’ management).

The prison and probation services, which merged in 1999, have since then been in a position to benefit from the 1958 French Republic Constitution, which places the executive in a dominant position and notably allows it to draft the bills presented to a rather passive legislative power (Rousseau, 2007) and even to enjoy its own set of normative powers (‘autonomous decrees’ – Hamon & Troper, 2019). By way of law reforming (2009, 2014, and 2019 laws), the prison and probation services have thus embraced the McDonaldisation ethos. Their main obsession has been to early release as many prisoners as possible in order to free space and to accommodate more sentenced people. To do so, the prison services have created a series of so-called ‘simplified’ early release procedures, where prisoners are neither prepared for nor supported through release, where they are deprived of agency and where due process and attorney advice are removed. Behind a pretend rehabilitative discourse, the executive is only interested in efficiently flushing people out of prison; not about re-entry efficacy. As Ritzer (2019) points out, McDonaldisation often leads to counter-productive or absurd consequences. In the case of early release, the stubborn reality is that one cannot bypass actually doing the rehabilitative and re-entry work. I shall additionally argue that not everything truly qualifies as an early release measure (Ostermann, 2013). Only measures which respect prisoners’ agency prepare them for their release, which support them once they are in the community, which address their socio-psychological and criminogenic needs, and which are pronounced in the context of due process and defence rights truly qualify as such. As it is, French ‘simplified’ release procedures amount to McRe-entry and mass nothingness.

The purpose of this paper, applying concepts in the plant-based food sector, is a focus on the competitive rival trap for startup firms, with their initial advantage for under-served market segments, only to be overtaken by scale, speed, and brands of incumbent brand firms. As a case study of industry transformation, the food production sector illustrates how organizational innovation brings new forms of rivalry, from the farm gate to the kitchen plate. As a result, startups face a rivalry trap, if unable to scale quickly, as incumbents reframe their strategic response with startup acquisitions, corporate incubators or alliance partnerships consumer demand.

This paper outlines the features of precision agriculture, a new paradigm for agriculture and food production, requiring new competences and skillsets in the protein revolution, including issues like virus, bacteria and the molecular structure of food groups, animal breeding and veterinary medicine. Plant-based foods is used as a case study for startups and the rivalry trap.

The emergence of plant-based foods is a case study of market opportunity and creative destruction, where the potential market varies from $25bn to $72bn, and growing faster in the dairy sector. However, food incumbents bring new strategic responses and a rivalry trap, where startups must gain scale quickly in capabilities, talent and marketing prowess, often exploiting demand in market niches unimpeded by incumbent rivals.

Startups in biological sciences face massive challenges to increase scale and scope, even with unique intellectual property.

Startup firms need multidisciplinary management teams with a global outlook.

Plant-based foods form part of the protein revolution but face challenges of scale, cost competitiveness and taste, despite advantages for climate mitigation.

The impact of technological and science applications has blurred the traditional concept of industry boundary, with huge variations in the intangible knowledge component in their core activities and capabilities. Underlying variations imply that not all industries have similar supply demand conditions, with variations in input costs, capital intensity and innovation needs, with strategic implications for the rivalry trap.

The case is based on the data collected from various secondary sources only.

Godi India, a lithium-ion cell manufacturing company in India, was working to design e-cell for electric vehicles (EV) which would be compatible with Indian conditions and reduce the cost of battery to the extent possible because e-cell contributes half of the electric vehicle’s price. Godi India was set up in January 2020 by Mahesh Godi. Looking for opportunities in India after having worked in the USA for 17 years, Mahesh found that even with the rise in EV the lithium-ion cell manufacturing in India was almost zero. Using innovation as its main strategy, the start-up started its operation with a team of 30 scientists. The start-up already registered 25 patents under its name with few awaiting. Most of the EV companies relied on Chinese lithium-ion cell. Local lithium-ion cell manufacturing was believed to be the key for EV industry growth in a country. Central government production linked schemes worth INR 18,100 crore were signed by major players like Ola electric, Reliance new energy and Rajesh exports to develop locally manufactured advance cells. The push from the government for locally manufacturing the cells was a major trigger for the rise in the EV industry. The case provides the analysis of the strategies applied by the company to grow in the lithium-ion cell manufacturing industry.

This case can be used in strategic management, entrepreneurship and general management courses/modules at the Undergraduate and Postgraduate level.

This paper aims to discuss characteristics of Korea’s system responses with a research framework of the structure, conduct and performance theory and explain the role of information, communication technologies (ICT) and Big Data from a technology-mediated control (TMC) perspective.

This study examines the contextual nature of Korea’s diagnostic, preventive and treatment efforts. Particular attention is paid to issues related to the effective use of Big Data analytics and its applications, reporting mechanisms and public safety measures. The research model defines key factors in assessing the effectiveness of Korea’s responses.

Findings of this research suggest: effective strategic planning and operational execution use well-tested and designed crisis-responsive manuals; linkage role of ICT/Big Data is prominent in trace, test and treat and participation (3T + P); and aggressive epidemic investigations require synergistic efforts of national and local government units, broad societal support and participation and contribution of global firms offering their domestic and global supply chain network capabilities.

The Korean Government's effective response experiences suggest the synergy of political, social, cultural and technological factors. Future studies may explore how personal privacy and public safety are both achieved in different social–cultural–political contexts (Ahn et al., 2020; Delgado et al., 2020; Sharma and Bashir, 2020). Other emerging organizational issues and international comparative studies are worth further investigation in future studies.

This case study suggests how to apply ICT capabilities for organizing a national response to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) pandemic. Public and private partnership in the framework of sociotechnological synergy (i.e. integration of ICT and social orchestration) is essential for the 3T process. In support of public policy initiatives, global firms share their IT infrastructure and supply chain integration experiences to accommodate global-level crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study extends the TMC framework to a national level. In the adapted TMC framework, the control source, control target and linkage mechanism are specified. Using TMC, this shows the dynamic roles of ICT/Big Data in Korea’s COVID-19 response experiences.

The impacts of the COVID-19 are rapid and enormous. Despite the controversial early policy decisions and the rapid rise of confirmed patients, the world has recognized Korea’s effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disasters are growing in frequency and scale, unmasking the systemic vulnerabilities of modern supply chains and highlighting the need to understand how to respond to such events. In the context of an extreme event such as the COVID-19 pandemic, this research focuses on how networks of organizations leverage their combined resources and capabilities to develop, manufacture and deliver new products outside their traditional markets.

Following a theory elaboration process, the authors build on resource orchestration theory to develop data collection and analysis protocols to support a multi-case study research design. This research investigates four cases of newly formed networks that emerged in four different countries – Colombia, Italy, the United States and the United Kingdom–in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These four networks in the investigation share common characteristics in terms of motivation and approach, creating patterns from which theoretical generalizations are developed into a series of propositions regarding the process of network-level resource orchestration under extreme uncertainty.

The research shows how networks and the organizations within them can streamline processes, swiftly build new relationships and develop a balanced risk management approach to extreme uncertainty.

This research contributes to theory by extending the resource orchestration model to a network level and showing how extreme uncertainty can lead to the emergence of networks and alter the motivations and goals of the member organizations, allowing them to be more responsive.