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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/02635579410063252. When citing the article, please cite: Zhiwei Zhu, Paul H. Meredith, Supin Makboonprasith, (1994), “Defining Critical Elements in JIT Implementation: A Survey”, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 94 Iss: 5, pp. 3 - 10.

A survey questionnaire was designed and distributed to samples of internal and external change agents which measured the extent to which they professed values traditionally associated with the field of OD. The survey also included questions concerning the types of interventions utilised in the change programmes that respondents had been associated with in the previous five years as well as how these programmes had been evaluated. As predicted, external change agents were more likely to profess traditional OD values and to be associated with change programmes which included human processual interventions. Contrary to expectations, internal change agents were less likely than external change agents to be associated with the utilisation of technostructural interventions. Support was also generated for the prediction that internal change agents are more likely to carry out extensive programme evaluations.

The past decade in the area of supply chain management has been characterized by increased emphasis on collaboration between trading partners. The paradigm shift from competition to collaboration has been enabled by the explosive growth of the Internet as the medium for exchange of information between a business and its supply chain partners. However, the information that is communicated between the supply chain partners is among the most critical of an organization’s assets and the Internet as a medium of communication is replete with security loopholes. Presents the design of a security architecture that supply chain practioners may implement for secure, scalable and interoperable communication of information with their trading partners. The security architecture recognizes the implicit diversity in the types of supply chain partnerships that requires different levels of security for the different types of data sharing needs between the supply chain partners.

Describes the application of the Group Technology concept in scheduling industrial bag production in a woven products division of a bag manufacturer. The labour assignments, determined through a linear goal programming model, minimize unbalanced workloads among the operations. This study shows a new application area of the Group Technology concept which leads to a better solution of labour assignments and provides management with valuable information essential to the development of a strategic competitive advantage.

Several studies indicate that a JIT implementation process is contingent and a kind of “do‐it‐yourself‐procedure”. Addresses the issue of JIT implementation by integrating the findings from recently published articles from a number of professional journals. The conclusion strongly supports the notion that a JIT implementation process is contingent in nature. Despite a great diversity of elements mentioned in the JIT implementation articles, the quality‐related, the vendor‐related, and the production‐related practices seem to play an important role in JIT implementation. Also, there is an increasing number of articles that specifically deal with the human‐related practices such as communication and co‐worker relations.

The aim of this paper is to propose an action-interaction-process framework to extend research on institutional entrepreneurship. The framework examines an actor's characteristics, interactions in an institutional context, and the process by which entrepreneurial action is accomplished.

Via a sociohistorical archival method of narrative analysis, the action-interaction-process framework is applied to an exemplary case of institutional entrepreneurship – the case of James Meredith and the integrationist movement at the University of Mississippi in the 1960 s.

The findings show that institutional entrepreneurs who maintain little power and influence over the institutional field must form strategic alliances to mobilize constituents and capitalize on the convergence of resources in the social setting.

Through the process of collective action, institutional entrepreneurs can overcome resistance to change and displace inequitable institutional policies, while establishing new practices and norms.

This research provides a stronger approach to examining institutional entrepreneurship and institutional entrepreneurs, the interaction between the institutional entrepreneur and the social context in which the individual operates, and the process by which inequitable institutionalized norms are reformed through collective action. This approach is useful to researchers examining institutional entrepreneurship or any area in which power disparity plays an important role.

A LETTER from the President of the Library Association (Mr. Berwick Sayers) has been received which we have pleasure in giving prominently.

IT is fitting that a new series of this magazine should be introduced by some reflections on the whole question of book selection, both for the general public and libraries.

In The Changing Body (Cambridge University Press and NBER, 2011), we presented a series of estimates showing the number of calories available for human consumption in England and Wales at various points in time between 1700 and 1909/1913. We now seek to correct an error in our original figures and to compare the corrected figures with those published by a range of other authors. We also include new estimates showing the calorific value of meat and grains imported from Ireland. Disagreements with other authors reflect differences over a number of issues, including the amount of land under cultivation, the extraction and wastage rates for cereals and pulses and the number of animals supplying meat and dairy products. We consider recent attempts to achieve a compromise between these estimates and challenge claims that there was a dramatic reduction in either food availability or the average height of birth cohorts in the late-eighteenth century.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following research question: how do the interlocking editorial advisory boards (EABs) of operations and supply chain management (OSCM) journals map out the field’s diverse academic communities and how demographically diverse is the field and its communities?

The study applies social network analysis (SNA) to web-based EAB data for 38 journals listed under operations management (OM) in the 2010 ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide.

The members of EABs of the 38 journals are divided into seven distinct communities which are mapped to the field’s knowledge structures and further aggregated into a core and periphery of the network. A burgeoning community of supply chain management academics forms the core along with those with more traditional interests. Male academics affiliated to the US institutions and to business schools predominate in the sample.

A new strand of research is opened up connecting journal governance networks to knowledge structures in the OSCM field. OM is studied separately from its reference and associated disciplines. The use of the ABS list might attract comments that the study has an implicit European perspective – however the authors do not believe this to be the case.

The study addresses the implications of the lack of diversity for the practice of OM as an academic discipline.

The confirmation of the dominance of particular characteristics such as male and US-based academics has implications for social diversity of the field.

As the first study of its kind, i.e. SNA of EAB members of OSCM journals, this study marks out a new perspective and acts as a benchmark for the future.