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A previous attempt to implement the use of historical measures of asset management effectiveness – as part of a value improvement model (VIM) for repetitive processes – had not been 100 percent successful within an airport operational engineering environment. Taking into account the more holistic approach realised through applying a soft systems methodology (SSM), the purpose of this paper was to use the CATWOE (Customers, Actors, Transaction, World View, Owner and Environment) tool to gain an understanding of the root definition of the problem statement developing a conceptual model used to facilitate an improvement to the implementation process.

The research methodology taken incorporated an action research approach combining case study research with an action research process of planning, observing and reflecting summarized as taking an action case research design.

This research has developed a visual and systematic framework that enables managers to understand, analyse and improve value in their asset management repetitive processes. The CATWOE root definition tool has been used to create a conceptual model of the problem area providing a holistic view of the stakeholders and the internal and external environmental constraints that the VIM for asset management sits within.

The research was completed in‐situ at a single airport focused on a single group of assets managed by a single group of stakeholders. Future research should look to further develop the VIM and CATWOE approach in other asset management environments such as manufacturing as well as asset intensive service industries.

This research has taken a soft systems approach and successfully applied it to the implementation of hard systems measurements of asset management effectiveness within an airport operational engineering environment. Other managers with asset management responsibilities will find this approach useful in achieving their core objective to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their assets and the teams employed to maintain them at minimal total cost.

The current paradigm for assessing overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is challenged as being anachronistic to the needs of businesses that now require a more holistic indicator of plant and process effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new framework that expands the original OEE measure to inform business performance at multiple levels focusing on adding benchmarkable indicators of asset management effectiveness and process capability. The ability to compare internal performance against external competition and vice verse is argued as being a critical attribute of any performance measurement system.

The research methodology taken incorporated an action research approach using a pilot study combining case study research with an action research process of planning, observing and reflecting summarized as taking an action case research design.

The OEE and related literature is replete with many different enhancements to the original OEE framework. Many of the revised OEE frameworks move away from a standard OEE format taking away the opportunity to benchmark against plant and process performance at multiple levels.

The enhanced OEE framework is developed and tested in situ at a single factory manufacturing large batches of similar products. Future research should look to further develop the OEE framework in both continuous process environments and asset intensive service industry environments.

The enhanced OEE framework introduces a measure of Six Sigma process capability using extant data from the OEE framework. Similarly, indicators of plant reliability, maintainability and asset management effectiveness are calculated taking extant data from the OEE framework. This enhanced OEE framework combines measures of process effectiveness, asset management effectiveness, gross process performance, net process performance and Six Sigma process capability into a single lean Six Sigma key performance indicator of process/plant performance.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a useful framework for identifying a new lean waste classified as polarization. Complementing the extant lean conceptual framework, the authors argue there is a need to understand how resources are deployed and how these can be best aligned to maximise their value‐adding contributions. The purpose of this paper is therefore to identify a conceptual framework and a supporting practitioner approach for understanding and identifying instances of the non‐value adding polarization of resources.

A captious and taxonomic review of the lean conceptual literature is made and the link to the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm is acknowledged. A conceptual framework is developed and adopting an action case study approach through practitioner intervention, a lean resource mapping framework is presented.

A useful mechanism is developed following a sequential processing mapping framework concluding with a “current state” lean resource matrix. Visualising how resources are aligned to functional needs to deliver customer‐based products, a “future state” lean resource matrix can then be developed to remove the non‐value adding activities of the resources employed.

The outcomes of this paper include a useful conceptual framework for understanding how resources are aligned to a business's processes, products and plant. Operationalising the conceptual framework, a useful practitioner approach to reducing resource waste and increasing value, is also presented.

The aim of this analysis is to review the Indian manufacturing organizations practicing Lean Six Sigma (LSS) tools/techniques with an objective of monitoring the performance of an organization and to develop recommendation for strategies to benchmark organizational operational efficiency.

This study offers insights of the LSS performance measurement aspects of the Indian manufacturing organizations based on Data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. The five inputs and two outputs are considered on the basis of literature review and discussed with the practitioners.

In this analysis, the relative efficiency score of 18 Indian manufacturing organizations has been determined in order to assist evaluation of the impact of monetary investment on the outputs. The present analysis not only investigates the optimum level of input variables but also lays down a significant observation that an organization having higher profit and inventory turnover ratio is not necessarily an efficient organization.

The results assist to determine the best practice units, potential source of inefficiency and deliver beneficial data for the consistent enhancement of the operational efficiency. The DEA results assist managers and decision makers to derive appropriate strategies to enhance their performance with reference to the efficient organization and to regard it as their role model.

This analysis renders a DEA based framework of LSS practicing Indian manufacturing organizations. The framework is unique in terms of its input-outputs variable selection and measurement procedure.

This paper is the first to present empirical evidence consistent with models of signaling through unemployment and to uncover a new stylized fact using the 1988–2006 Displaced Worker Supplement (DWS) of the Current Population Survey (CPS), namely that, among white-collar workers, post-displacement earnings fall less rapidly with unemployment spells for layoffs than for plant closings. Because high-productivity workers are more likely to be recalled than low-productivity ones, they may choose to signal their productivity though unemployment, in which case the duration of unemployment may be positively related to post-displacement wages. Identification is done using workers whose plant closed as they cannot be recalled, and no incentives to signal arise.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a value improvement model (VIM) for repetitive processes applicable to any business where people and/or plant provide a service to support the overall business objective. Arguing competitive advantage can be realised through different amalgams of productive and strategic resources, the VIM introduced focuses on aligning resource bundles and influencing factors creating efficacious, efficient and effective processes by applying Lean thinking and Six Sigma tools and techniques more holistically.

The research methodology taken incorporated a case study approach complimented by the action research process of planning, observing and reflecting summarized as an action case study research design. The case study data examine the development of a management cycle of value improvement on an inter‐terminal shuttle transportation system within a busy international airport.

The VIM has been proven as a useful model for understanding the critical inputs and influencing factors for delivering sustainable improvements to repetitive processes in a service industry environment.

The research was completed in situ at a single business using a single case study example to develop and test the conceptual framework. The VIM would therefore benefit from being applied in both manufacturing and service industry environments to identify other potential environmental factors influencing the repetitive processes, increasing the usefulness to other potential users.

This research project has developed a visual and systematic framework that enables managers to understand, assess and improve repetitive processes within their businesses. The case study example presented in the paper show how this framework can be applied to the setting up of value improvement management cycles.

We know a great deal today about the impact of transformational leaders, their actions, typical behaviors and their ways of influencing others (Bass, 1985, 1999a, b; Bass & Avolio, 1990). However, we know relatively little about the psychological substructure, the internal world of these leaders, namely who they are and how they developed this way. These aspects were raised earlier in Bass’s early work (Bass, 1985) but have received little attention so far (Bass, 1998; Judge & Bono, 2000). We argue that the internal world of a transformational leader is characterized by a motivation to lead, leadership self-efficacy, motivation and capacity to relate to others in a pro-social way, optimism and openness to new experiences and viewpoints of others. We further argue that the origins of the ability and motivation to be a transformational leader lie in childhood experiences, and that the development of this ability and motivation can be understood and conceptualized by means of major developmental theories such as attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1977, 1988). On the basis of these theories, we suggest a researchable conceptual framework for characterization of the internal world and the development of transformational leaders.

While sports have historically provided a space for Black males to experience a high sense of self-efficacy, the question about whether or not it transfers to educational endeavors persists. A challenge for practitioners is to ensure that Black males also thrive educationally as well as in their athletic pursuits. The author presents a brief history of Black males’ participation in sport, along with the historical implications of such participation. The utility of empowerment theory is explored within the context of promoting the college and career readiness of Black male student-athletes in high school. High school counselors’ use of empowerment theory is specifically highlighted. Specific indicators of college and career readiness are discussed, and the author posits the use of empowerment theory in counseling and advising can facilitate positive change in this process, assuring that sports remains the positive mobilizing mechanism that it can be for all student-athletes.

This chapter focuses on the early history of feminist explorations in criminology in the UK in particular, but with reference to developments elsewhere. The chapter discusses the achievements of early feminist perspectives in criminology and assesses their impact in terms of ‘transforming and transgressing’ the criminological enterprise. In particular, the author focuses on the case for transformations in traditional research methodologies and looks at the different ways in which feminist writers in criminology grappled with the question of how to produce good quality knowledge. The chapter takes a chronological approach, identifying developments pre-1960s in a phase which might be described as an ‘awakening’ and then describing initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s. The discovery that ‘woman’ was a conceptual term which could be incorporated into the criminological framework really took off in the 1970s with the publication of Carol Smart’s pioneering work. Notwithstanding faster developments in other disciplines, slowly, mainstream criminology took stock of feminism’s early claims.