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The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify and map contemporary research on advanced technology implementations for problem-solving purposes in the manufacturing industry, and to further understand the organizational learning possibilities of advanced technology problem-solving in the manufacturing industry.

This paper outlines a scoping review of contemporary research on the subject. The findings of the review are discussed in the light of theories of contradicting learning logics.

This paper shows that contemporary research on the subject is characterized by technological determinism and strong solution-focus. A discussion on the manufacturing industries’ contextual reasons for this in relation to contradicting learning logics shows that a Mode-2 problem-solving approach could facilitate further learning and expand knowledge on advanced technology problem-solving in the manufacturing industry. A research agenda with six propositions is provided.

The introduction of advanced technology implies complex effects on the manufacturing industry in general, while previous research shows a clear focus on technological aspects of this transformation. This paper provides value by providing novel knowledge on the relationship between advanced technology, problem-solving and organizational learning in the manufacturing industry.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Toyota Kata can be effectively applied in the engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing within the construction industry. The objective is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for the Toyota Kata implementation in this environment and to develop a continuous improvement (CI) method – based on Toyota Kata and adapted to the ETO manufacturing within the construction industry.

An action research (AR) approach was applied, which includes a participatory form of inquiry and learning from both intended and unintended outcomes, while simultaneously building up scientific knowledge about successful implementation of Toyota Kata.

All the CSFs in the AR project are addressed by the earlier literature, thus confirming the existing body of knowledge. Moreover, the existing knowledge was arguably extended through the modified Toyota Kata as an approach for CI. New elements regarding how to run the small experiments by extending the core team with personnel who work with the problem on a daily basis.

This research addresses a gap identified in the literature regarding how Toyota Kata can be adapted to the ETO manufacturing within the construction industry. It also presents an overview of CSFs for the Toyota Kata implementation in this environment.

Being acquainted with both lean and action learning in theory and in practice, this study finds that the theoretical complementarity of these two research streams has traditionally been underexploited. In this conceptual paper, this study aims to advance the theoretical understanding of lean by exploring the complementarity of lean thinking and action learning leading to a proposed integrated theory of these two research streams. Target audience is the operations management research community.

By deliberately adopting a process of theorising, this paper explores, reflects upon and combines individual experiences of researching, teaching and engaging in lean and action learning as operations management scholars.

Having taken a gemba walk through the literature and practices of lean and action learning, this study views and notices a systematic and complementary relationship between the two domains. The overlapping theoretical and practical complementarities of lean and action learning suggest that these two research streams are ripe for synthesis into an integrated theory. This finding provides an opportunity to (1) progress towards an integrative design of interventions leading to more sustainable lean system adoptions and (2) add new depth to our theoretical explanation of the success and failures of lean system adoptions.

This paper contributes an original integrated theory perspective on lean and action learning.

During crises, notably the recent COVID-19 pandemic, a heightened sense of urgency has manifested as a catalyst for improvement within organizations. The present study aims to explore the influence of a sense of urgency on individual kaizen performance. Additionally, the study delves into the potential moderating roles of organizational culture in this relationship.

Data samples include 481 employees who are working at Japanese manufacturing companies. SPSS software is used for data analysis, comprising measurement test, correlation and regression analysis.

A sense of urgency was found to predict a higher number of accepted suggestions. Moreover, there is a significant and positive interaction effect of adhocracy culture and a sense of urgency on writing and submitting ideas.

As an initial study that empirically tests the relationship between a sense of urgency and individual kaizen performance, this paper contributes to the literature on kaizen, change management and innovation. It also corroborates previous research on the Person-Organization fit framework.

This paper aims to propose a methodology to support public managers' adaptation of the Hoshin Kanri (HK) strategy deployment approach in the context of lean thinking (LT), considering strategic alignment and consensus reaching when prioritizing a vital few of the organization's continuous improvement (CI) projects.

The methodology incorporates the A3 problem-solving report into the HK approach to identify and outline CI projects. The priority and deployment of the projects are weighted by a composite score for impact and innovation using the Delphi method. The proposed methodology was applied in one Norwegian police district as part of action research.

The obtained results indicate that the proposed methodology provides an intuitive and systematic approach to weigh the importance and ensure alignment of CI projects with the organization's strategy and goals. Consequently, this minimizes the possibility of strategy deployment priorities being weighted by decision bias and siloed decision-making.

The literature on strategy deployment in the context of LT in police services is significantly limited and this study aids in fixing this gap. The adapted HK approach can support the implementation of LT as an integral part of a comprehensive strategic management system, thereby enabling knowledge sharing and exploration of the extendibility of implemented best practices and improvement ideas to problems arising across the organization.

The paper aims to develop a strategic conceptualization and measurement scale of organizational resilience to support researchers examining how small firms prepare and respond deliberately to general disruptions in the operating environment over more extended time frames.

The paper uses a four-step process to develop, present and test (for predictive validity) a scale of strategic organizational resilience for frequent events or those needing long-term responses.

The resulting seven-factor measurement scale of organizational resilience consists of readiness, slack, problem-solving, flexibility, connectedness, adaptiveness and proactiveness.

The literature on organizational resilience explains how organizations recover from rare but catastrophic events by focusing on adaptation principles and short-term survival. The broader conceptualization presented here enables the study of organizational resilience in small-medium size enterprises (SMEs) across more frequent and pervasive events, such as financial crises, industry downturns and other forms of structural change and technological disruption. This is operationalized in a measure that includes new strategic factors associated with forward-planning and more traditional operationally focused elements.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed that public bodies need to develop their services in an innovative way. However, as a result of numerous difficulties and barriers, employees in such agencies are hesitant to innovate. Knowledge sharing and an innovative culture are factors that can help raise innovation. However, empirical evidence is inadequate to demonstrate this claim, especially in the government sector. Thus, the aim of this study is to conduct an empirical analysis to study the impact of knowledge sharing and innovative culture on the service innovation of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE's) government agencies.

The data were obtained from government institutions in the UAE. The analyses were based on 193 responses retrieved from a survey questionnaire sent to 221 government agencies. The authors used structural equation modelling (SEM) and statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) to test the proposed hypotheses and do a preliminary study analysis.

The findings indicate that knowledge sharing has a significant and positive effect on service innovation. The innovative culture also moderates the relationship between knowledge sharing and service innovation.

These results provide information that is useful to decision-makers and managers in government agencies by emphasising the importance of effective knowledge sharing and innovative culture in improving service innovation in these entities. These relationships amongst knowledge sharing, innovative culture and service innovation may provide a clue regarding how government agencies can promote knowledge sharing and innovative culture to sustain their innovation performance.

Private-sector organisations are concerned about factors that enhance innovative activities as one of the factors of development, improvement and enhancement of competitive advantage. However, in government, especially in the UAE, research into the role played by innovation remains uncommon, particularly in the role of knowledge sharing and innovative culture in building service innovation. Because of this, it was important to do research on this topic to close the gap and provide evidence to back it up.

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of innovation in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India, focusing on the barriers and facilitators within their internal and external ecosystems.

A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 1430 MSMEs across India, employing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze the relationships between internal and external factors and innovation adaptation.

The findings indicate that factors such as top management and organization structure, communication, technological capability and adaptation and organizational culture have a positive impact on innovation adaptation within the internal environment. Conversely, employee and market orientation, as well as financial factors, have a negative influence. Regarding the external environment, industry and competitive analysis, internationalization and partner alliances were found to positively affect innovation adaptation, whereas the country's infrastructure and policies had a negative impact.

The study emphasizes that MSMEs have the potential to leverage their internal and external environments to foster innovation within their organizations.

This study looked into the factors that could make a difference in teachers’ individual innovativeness and team innovativeness. We investigated five categories of factors: (1) innovation-related teacher preparedness, (2) innovation-related teacher professional development, (3) teacher professional practices, (4) teacher empowerment and (5) innovation-related teacher self-efficacy.

The data source is the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) US data. The samples include about 165 schools and 2,560 teachers. We applied the structural equation model to analyze the data and the unit of analysis is set at the individual teacher-level.

We found that all factors matter except professional development and that they matter differently for different innovativeness outcomes.

This study is significant in several aspects: first, it is among the first that examined the factors that could make a difference in teacher innovativeness. Second, we differentiated between individual and team teacher innovativeness. Third, the findings highlight the importance of several factors including teacher preparation, teacher collaboration, teacher participation in school decisions and teacher self-efficacy.

This paper aims to identify the factors that can affect the overall graduate employability (OGE) of the private university graduates of Bangladesh. The authors carefully selected six such employable factors after searching the existing literature. Those six factors: academic performance (AP), technical skills (TS), communication skills (CS), personality (PE), leadership & motivational skills (LMS); and teamwork and problem solving skills (TPSS), had been considered as the independent variables while OGE had been considered as the single dependent variable.

The authors collected the primary data from a valid sample of 360 employers through a structured questionnaire working as the hiring managers. Those respondents were selected on a random basis. The authors used exploratory factor analysis to validate the items under those independent variables and structural equation modeling with AMOS (24) to test the hypothesized relationship between each independent variable and the dependent one.

After proper statistical analysis, the results revealed that AP, PE, CS and TPSS can positively and significantly influence the OGE of Bangladeshi graduates while LMS and TS have positive but insignificant influence over OGE.

Based on the findings, this paper can help scholars in further investigating the employability factors.

This explorative study will guide the fresh graduates in developing their required employability skills while assisting the employers in recruiting suitable candidates with the required skills and performance.

This is one of the few attempts that focused on the employability factors of private university graduates in Bangladesh. The authors are well confident that this empirical paper can shed some light on the fresh graduates’ employability and conducting further investigations on it.