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The purpose of this paper is twofold. Initially, a multi-objective binary integer programming model is proposed for designing an appropriate supply chain that takes into consideration both responsiveness and efficiency. Then, a responsiveness-cost efficient frontier is generated for the supply chain design that can help organizations find the right balance between responsiveness and efficiency, and hence achieve a strategic fit between organizational strategy and supply chain capabilities.

The proposed SC design model used both cross-functional and logistical SC drivers to build a binary integer programming model. To this end, various alternative solutions that correspond to different SC design portfolios were generated and a responsiveness-cost efficient frontier was constructed.

Various alternative solutions that correspond to different SC designs were generated and a responsiveness-cost efficient frontier was constructed to help the decision makers to design SC portfolios to achieve a strategic fit between organizational strategy and SC capabilities.

The proposed methodology enables the decision makers to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative judgements in SC design. The methodology is easy to use and it can be readily implemented by a software.

The proposed methodology allows for subjective value judgements of the decision makers to be considered in SC design and the efficiency-responsiveness frontier generated by the methodology provides a trade-off to be used when choosing between speed and cost efficiency in SC design.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new hybrid approach based on criticality analysis and optimisation to deal with spare parts inventory management in the initial provisioning phase in the mining industry. Spare parts represent a significant part of mining companies' expenditures, so it is important to develop new approaches to reduce the total inventory value of these items.

This hybrid approach combines qualitative and quantitative methods based on VED (vital, essential and desirable) analysis, analytical hierarchical process (AHP), and e-constraint optimisation method to obtain the spare parts to be stocked. The study was applied to a large mining company. The mineral sector was chosen due to the great importance to the emerging Brazilian economy and the lack of researches in this sector. In addition, the spare parts have a relevant weight on the total inventory cost.

Present a novel approach combining multi-objective optimisation and multi-criteria evaluation approaches to tackle the inventory decision in spare parts management. This work also defines and classifies relevant criteria for spare parts management in the mineral sector validated by specialists. The proposed approach achieves an average increase of 20.2% in the criticality and 16.6% in the number of items to be stocked compared to the historical data of the surveyed company.

This paper applies the proposed approach to a mining company in Brazil. Future research in other companies or regions should analyse the adequacy of the criticality criteria, hierarchy and weights adopted in this paper.

The proposed approach is useful for mining industries that deal with a large variety of resource constraints as it helps in formulating appropriate spare part strategies to rationalise financial resources at both tactical and strategic levels.

The paper presents a new hybrid method combining the AHP a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach coupled with e-constraint optimisation to deal with spare parts inventory management allowing for a better spare parts inventory analysis in the initial provisioning phase and providing managers with a systematic tool to analyse the trade-off between spare parts criticality and total inventory value.

This study proposes a methodology based on data source triangulation to measure the “strategic fit” for the automotive supply chain.

At first, the authors measured the responsiveness of the Indian automobile supply chain, encompassing the top ten major automobile manufacturers, using both sentiment and conjoint analysis. Second, the authors used data envelopment analysis to identify the frontiers of their supply chain. The authors also measured the supply chain's efficiency, using the balance sheet. Further, the authors analyzed the “strategic fit” zone and discussed the results.

The results indicate that both the proposed methods yield similar outcomes in terms of strategic fitment.

The study outcomes facilitate measuring the strategic fit, thereby leveraging the resources available to align. The methodology proposed is both easy to use and practice. The methodology eases time and costs by eliminating hiring agencies to appraise the strategic fit. This valuable method to measure strategic fit can be considered feedback for strategic actions. This methodology could also be incorporated possibly as an operative measurement and control tool.

Data triangulation meaningfully enhances the accuracy and reliability of the analyses of strategic fit. Data triangulation leads to actionable insights relevant to top managers and strategic positioning of top managers within a supply chain.

Humanity has a weakness in how we approach the “challenge” of using outer space. This paper aims to show how the global and national frameworks that address our planetary activities and crises are inadequate for the opportunities and challenges of life in outer space.

The authors draw on multidisciplinary perspectives to refine an organising governance framework that better showcases the challenges and pathways needed for living and thriving in space-age. The authors prioritise two key pillars and overview the practical and social implications that space-age humanity must address.

Social sciences and humanities are vital to problematising post-war colonial legacies of governance by distinguishing the unique and overlooked challenges for thriving and working offworld and identifying progressive research agendas.

The highlighted agenda has implications for collaborative research institutes and project design. As the vital basis for continuous learning, university-based research institutes span bodies of knowledge, experience, convention and imagination that can support vibrant and overdue debate on good governance that is out of this world.

This expansive approach has practical implications for the decision-making processes and subjects of spacescape, from reconciling the space commons with prospecting and human occupation to potential governance regimes that capitalise on the zeal for moving beyond merely “existing” off-world.

Examining the governance deficit as we pursue developing spacescape frontiers is an enriching (not reductionist) agenda that deliberately troubles the existing and emerging regime for governing our scientific and imagined off-world society.

This framework appeals to humanity’s highest evolution in co-producing a fair and flourishing off-world governance framework (beyond replicating planetary regimes).

In socio-technical transition theory, resistance by existing technology and regime resistance plays a key role. The resistance is in the form of intentional improvements; eventually, the regime destabilizes and adopts the new technology, referred to as the sailing-ship effect. Researchers used a structural view and examined it as a strategic action and its relationship with new technology (competitive/symbiotic) in non-fast-changing sailing systems. This study uses a microlevel view and examines it in a fast-changing where products/services are developed by integrating existing technology with new product innovations; their success depends on addressing technical/market uncertainty. This study examines the sailing-ship effect in a fast-changing system and contributes to the socio-technical transition theory.

The authors need to examine the phenomena of the sailing-ship effect in its setting, and a case-study method is appropriate. The selected case provided diverse analytic and heuristic perspectives to examine the phenomena; therefore, it was a single case study.

In an IT scenario, the strategic actions decide and realize agility and competitive advantage by formulating appropriate goals with required budgets and coevolutionary changes to resources at product, process and organizational levels, addressing technical/market uncertainty. Moreover, the agility displayed by strategic actions determines the relationship with new technology, which is interspersed. Finally, it provided insights into struggle, navigation and negotiations, forming strategic actions to display the sailing-ship effect.

The study selected a Banking Financial Services and Insurance product of an IT Services company. As start-ups exhibit inherent (emergent) agility, the authors can examine agility as a combination of emergent and strategic actions by selecting a start-up.

The study highlights the strategic actions specific to an IT services company. It developed its product and services by steering clear from IT innovations such as native cloud and continuous deployment. It improved its products/services with necessary organizational changes and achieved the desired agility and competitive advantage. Therefore, organizations devise appropriate strategic actions to combat the sailing-ship effect apart from setting goals and selecting IT innovations.

The study expands the socio-technical transition theory by selecting a fast-changing system. It provided insights into the relationship between existing and new technology and the strategic actions necessary to manage technical and market uncertainty and achieve the desired competitive advantage, or the sailing-ship effect.

The study examines the instigating factors behind the development of the local content (LC) policy in Ghana and it further investigates the accountability mechanisms that drive the LC policy implementation to promote sustainable development.

The study reports on a series of interviews with key actors using Institutional Theory and the application of Bovens’ (2010) Global Accountability Framework as a lens for discussion and interpretation of results.

The results reveal that two forces instigated LC policy enactment. One is external funding pressure from the Norwegian government and the World Bank. The other is the government’s engagement of Civil Society Organisations and other internal stakeholders to justify its activities and missions to signal adherence to impartiality, neutrality, and, to a lesser extent, solidarity. The analysis also reveals tensions in how accountability legitimacy relates to implementation of the LC policy. The study further discovers that while participation, transparency, monitoring, and evaluation are frequently invoked as de jure institutional legitimacy in oil and gas contracts, actual practices follow normative (de facto) institutionalism rather than what the LC policy law provides.

The interview had a relatively small number of participants, which can be argued to affect the study’s validity. Nevertheless, given the data saturation effect and the breadth of the data obtained from the respondents, this study represents a significant advancement in LC policy enactment knowledge, implementation mechanisms and enforcement in an emerging O&G industry.

The findings of this study suggest that future policy development in emerging economies should involve detailed consultations to increase decision-maker knowledge, process transparency and expectations. This will improve implementation and reduce stakeholder tension, conflict and mistrust.

The findings of this study build on earlier investigations into legitimacy, accountability and impression management in and outside the O&G sector. Also, the findings reveal the legitimising tactics used by O&G actors to promote local content sustainable development targets.

The purpose of this paper is to develop exploratory propositions and a conceptual framework on the interaction between organisational structure (decision-making centralisation and internal coordination) and the relationship between supply chain fit and firm performance.

Through a case study, two corporate groups with distinctive organisational structures were examined; both are undergoing a critical moment of changes to their top management and are reshaping their corporate and supply chain strategies. Data on decision-making centralisation, internal coordination mechanisms, supply, demand and innovation uncertainties, and supply chain strategies were collected from key respondents.

The analysis conducted suggests the need to consider the joint interaction between organisational structure and supply chain fit in offsetting the implications of a potential misfit on firm performance. Furthermore, the context sensitivity of a supply chain is often overlooked, hence simply modifying supply chain strategy does not necessarily lead to a variation in firm performance.

This research is of particular importance to most organisations in the testing times of uncertainty in the global landscape. It guides supply chain practitioners to better understand which elements of the organisational structure interact with the uncertainty of supply, demand and innovation.

This paper is one of the first to investigate the interaction between elements of organisational structure and supply chain fit and identify decision-making centralisation and coordination as the internal uncertainty factors that are most relevant to supply chain fit research. A conceptual framework has been built for future testing, in which the organisational structure moderates the relationship between supply chain fit and firm performance.

This paper aims to explore the contemporary fascination with seemingly new, benign and transcendent virtual organizations.

The paper extends Gerlach and Hamilton's investigations and critique into virtuality within the genres of business restructuring and science fiction.

The paper unravels a purposeful, enveloping consciousness that masks both neo‐liberal fictions and postmodern fantasies dominating the virtual organization discourse. This paper finds that practical examples of de‐physicalized, technologically transcendent virtual organizations, crucial to this virtual consciousness, do not exist or are fundamentally different from expectations. The paper finds that the presumed new epoch of global capitalism, based on the productivity unleashed by virtual organizations, is illusory. The paper concludes that once virtual consciousness is penetrated not only are the material and ideological aspects of virtual organizations unmasked but it is possible to locate a pragmatic, conjoint, physicalized type of “virtualized” organization that is not new, benign or transcendental. This type of co‐destiny, virtual organization (such as terrorist organizations and organized crime), is more reflective of enduring concerns and contemporary purposes fundamental to what organizations make visible or render invisible.

This paper presents an innovative and critical examination of the collusion between neo‐liberal and postmodern thought and the practicalities, or otherwise, of designing virtual organizations. This paper should also be valuable to those concerned with the “virtuality” of terrorist and criminal organizations and the relationship between the visible and invisible aspects of organization.

The behaviour of audience, consuming video entertainment, has changed intensely over the years. Lately, the consumers have increasingly preferred to watch video programs, through video-on-demand services through over-the-top medium. The service is novel and the consumer’s perception of the service quality is not well explored. As extant literature considers service quality as the construct to determine the sustained growth of a service, the present study has attempted to explore the dimensions to measure service quality of video-on-demand services.

The authors conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions amongst the user of the video-on-demand service. The qualitative data was content analysed to furnish thematic dimensions.

The study reveals thematic attributes perceived as dimensions to measure service quality of video-on-demand services.

Considering the exploratory nature of the study, the themes proposed might seem nascent. Hence, it was the authors’ discretion to stop expanding the respondent sample to avoid data saturation. A quantitative establishment of the service quality dimensions was beyond the scope of the current research and would follow in a different study.

The objective of the study is to qualitatively explore service quality dimensions of video-on-demand services. In pursuit of that, the current study explored the consumers’ excerpts, content analysed the data and furnished several themes perceived as service quality dimensions in this context. Such a detailed approach is uncommon in this context.