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The purpose of this study is to quantify the supply chain flexibility for an Indian soap manufacturing firm and to measure its performance. The authors made an attempt to find key strategic and operational decision-making dimensions for developing effective supply chain flexibility environment.

The authors have extracted 11 supply chain flexibility dimensions through extensive literature review. The authors used a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to make causal analysis and prioritizing the dimensions. After DEMATEL analysis three major supply chain flexibility dimensions that seem to have significant amount of influence on supply chain performance of the firms were retained for further consideration. The authors have developed an excel-based template for quantitative assessment of flexibility performance indicators.

This study provides key enablers for the successful implementation of flexibility concepts in Indian soap manufacturing firms and gives a view how to measure the performance through designing template based on real data. This template can be used in other firms also by simply modifying the key attributes.

A flexibility index has been defined here with the purpose of assessing the level of flexibility vis-a-vis what is desired and is meant to be evaluated from time to time, to assess if the firm is improving its flexibility or not. The index assumes importance in view of the fact that it has been prepared based on feedbacks of both the upper and the lower management people of the firm engaged in policymaking and operations.

This paper aims to evaluate and prioritize the key supplier selection indicators and to establish the relationship between available alternatives and selected indicators by using step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS).

Authors have extracted the supplier selection criteria from literature and used a combined SWARA-WASPAS method to evaluate and rank the criteria’s. SWARA is applied for evaluating and weighting selection criteria, whereas WASPAS helped in evaluating different available alternatives based on supplier selection indicators.

Finding from SWARA suggests that supplier management is the high weighted criteria followed by information sharing and joint actions. WASPAS was used to evaluate the available alternatives and supplier A1 got the highest priority. Additionally, sensitivity analysis indicates the different scenarios for the best supplier selection.

Working executives can use the SWARA for assessment of weights of finalized indicators for their firm in the cement industry. Further, the calculated weights can be used for product and sum weightage through WASPAS to finalize the best supplier.

The originality of the manuscript lies in the sector and methodology. Author(s) applied the SWARA and WASPAS method for supplier selection in the Indian cement industry that will help working executives to evaluate their supply chain partners.

The purpose of this paper is to identify dimensions of competitiveness, factors affecting the competitiveness and building the framework of competitiveness for the Indian auto-component industry and further develop and validate a survey instrument based on the identified factors.

Dimensions of competitiveness and factors affecting it are extracted out after extensive literature review. A theoretical framework is developed using these factors. A survey instrument is developed based on the theoretical framework and validated through a pilot survey.

In total, 30 variables are found to be reliable in establishing the potential indicators of competitiveness. There are three significant contributions to the theory of competitiveness. It provides a theoretical framework of competitiveness to address the current market conditions of volatility. Second, it incorporates the dimensions like supply chain management, presence of global value chains and employee empowerment. Third, it clearly identifies the dimensions of competitiveness relevant in current context, like ethical behavior of firms, protection of intellectual property and innovation.

The proposed approach provides a good basis for assessing the competitive performance of the companies. This can help researchers and practitioners in deciding how to improve the competitiveness of a company.

The research proposes a theoretical framework for measuring the competitiveness of firms from a specific industry. This study indicates the factors affecting the competitiveness of Indian auto-component industry. The findings can be useful for both researchers and practitioners.

My goal is to describe my life in marketing over more than 36 years and to help readers better understand (from my personal perspective) the history of marketing. I also aim to lift the curtain on some aspects of service within the marketing community.

This paper is an autobiographical sketch. It describes some key moments in my career, as well as describing how my most cited articles came to be written. It emphasizes the contextual factors at work in different periods, so readers can better understand how and why my research evolved in certain ways. I aim to convey the nature and variety of career experiences that were (and are) open to marketing academics. I discuss my experiences at the Journal of Marketing and the Marketing Science Institute.

Marketing changed rapidly between 1974 and 2017. Although change can be uncomfortable, I urge marketers to seek exposure to new ideas and practices; they are essential to learning and growth. Unexpected opportunities will come along and an alert individual can learn much from them. My time in industry was a learning experience for me. There are many kinds of interesting and successful careers.

The marketing field advances, not by the work of a single individual, but from the accumulated work of the entire marketing community. Everyone has a role to play. I encourage each individual to look for ways to contribute. I offer thoughts on how to build a research career based on my own experience.

My thoughts may shed some light on the experiences of a woman academic and the globalization of marketing academia between 1974 and 2017.

My hope is that this paper contributes to a better understanding of the history of marketing, when it is considered together with other articles on this topic. It may also be useful to people who are embarking upon a career, as well as those seeking to understand the work of earlier marketing scholars.

This study aims to examine the implementation of agile practices in Industry 4.0 to assess the financial performance measurements of manufacturing firms. It also investigates the relationship between supply chain performance and financial performance.

The study is based on an experimental research design by collecting data from 329 responses from key officials of manufacturing firms. The analyses are carried out to explore this modern concept with the help of the SPSS program, which is used to conduct a confirmatory factor and reliability analysis and Smart-partial least square (PLS) version 4.0 with structural equation modeling.

This research demonstrates the positive effect agile supply chain strategies in Industry 4.0 may have on manufacturing companies' financial performance as a whole. Everything throughout the supply chain in Industry 4.0, from the manufacturers to the end users, is taken into account as a potential performance booster. The values obtained from the model's study show that it is both dependable and effective, surpassing the threshold for such claims. The research is supported by factors like customer involvement (CUS), continuous improvement (CI), integration (INT), modularity (MOD), management style (MS) and supplier involvement (SI) but is undermined by factors including postponement (PPT).

According to the findings of the study, Industry 4.0 firms' financial performance and overall competitiveness are significantly improved when their supply chains are more agile. A more agile supply chain helps businesses to more rapidly adapt to shifts in consumer demand, shorten the amount of time it takes to produce a product, enhance product quality and boost customer happiness. As a consequence of this, there will be an increase in revenue, an improvement in profitability and continued sustainable growth.

There are literary works available on agile practices in various fields, but the current study outlines the need to understand how supply chains perform financially under the mediating effect of agile supply chains in Industry 4.0 which contribute most to the organization's success. The study will aid companies in understanding how agile practices will further the overall performance of the organization financially.

In the uncertain business environment, the supply chains are under pressure to balance routine operations and prepare for adverse events. Consequently, this research investigates how artificial intelligence is used to enable resilience among supply chains.

This study first analyzed the relationship among different characteristics of AI-enabled supply chain and how these elements take it towards resilience by collecting the responses from 27 supply chain professionals. Furthermore, to validate the results, an empirical analysis is conducted where the responses from 231 supply chain professionals are collected.

Findings indicate that the disruption impact of an event depends on the degree of transparency kept and provided to all supply chain partners. This is further validated through empirical study, where the impact of transparency facilitates the mass customization of the procurement strategy to Last Mile Delivery to reduce the impact of disruption. Hence, AI facilitates resilience in the supply chain.

This study adds to the domain of supply chain and information systems management by identifying the driving and dependent elements that AI facilitates and further validating the findings and structure of the elements through empirical analysis. The research also provides meaningful implications for theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is to identify important criteria for sustainable recovery of digital entrepreneurship from distress situation using shared resources. During pandemic disruption, the importance of sharing economy in managing business efficiency is reflected through this research.

The present study advances the knowledge on shared resources in business by integrating case study approach with multi criteria decision-making (MCDM) model. A fuzzy analytic hierarchy process approach is adopted to compute criteria weights, and a fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) technique is used to rank the sharing economy entrepreneurial ventures during COVID-19 pandemic in the context of emerging economy.

The present study identified five most important enablers (technological innovation, technology expertise, convergence of virtual and physical spaces, collaboration rather than competition, and benefits to underserved groups through transparency) for sustainable recovery of sharing economy ventures in emerging economy. For example, the study highlights online tutoring through shared intellect as the most sought after sharing economy venture during pandemic disruption, which fulfills the identified enablers.

The proposed framework provides an accurate decision support tool to rank the various identified potential enablers of sharing economy during disruptions. Further, the approach is practically relevant to sharing economy entrepreneurs in selecting the best approach to recover sustainability during pandemic.

The study is unique in addressing the need of sustainability for digital ventures via sharing economy approach in emerging economy (India). To develop a conceptual framework, the present study incorporates a case based approach together with the hybrid MCDM model. Further, the extant literature on disruptions is enhanced by prioritizing the enablers for sharing economy during pandemic.

The emergence the fourth industrial revolution, known as well as industry 4.0, and its applications in the manufacturing sector ushered a new era for the business entities. It not only promises enhancement in operational efficiency but also magnify sustainable operations practices. This current paper provides a thorough bibliometric and network analysis of more than 600 articles highlighting the benefits in favor of the sustainability dimension in the industry 4.0 paradigm.

The analysis begins by identifying over 1,000 published articles in Scopus, which were then refined to works of proven influence and those authored by influential researchers. Using rigorous bibliometric software, established and emergent research clusters were identified for intellectual network analysis, identification of key research topics, interrelations and collaboration patterns.

This bibliometric analysis of the field helps graphically to illustrate the publications evolution over time and identify areas of current research interests and potential directions for future research. The findings provide a robust roadmap for mapping the research territory in the field of industry 4.0 and sustainability.

As the literature on sustainability and industry 4.0 expands, reviews capable of systematizing the main trends and topics of this research field are relevant.

The purpose of the study is two-fold. First, to find out the different barriers that prevent the implementation of sustainable manufacturing practices in the case of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Second, quantifying the relative intensity of these barriers to understand the importance and dependence power of the observed variables.

Primary data were collected via structured questionnaires from 150 Indian MSMEs working in the automobile industry. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed. Finally, barriers are ranked using graph theory and matrix approach (GTMA), considering the inheritance and interaction among the observed variables.

There are a total of 22 barriers to “sustainable manufacturing”. EFA and CFA models confirmed four different categories of barriers. In order of importance, they are ranked as – production and operations related; organization related; collaboration related; and government rules and regulations.

The findings show that there are multiple barriers to sustainable manufacturing. The barriers are categorized into four major categories, and their ranking provides an opportunity for prioritization from both policy and managerial perspectives. The barriers can be overcome through both policy interventions as well as through best practice sharing, benchmarking and organizational-wide initiatives.

The study is among the first studies that provide valuables insights on what are the 22 different barriers to sustainable manufacturing and its relevance to the MSMEs working in the automobile industry. The study would provide further opportunities for similar studies in different sectors.

The global research evidences indicate that the technology adoption in case of agribusiness has a potential to enhance the performance and bring operational efficiency. India is the world’s largest producer as well as consumer of milk but struggles with yield per cattle, overall productivity, low rate of technology acceptance and adoption, health detection of milching units, animal data recording and presence of dairy products in the global market. The purpose of this study is to focus on identifying the challenges of technology adoption in dairy farms and constructing a hierarchical model using soft systems methodology.

This study uses nominal group technique-based discussion with domain experts and personal interviews with dairy farm owners/managers for the identification of challenges, fuzzy interpretative structural modeling as well as FMICMAC to develop a hierarchical model of challenging elements and to divide the identified elements into four categories based on the dominance of driving-dependence power.

This research has developed a list of 12 challenges affecting the technology adoption in a dairy farm business unit, identified through the personal interviews with 60 dairy farms across three highest milk-producing states of India in terms of annual milk output – Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Lack of government support followed by lack of educational opportunities in dairy-based education were found as the most crucial and high driving challenges, whereas high cost, huge investment and low acceptance of decision-maker were found as the most dependent challenges of technology adoption.

This research is one step ahead of interpretive structural modeling that considers the fuzzy-based dominance in the model to showcase the degree of relationship along with its existence, but it lacks to statistically validate the findings using techniques like SEM.

This paper has developed a list of challenges in adoption of technology along with their inter-relationships to highlight the required focus challenge that drives or is dependent on the other challenges. The goal is to bring performance improvement and assist Indian dairy farm business stakeholders or decision-makers in formulating strategic and action plans and help policy planners to make favorable policies based on the understanding of contextual relationship between challenges.

In Indian context, dairy is an important part of agriculture sector, and milk is an essential item that facilitates income generation to small and rural households and a source item for several other businesses and activities. The results of this research suggested the policy planners and government to ensure subsidized and insured technologies, training support and facilities, educational opportunities and efforts for promotion of technology adoption among dairy farmers. The suggestions are purely on the basis of the relevance of challenges in the hierarchy and can play a significant role in improving the level of technology adoption and can ultimately uplift the social and economic well-being from micro-level of farmers to macro-stage concerning economic development of India.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is purely original and outcome of the research conducted by authors.