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The purpose of this paper is to present recent work for optimizing the estimation of ease allowance of a garment using fuzzy logic and sensory evaluation.

The current method first generates a number of fuzzy models each corresponding to one specific key body part and one specific wearer's movement and then aggregates all the values of ease allowance generated from these fuzzy models using the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator. The aggregated ease allowance takes into account geometric measures on all representative human bodies, comfort sensations of wearers related to all movements or actions and different styles of trousers (tight, normal and loose). The weights of the OWA operator can be used to adjust the compromise between the style of garments and the comfort sensation of wearers. The related weights of the OWA operator are automatically determined according to designer's linguistic criteria characterizing the relationship between wearer's movements and the features of the garment to be designed.

Based on the optimized values of ease allowance generated from fuzzy models related to different key body positions and different wearer's movements, the authors obtain a personalized ease allowance, permitting to further improve the wearer's fitting perception of a garment. The effectiveness of the method has been validated in the design of trousers of jean type. It can also be applied for designing other types of garment.

Integration of wearer's body shapes and human comfort in the design of personalized garments.

Existing research regarding the value of school education focuses primarily on the effects of educational level on core task performance after graduation. However, it is worth noting that knowledge, skills and abilities are not the only individual gains from school education. For part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) students, the impact of MBA education on their real-time work during their two-year or so study journey has not been reported. This study aims to provide theoretical reasoning and empirical insights to clarify the impact of psychological safety at school on psychological capital (PsyCap) at work for part-time MBA students and examines the moderating role of constructive controversy at school in this relationship.

A survey of 286 part-time MBA students was conducted in a university located in Beijing to address the theoretical issue.

Students’ psychological safety at school is positively related to PsyCap at work. Constructive controversy at school acts as a positive moderator in the relationship between psychological safety at school and PsyCap at work.

This study establishes a link between the school and the workplace. It explores the relationship between an individual’s psychological states at school and at work and contributes to the literature on human resources and management education. Furthermore, the findings prove that students not only gain knowledge, skills and abilities from education but also positive psychological states, such as psychological safety.

The particular characteristics of agri-food cooperatives reduce their ability to access external financial resources. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors influencing the agri-food cooperatives' trade credit operations by measuring their accounts receivable and comparing the results with agri-food investor-owned firms (IOFs).

The authors apply a partial adjustment model (PAM) estimated using a dynamic panel model with a two-step general method of moments (GMM) estimator to a sample of 11,930 Spanish agri-food cooperatives and IOFs for the period 2011–2018.

The study concludes that cooperatives and IOFs have an accounts receivable target, which they attempt to achieve rapidly. Cooperatives tend to behave as IOFs do, but they present lower adjustment coefficients. This difference seems to be explained by the unique characteristics of cooperatives which set different economic and social goals, not just profit maximization as IOFs. The findings show differences between the financial and commercial purposes of the cooperatives and IOFs as a result of their internal management policies. Larger cooperatives with access to external financial sources, positive cash flows and operational necessities will grant trade credit.

This study gives interesting implications for cooperative managers and policymakers to help them to understand the strategies behind trade credit policies. Previous empirical studies on the agri-food sector are scarce and focus on IOFs without considering the role of trade credit in European cooperatives.

The literature shows that e-commerce adoption brings many benefits to farmers and agricultural businesses. However, the literature offers very limited guidance on the most effective ways for them to utilize e-commerce platforms. In this study, we unfold how a farmer's choice between endogenous (their own) vs. exogenous (third-party) e-commerce platforms should be aligned with the external (support from agricultural cooperative) and internal (usage of quality labels) resources they can leverage and the performance goals they want to achieve (market expansion vs. price premium).

Our study draws on transaction cost economics (TCE) and resource-based theory (RBT) to test the conceptual model with data from a cross-sectional survey of 324 farmers from two provinces in PR China.

Our findings show that external and internal resources shed additional light on the effectiveness of endogenous vis-à-vis exogenous e-commerce platforms. For farmers who rely on exogenous e-commerce, support from an agricultural cooperative appears to be critical in increasing their market expansion. On the other hand, farmers seeking to earn a price premium should focus on developing their own e-commerce platforms, while at the same time emphasizing the quality labels of their agricultural products.

Farmers should pay close attention to the value-added benefits provisioned through farmers' cooperatives, as well as the benefits of acquiring quality labels for their agricultural products. However, the decision to utilize these resources should be aligned with the chosen e-commerce platform (endogenous vs. exogenous) as well as with the performance goal the farmer wants to achieve.

Our work goes beyond the traditional focus on transaction costs and efficiency of e-commerce channels and provides specific insights into when an endogenous or exogenous e-commerce model might provide benefits for farmers. On top of this, we argue and show that this decision should reside with the farmer's ability to leverage external and internal resources, envisioned through support from an agricultural cooperative and the quality labels of agricultural products.

The purpose of this paper is to propose advances for developing our understandings of valuable resources in small family firms. The focus is on group support behavior within firms. It is proposed that this behavior is unique and valuable within small family firms. Propositions are presented that are built upon previous work in psychology and family business research and is linked to the concept of familiness.

Two small family businesses are the two cases used to investigate the propositions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the owner/manager and several other staff within each firm.

The paper presents evidence for the propositions, showing that work group support is unique in family firms as it is based on factors beyond the workplace. These relationships have the potential to be strong, contributing positively to the firm’s competitive advantage.

Two in-depth case studies of firms are included in this investigation. They are in a similar industry and location. As the findings are similar it lends weight to the evidence for the propositions; however, care should be taken with generalizing to other firms in other industries.

This research pulls together previous evidence and understandings and applies them to a specific aspect of small family firms that has not previously been examined in depth. The increased understanding can help family firms leverage their unique competitive advantage.

The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of ochratoxin A (OTA) in chickpea samples in northern Iran and to study the effect of thermal treatment on ochratoxin content of the samples.

For this purpose, 32 chickpea samples were collected from retail stores of four cities in Mazandaran province in the north of Iran. Samples were soaked in potable water and cooked, respectively, for 3.5 and 4 h. Then the raw and cooked samples and the soaking water were analyzed for OTA determination by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique.

Results showed that six raw samples (18.75 per cent) contained detectable amounts of OTA by average concentration of 5.9±3.7 which is lower than national standards. The highest and lowest concentration of OTA in raw samples was 2.1 and 12.5 ppb, so chickpea is not a source for OTA poisoning. Increasing the time of cooking led to slight degradation of OTA but according to statistical analysis and LSD test, only after five hours, thermal treatment caused OTA to degrade significantly (p<0.05). During soaking and thermal processing, leakage of OTA to the water partly occurred so that the OTA content of soaking water is detectable.

Few research studies have been done on OTA detection in legumes and specially chickpea samples in the world and no research has been done to evaluate the effect of cooking process on OTA in chickpea.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the black box between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and innovation performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Through application of the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework, the study examines the mediating roles of innovation-specific ability, motivation and voice behaviors between HPWS and SMEs’ innovation performance.

The hypotheses are tested on data collected through a self-administered questionnaire from 237 SMEs in Pakistan.

Findings indicate that human capital, motivation and employee voice fully mediate the relationship between HPWS and innovation performance in SMEs.

The cross-sectional research design and self-reported measures warrant caution for the interpretation of findings. Future research may consider a longitudinal research design and objective measures.

SMEs need to invest in the adoption and implementation of HPWS that will develop innovation-specific abilities, motivation and voice behaviors simultaneously among employees that will lead to higher innovation performance.

This is the first study of its kind utilizing an AMO framework to investigate the underlying mechanism through which HPWS affect innovation performance in SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the critical risk factors affecting mining projects in Ghana.

A purposive sampling approach was used in selecting the respondents for the study. These were practitioners working on mining projects in Ghana.

The study identified 22 risk factors contributing to mining project failure in Ghana. The five most critical mining project risk factors based on both probability of occurrence and impact were unstable commodity prices, inflation/exchange rate, land degradation, high cost of living and government bureaucracy for obtaining licenses. Mitigation measures for addressing the identified risk factors were identified.

This paper is limited to data collected from practitioners working on mining projects. Due to geographic and logistical constraints, the study did not include the perception of local communities in quantifying the risk factors.

This paper has documented the critical risk factor affecting the mining industry in Ghana. Though the identified risk types are also prevalent in other sectors of the construction industry, the key findings of this paper emphasize the need for a comprehensive risk management culture in the mining sector. From an academic research perspective, the paper contributes to a conceptual risk assessment framework.

The information gathered through this research can be utilized in identifying and understanding risks during the early stages of mining project implementation.

The allocation of risk among project participants is an important determinant of innovation success in construction projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the capacity of risk allocation to encourage the implementation of environmental innovation, particularly sustainable energy innovation (SEI), within the private finance initiative (PFI) project delivery model.

A four-case qualitative research methodology is adopted within the context of the UK government’s building schools for the future programme.

The findings identify that SEIs are encouraged on the innovative projects by the perceived clarity, appropriateness, and manageability of the risks associated with the project’s energy performance on the PFI contract. The main SEIs were largely developed as strategies to manage long-term energy performance risks allocated to private sector actors and safeguard their long-term commitment to the project. However, the findings indicate that excessive perceived innovation-related risks, particularly capital cost risk, may restrict further SEIs to be implemented.

The qualitative case study approach adopted may limit the generalisability of the findings.

The study and provides practical guidance to policymakers and project managers in developing strategies to support the implementation of SEI in PFI projects.

The study attends to a significant gap in knowledge as there is a lack of conceptual and empirical work on managing innovative processes for sustainable energy in PFI projects.

The literature related to knowledge management (KM) is robust with respect to insights regarding firms in general. However, less is known about the KM of family firms despite these firms being the most common form of business organization worldwide. Further, even though the number of studies examining family-firm KM has increased in recent years, the insights gained remain fragmented. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to help coalesce and advance the study of family-firm KM.

In pursuit of these goals, a systematic literature review was conducted. Using a 6-step, systematic literature review protocol, 74 articles focused on family-firm KM published in 23 journals were identified and reviewed.

This literature review contributes to the synthesis and advancement of family-firm KM scholarship in several ways. First, key factors and relationships are identified and integrated into a robust framework. Second, scholarly insights are synthesized, and a review of the primary antecedents, outcomes and moderating factors associated with family-firm KM processes is presented. Third, promising opportunities for future research are highlighted to advance family-firm KM scholarship.

With a focus on reducing the fragmentation in the literature, this review synthesizes insights related to the most commonly studied antecedents, outcomes and moderators associated with family-firm KM. Additionally, antecedents are organized and reviewed according to the nature of their influence on family-firm KM processes, highlighting the simultaneous opposite effects of some influences. Further, key outcomes are synthesized based on their family versus firm-centric orientation. Even further, insights and opportunities focused on advancing the theory, antecedents, outcomes, moderators and other issues related to family-firm KM are presented in an effort to support the continued progress of scholarship in this area.