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After completion of the case study, the students will be able to understand ABC analysis and develop a systematic approach using PDCA, analyze processes, technology, employee training and supplier relationships when analyzing shrink and developing solutions, evaluate how technology improves production inventory control and visibility and recognize the importance of fostering a culture of employee accountability and ownership to minimize inventory loss and improve overall operational efficiency.

On June 2, 2023, sitting in his office in Karachi, Pakistan, Khan Aamir, the manager of store and inventory at Euro Manufacturing, found himself immersed in a cloud of confusion. The incessant loss of inventory items, particularly the nut bolts and small accessories, had become a perplexing challenge. To address these losses and provide a cycle count report to the director of supply chain, Aamir, manager of store and inventory, was given the responsibility to take action. He was looking for a comprehensive approach to address the current problems and prevent further losses in the future. This case study examines the various reasons for the losses, including theft, inadequate inventory control methods, human error and problems with suppliers. It highlights the importance of established procedures, the use of technology (such as barcode scanning, radio-frequency identification tagging and inventory management software) and the cultivation of a culture of accountability among employees.

This case study is developed for class discussion in the course of operations management or supply chain management. This case study is suitable for use with undergrad students. This case study can be taught in a module on operations management or supply chain management, as part of a broader course in business management or industrial engineering.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS: 9: Operations and logistics.

Knowledge management (KM) implementation is the ideal solution for enhancing employee’s abilities like mental health and performance. This study aims at testing the impact of KM mechanism on personnel’s mental health at the Iran University of Medical Sciences.

The study is a descriptive, correlational and applied one. The library and field studies have been used to collect data through the questionnaire. The proposed model and the data have been analyzed using Smart PLS software. A questionnaire has been conducted by an arbitrary sampling method.

The results have shown that the main factors of KM have a direct, meaningful positive impact on innovation. Besides, the critical parameters of KM success, strategy and process have a significant and direct positive effect on the tendency for knowledge-sharing behavior. Further, the direct relationship of the trend for knowledge-sharing behavior with the mental health of employees has positively been confirmed. The results have also indicated that psychological empowerment has a positive and significant effect on the mental health of employees.

This study has investigated the four parameters (i.e. key factors for KM success, KM strategy, KM processes and psychological empowerment) impacting the knowledge-sharing intention, conduct of the people and the mental health of the employees. Scholars can investigate other personal and organizational parameters such as probable backgrounds of the knowledge-sharing intention, conduct and the mental health of the employees.

These findings will be essential in the understanding of the interplay among various signals in theory and the understanding of patients’ choices in the electronic health (e-health) community in practice. The results have implications for existing health management and e-health literature. The present paper will help policymakers, healthcare executives and project managers to effectively set their operations and make them maintainable, prevent unpredicted obstacles and better allocate their resources. Overall, the result of this paper will guide researchers who are working in the field of e-health.

The findings can develop robust knowledge-sharing platforms and offer insightful suggestions for management practitioners in emerging markets.

The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between mall relevance dimensions [(functional relevance (FNR), symbolic relevance (SYR), social relevance (SOR) and environmental relevance (ENR)] and shoppers' well-being (SWB), which in turn influences mall loyalty (ML). In addition, this study aims to investigate the moderating effect of social media celebrities (SMCs) on the association between SWB and ML.

A mall intercept survey was used to collect responses from mall shoppers. The authors received 426 valid responses from mall shoppers in Pakistan's three metropolitan cities (i.e. Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad). To test the hypotheses, partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used.

Findings reveal that FNR, SYR, ENR and SOR significantly and positively influence SWB. Similarly, SWB significantly affects ML. Moreover, SMCs moderate the positive relationship between SWB and ML.

This study is one of the pioneer studies examining mall relevance dimensions on SWB. In addition, this study contributes to the retailing literature by testing the moderation effect of SMCs on the relationship between SWB and ML. Likewise, this study provides insights for mall administration to focus on mall relevance in terms of FNR, SYR, ENR and SOR to enhance the current and prospects' SWB. Next, SMCs play a key role in enhancing SWB and ML.

The purpose of this research is to facilitate the full potential of the web for the people with disabilities. People with disabilities may fail to make full use of the potentials offered by the web even if they have the right hardware (computer and assistive technologies) as well as access to the internet because of the lack of accessibility.

This research outlines the guidelines that provide the foundation for building an accessibility-aware framework approach, where people with disabilities can access most of the electronic contents based on their disability levels.

The framework helps web engineers in developing accessible web pages for all types of users. Disability profile examples (blindness, low vision, deafness and hard of hearing) were taken to determine the performance of the framework approach.

The validation and testing was carried out on the Sultan Qaboos University website. The framework approach could be further validated by performing the tests on various other public and private websites.

The guidelines can be used as a road map to overcome accessibility challenges during any web application development life cycle. A proper testing and evaluation is carried out on the framework to test its usability.

Although people with disabilities are perhaps the segment of society which are expected to gain the most from these technologies, they are facing barriers to access the contents of the web because of the way it is presented. This proposed framework could assist all the people with the disability of blindness and hearing impairment to have a better experience with the internet, making the technology more beneficial and usable to them. In the future, this approach can be extended for the people with other disabilities.

This research provides a pioneering concept for accessibility-aware framework approach. This approach could be utilized for developing accessible web applications and electronic services for people with disabilities. The proposed framework can be used as a road map to overcome accessibility challenges during any web application development life cycle.

This study aims to provide insights into the drivers of student engagement in food waste reduction strategies in educational institutions. The proposed research model integrates social media celebrities' attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness with the value belief norm (VBN) theory to explore their influence on students' behaviour towards food waste reduction.

The data were collected from 417 students enrolled in public and private universities in the Riyadh and Macca regions of Saudi Arabia to evaluate the proposed model. The partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyse the responses.

The results showed that VBN theory's components, such as values (biospheric, altruistic and egoistic), beliefs (new ecological paradigm, awareness of consequences and aspirations of responsibility) and norms significantly and positively influence food waste reduction behavioural intentions. It was also discovered from the results that social media celebrities' attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness influence food waste reduction behavioural intentions.

This study contributes significantly to the literature by identifying factors influencing student engagement in food waste reduction strategies in educational institutions where limited research exists. It fills this research gap by developing a novel theoretical framework integrating social media celebrities' attributes with the VBN theory to explain these factors.

This study aims to investigate consumer decision-making styles (CDMS) in the context of street food. In addition to the original CDMS constructs, two additional constructs, namely food safety risks and environmental risks, were included based on relevant literature. Furthermore, the study explores the moderating role of social media celebrities (SMCs) in bridging the intention-behaviour gap in street food consumption behaviour.

The data were collected through an online survey, with 300 participants providing useable responses. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis was employed to analyse the data.

The findings indicate that out of the eight identified CDMS, six styles, specifically recreational (hedonistic shopping consciousness), price consciousness, novelty-seeking, impulsiveness, confusion due to over-choice and brand loyalty, significantly influence consumers' intention to consume street foods. Additionally, the results support the moderating role of SMCs. This suggests that the presence and influence of SMCs play a significant role in shaping consumers' intention and behaviours towards street food consumption.

This study contributes significantly to the literature by adding two additional constructs, namely safety risks and environmental risks in CDMS. Moreover, this study fulfils the intention-behaviour gap in street food literature by exploring the moderation effect of SMCs.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between mall personality, hedonic and utilitarian shopping value, and shoppers' well-being. The moderating effect of compulsive shopping on the association between both hedonic and utilitarian shopping value, and shoppers' well-being is also investigated.

This study is quantitative in nature, and a purposive sampling technique is used. Data was collected through mall intercept survey. The authors collected 431 usable responses from respondents at two different malls in Lahore, Pakistan. PLS-SEM was employed to test the proposed hypotheses.

Results indicate that mall personality significantly and positively influences both hedonic and utilitarian shopping value and shoppers' well-being. Similarly, hedonic shopping value has a significant and positive impact on shoppers' well-being, while utilitarian shopping value has a non-significant relationship with shoppers' well-being. Moreover, while compulsive shopping behaviour moderates the positive relationship between hedonic shopping value and shoppers' well-being, it does not moderate the relationship between utilitarian shopping value and shoppers' well-being.

Despite the extant studies on brand and store personality on numerous retail outcomes, no study has examined the association between mall personality and shoppers' well-being. Another key contribution of this study is to examine moderation effect of compulsive shopping on the association between shopping value and shoppers' well-being. Additionally, this study enlightens mall administration to emphasise upon mall personality and hedonic shopping value so as to enhance shoppers' well-being, more so if its product assortment encourages compulsive shopping.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the combined effects of thermal radiation and magnetic field of molybdenum disulfide nanofluid in a channel with changing walls. Water is considered as a Newtonian fluid and treated as a base fluid and MoS₂ as nanoparticles with different shapes (spherical, cylindrical and laminar). The main structures of partial differential equations are taken in the form of continuity, momentum and energy equations.

The governing partial differential equations are converted into a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations by applying a suitable similarity transformation and then solved numerically via a three-stage Lobatto III-A formula.

All obtained unknown functions are discussed in detail after plotting the numerical results against different arising physical parameters. The validations of numerical results have been taken into account with other works reported in literature and are found to be in an excellent agreement. The study reveals that the Nusselt number increases by increasing the solid volume fraction for different shapes of nanoparticles, and an increase in the values of wall expansion ratio α increases the velocity profile f′(η) from lower wall to the center of the channel and decreases afterwards.

In this paper, a numerical method was utilized to investigate the influence of molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) nanoparticles shapes on MHD flow of nanofluid in a channel. The validity of the literature review cited above ensures that the current study has never been reported before and it is quite new; therefore, in case of validity of the results, a three-stage Lobattoo III-A formula is implemented in Matlab 15 by built in routine “bvp4c,” and it is found to be in an excellent agreement with the literature published before.

This study aims to investigate individual-related consequences of workplace bullying among the health-care section. Specifically, this study examined the mediating role of burnout between workplace bullying and nurses’ well-being. Moreover, passive avoidant leadership is examined as a conditional variable between workplace bullying and burnout.

This study collected data from 314 nurses working in various hospitals through a questionnaire-based survey using Google Form in two waves.

Structural equation modeling confirmed the negative effect of workplace bullying on nurses’ well-being, whereas burnout mediates this relationship. In addition, passive avoidant leadership was identified as a conditional variable that strengthens the positive association between workplace bullying and burnout.

Although data for the study were collected in two waves, still cross-sectional design limits causality.

This study suggests management to focus on developing and implementing counter-bullying rules to avoid the adverse consequences of workplace bullying (e.g. capital loss, recruitment costs, burnout, well-being, etc.). In addition, leaders/supervisors must be trained to fulfill their responsibilities to reduce negative consequences.

Studies on workplace bullying in high-power distance cultures are scant. Therefore, drawing upon conservation of resource theory, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that has investigated the moderating role of passive avoidant leadership on the association between workplace bullying and burnout.

The Government of Pakistan has allocated a substantial proportion of agricultural credit to subsistence farmers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze farmers’ access to credit and its adequacy in the light of current agricultural credit policy of Pakistan.

The study has used both secondary and primary data for analysis. Secondary data were collected from the annual reports of Pakistan Economic Survey and State Bank of Pakistan. Primary data were collected from 168 subsistence farmers through households’ survey. Farmers’ credit access and credit adequacy were measured using credit access ratio and credit adequacy ratio, respectively. The Student’s t-test and analysis of variance were used to assess the differences in credit access and adequacy among farmers’ groups (i.e. upper, medium and lower subsistence farmers). Tobit regression model was employed to determine the factors influencing credit adequacy among farmers.

The empirical results revealed that the amount of credit provided to subsistence farmers was less than stated in the national agricultural credit policy. Upper subsistence farmers had more access to credit than lower and medium subsistence farmers. Lower subsistence farmers had above average access to informal sources of credit, and had below average access to formal sources. The findings also revealed that lower subsistence and medium subsistence farmers had the highest credit inadequacy of funds for investment in agriculture. The results of the Tobit regression revealed that age, education, experience, household size, total landholding of farmer and proportion of own land influenced the agricultural credit adequacy.

Most of the credit was distributed among the upper subsistence farmers. Lower subsistence farmers were still largely dependent on informal credit for farm production activities. The Government of Pakistan performed poor in the implementation of agricultural credit policy, and has failed to help subsistence farmers in their access to formal credit. It is needed to revamp the agricultural credit policy and facilitate credit acquisition by subsistence farmers, particularly for tenant farmers. It is important that the Government may classify the subsistence farmers into subgroups, and reallocate the funds accordingly. This study has lessons and implications for agricultural finance initiatives in developing countries.

Previous studies have focused primarily on access to agricultural credit. However, this study has adopted a holistic approach by using secondary and primary data to assess the farmers’ access to credit and adequacy. In addition, limited literature is available to explore the farmers’ accessibility and adequacy of agricultural credit. Furthermore, this study has focused exclusively on the farmers who are living in the flood-prone areas of Pakistan.