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The paper aims to analyse the contextual relationship and dependency amongst enablers for lean manufacturing implementation in Bulgarian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In this study, the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique was used to develop a hierarchical structural model for enablers. Also, the interpretive ranking process (IRP) was used to analyse and rank enablers with reference to performance variables. For the ISM approach, a structural self- integration matrix was developed with the help of experts’ suggestions and opinions. Cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis was used to analyse the relationship amongst enablers. A total of nine experts were chosen for collecting the primary data in which seven experts belong to the industry and two experts were academicians. The dominant relationship amongst the enablers was analysed through IRP modelling.

A total of 11 enablers were identified for the purpose of this study. The model shows that “leadership and commitment by management”, “human resource management”, “customer relation management”, “supplier relation management” and “information technology system” are the most significant enablers for lean implementation in Bulgarian SMEs as these are positioned at the bottom levels in ISM model. MICMAC analysis shows that five enablers fall in the independent factor, two enablers in linkage factor and four enablers in the dependant factor while there is no enabler in the autonomous factor. ISM and IRP models show that “continuous improvement” is an essential enabler for the successful implementation of lean in Bulgarian SMEs. This study also helps to explain the comparative analysis of ISM and IRP, which indicates that IRP is a more robust modelling approach than ISM, as it incorporates the relationship of enablers with performance variables.

ISM and IRP modelling approaches are based solely on expert opinions and responses. This limitation can be overcome with the help of empirical study.

This study supports the professionals/experts to prioritise and manage enablers at strategic and tactical levels while implementing lean manufacturing practices in Bulgarian SMEs. The models developed in the study will be helpful for practitioners to understand and analyse the interdependence of enablers for lean manufacturing implementation.

This study helps to identify and prioritise enablers that affect lean manufacturing adoption using ISM and IRP approaches. Literature shows that numerous authors have used the ISM approach but the use of IRP approach is limited. The models were developed in the study, totally dependent on data collected from the experts to ensure their real-life validity.

Education in India is valued as a transformative tool for upward mobility, increased opportunity and individual freedom. A variety of education policies over the years have sought to ensure greater equity with varied impact. Student learning has suffered across the country in part due to differences in regional access, linguistic ability, and family income. Furthermore, India lies at the intersection of aspiring ambitions of international influence and vast inequities ensuring many sectors of the populations lag far behind the “modern” aspirations of the middle class. In this conflicting space, Indian policy-makers established the Right to Education Act in 2010 as an effort to create broad and sweeping change in educational policy. This chapter seeks to look critically at the main components of the act, now 10 years in, to evaluate how some of the most controversial aspects of the law, have affected student learning, through the lens of teacher quality, including teacher preparation, teacher professional development, teacher dispositions, and teacher’s attitudes and perceptions of students. Vignettes from teacher experiences will be used to illustrate challenges and recommendations will be provided to support teacher educators working to ensure a more equitable and socially just education for Indian students.

The purpose of this study is to visualize the key literature on the topic “Open Educational Resources” using the research discovery tool “Litmaps”.

Litmaps visual citation navigation, the ultimate science discovery platform, is used for the present study. It provides an interface for discovering scientific literature, explores the research landscape and discovers articles that are highly connected to maps. Litmaps provides quick-start options to import articles from reference manager, keyword search, ORCID ID, DOI or using a seed article. In this paper, “keyword search” and research strategy “Open Educational Resources” or “OER” are put to use.

The findings of the study revealed that Litmaps gives citations between articles over time visually. The map generated is dynamic as it is adjustable for making the map according to the researcher’s needs.

Litmaps helps researchers in doing the literature review in a very brief and systematic way. It is helpful in finding the related or relevant studies through the seed paper/keyword search.

The study makes a useful contribution to the literature on this topic as one can independently find research topics and also compare topic overlapping. The study provides insights that help researchers in building citation maps and see connections between articles over time. The originality of the present paper lies in highlighting the importance of the research discovery tool Litmaps for the researchers as so far, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research has been taken place on using it.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a structured review of the literature on the factors affecting the strategic thinking of an organization. This study offers some theoretical insights by analysing the divergent or analogous views of authors on these factors by analysing the empirical studies carried out in the literature.

An empirical method of conducting a structured literature review has been adopted in this study. Theory context characteristic methodology framework and meta-analysis are the methodologies applied to analyse the different empirical studies conducted in the literature and determine the variation or similarities in the views of authors over the same factor based on their effect sizes. This study analyses over 45 different empirical studies in the literature conducted on the factors affecting strategic thinking.

This study explains how the factors have been similarly or differently explained by the authors in the literature. This analysis gives a better understanding of the factors affecting strategic thinking and quantitatively amalgamates the current empirical studies carried out in the literature. The effects sizes generated for each factor helps in determining the homogeneous or heterogeneous nature of the factor.

The study is limited only to analyse the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the factors affecting strategic thinking at an organisational level. This study can be further extended by analysing the type of effect these factors have on the strategic thinking of the organisation.

The findings of this study identify the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the factors affecting strategic thinking in an organisation. This helps the top management to concentrate on these factors, which might develop a strategic thinking nature in the organisation, leading to the better formation of strategies, and successfully implement them in their businesses.

The study fills the unattended gaps in the literature by analysing the homogeneous and heterogeneous nature of the factors affecting the strategic thinking of an organisation.

The purpose of this study is to explain the interrelationships between the elements of strategic thinking, technological change and strategic risks. The main objective of this research is to identify the hierarchy for the elements of thinking, technological change and strategic risk and also to identify the driving powers of these elements.

The methodology used in this study is modified total interpretive structural modelling and MICMAC analysis which gives the interrelationships and also the driving powers of the elements by analysing the relationships between the elements from the existing literature. This method helps us in answering/understanding the “what”, “how” and “why” of the research. Modified total Interpretive structural modeling is considered in this study, which helps in doing both the paired comparisons and transitivity checks simultaneously. A digraph is constructed at the end of the analysis, which shows the links between the elements, and a driver dependence matrix is constructed, which shows the driving powers.

This study gives an understanding of the role of the elements, the relationships between them and the hierarchy of addressing these elements, and also the driving and dependence power. Findings of this research give us an understanding of how strategic thinking/technological change/strategic drives the performance of the firm.

This study is conducted with the help of existing literature; this can be further extended by considering the expert opinion.

The model explains the direct and transitive links of the elements and the strength of the relation between them, which helps the researchers and the practitioners to understand the driving power and importance of these constructs. It also helps us to understand the role of these elements and, if implemented in an organisation, which elements need to be prioritised for enhancing the performance of the firm.

Research done in the past has individually analysed the elements effecting strategic thinking; this study identifies the relationships between the elements of all three constructs and helps in understanding the levels of hierarchy.

Management is a blended discipline with characteristics of both science and art. The component science is to be learnt and art to be practiced. This art component of management education is the really challenging part, and this is where the management educational institutions build their uniqueness. The present management education needs a paradigm shift in order to fulfill the growing futuristic demands of the industry. The quality gaps identified through review of literature are preach–practice, industry–institution linkages, quality faculty, updated curriculum, soft skills development, research, online platforms and updated pedagogies. The researcher has taken an attempt to do a dyadic study in India.

The researcher has taken an attempt to do a dyadic study in India to analyze the perception of the management faculty and management students toward filling the quality gaps for a futuristic management education. The study has included 125 management faculties and 1200 management students through simple random sampling, and the data are collected through survey method.

The independent “t” test has been applied. The management faculties exhibit high degree of acceptance for filling the quality gaps such as research gaps, online platforms and industry and institution linkages since the mean scores are 4.22, 4.20 and 4.14 respectively. The management students exhibit high degree of acceptance for filling the quality gaps such as online platforms, updated pedagogies and soft skills development since the respective mean scores are 3.87, 3.85 and 3.82.

The research area chosen for the study is reflecting the scenario of management education in developing countries such as India. The scenario may differ to developed countries.

When the quality of the management education is enriched, it will create global management professionals who will contribute qualitatively to the industries and uplift the overall global economic developments.

The present study is enriching the existing literature review, by comparing the perception of both the counterparts, the management faculty and students, about the teaching and learning process. Thus, it can be concluded that the outcome of this study is relevant for the management educational institutions, and the need of the hour for the management education is definitely to fill the quality gaps, and all the management educational institutions have to be prepared enough to overcome the gaps with the support of their well-planned strategies. The futuristic demands are ever growing, even then the gap between the present and future expectations of the industry need to be well considered and bridged. As a result of the paradigm shift, the quality of the management education will be enriched, and it will create global management professionals. As a result of this quality-conscious education, a reputed brand image and set of loyal customers may also be developed (Akareem and Hossain, 2016). The learners of quality management education will contribute qualitatively to the industries and uplift the overall global economic developments. Further research is needed to measure the post impact of filling the quality gaps in the arena of management education.

The quality gaps identified through review of literature are preach–practice, industry–institution linkages, quality faculty, updated curriculum, soft skills development, research, online platforms and updated pedagogies.

The online shopping behavior is the outcome of the variety of attribution from product/ service offering to internet experience. The present study attempts to develop a complete product/service offering by exploring and examining the different combinations of online shopping attributes to provide the customized experience. Therefore, this study aims to fill the gap of customer desired experience and present scenario in online shopping behavior.

The exploration of attributes pertaining to online shopping behavior was done by seeking theoretical support from different technology adoption theories/models and the Delphi technique, exercised with active participants of online and offline shopping. The theoretical and experience shared attributes were devised and social desirability scale (SDS) was used for eliminating the social desirability bias. Further, the questionnaire was administered online and offline during mall intercept. The Conjoint analysis was used to investigate the relative importance and utilities of the attributes and its levels individually and compositely at different levels.

In the context, brand loyalty, online reputation management and Web interactivity were found most relavant followed by e-WOM, perceived risk and price. The specific levels of attributes such as taking consumer advice, search engine optimization (SEO), perception-based interactivity, consumer message boards, product risk and discount pricing were the crucial in motivating the customers for online shopping. This research affords the avenue for the marketers to motivate and delight consumers to retribalize by the way of “e-tribalizing.”

The current study was conducted in confined geographical locations and limited in sample size; thus, the issue of generalization may prevail, but forthcoming researchers may exercise the techniques with better probabilistic sampling technique. The mass customization of the website features by comparing attribute orientation of customers around websites was recommended with the third-party certification to reduce the consumers’ perceived risk during online shopping. Finally, the different levels, such as Facebook fan page in ORM and Everyday Low Price (EDLP) in pricing may be considered for the future research work.

The research studies on online shopping behavior with Web interactivity, e-WOM, perceived risk, brand loyalty, ORM and price using a decompositional technique are scant. This study persuades the customers to go for online shopping by putting them in the almost real-time purchasing scenario. The study confirmed the need of people to retribalize through e-tribalization by the way of customization for the masses in the context of online shopping.

The study aims to facilitate the medical tourists visiting emerging countries for various kinds of ailments by ranking the possible destinations to avail medical treatments.

A Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (FAHP) with a mixed-method approach is applied to analyze data collected from patients and substantiate it with medical tour operators in India to gain managerial insights on the choice-making patterns of the patients.

India is a preferred emerging market location due to the low cost and high medical staff quality. India offers value for money, whereas Singapore and Thailand are preferred destinations for quality and technology.

The study will facilitate the emerging markets' governments, hospitals and medical tourists to understand the importance of various determinants responsible for availing medical treatment outside their country.

The study recommends that cost and quality care are the patients' prime focus; government policies must provide clear guidelines on what the hospitals and country environment can offer and accordingly align the marketing strategies.

This study is the first attempt to rank various factors affecting medical tourism using the FAHP approach.

This paper aims to study the various developments taking place in the field of gas sensors made from polyaniline (PANI) nanocomposites, which leads to the development of high-performance electrical and gas sensing materials operating at room temperature.

PANI/ferrite nanocomposites exhibit good electrical properties with lower dielectric losses. There are numerous reports on PANI and ferrite nanomaterial-based gas sensors which have good sensing response, feasible to operate at room temperature, requires less power and cost-effective.

This paper provides an overview of electrical and gas sensing properties of PANI/ferrite nanocomposites having improved selectivity, long-term stability and other sensing performance of sensors at room temperature.

The main purpose of this review paper is to focus on PANI/ferrite nanocomposite-based gas sensors operating at room temperature.