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Omnichannel sales have provided new impetus for the development of catering merchants. The authors thus focus on how catering merchants should manage capacities at the ordering, production and delivery stages to meet customers’ needs in different channels under third-party platform delivery and merchant self-delivery. This is of great significance for the development of the omnichannel catering industry.

This paper formulates the capacity decisions of omnichannel catering merchants under the third-party platform delivery and merchant self-delivery mode. The authors mainly use queuing theory to analyze the queuing behavior of online and offline customers, and the impact of waiting time on customer shopping behavior. In addition, the authors also characterize the merchant’s capacity by the rate in queuing model.

The authors find that capacities at ordering stage and food production stage are composed of base capacities and safety capacities, but the delivery capacities only have the latter. And in the self-delivery mode, merchants can develop higher safety capacities by charging delivery fees. The authors prove that regardless of the delivery mode, omnichannel sales can bring higher profits to merchants by integrating demand.

The authors focus on analyzing the capacity management of omnichannel catering merchants at the ordering, production and delivery stages. And the authors also add the delivery process into the omnichannel for analysis, so as to solve the problem of capacity decision-making under different delivery modes. The management of delivery capacity and its impact on other stages’ capacities are not covered in other literature studies, which is one of the main innovations of this paper.

The service environment is becoming increasingly turbulent, leading to calls for a systemic understanding of it as a set of dynamic service ecosystems. This paper advances this understanding by developing a typology of service ecosystem dynamics that explains the varying interplay between change and stability within the service environment through distinct behavioral patterns exhibited by service ecosystems over time.

This study builds upon a systematic literature review of service ecosystems literature and uses system dynamics as a method theory to abductively analyze extant literature and develop a typology of service ecosystem dynamics.

The paper identifies three types of service ecosystem dynamics—behavioral patterns of service ecosystems—and explains how they unfold through self-adjustment processes and changes within different systemic leverage points. The typology of service ecosystem dynamics consists of (1) reproduction (i.e. stable behavioral pattern), (2) reconfiguration (i.e. unstable behavioral pattern) and (3) transition (i.e. disrupting, shifting behavioral pattern).

The typology enables practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of their service environment by discerning the behavioral patterns exhibited by the constituent service ecosystems. This, in turn, supports them in devising more effective strategies for navigating through it.

The paper provides a precise definition of service ecosystem dynamics and shows how the identified three types of dynamics can be used as a lens to empirically examine change and stability in the service environment. It also offers a set of research directions for tackling service research challenges.

The global economy is facing a steep challenge from volatility, risk and uncertainty associated with climate change, pandemics, regional conflicts and trade wars which are unprecedented and overlapping. These crises are leading to macro- and microeconomic imbalances. The immediate effects like rising inflation, shortage of energy and fertiliser, food insecurity, loss of jobs and poverty are looming large, leading to existential threat. It is evident that decades of progress are at risk and pursuing sustainable development goals (SDGs) requires dedicated and customised efforts by the governments and other relevant actors, especially in the low- and middle-income countries (LMICS). The concept of circular economy is considered to bring a paradigm shift by reducing the dependence on natural resource extraction and decoupling economic growth from use of natural resources. Bioeconomy is another emerging field which deals with the use of renewable biological resources such as biomass to produce renewable biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower for economic, environmental and social benefits. Circular bioeconomy (CBE) lies at the intersection and is defined as the production of recoverable biological (waste) resources and the conversion of these resources into high-value-added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy. It has been estimated that the economic opportunity for the sector to complement or even substitute conventional ones is estimated to be USD 7.7 trillion by 2030 for food and feed waste products, and energy. CBE is perceived as a pathway for development and has the potential to target different SDGs directly like 6, 7 and 12 and SDGs 2, 3, 11, 12, 13 and 15 indirectly. This study explores the linkages of CBE with the SDG goals and provides recommendations to stimulate the sector.

Operational risks can cause considerable, atypical disturbances and impact food supply chain (SC) resilience. Indicatively, the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions in the UK food services as nationwide stockouts led to unprecedented discrepancies between retail and home-delivery supply capacity and demand. To this effect, this study aims to examine the emergence of digital platforms as an innovative instrument for food SC resilience in severe market disruptions.

An interpretive multiple case-study approach was used to unravel how different generations of e-commerce food service providers, i.e. established and emergent, responded to the need for more resilient operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SC disruption management for high-impact low-frequency events requires analysing four research elements: platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency. Established e-commerce food operators use partner onboarding and local waste valorisation to enhance resilience. Instead, emergent e-commerce food providers leverage localised rapid upscaling and product personalisation.

Digital food platforms offer a highly customisable, multisided digital marketplace wherein platform members may aggregate product offerings and customers, thus sharing value throughout the network. Platform-induced disintermediation allows bidirectional flows of data and information among SC partners, ensuring compliance and safety in the food retail sector.

The study contributes to the SC configuration and resilience literature by investigating the interrelationship among platformisation, structural variety, process flexibility and system resource efficiency for safe and resilient food provision within exogenously disrupted environments.

The various quality improvement (QI) frameworks and maturity models described in the health services literature consider some aspects of QI while excluding others. This paper aims to present a concerted attempt to create a quality improvement maturity model (QIMM) derived from holistic principles underlying the successful implementation of system-wide QI programmes.

A hybrid methodology involving a systematic review (Phase 1) of over 270 empirical research articles and books developed the basis for the proposed QIMM. It was followed by expert interviews to refine the core constructs and ground the proposed QIMM in contemporary QI practice (Phase 2). The experts included academics in two academic conferences and 59 QI managers from the New Zealand health-care system. In-depth interviews were conducted with QI managers to ascertain their views on the QIMM and its applicability in their respective health organisations (HOs).

The QIMM consists of four dimensions of organisational maturity, namely, strategic, process, supply chain and philosophical maturity. These dimensions progress through six stages, namely, identification, ad-hoc, formal, process-driven, optimised enterprise and finally a way of life. The application of the QIMM by the QI managers revealed that the scope of QI and the breadth of the principles adopted by the QI managers and their HOs in New Zealand is limited.

The importance of QI in health systems cannot be overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality overstated. The proposed QIMM can help HOs diagnose their current state and provide a guide to action achieving a desirable state of quality improvement maturity. This QIMM avoids reliance on any single QI methodology. HOs – using the QIMM – should retain full control over the process of selecting any QI methodology or may even cherry-pick principles to suit their needs as long as they understand and appreciate the true nature and scope of quality.

This paper contributes new knowledge by presenting a maturity model with an integrated set of quality principles for HOs and their extended supply networks.

In order to better optimize the internal management system of book publishing and to cope with the changes in the external market environment, the purpose of this paper is to carry out cross-border publishing with the help of a transmedia storytelling model to realize the transformation and upgrading of the industry. Focusing on the relationship between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, the moderating effect of the innovation environment on different variables is assessed.

This paper proposes several feasible hypotheses based on existing research. The research data came from 365 managers of Chinese book publishing organizations, and the scale was validated by Cronbach’s a, composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE). Reliability and validity were verified, and correlation and regression analyses were used to test the impact of the book publishing transmedia storytelling model on business performance and to analyze the moderating role of the innovation environment.

The results show that the book publishing transmedia storytelling model (content production, technology integration, organizational innovation, marketing integration) helps to improve business performance (market performance, financial performance), and the innovation environment has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, which provides a guarantee for the transformation and upgrading of book publishing. The market information reflected in the innovation environment has a certain role in promoting the innovation and business performance of the book publishing transmedia storytelling model.

The empirical evidence provides a theoretical link between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, but there are still some shortcomings, and more factors, such as equity structure, government subsidies and research and development investment, should be included in future research. In addition, the scope of the research should be broadened on this basis to make the results of the data analysis more objective.

This paper introduces the transmedia storytelling model and deeply analyzes the relationship between the book publishing transmedia storytelling model and business performance, which is of great practical significance for optimizing the application and service quality of book publishing, prolonging the industrial chain, enhancing the interaction and participation of users and perfecting the business management system of the book publishing industry.

The application and research of the book publishing transmedia storytelling model are imperfect. Therefore, this paper not only helps to promote the innovation of book publishing organizational structure and improve the management system of business performance, but also may help to improve the innovation environment of book publishing enterprises and promote the diversification of industrial structure.

This study aims to explore how sustainable business models (SBM) can be developed within agri-innovation systems (AIS) and emphasize an integration of the two with a systemic understanding for reducing food loss and value loss in postharvest agri-food supply chain.

This study conducted longitudinal qualitative research in a developing country with food loss challenges in the postharvest supply chain. This study collected data through multiple rounds of fieldwork, interviews and focus groups over four years. Thematic analysis and “sensemaking” were used for inductive data analysis to generate rich contextual knowledge by drawing upon the lived realities of the agri-food supply chain actors.

First, this study finds that the value losses are varied in the supply chain, encompassing production value, intrinsic value, extrinsic value, market value, institutional value and future food value. This happens through two cumulative effects including multiplier losses, where losses in one model cascade into others, amplifying their impact and stacking losses, where the absence of data stacks or infrastructure pools hampers the realisation of food value. Thereafter, this study proposes four strategies for moving from the loss-incurring current business model to a networked SBM for mitigating losses. This emphasises the need to redefine ownership as stewardship, enable formal and informal beneficiary identification, strengthen value addition and build capacities for empowering communities to benefit from networked SBM with AIS initiatives. Finally, this study puts forth ten propositions for future research in aligning AIS with networked SBM.

This study contributes to understanding the interplay between AIS and SBM; emphasising the integration of the two to effectively address food loss challenges in the early stages of agri-food supply chains. The identified strategies and research propositions provide implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to accelerate sustainable practices for reducing food loss and waste in agri-food supply chains.

This paper aims to overcome the inability of both comparing loss costs and accounting for production resource losses of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)-related approaches.

The authors conducted a literature review about the studies focusing on approaches combining OEE with monetary units and/or resource issues. The authors developed an approach based on Overall Equipment Cost Loss (OECL), introducing a component for the production resource consumption of a machine. A real case study about a smart multicenter three-spindle machine is used to test the applicability of the approach.

The paper proposes Resource Overall Equipment Cost Loss (ROECL), i.e. a new KPI expressed in monetary units that represents the total cost of losses (including production resource ones) caused by inefficiencies and deviations of the machine or equipment from its optimal operating status occurring over a specific time period. ROECL enables to quantify the variation of the product cost occurring when a machine or equipment changes its health status and to determine the actual product cost for a given production order. In the analysed case study, the most critical production orders showed an actual production cost about 60% higher than the minimal cost possible under the most efficient operating conditions.

The proposed approach may support both production and cost accounting managers during the identification of areas requiring attention and representing opportunities for improvement in terms of availability, performance, quality, and resource losses.

This chapter analyzes the efficiency levels of a circular economy (CE) with an emphasis on transaction costs. It examines the governance aspect of CE activities in comparison to the predominant linear value creation. Extant CE research in business studies tends to be descriptive and lacks a theoretical foundation, particularly in understanding CE management. Transaction cost theory explains efficiency in economic organizing, lending itself to the study of arrangements that maximize resource efficiency at continued economic virtue. The conceptualization proposes that CE transaction costs are greater than those within the linear economy (LE), primarily due to the uncertainties about reciprocal dependencies, looping material complexities, exchanging novel information, and increased contracting efforts. Geographically bounded and institutionally homogeneous CE initiatives may curb these rising costs. By bringing efficiency concerns into CE analysis, the chapter demonstrates the applicability of transaction cost theory and highlights CE relevance to international business by pointing out spatial choice implications.

Providing high-quality and cost-efficient care of older people is an important development priority for many health and social care systems in the world. This paper suggests a shift from acute, episodic and reactive hospital-centered care toward longitudinal, person-centered and proactive home-centered care. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge of a comprehensive development strategy for designing and providing home-centered care of older people.

The study design is based on qualitative research with an inductive approach. The authors study development initiatives at the national, regional and local levels of the Swedish health and social care system. The data collection methods included interviews (n = 54), meeting observations (n = 25) and document studies (n = 59).

The authors describe findings related to policy actions and system changes, attempts to achieve collaboration, integration and coordination, new forms of care offerings, characteristics of work settings at home and differences in patients' roles and participation at home and in the hospital.

The authors suggest home-centered care as a solution for providing person-centered and integrated care of older people and give examples of how this can be achieved.

The authors outline five propositions for research and development related to national policies, service modularity as a solution for customized and coordinated care, developing human resources and infrastructure for home settings, expanding services that enable older people living at home and patient co-creation.