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Sustainability is increasingly at the forefront of the public debate in Europe and the world. However, despite this increased interest, research seems to have partially ignored the importance of its social dimension and the issues related to social equity, people care, protection and personal development at all stages of society and, consequently, of business. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating the “soft” dimensions of sustainability, integrating its mainstream “technical storyline” with a “human/social storyline”.

In this paper a taxonomy of the main key drivers of the soft dimension of sustainability is proposed and tested on a sample of Italian companies. Through interviews with their managers, actions and needs in terms of sustainability soft drivers are identified.

The achieved results demonstrated that the case companies differently integrated the soft dimensions of sustainability within their companies. All the sample companies are aware of the role of social sustainability. According to the proposed taxonomy, the systemic drivers of soft sustainability are the main shared ones.

The paper provides new insights into the essence of the organizational soft dimensions and their centrality in the overall achievement of sustainability for companies. It also offers managerial insights into how to effectively manage these dimensions and policy implications about the need for clearer consideration.

The study aims to deepen existing knowledge on the specific role of soft total quality management (TQM) practices in the ferry sector. Over the last decade, TQM practices have been thoroughly restructured, allowing us to develop an appropriate framework through which the relevance of each practice to this particular sector can be explained.

A narrative case study has been conducted to enhance the quality orientation and soft TQM practices adopted by a medium-sized company in the ferry sector.

The study identifies five soft TQM practices that offer valuable contributions in terms of quality orientation. These are organised into a configurational and systemic approach according to a three-level framework. At the macro level, a customer-orientated approach is paramount, as this orientation clearly points out the fundamental values of TQM. Coherently, at the micro-level, employees should be trained, involved, and empowered to truly internalise and behave according to a quality orientation. At the meso-level, dedicated leadership should support these practices and foster their effectiveness across the organisational structure.

The main limitation of this study is related to its narrative analysis. More empirically-grounded research should be used in the future to test the validity of the model.

TQM practices can leverage soft aspects, finding mutual integrations and offering reciprocal support if a bundle of practices is enforced and co-present across several layers of an organisational structure.

The model offers a configurational approach to help the ferry sector in leveraging soft TQM practices to implement TQM initiatives successfully. This is subject to external contingencies and thus requires adaptability and flexibility.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of soft total quality management (TQM) on organizational performance in the Jordanian pharmaceutical manufacturing sector using the balanced scorecard (BSC) perspective. It also examines the indirect effect of soft TQM on financial performance through BSC non-financial perspectives.

The study is based on survey data collected from 197 employees in managerial and non-managerial positions working in Jordanian pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. Validity and reliability analyses were performed, and the study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results indicated that soft TQM positively affected all BSC perspectives. Customer perspective positively affected financial performance while innovation and learning perspective and internal business process perspective did not. In addition, only customer perspective significantly mediated the relationship between soft TQM and financial performance.

This is one of the first papers to examine the effect of soft TQM on organizational performance in terms of BSC perspective in the pharmaceutical sector. In addition, this paper is the first to examine the mediating effects of the BSC non-financial perspectives on the relationship between soft TQM and financial performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the consumption patterns and attitudes towards soft drinks among Indian youth.

A questionnaire was used to investigate consumption patterns, attitudes, and socio-demographic profiles of college-attending respondents between the ages of 18 and 30. Cluster analysis and factor analysis were undertaken to obtain a better understanding of the attitudes among young consumers towards soft drinks. A logistic regression model was used as a predictor to distinguish between frequent and non-frequent soft drink consumers.

Indian youths preferred diet drinks and fruit juices more than regular soft drinks. Soft drinks were mostly consumed as distinct drinks (not as substitutes) and on specific occasions. Easy availability of soft drinks at the locations closure to consumers was a critical factor in determining consumers’ purchase and consumption level. Attitude towards the utility and nutritional dimensions of soft drinks had a positive and significant influence on the frequency of consumption.

To remain competitive, soft drinks’ companies need to focus more on healthy products and those that are refreshing and relaxing.

Regulating the availability of soft drinks in and around educational institutions will affect consumption of soft drinks and reduce diseases.

Only a few studies investigating consumption patterns and attitudes among Indian youth towards soft drinks. This study attempts to fill the gap.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model in order to select the most appropriate process for business process reengineering (BPR) through evaluation of the degree of change.

Corporations usually work in an environment in which business requirements are subject to continuous inevitable change. Therefore, in order to sustain competitive advantage, the corporations are required to continuously configure their business processes and operations with respect to these changes. This paper presents a model for evaluating change in an organization. By applying this model, one can select appropriate processes for reengineering.

The proposed model was confirmed by consulting with engineering companies and was also implemented in one of them. This model includes five soft and hard dimensions, 19 factors, as well as 44 indicators for measuring the changes. Eventually, the proposed model was carried out in “recruitment” and “performance measurement” processes in a consulting engineering company in the water industry.

The paper shows that by applying the selected best practices in BPR projects, some degrees of changes are imposed upon corporation in which soft factors usually cannot be assimilated to these changes. This condition leads to a high resistance and finally the failure of the changes in corporation.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the questions as to how important skills are; which skills can best be learned at school, and which skills can be acquired better in the workplace.

The authors exploit data from a survey among professional tertiary education and training business administration students and their employers in Switzerland.

The authors find that skills used in the business processes strategic management, human resource management, organizational design, and project management are most suitable to be taught in school. However, the results further suggest that soft skills can be acquired more effectively in the workplace than at school. The only exceptions are analytical thinking, joy of learning and organizational soft skills, for which school and workplace are similarly suitable.

The paper provides empirical evidence regarding the optimal choice of the learning place for both human resource managers as well as educational decision makers who aim to combine education and training, e.g. in an apprenticeship.

Little evidence regarding the optimal learning place exists.

This study investigates the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), total quality management (TQM), and corporate sustainability (CS). Specifically, the authors propose that TQM mediates the relationship between OCB and CS. The authors intend to demonstrate that TQM practice may be able to balance the interests of all stakeholders and hence improve the performance of all three CS elements, namely economic, social and environmental.

The authors designed a survey questionnaire. The authors then collected data from managers that were in charge of quality control in 216 companies. Hypotheses were developed and regression and path analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

OCB has a positive effect on both TQM and CS. TQM also is positively related to CS. Further, TQM mediates the relationship between OCB and CS. Further analyses show that the full mediation only applies to economic aspects of CS but not social and environmental.

Companies that aim to achieve overall CS performance should not only encourage OCB in an organization, but also pay attention to TQM. Moreover, when deciding on hard and soft TQM, the priority should be given to hard TQM.

The authors investigate the relationship between OCB, TQM and CS in detail. The authors treat TQM in two elements of soft TQM and hard TQM while treating CS performance in three elements of economic, social and environmental performances. The authors further examine how both hard and soft TQM impacts CS performance differently.

Industry 4.0 or I4.0 has transformed the manufacturing landscape by integrating social and technical factors by means of the sociotechnical framework. However, the sociotechnical aspects of digitalization of total quality management (TQM 4.0), especially in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) remain largely unexplored. This groundbreaking research endeavors to delve into the pivotal role played by social (soft) and technical (hard) TQM 4.0 in driving I4.0 readiness among SMEs.

A research framework has been developed by harnessing the principles of Socio-technical systems (STS) theory. Data collection from a sample of 310 randomly selected SMEs manufacturing in Malaysia through an online survey approach. The collected data is then subjected to analysis using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) through SmartPLS.

The study findings indicate that both hard and soft TQM 4.0 factors are vital to promoting I4.0 readiness (R² = 0.677) and actual implementation (R² = 0.216). Surprisingly, the findings highlight that customer-related construct has no impact on hard TQM 4.0 attributes. Furthermore, hard TQM 4.0 factors have played a partial mediating role on the relationship of soft TQM 4.0 and I4.0 attributes (20% = VAF = 80%).

This is a novel research as it explores the underexplored domain of sociotechnical aspects of TQM 4.0 within SMEs amid I4.0 transformation. The study distinctive contributes include revealing the pivotal role of both soft and hard TQM 4.0 factors in driving I4.0 readiness, emphasizing the primacy of people-related dimensions for successful implementation in manufacturing SMEs.

The purpose is to examine the role of TQM in a strategy‐TQM‐performance model. More specifically, it seeks to investigate whether TQM has a driving role in the formation of strategy or has a mediating effect in the strategy‐performance relationship.

A survey was used to collect data. The instrument was assessed for its validity and reliability. Structural equation modelling was employed.

TQM influences strategy formulation process and it is a dynamic resource that contributes to the achievement of a sustainable competitive advantage. In addition, soft TQM has a higher impact than hard TQM on competitive strategy formulation and on performance.

The model developed and tested can be enriching to the TQM, strategic management, and quality management fields. Future research is recommended to use methods other than self‐report questionnaires and to account for certain behavioral factors that can influence the relationships investigated in the study.

The findings provide insights to the need to integrate TQM with the various stages of the strategy formulation process, with an emphasis on the soft elements of TQM, including customer satisfaction, management and leadership, and employee relations.

Despite the remarkable contributions of existent research, there is a lack of substantive research that examines the relationship between the hard and soft components of TQM on one hand and the two types of competitive strategy – differentiation and cost leadership – on the other. This gap is filled by this study.

This study aims to investigate consumer ethnocentrism and determine its impact on actual purchasing behavior in relation to six product categories. It also examines the role of demographic variables as moderators in the relationship between ethnocentric tendencies and purchasing behavior.

A total of 467 completed questionnaires were obtained through convenience and snowball sampling. Data were analyzed using SPSS-24 and AMOS-23 software: SPSS to conduct the exploratory factor analysis and AMOS for the confirmatory factor analysis. Regression analysis was performed to determine the effect of ethnocentrism on purchasing behaviors; the SPSS process was used to test the moderating effects.

The consumer ethnocentric tendencies scale was collected in two dimensions: hard ethnocentrism, which influences actual purchasing behavior in five product categories; and soft ethnocentrism, which influences actual purchasing behavior in only two product categories. The results show that the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on purchasing behavior differs across product categories. Further, gender, marital status and personal income moderate this relationship.

Few studies investigate purchasing behavior across several product categories and the literature on consumer ethnocentrism does not address the impact of demographic variables as moderators in consumer behavior. This study contributes to the existing literature in four ways. First, it was conducted in Azerbaijan, a country with specific characteristics. Second, it examines the impact of ethnocentric tendencies on actual purchasing behavior. Third, it examines purchasing behavior in relation to six different product categories. Fourth, the moderating effect of demographic variables was tested.