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This study aims to investigate the adoption of Quality 4.0 (Q4.0) and assess the critical failure factors (CFFs) for its implementation and how its failure is measured.

A qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with quality managers and executives was conducted to establish the CFFs for Q4.0.

The significant CFFs highlighted were resistance to change and a lack of understanding of the concept of Q4.0. There was also a complete lack of access to or availability of training around Q4.0.

The study enhances the body of literature on Q4.0 and is one of the first research studies to provide insight into the CFFs of Q4.0.

Based on the discussions with experts in the area of quality in various large and small organizations, one can understand the types of Q4.0 initiatives and the CFFs of Q4.0. By identifying the CFFs, one can establish the steps for improvements for organizations worldwide if they want to implement Q4.0 in the future on the competitive global stage.

The concept of Q4.0 is at the very nascent stage, and thus, the CFFs have not been found in the extant literature. As a result, the article aids businesses in understanding possible problems that might derail their Q4.0 activities.

The purpose of this article is to collectively work towards understanding and resolving the COVID-19 pandemic issues based on Messersmith's (2018) song, We All Do Better When We All Do Better. Furthermore, Our Identity should not Remain Marked to understand and overcome the workings of a virus whose Identity [DOES NOT] Remain Marked!

Practice-based creation coalesced with analytical writing.

We All Do Better When We All Do Better! The COVID-19 pandemic corresponds to crucial fundamental assumptions which have appeared from adversity anthropology over the past epochs. First, that environmental catastrophes infrequently surface, because calamities are communal and reliant on trans-species relationships. Furthermore, they appear from a blend of threat and susceptibility, with susceptibility as the causal issue. Second, the disaster occurs at manifold ranks concurrently, with responses to a threat; it endangers all the weak issues along with the original threat (Kelman, 2020).

Throughout COVID-19 much of the media left cavernous time gaps, masks turned into tools of rebellion, and power and violence were exercised indirectly on the vulnerable. The virtual campuses of WhatsApp, Facebook and conventional broadcasting are disseminating specialist knowledge in pandemic science; now everyone is certified. They voice a nouveau-vindictive biopolitical language, so we rise towards COVID-19 denialism. And, we turn into unthinking puppets who speed up the transfer of misinformation that moves like an “asymptomatic” cough through an overcrowded bar or beach as all inhale-consume it.

Part of pandemic planning and dealing with the consequential calamity is to integrate instantly the disastrous aspects caused by lockdowns. In this surge of terror and apprehension, we cannot afford to isolate people, even more through shame and prejudice. Each one of us is accountable to support each other and advocate for an all-inclusive healthy community.

Unescapably, as an immigrant, I had never dreaded this “home away from home” and stay anyhow, and I always had something to write home about. But recently I have had “Nothing to Write Home About,” (Madan-Soni, 2019). Migrant employees in most countries including international students were not much more than uninvited guests positioned in a conventional neighbourhood. It is as if your every expatriate-neighbour was plague-ridden and waiting to infect you. But the virus required no genomic or national identity or visa rank, it could cut all lines to get to you. The virus's Identity Is [Not] Marked.

Our Identity Remains Marked (2020) is my probing visual description of how Our Identity Remains Marked, layered, and stratified in stone under authoritarian structures of patriarchy. I read and researched about how Our Identity Remains Marked when humans are othered through the colours of race, gender, national and immigrant status, including all Earth others. Crafting things, creating something engages with a developing field of ecofeminist research on visual and embodied approaches and creativity (VEM Network, n.d; Reynolds, 2021). Painting offered me a therapeutic way of thinking and of using my senses.

The purpose of this study/paper Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017) is to show the author’s non-site intervention of authoritarian – undemocratic maneuvering of both women’s and earth’s “golden” wombs. The burning fossil fuels in myriads of flame colors, signal the power and distress of Earth’s wounded womb, memories of war, environmental destruction and human fatality, and descend to decline as extinguished Oil Drops (2017), creating a void. Global warming poses a problem for fossil fuel systems and those who profit from them.

The title of this paper has been inspired by Cara New Dagget’s book, The Birth of Energy (2019), posited in the nascent realm of energy “mortalities.” Now, confronting a world warmed by sweltering fossil fuels, the book provides us with a direction to thinking energy beyond the “Calvinist view” of everlasting work. Spellbound by Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017), the audience canter around the outer surface of the centrally positioned, circulating luminous “acrylic” oil drops highlighted by hundreds of mono-frequency lamps impregnated with desert biodiversity. A closer look takes spectators through a fiery desert, across the fossil fuel fields into the depths of its scorching oil wells, its womb, as they sense the “real-time” catastrophe that had occurred beyond the gallery wall.

These artists’ objective with their interventions is to “root it to the contour of the […] land, so that it’s permanently there and subject to the weathering,” so the audience is “sort of curious to see what will happen to this” (Schmidt, 1996, 225) through the course of time. The works resists the resistance of nature and social culture, as well as of body and intellect by emphasizing the intransience, however complex, of human beings with the ecosphere in which they survive (Novak 2002, 23). The surfacing of the under-surface of the land and ocean life triggers the idea of the private space, which involves role-play, gender norms and the control over women's lives in the capitalist and Gulf societies. Authoritarianism, fossil fuel capital, high-energy use and militarism make the climate politics critical to planetary security. This combustible convergence gave birth to Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017).

Ganz reminds us that devouring less energy appears to be almost unharmonious with the current politics of being “Modern.” Sacrificing energy resonances with abstinence at best, and widespread death and injustice at worst. But, consuming an overload of energy is incompatible with a multispecies existence on Earth. Scientists caution “a cascade of feedbacks could push the Earth System irreversibly onto a ‘Hothouse Earth’ pathway,” the consequence of which could be an uninhabitable, unsafe globe for beings (Steffen et al., 2018). Even though it sounds vivid, it is hard to overstate the crisis in the midst of what environmentalists and biologists term as a sixth extinction event (Kolbert, 2014), in line with a “biological annihilation” that paints “a dismal picture of the future of life, including human life” (Ceballos et al., 2017).

It is not only the land’s womb that we have hurt; we have miffed the hearts of the water network, and “Othered” and the wombs of many women and most surfaces of the Earth have been penetrated, unconsented! To sustain a biodiverse sphere, to pause the deaths of the planet’s flora and fauna and to thrive on Earth, we need to work on renewable sources of energy based on “new collectively shared values, principles, and frameworks” (Steffen et al., 2018). We need to stop Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017). Are we ready to accept the challenge? (Lau and Traulsen, 2016)

Petro-masculinity has multiple global dimensions and manifests in multiple and locally specific ways (Dagget, 2018). This encourages the geographically diverse artists discussed in this paper to embrace alternative visions, to make bold and explicit statements on gender and global diversity, equity and rights. Through history, women, in specific, embodied the entirety of the Ecocene and its life cycle and explored it in the context of their own relationships, health, sexuality, fertility, reproduction, childbirth, illness and inescapably death. The artists’ interventions’ visual physiognomies and intentions point toward a comprehensive agenda of action that leads to remedial courses toward reinstating the biome to a healthy condition.

Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017) enacts the historic all-consuming fires, penetrating the “shared environment,” burning the fossilized fuels exuding from Earth’s penetrated womb. The higher cone-shaped oil drops irradiate the intense dazzling images of oil wells in flames and the desert flora and fauna nestled within the scorching inner arena. This aligns with the private space provided to women. The wombs are smothered in the fuming fires of the Gulf war. The darker, narrower lower oil drops, iconic of the remnants of fossil fuel, are the residual sludge within which the land and water species are enmeshed and ensnared to death. The potency of the enactment of the drops “enables the viewer to see [him/]herself seeing, to become aware of how she perceives the world around [him/]her and in doing so participates in shaping it” (Eliasson, 2009, p. 25) as a form of engagement, which involves an “attention to time, movement and changeability” (pp. 18–21).

Industry 4.0 (I 4.0) consists of numerous digital technologies applied in organizations strategically to add value to the customer. Different organizations have varying degrees of technological capability and strategic flexibility. This paper aims to explore the relationship between technological capability and strategic flexibility on successful implementation of I 4.0.

A qualitative study using a grounded theory approach is conducted on 34 senior managers from Europe and North America who have implemented I 4.0 participated in this study through a theoretical sampling frame.

This study finds that technological capability and strategic flexibility have an impact on the successful implementation of I 4.0. The study also finds that different dimensions of technological capability also impact I 4.0. The interactive effect of strategic flexibility and technological capability is also noted. The study also develops a framework for successful implementation of I 4.0.

This study can be used by managers while implementing I 4.0 to devise a strategic roadmap for acquiring technological capability with I 4.0 technologies. Besides, it will help the managers to consider the bidirectional relationship between technological capability and strategic flexibility while formulating I 4.0 strategy for successful implementation of I 4.0 in their organizations.

Previous studies have examined the importance of I 4.0 technologies. However, this study extends the previous works by suggesting how technological capability and strategic flexibility can help in the successful implementation of I 4.0.

This study aims to carry out a systematic literature review (SLR) on the integration of Lean, Industry 4.0 and the supply chain or the Lean Supply Chain (LSC) 4.0. The research analyses the current research on the LSC 4.0 concept in an increasingly digitalised world. The authors present the benefits, motivations, critical success factors and challenges of integrating the LSC with Industry 4.0 technologies within this emerging area of research.

An SLR is carried out on how Lean can be integrated with Supply Chain 4.0. Using the search strings of “Lean Supply Chain 4.0,” “Lean Supply Chain Management 4.0” and “Lean Supply Chain Digitalisation,” a review of published literature was carried out via searches on academic databases.

Industry 4.0 has a synergistic effect on the LSC and, depending on the technology and sector applied in, can complement and enhance the LSC. Similarly, the LSC is a precursor for digitalisation. There are considerable implications in the LSC 4.0 for green and sustainable processes.

Organisations can use this study to understand what the LSC 4.0 means to industry, the benefits and motivating factors for implementation, the critical success factors (CSFs) to implementation and the challenges for implementation.

This study adds to state of the art around the LSC 4.0 and future directions in this nascent research area. This study will aid organisations in understanding how Lean, supply chain management and Industry 4.0 can be integrated.

The purpose is to understand how the role of quality functions might evolve amidst digitalisation and an increased focus on services. This study focuses on customer feedback and how it can function as activation triggers for developing absorptive capacity, as well as how it relates to the value creation processes.

Following a qualitative research design, the authors gathered primary data from interviews with quality managers at 17 UK and Swedish firms and triangulated it with secondary information from the firms' web pages.

The findings show that customer feedback-based activation triggers can support development of absorptive capacity in the quality function if there are established processes for acting on customer feedback. This is often the case for codified feedback, which normally concerns products. However, digitalisation offers new opportunities of engaging in value co-creation, and firms need to develop digital capabilities to manage new technologies and data analytic tools. For personalised feedback (the main category of service-related feedback), established processes are missing.

This study work contributes to knowledge about how quality functions respond to customer feedback on both products and services. It clarifies why the quality function sometimes struggles to contribute to service quality as much as to product quality. From a theory development perspective, the authors contribute to understanding customer feedback-based activation triggers, how they lead to development of absorptive capacity and their relation to value co-creation on a functional level.

This research examines the interrelationships between market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector. Due to the conflicting results associated with each orientation's influence on firm performance, some researchers advanced that scholars should resort to concurrent observation of the constructs. To the researchers, concurrent deployment of the constructs by businesses is likely to result in an enhanced performance. However, what is lacking in their proposition is how the deployment of these resources should be, thereby leading to a knowledge gap in the literature. The aforementioned gap is what this paper seeks to address.

The study employed deductive research approach, and data were collected from 366 SMEs' owners or owner-managers of SMEs in two metropoles in Ghana. For this study, the hand delivery and collection of questionnaire technique was deployed. The reason is that most respondents may be reluctant to respond to the questionnaires through the post or Internet. Partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed for the data analysis due to its importance in allowing the testing of relationships among constructs. Furthermore, seven-point Likert scale was used to generate responses from the respondents.

The result indicates that MO and EO have a positive and significant influence on each other. However, the influence of EO on MO is greater. Therefore, when owners of SMEs are embracing the two constructs in their businesses, EO should precede MO. The finding is a novelty of this study. Through this result, the owners of SMEs would have knowledge of embracing EO before MO during the employment of the two constructs in their firms. The study further revealed that not all the components of MO have positive and significant influence on EO, and the reverse is true. Without this study, the owners of SMEs would have placed equal attention on each construct and their components. The study also indicates that deployment of MO in its composite form rather than components is the best way for improving EO.

The more SMEs engage in MO activities, the likelihood of an increase in their entrepreneurial spirit and the opposite is true. However, engaging in more EO activities would result in higher MO than the reverse.

The findings add to the empirical literature by revealing the interrelationships between MO and EO, which serve as a guide to owners of SMEs and practitioners in their concurrent deployment of the two constructs. The findings would also open replication doors for future researchers in different settings.

This study aims to demonstrate how integration is achieved in an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design by assessing the effect of collaborative cultural dimensions on supply chain collaboration amongst firms in Ghana's downstream petroleum sector. Specifically, the study examined how collectivism, long-term orientation, power symmetry, as well as uncertainty avoidance influence supply chain collaboration. Besides, it also demonstrates how integration is achieved in an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design.

Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the study employed a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis of quantitative data (N = 166), followed by a thematic analysis of eight semi-structured interviews to explain how and why the dimensions of collaborative culture impact supply chain collaboration.

The quantitative findings suggest that three out of the four dimensions of culture significantly predict supply chain collaboration. Integrating the quantitative and qualitative findings suggests convergence between the results of the quantitative and qualitative phases of the study as the qualitative results compliment the quantitative findings and offer more nuanced understanding of the cultural mechanisms responsible for successful supply chain collaborations.

The findings provide managers in the downstream petroleum sector with insights into how and why the dimensions of collaborative culture influence supply chain collaboration. These managers should, therefore, build corporate cultures characterized with high levels of long-term orientation, power symmetry and uncertainty avoidance.

Owing to the role of culture in successful supply chain collaborations, this study, through a mixed-methods design, links the dimensions of collaborative culture with supply chain collaboration in the downstream petroleum sector. Moreover, it demonstrates how integration and complementarity are achieved at the study design, methods, as well as the interpretation and reporting levels of an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design.

Total quality management is a valuable approach to continuously improve the quality of organizations; however, scholars debate its applicability to services, which require specific best practices that are different from those related to manufacturing. Moreover, digitization is pervading all kinds of services, but little has been written about total quality service practices in digital-based companies. For this purpose, the authors provide a holistic model of total quality service that reflects the peculiarities of such companies, guided by the question: how do total quality service practices change in digital-based service organizations?

The authors conduct an illustrative case study on Healthware Group, a global integrated digital health organization, to evaluate theoretical assumptions about total quality service practices in the digital environment.

The findings allow to validate the model provided. In addition, the study enables them to observe the changes the authors are witnessing in service provision in the digital era and the consequent transformation of best practices. To be accurate, the authors cannot refer to a full transformation in digital-based companies but rather to the enrichment and extension of TQS practices. The best illustration of these conclusions has been summarized in a set of propositions corresponding to seven of the key levers of a TQS model.

The paper represents the first attempt to discuss the relationship between total quality service and digitalization, offering a set of propositions for academics and insights for practitioners. The model can be used as a tool to visualize the different levers that successful implementation of TQS in digital-based services companies can rely on.

The main objective of this study is to investigate what are the critical success factors that exist for continuous improvement (CI) methodology deployment in the Irish medical technology (MedTech) industry. The research will, in particular, seek to establish if the highly regulated nature of the global MedTech industry is an additional critical failure factor (CFF) for the deployment of CI methodology. The study involves the analysis of the benefits, challenges, CFFs and tools most utilised for the application to the deployment of CI methodologies in the Irish medical device (MD) industry.

A quantitative survey was utilised in this study. The main participants were made up of senior quality professionals working in operational excellence, quality consultants, quality directors, quality engineers, quality managers and quality supervisors working in both manufacturing and service sectors from Irish MD companies. A total of 94 participants from the Irish MedTech industry responded to the survey.

The main finding of this study is that 42% of participants perceived that a highly regulated environment was a CFF to CI, whilst 79% of respondents utilised Lean Six Sigma in their organisations, and productivity and financial factors were found to be the highest reasons for CI deployment amongst the Irish MedTech industry. The top CFFs highlighted for CI in regulated industries were fear of extra validation activity, compliance versus quality culture and a regulatory culture of being “safe”. Another relevant finding presented in this paper is that just over 48% of participants felt that CI tools are very strongly integrated into the industries quality management systems (QMSs) such as the corrective and preventative action system, non-conformance and audit systems.

All data collected in the survey came from professionals working for Irish indigenous and multinational MedTech companies. It is important to highlight that n = 94 is a low sample size, which is enough for a preliminary survey but reinforcing the limitation in terms of generalisation of the results. A further study on a wider European and global scale as well as a comparison with the highly regulated pharma industry would be informative.

The authors understand that this is the very first research focussed on the CFFs for CI in the MedTech/MD manufacturing industry with a specific focus on the highly regulated nature of the industry as a potential CFF. The results of this study represent an important first step towards a full understanding of the applicability and use of CI in the medical-device-manufacturing industries on a global scale.