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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 study aimed to bridge the gap between the financial measurement of process improvement ideas and Lean Six Sigma measurements. It was required to increase employee engagement in process improvement initiatives.

Through both a practical and theoretical application of the Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology, the researcher was able to design a process and a benefit measuring methodology that was acceptable by finance and aligns with the benefits expected from the elimination of the Lean wastes.

The project found that benefit measurement methodology is not understood by most employees, which leads to a lack of engagement in working on improvements. The result of the study was a model for employees to identify and quantify these benefits. This has resulted in a model for cost-benefit analysis aligning financial costs with non-value add waste costs and cost of poor-quality costs resulting in increased process improvement ideas and activity.

While this study was limited to one company, applying this methodology could benefit any company experiencing the same difficulties.

This is one of the first studies to try and cost the benefits of LSS projects both from an organisational and generic viewpoint.

In developing countries, how risk management technologies influence management accounting and control (MAC) practices is under-researched. By drawing on insights from institutional studies, this study aims to examine the multiple institutional pressures surrounding an entity and influencing its risk-based management control (RBC) system – that is, how RBC appears in an emerging market attributed to institutional multiplicity.

The authors used qualitative case study research methods to collect empirical evidence from a privately owned Egyptian insurance company.

The authors observed that in the transformation to risk-based controls, especially in socio-political settings such as Egypt, changes in MAC systems were consistent with the shifts in the institutional context. Along with changes in the institutional environment, the case company sought to configure its MAC system to be more risk-based to achieve its strategic goals effectively and maintain its sustainability.

This research provides a fuller view of risk-based management controls based on the social, professional and political perspectives central to the examined institutional environment. Moreover, unlike early studies that reported resistance to RBC, this case reveals the institutional dynamics contributing to the successful implementation of RBC in an emerging market.

This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.

A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.

The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.

Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.

The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.

This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

The authors explore the impact of an emerging technology, blockchain technology, on diverse governance mechanisms and sustainable supply chain practices and how its relationships with the linkage of these elements.

The methodology incorporates a literature review and a qualitative empirical analysis of the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standards. Expert opinions from various firms and organizations within the electronics sector are assessed. Through a thematic analysis, the relationships are identified and examined.

Data immutability, transparency and traceability capabilities of blockchain technology enhance the relationship between environmental standards and ecological supply chain sustainability practices. Although immature, the blockchain can influence the governance of supply chain sustainability practices. Immaturity of technology, lack of expertise, sharing information and trust have delayed adoption.

There is limited empirical evidence regarding blockchain's impact on governance mechanisms, specifically hybrid public-private mechanisms and sustainable supply chain practices. The study further evaluates how particular blockchain features may exert varying influences on these aspects and different sustainable supply chain traits. As an exploratory study, it proposes new areas for further research, including how blockchain's traceability function can improve sustainability standard adoption. Additionally, there is a call for integrating blockchain with technologies like IoT and sensors which may influence supply chain governance mechanisms, standards and sustainability practices.

The authors investigate the impact of standards compliance on the participation in the global value chain and labour value-added of Vietnam’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The authors use a three-period panel dataset of SMEs combined with Vietnam’s Provincial Competitiveness Index. The authors also use multiple econometric models; and with each model, the authors include all independent variables that are available from the study's data and that are suggested by the literature.

The authors find that standards compliance by Vietnam’s SMEs improved their participation in the global value chain via subcontracts with FDI multinational firms. The authors also find that standards compliance improved the value-added of labour in Vietnam’s SMEs, which is robust to the choice of econometric models.

The study's results suggest that better outcomes for firms and society will be possible if standards are recognised and respected.

This paper complements scant literature on the impact of standards compliance on global value chain participation via subcontracting work and labour value-added, especially in developing countries.

The study aims to explore the role of procurement of good governance (PGG) on value for money (VfM) achievement in public construction projects. By investigating various dimensions of PGG, including transparency, accountability, competition and integrity, this study provides insights into how these factors contribute to the successful achievement of VfM outcomes in public construction projects.

The data were sourced from 203 construction project practitioners from 24 selected procuring entities in Tanzania using a census approach and a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used for data analysis.

The findings of the study revealed a positive and significant impact of various dimensions of PGG on VfM. Specifically, transparency, accountability, competition and integrity were positively and significantly related to VfM, with p-values <0.001. Based on the study findings, we conclude that PGG is an important predictor of VfM achievement in public construction projects.

The study offers policy implications for streamlined PGG and VfM achievement in public construction projects. It is suggested that procuring entities can enhance VfM by enforcing compliance with the principles of PGG throughout the entirety of construction projects. In this case, streamlined legislative frameworks and control mechanisms are crucial components that could enhance PGG and the achievement of VfM.

This study contributes to the academic literature on the strategic role of PGG in enhancing VfM achievement. This is one of the research domains, which has not been adequately researched, particularly in Tanzania’s context. In addition, the study provides valuable insights to policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders involved in public construction projects to improve project outcomes and resource allocation.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how emerging open standards are replacing traditional industrial networks. Current industrial Ethernet networks are not interoperable; thus, limiting the potential capabilities for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). There is no forthcoming new generation fieldbus standard to integrate into the IIoT and Industry 4.0 revolution. The open platform communications unified architecture (OPC UA) time-sensitive networking (TSN) is a potential vendor-independent successor technology for the factory network. The OPC UA is a data exchange standard for industrial communication, and TSN is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standard for Ethernet that supports real-time behaviour. The merging of these open standard solutions can facilitate cross-vendor interoperability for Industry 4.0 and IIoT products.

A brief review of the history of the fieldbus standards is presented, which highlights the shortcomings for current industrial systems in meeting converged traffic solutions. An experimental system for the OPC UA TSN is described to demonstrate an approach to developing a three-layer factory network system with an emphasis on the field layer.

From the multitude of existing industrial network schemes, there is a convergence pathway in solutions based on TSN Ethernet and OPC UA. At the field level, basic timing measurements in this paper show that the OPC UA TSN can meet the basic critical timing requirements for a fieldbus network.

This paper uniquely focuses on the specific fieldbus standards elements of industrial networks evolution and traces the developments from the early history to the current developing integration in IIoT context.

Flexible staffing arrangements have become a permanent feature of employment in many industrial societies. This article examines how employers perceive the consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements. It presents and assesses theoretically informed hypotheses on organisational situations in which negative consequences are more likely to be perceived.

This study uses data (n = 761) from a bespoke employers survey, fielded in the Netherlands in 2019. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to measure and explain employers' perception of downsides to flexible staffing arrangements.

Employers report distinct downsides to the use of flexible staffing arrangements in terms of performance, management and employee well-being. Model estimates show that employers using flexible staffing arrangements to acquire specific expertise or to follow other organisations in their sector perceive more downsides.

Empirical research on employers' perception of the disadvantageous consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements is scarce. This article highlights that this practice can discourage investments in human capital and lead to a sense of insecurity among young workers. It draws attention to the relevance of distinguishing between strategic motives when trying to understand organisational behaviour regarding non-standard forms of employment.