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Technological developments and new customer expectations of immediacy have driven businesses to adopt on-demand service models. The purpose of this paper is to study the characteristics of a range of on-demand services in order to better understand the meaning of “on-demand” and its implications for service management. This enables the on-demand service logic to be applied to other service contexts, where it may add value for customers.

The study starts with a focused literature review and continues with a multiple case study methodology, as the on-demand service concept is in the early stages of theory development. Seven cases were studied, based on a maximum variation sampling strategy.

The results show that on-demand services are characterized by three interrelated characteristics: being highly available, responsive and scalable. Analysis further reveals that on-demand services display differences within the conceptual boundaries of these characteristics, i.e. they vary in terms of their availability, responsiveness and scalability.

Drawing on these findings, the study contributes to the service literature by being the first to specifically conceptualize and define the on-demand services concept and reveal three key characteristics that clarify the distinctive nature of this service type. Accordingly, on-demand services are clearly differentiated from other services. Additionally, the paper discusses the variety within on-demand services and develops an on-demand service continuum that gives detailed insights into the conceptual variations within such services.

Defence supply chains (SCs) aim at operational outcomes, and armed forces depend on them to provide availability and preparedness in peace and sustainability in war. Previous research has focussed on strategies for SCs aiming at financial outcomes. This raises the question of how suitable commercial supply chain strategies (SCSs) are for supply chain design (SCD) in defence. The purpose of this paper is to explain the constructs of SCSs that satisfy military operational requirements and to propose SCSs that are appropriate in defence.

This paper reports on a Delphi study with 20 experts from Swedish defence authorities. Through three Delphi rounds, two workshops and a validation round, these experts contributed to the reported findings.

The findings demonstrate that commercial SC constructs are acceptable and applicable in defence but not sufficient. An additional strategy is required to satisfy requirements on availability, preparedness and sustainability. The paper shows that different requirements in peace and war make it challenging to design suitable defence SCs and proposes eight SCSs that satisfy these requirements.

The results emanate from the Swedish defence context and further research is required for generalisation.

This paper extends theory by investigating SCs aiming at operational outcomes. For managers in companies and defence authorities, it explicates how the unique issues in defence must influence SCD to satisfy operational requirements.

While known by many names, qualifying exams function as gatekeepers to graduate student advancement to PhD candidacy, yet there has been little formal study on best qualifying exam practices particularly in biomedical and related STEM PhD programs. The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of qualifying exams through an examination of the literature and exploration of university-wide policies.

The authors conducted a literature review of studies on qualifying exams and completed an external evaluation of peer institutions’ and internal institutional qualifying exam requirements to inform our discussion of qualifying exams practices in PhD training at a research-intensive US institutions.

This study identified the need for more research on qualifying exams to establish evidence-based best practices. The authors found a wide variety of qualifying exam formats, with little evidence in support for specific formats. The authors also found little evidence that student expectations are made clear. The lack of evidence-based best practices coupled with insufficient clarity for students has a real potential to disadvantage PhD students, particularly first generation, underrepresented minority, international and/or other trainees who are not privileged or socialized to navigate training environments with vague landmarks such as the qualifying exams.

There are very few studies that evaluate qualifying exams in US doctoral education, particularly in STEM fields, and to the authors’ knowledge, there has been no analysis of campus-wide policies on qualifying exams reported. The lack of evidence for best practices and the need for to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of qualifying exams are discussed.