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The purpose of paper is twofold. First, it provides a consolidated overview of the existing literature on “big data” and second, it presents the current trends and opens up various future directions for researchers who wish to explore and contribute in this rapidly evolving field.

To achieve the objective of this study, the bibliographic and network techniques of citation and co-citation analysis was adopted. This analysis involved an assessment of 57 articles published over a period of five years (2011-2015) in ten selected journals.

The findings reveal that the number of articles devoted to the study of “big data” has increased rapidly in recent years. Moreover, the study identifies some of the most influential articles of this area. Finally, the paper highlights the new trends and discusses the challenges associated with big data.

This study focusses only on big data concepts, trends, and challenges and excludes research on its analytics. Thus, researchers may explore and extend this area of research.

To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first study to review the literature on big data by using citation and co-citation analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a performance measurement model for the entire supply chain that includes balanced set of performance measures.

The conceptual model was validated empirically in case companies through semi-structured interviews and content analysis of documents.

Performance measures are important to companies in the natural gas (NG) supply chain to assess performance against set objectives in order to identify loopholes in performance. This is important in order to remain competitive. The research found that both financial and non-financial performance measures are employed by companies to measure performance. The results also indicate that six performance criteria of the conceptual model are vital to the NG supply chain. In addition, all identified measures under each of criteria impact on performance of the supply chain with customer service and financial criteria considered as most important.

The empirical data collected from the NG supply chain in Ghana were relatively small; however, additional information was obtained from company data and relevant magazines. Also, getting through to specific target participant was a challenge due to busy work schedule but, in case companies where it proved impossible, other staff who were also involved in supply chain were interviewed instead.

This research provides a useful source of information on performance measures for practitioners in the NG industry who wish to measure performance of their supply chain. It also provides areas from which further and additional research can be carried out.

This research provides performance measures for the NG supply chain of Ghana. Typically, performance measures have been evaluated in discrete manufacturing supply chain, petroleum industry supply chain and oil industry supply chain. This research expanded on ideas from these studies and applied them in the NG industry.

With considerable international awareness of circular economy (CE), the purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework, informed by institutional theory and upper echelon theory (UET), to explain how top management commitment (TMC) mediates the relationship between external pressures and supplier relationship management (SRM) practices for CE.

The authors test the hypotheses using cross-sectional data gathered using a survey of companies involved in sustainability practices.

The results of the hierarchical regression and mediating regression analyses suggest that TMC positively mediates the effect of external institutional pressures on SRM.

The authors advance existing theory by integrating institutional theory and UET to explain SRM practices in sustainable supply networks. Furthermore, the authors offer guidance to managers who would like to engage in leveraging SRM in sustainable supply networks and outline future research directions.

This research focuses on the implementation of Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory management, drawing on a case study of a commercial livestock farm located in a swampy area of southern Nigeria.

The research adopts a qualitative approach. Interviews and workshops were used for data collection.

Findings from the study reveal that the commitment on the internal organisational members and skilful collaboration with supply chain partners are required for effective use of JIT, especially in an odd contextual situation such as the case in this study. This also justifies the embraced of additional cost of securing JIT inventory management practices such as the situation in the case study organisation that could not allow conventional inventory management.

It is suggested for further research to consider the topic from a mixed method approach as well as extend the focus on the possibility of legal regulations and government support to exceptional operational practices among organisations, especially those in the context of the food production sector, where this research was based.

The purpose of this study is to explore the link between continuous improvement (CI) and dynamic actor associations through a case of lean thinking implementation in healthcare.

The paper follows the qualitative case study strategy. Data were collected by interviewing (tape‐recording) managers and staff, analysing relevant written project material, and conducting non‐participant observations.

The findings suggest that the implementation of CI depends on the emergence of a “favouring” network from the dynamic associations between heterogeneous entities. This network aims at facilitating change leadership, establishing behaviour/culture prone to CI, and constructing a behaviour non‐resistant to CI needed for creating competencies for the continuous roll‐outs of such changes. Continuous translation is the underlying mechanism for establishing the favouring network.

The paper addresses the literature gap regarding the role of dynamic actor associations in shaping CI in a public sector context. It does not aim at generalising the results of the case study; it informs current theory by revealing that the success of CI deployment depends on the emergence of a CI‐favouring network, which will continuously transform opposing views into accepting CI.

At a time when the number and seriousness of disasters seems to be increasing, humanitarian organizations find that besides their challenging work they are faced with problems caused by a high level of turnover of staff. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Based on the 24 variables leading to employee turnover identified by Cotton and Tuttle (1986) the authors analyse the work-related, external and personal factors affecting employee turnover in humanitarian organizations, using a survey of members of the Indian National Institute of Disaster Management.

Results indicated that the three factors are present. Of the external factors, only employment perception had a factor loading over 0.7; of the work-related factors, all were significant; of the personal factors, biographical information, marital status, number of dependants, aptitude and ability and intelligence had the highest loadings. It was also shown that behavioural intentions and net expectation were not significant.

Only a few studies reported on employee turnover and its reasons are not well understood in the context of humanitarian organizations. To address this need, the aim of this paper is to explore the personal reasons impacting employee turnover in humanitarian organizations. In the study the authors have adopted 24 variables used in Cotton and Tuttle (1986) and classified into constructs to explain turnover, and further tested the model using data gathered from humanitarian organizations.

The importance of networks in effecting the outcomes of change processes is well‐established in the literature. Whilst extant literature focuses predominantly on the structural properties of networks, our purpose is to explore the dynamics of network emergence that give rise to the outcomes of process improvement interventions. Through the use of actor‐network theory (ANT), the purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics in the implementation of a process improvement methodology in the complex organisational setting of a UK National Health Service Trust. The paper illustrates the utility of ANT in articulating the dynamic nature of networks underpinning socio‐technical change, and our analysis provides insights for the management process change initiatives.

This is a rich qualitative study in the Pathology Unit of a UK National Health Service Trust, using ANT as the theoretical lens for tracking the emergence and transformation of networks of individuals over the course of a management intervention to promote “Lean thinking” for process performance improvements.

ANT is useful for explicitly tracking how organisational players shift their positions and network allegiances over time, and for identifying objects and actions that are effective in engaging individuals in networks which enable transition to a Lean process. It is important to attend to the dynamics of the process of change and devise appropriate timely interventions enabling actors to shift their own positions towards a desired outcome.

The paper makes the case for using theoretical frameworks developed outside the operations management to develop insights for designing process interventions.

By understanding the role of shifting networks managers can use timely interventions during the process implementation to facilitate the transition to Lean processes, e.g. using demonstrable senior leadership commitment and visual communication.

The emergent field of Internet of Things (IoT) has been evolving rapidly with a geometric growth in the number of academic publications in this field. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature of IoT in past 16 years using rigorous bibliometric and network analysis tools, offering at the same time future directions for the IoT research community and implications for managers and decision makers.

The authors adopted the techniques of bibliometric and network analysis. The paper reviewed the articles published on IoT from 2000 to 2015.

This study identifies top contributing authors; key research topics related to the field; the most influential works based on citations and PageRank; and established and emerging research clusters. Scholars are encouraged to further explore this topic.

This study focusses only on vision and applications of IoT. Scholars may explore various other aspects of this area of research.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to review the literature on IoT by using bibliometric and network analysis techniques. The study is unique as it spans a long time period of 16 years (2000-2015). The study proposes a five-cluster classification of research themes that may inform current and future research in IoT.

This paper aims to examine how project managers frame variability for categorised risk factors on enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects.

Weighting and selection of the risk factors was undertaken based on an analysis of data (using PASW17), obtained from a random sample of 307 ERP project managers working in Thailand.

The findings suggest that: framing of variability for categorised risk factors in ERP projects is not necessarily culturally bound; both “internal” and “external” risk factors did have a strong impact on ERP project success; and the impact of the degree of inter‐relationships between critical risk and success factors may influence the success of a ERP project.

The authors anticipate that the results will stimulate future research in this area as well as raise the profile of critical success factors for ERP implementation, particularly in developing countries.

The study contributes to a better understanding of the viewpoint of consultants on critical success factors for ERP implementation in the context of a developing country.

This paper utilises a case study to discuss the applicability of normalisation process theory (NPT) as an alternative lens in understanding how social processes impact on the information systems development (ISD) process.

The research was undertaken at an educational setting utilising a qualitative case approach.

The research suggests a framework based on NPT. This framework aims to provide better insights of the normalisation process, based on the views of the development team. The research results strongly support the utilisation of NPT in a non‐healthcare setting. NPT serves as a means to explain the factors and actions that promote the work of routine embedding of new technologies in the practice.

The theory has its foundations in the relative paucity of the extant ISD literature. It also provides a holistic approach for explaining the dynamics entailed in IS project endeavours. This is undertaken by considering the multiplicity and heterogeneity of stakeholders. The usefulness of NPT as a theory for exploring the challenges in embedding a new practice in current ISD endeavours is shown.

The paper discusses how NPT can assist in exploring the social production and organisation of new practices.