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This paper models the deterioration process of a multi-component system. Each deterioration process is modelled by the Wiener process. The purposes of this paper are to address these issues and consider the cost process based on the multi-component system.

Condition-based Maintenance is a method for reducing the probability of system failures as well as the operating cost. Nowadays, a system is composed of multiple components. If the deteriorating process of each component can be monitored and then modelled by a stochastic process, the deteriorating process of the system is a stochastic process. The cost of repairing failures of the components in the system forms a stochastic process as well and is known as a cost process.

When a linear combination of the processes, which can be the deterioration processes and the cost processes, exceeds a pre-specified threshold, a replacement policy will be carried out to preventively maintain the system.

Under this setting, this paper investigates maintenance policies based on the deterioration process and the cost process. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the optimisation process.

The purpose of this study is use a bibliometric analysis to explore the relational nature of knowledge creation in WFM in operations. Companies live under constant pressure to find the best ways to plan their workforce, and the workforce emangement (WFM) is one of the biggest challenges faced by managers. Relevant research on WFM in operations has been published in a several range of journals that vary in their scope and readership, and thus the academic contribution to the topic remains largely fragmented.

To address this gap, this review aims to map research on WFM in operations to understand where it comes from and where it is going and, therefore, provides opportunities for future work. This study combined two bibliometric approaches with manual document coding to examine the literature corpus of WFM in operations to draw a holistic picture of its different aspects.

Content and thematic analysis of the seminal studies resulted in the extraction of three key research themes: workforce cross-training, planning workforce mixed methods and individual workforce characteristics. The findings of this study further highlight the gaps in the WFM in operations literature and raise some research questions that warrant further academic investigation in the future.

Likewise, this study has important implications for practitioners who are likely to benefit from a holistic understanding of the different aspects of WFM in operations.

Interferences to supply chains (SC), regardless of whether they are regular, unplanned or intentional, are progressively distorting SC execution. As such, risk mitigation in SCs has received sufficient attention in the academic literature. However, there is scant research done on this topic within the African context, and none on the SC of electrical energy on that continent. In an effort to address this gap, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the SC department of Eskom, the primary utility company of South Africa and one of the largest on the continent.

Adopting a non-probability sampling approach utilising the purposive sampling technique to choose the sampling components from the target population, data were collected through semi-structured interviews as well as additional documentation in various forms. Data interpretation and codification thereof were done using ATLAS.ti 8 from which ten themes emerged.

The ten themes that emerged from the analysis of data show that SC risks emanate from value streams, information and affiliations, SC activities and external situations. Furthermore, these are brought into relief within the African context through examples and quotes from Eskom managers.

Based on the findings, the paper makes five major recommendations that would broadly apply not only to SC risk management (SCRM) in Eskom, but also other African utility companies.

Companies in emerging economies such as South Africa and other Sub-Saharan countries face a unique set of challenges with regards to SCRM. Some of these are identified in this paper and appropriate recommendations have been made.

Being the largest utility provider in Africa, services offered by Eskom are vital for economic development of South Africa as well as neighbouring countries. As such, the findings of this paper as well as the recommendations have social implications for economic development in that country as well as the region.

While SC risk management has been studied extensively in the academic literature, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that attempts to study it within the context of South Africa with focal emphasis on one of the largest corporations in that country.

This study aims to investigate the impact of a salesperson’s babyface in his/her profile picture on the number of online reviews the salesperson receives. In addition to testing the direct relationship, this study explores the moderating roles of salesperson gender and consumer involvement.

Responding to the call for field-based consumer research, the authors test their theory using an experimental design and a field study. Study 1 employs an experimental design in high and low involvement service settings to test the effect of a babyface on consumers’ intention to write online reviews. Study 2 uses field data, utilising real estate salespeople’s online profile pictures to test the effect of salespeople’s babyface on the number of online reviews they receive. It does so by using an artificial intelligence facial recognition application interface.

A salesperson’s babyface results in fewer online reviews in situations in which consumers are highly involved in the purchase process. By contrast, a salesperson’s babyface engenders more online reviews when consumers purchase low involvement services. The adverse effect of a babyface on the number of online reviews, however, attenuates when a salesperson is female.

Limited information about salespeople, a skewed number of online reviews and blurry online profile pictures from a real-world data set constitute the study’s limitations.

When consumers are highly involved in the purchase process, salespeople should appear mature in their online profile photos to engender more online reviews. However, salespeople providing low involvement services should opt for online profile pictures reflecting babyish facial features to generate more online reviews.

Research has shown that salespeople’s physical appearance plays an important role in consumers’ perceptions of salespeople and their performance. Although abundant research and practice have shown the importance of online reviews, less is known about how online profile pictures affect online reviews. Thus, building on well-studied cases of an overgeneralization effect, this work examines the extent to which salespeople’s babyface features in their online profile picture affects the number of online reviews received in a real-world setting.

This study aims to examine current practices of social media marketing among major global brands across five product categories (namely, convenience, shopping, specialty, industrial and service). Assessing the frequency, media type and content orientations of corporate Facebook pages, this study aims to isolate the qualitative factors of a brand’s social media message that are most likely to facilitate a consumer response.

A content analysis of 1,086 social media posts was conducted from the corporate Facebook pages of 92 global brands during a one-month (snapshot) time horizon in July 2013. The data collected from each individual post include its media type (i.e. text, photo or video), its content orientation (i.e. task, interaction and self-oriented) and the number and type of consumer response it generated (i.e. likes, comments and shares).

Research findings reveal that global brands actively utilize social media, posting on average three messages per week and generally use photos (as a media type) and interaction-focused content (as a content orientation) to secure consumer responses. However, differences in consumer responses exist along various product categories, message media type and message content orientation.

Findings imply that marketers should not only carefully consider the media type they use to message consumers on social media but should also try to consider the individual consumer’s motive for interaction.

This article suggests a new way to study social media content by applying pre-existing communication frameworks from salesmanship literature as a way to define message content orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to review evidence related to the factors that influence people's understanding of health information and how miscommunication of health information can jeopardize people's health.

A literature review was conducted of English language articles, cited in major literature databases from the last 40 years, which describe factors related to comprehension of health information. A total of 93 articles were included.

The paper finds that health communication should take into consideration the role of the following factors on the processing and interpretation of health information: health literacy, format presentation of information, and human cognitive biases and affective/personal influences.

Health communication is a major component of health care. Every health care encounter involves exchange of information, which is intended to enhance people's knowledge in order to assist them to make an informed decision about their health care. However, the mere act of providing information does not guarantee comprehension. People's comprehension of information depends on several factors, including health literacy and numeracy skills, the format presentation of health information and human cognitive biases in the information processing and interpretation. Ineffective health communication can result in a wide range of direct and indirect health consequences including failure to understand and comply with treatment, poorer health status, increased risk of injuries, increased hospitalization, and decreased use of preventive services.

This paper provides health professionals and educators with an overview of important issues related to health communication and highlights strategies that facilitate effective communication to help people to make informed decisions about their health care.

The purpose of this research is to examine the effectiveness of using social media to increase knowledge about and motivate purchase behaviors of fair-trade products, focusing specifically on the influence of information format (media richness) and characteristics (information quality and quantity).

One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to test whether consumer responses differ based on the information format. Additionally, structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to examine the relationship among constructs of the hierarchy of effects model.

Participants exposed to the video format (rich media) had higher scores on information quality, subjective knowledge and emotion than those exposed to the text only format (lean media). SEM results showed that both objective and subjective knowledge had significant influences on emotion and emotion, in turn, had a significant influence on purchase intentions. In addition, information quantity and quality had direct and significant effects on emotion.

This study focused on the crucial role of knowledge related to fair-trade products by distinguishing two different types: objective and subjective knowledge. Despite the growing body of literature concerning socially responsible consumer behavior (SRCB), there are very few studies that specifically examine the differential impact of objective and subjective knowledge on consumer behaviors. Furthermore, the original hierarchy of effects model does not include antecedents of the cognitive dimension. Because developing knowledge plays a key role in motivating SRCB, this study added characteristics of information to the model to examine their influence on knowledge level.

A deteriorating security situation and an increased need for defence equipment calls for new forms of collaboration between Armed Forces and the defence industry. This paper aims to investigate the ways in which the accelerating demand for increased security of supply of equipment and supplies to the Armed Forces requires adaptability in the procurement process that is governed by laws on public procurement (PP).

This paper is based on a review of current literature as well as empirical data obtained through interviews with representatives from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration and the Swedish defence industry.

Collaboration with the globalized defence industry requires new approaches, where the PP rules make procurement of a safe supply of defence equipment difficult.

The study's empirical data and findings are based on the Swedish context. In order to draw more general conclusions in a defence context, the study should be expanded to cover more nations.

The findings will enable the defence industry and the procurement authorizations to better understand the requirements of Armed Forces, and how to cooperate under applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

The paper extends the extant body of academic knowledge of the security of supply into the defence sector. It serves as a first step towards articulating a call for new approaches to collaboration in defence supply chains.