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This research aims to conduct a literature review of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in the Indian context and related research publications and apply bibliometric analysis and the author's visualization to map research trends in this area.

This article conducts a bibliometric analysis of LSS-related research in the Indian context using data gathered from Scopus and Web of Science databases from 2011 to 2022. The review provides information on LSS-related research in the Indian context and evaluates performance based on primary sources, authors, keywords, countries, affiliations, and documents. The analysis employs the Biblioshiny app and Bibliometrix R-tool for data analysis and scientific mapping.

The results of the bibliometric analysis indicate that the LSS culture has widely spread in India. The International Journal of Lean Six Sigma and Production Planning and Control were found to be the most productive sources for publishing LSS-related research articles. Antony J. was identified as the most active author in this field, contributing the most over the years. Among all organizations, NITs have conducted the most comprehensive research on LSS, indicating their significant investment of resources and efforts in studying this methodology and its applications in India. Additionally, the study examined the intellectual, social, and conceptual structures to identify implicit gaps and future research opportunities.

The findings of this study can inform academicians, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers about the state-of-the-art and the specifics of the most prolific studies. This study will facilitate their exploration of emerging research areas in LSS.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis of LSS in the Indian context, providing an overview of relevant publications published between 2011 and 2022. This study analyzed 194 articles on LSS in India, which can help researchers and academics identify emerging research areas, suitable collaborators, and relevant journals for future publications.

The case study can be used for the course of entrepreneurship and is appropriate for postgraduate students. Discussion would be the most appropriate method for teaching this case study. Through Nutan’s words, students could gain a first-hand glimpse into the transformative journey of a rural woman entrepreneur.

In 2018, Nutan Jha embarked on a remarkable journey by establishing Nutan Creations, a micro-enterprise situated in Kharrak village, Jhanjharpur, Bihar (India). This case study aims to achieve multiple objectives: understanding the operational obstacles confronted by a rural woman entrepreneur, acknowledging the inseparable connection between business and social issues in rural contexts, moreover shedding light on the intersection of gender, entrepreneurship and cultural preservation through traditional Madhubani painting art form products. This distinctive combination brings a fresh perspective to the research, offering unique insights into the challenges and triumphs experienced by rural women entrepreneurs. The findings of this case study exemplify the intricate interplay between business and social concerns in rural areas, portraying an inspiring depiction of how determination, adaptability and robust support networks can conquer hurdles and foster transformative changes.

The case study has been designed for the students of business administration and entrepreneurship who have completed their elementary model on marketing comprehend. The students should need to understand the concept of entrepreneurship and the basics of digital marketing strategy to ensure effective learning.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

South Africa lags significantly in mathematics achievement on international benchmarking tests, which has led to several interventions aimed at improving mathematics attainment in the country. Drawing on the theoretical work of Vygotsky, Leontiev and Engeström, this chapter reports on one such initiative that implemented computer technology into disadvantaged schools in the apple growing district of the Western Cape. Contrary to expectations, the object of the lesson became control over students' actions, rather than a mathematical object aimed at developing students' understanding of the subject. The teacher adopted what I call a defensive position in relation to the novel technology, tightening pace and sequencing in these lessons. I draw on Ratnam's work into ‘excessive entitlement’ to illustrate that this teacher's defensive posture regarding technology emanates from a need to exert complete power over the content taught in a lesson and leads her to reject the novel technology in favour of traditional methods. While interviews with the teacher in this study indicated that she felt she promoted student dialogue and more symmetrical power relations in her classes through group work, this is not seen in the data. This is explained in relation to teachers' excessive entitlement to ‘owning’ the knowledge in their classrooms through maintaining control over the rules of the system. I pull on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to illuminate how the activity of teaching in a classroom affords and constrains what the teacher is able to achieve, often making them feel excessively entitled to push back reform.

This study aims to understand the determinants of the relationship between tax authorities and taxpayers in the digital era and how this relationship impacts tax compliance behavior, especially in the context of emerging countries like Morocco.

A qualitative methodology was adopted, involving interviews with tax inspectors and auditors, certified accountants’ experts and tax consultants. Data analysis was conducted using IRAMUTEQ software.

The research highlights that the relationship's quality and the level of mutual trust between tax authorities and taxpayers are critical in determining tax compliance in the digital era. Central factors affecting this relationship encompass effective communication, simplification of tax procedures, clarity of tax laws and the digitization of tax services. Furthermore, the study emphasizes that these dynamics and determinants significantly influence the tax compliance behavior of taxpayers in Morocco, revealing intricate connections between relational aspects and compliance attitudes.

The findings suggest that fostering a mutually trusting relationship, through improved communication, simplification and digitization, can enhance taxpayer compliance. This is valuable for policymakers and tax authorities developing strategies to improve tax systems in emerging countries.

This study contributes to the sparse literature on the relationship between tax authorities and taxpayers in the and digital era, offering new insights into factors that influence tax compliance in the post COVID-19 crisis context. Its practical recommendations provide a foundation for developing strategies aimed at improving this relationship and, consequently, taxpayer compliance behavior in emerging countries.

The purpose of this study is to provide in-depth knowledge on customer-facing technology and customer experience in the grocery retail sector, including how the value-added potential of customer-facing technologies may be enhanced.

The analysis is based on 30 in-depth interviews with “early adopters” of customer-facing digital retail technologies in the Norwegian grocery sector. Theoretically, the study draws on notions of the customer journey and customer experience.

The study contributes to deepening insights concerning how digital retail technology is used and may be geared to further increase value for customers, specifically how retailers may use data on customers and products to personalize digital retail technology offerings and gain a competitive advantage. The findings underline how customer value is context-dependent and show that while grocery retail customers primarily emphasize utilitarian benefits related to customer-facing technologies, hedonic benefits are valuable biproducts. Moreover, the study showcases how personalization is key in addressing customers’ needs and wants, and may serve to increase the overall value of customer-facing technologies for customers and retailers.

The study’s sector-specific focus on technology in use contributes to enhance knowledge on how digital retail technologies can be leveraged to the benefit of customers and retailers, including customers’ sector-specific needs and wants.

Social enterprises (SEs) are increasingly expected to rely on formal methodologies to assess their social impact. These structured methodologies, which produce objective and evidence-based measures of impact, are sometimes opposed to bricolage approaches that “make do” with what is at hand. This paper aims to question this distinction by identifying the conflicting considerations that arise in the process of implementing a formal methodology, which might lead SEs to rely on bricolage mechanisms. The authors propose a model of “formally-driven” bricolage with core principles to navigate between those considerations.

Adopting an inductive approach, the authors draw on the in-depth case study of a work integration SE engaged in a formal social impact assessment (SIA) through collaborative research.

First, the authors identify five types of considerations (feasibility, efficiency, ethics, legitimacy and aim) that come into tension with the primary considerations of formality in formal methodologies, leading SEs to still rely on bricolage mechanisms. Second, the authors identify five principles (multidimensional, participative, cultural, mixed-method and adaptive) that permit navigation between those conflicting considerations. Based on the findings, the authors develop a model of “formally-driven” bricolage.

The contribution is methodological, theoretical and practical. The authors bridge the gap between theory and practice through long-term immersion in an SE. The authors contribute to the understanding of the use of bricolage in SIA by investigating why and how bricolage is still at play in formal assessments. The proposed model of “formally-driven” bricolage can help researchers and practitioners to better grasp the ins and outs of the SIA process.

Are divestitures really just the “flip side” of acquisitions? Both divestiture and acquisition are important processes for firm scope change. Frequently, these processes are considered to be “two sides of the same coin” wherein a divestiture is simply an acquisition performed “in reverse.” In contrast to this perspective, the authors submit that these two corporate strategic processes have fundamental differences in their motivations, implementation, and ramifications. Failure to recognize and address these differences could have serious consequences for firms, especially in the domains of capability development and deployment. In this chapter, the authors begin by recognizing the similarities between divestitures and acquisitions that have contributed to their “mirror image” reputations. The authors then identify and categorize the major differences between divestitures and acquisitions and explain how these distinctions can present significant challenges to firms when building and utilizing their corresponding divestiture and acquisition capabilities. Finally, the authors leverage these insights to develop not only suggestions for future research but also recommendations for firms to avoid succumbing to the fallacy of sameness between divestitures and acquisitions – and perhaps even successfully exploit it – when building, wielding, and honing the tools in their capability portfolios.

Gillette’s historically successful “razor and blade” business model (RBM) has been a promising benchmark for multiple businesses across diverse industries worldwide in the past several decades. The extant literature deals with very few nuances of this business model notwithstanding the fact that there are several variants of this business model being put to practical use by firms in diverse industries in grossly metaphorically equivalent situations.

This study adopts the 2 × 2 truth table framework from the domains of mathematical logic and combinatorics in fleshing out all possible (four logical possibilities) variants of the razor and blade business model for further analysis. This application presents four mutually exclusive yet collectively exhaustive possibilities on any chosen dimension. Two major dimensions (viz., provision of subsidy and intra- or extra-firm involvement in the making of razors or blades or both) form part of the discussion in this paper. In addition, this study synthesizes and streamlines entrepreneurial wisdom from multiple intra-industry and inter-industry benchmarks in terms of real-time firms explicitly or implicitly adopting several variants of the RBM that suit their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of evolution in situations that are grossly reflective of the metaphorically equivalent scenario of razor and recurrent blades. Inductive method of research is carried out with real-time cases from diverse industries with a pivotally common pattern of razor and blade model in some form or the other.

Several new variants of the razor and blade model (much beyond what the extant literature explicitly projects) have been discovered from the multiple metaphorically equivalent cases of RBM across industries. All of these expand the portfolio of options that relevant entrepreneurial firms can explore and exploit the best possible option chosen from them, given their unique context and idiosyncratic trajectory of growth.

This study has enriched the literature by presenting and analyzing a more inclusive or perhaps comprehensive palette of explicit choices in the form of several variants of the RBM for the relevant entrepreneurial firms to choose from. Future research can undertake the task of comparing these variants of RBM with those of upcoming servitization business models such as guaranteed availability, subscription and performance-based contracting and exploring the prospects of diverse combinations.

Smart entrepreneurial firms identify and adopt inspiring benchmarks (like razor and blade model whenever appropriate) duly tweaked and blended into a gestalt benchmark for optimal profits and attractive market shares. They target diverse market segments for tied-goods with different variants or combinations of the relevant benchmarks in the form of variegated customer value propositions (CVPs) that have unique and enticing appeal to the respective market segments.

Value-sensitive customers on the rise globally choose the option that best suits them from among multiple alternatives offered by competing firms in the market. As long as the ratio of utility to price of such an offer is among the highest, even a no-frills CVP may be most appealing to one market segment while a plush CVP may be tempting to yet another market segment simultaneously. While professional business firms embrace resource leverage practices consciously, amateur customers do so subconsciously. Each party subliminally desires to have the maximum bang-to-buck ratio as the optimal return on investment, given their priorities ceteris paribus.

Prior studies on the RBM have explicitly captured only a few variants of the razor and blade model. This study is perhaps the first of its kind that ferrets out many other variants (more than ten) of the razor and blade model with due simplification and exemplification, justification and demystification.

Traditional case-adaptation methods have poor accuracy, low efficiency and limited applicability, which cannot meet the needs of knowledge users. To address the shortcomings of the existing research in the industry, this paper proposes a case-adaptation optimization algorithm to support the effective application of tacit knowledge resources.

The attribute simplification algorithm based on the forward search strategy in the neighborhood decision information system is implemented to realize the vertical dimensionality reduction of the case base, and the fuzzy C-mean (FCM) clustering algorithm based on the simulated annealing genetic algorithm (SAGA) is implemented to compress the case base horizontally with multiple decision classes. Then, the subspace K-nearest neighbors (KNN) algorithm is used to induce the decision rules for the set of adapted cases to complete the optimization of the adaptation model.

The findings suggest the rapid enrichment of data, information and tacit knowledge in the field of practice has led to low efficiency and low utilization of knowledge dissemination, and this algorithm can effectively alleviate the problems of users falling into “knowledge disorientation” in the era of the knowledge economy.

This study provides a model with case knowledge that meets users’ needs, thereby effectively improving the application of the tacit knowledge in the explicit case base and the problem-solving efficiency of knowledge users.

The adaptation model can serve as a stable and efficient prediction model to make predictions for the effects of the many logistics and e-commerce enterprises' plans.

This study designs a multi-decision class case-adaptation optimization study based on forward attribute selection strategy-neighborhood rough sets (FASS-NRS) and simulated annealing genetic algorithm-fuzzy C-means (SAGA-FCM) for tacit knowledgeable exogenous cases. By effectively organizing and adjusting tacit knowledge resources, knowledge service organizations can maintain their competitive advantages. The algorithm models established in this study develop theoretical directions for a multi-decision class case-adaptation optimization study of tacit knowledge.

This study investigates the behavior of viscous hybrid ferromagnetic fluids flowing through plain elastic sheets with the magnetic polarization effect. It examines flow in a porous medium using Stefan blowing and utilizes a versatile hybrid ferrofluid containing MnZnFe₂O₄ and Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles in the C2H2F4 base fluid, offering potential real-world applications. The study focuses on steady, laminar and viscous incompressible flow, analyzing heat and mass transfer aspects, including thermal radiation, Brownian motion, thermophoresis and viscous dissipation with convective boundary condition.

The governing expression of the flow model is addressed with pertinent non-dimensional transformations, and the finite element method solves the obtained system of ordinary differential equations.

The variations in fluid velocity, temperature and concentration profiles against all the physical parameters are analyzed through their graphical view. The association of these parameters with local surface friction coefficient, Nusselt number and Sherwood number is examined with the numerical data in a table.

This work extends previous research on ferrofluid flow, investigating unexplored parameters and offering valuable insights with potential engineering, industrial and medical implications. It introduces a novel approach that uses mathematical simplification techniques and the finite element method for the solution.