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There is growing recognition that effective project control systems (PCS) are critical to the success of projects. The relationship between the individual elements of PCS and successfully achieving project objectives has yet to be explored. This research investigates the enablers and barriers that influence the elements of PCS success and drive project objectives.

This study adopts a mixed approach of descriptive analysis and regression models to explore the impact of six PCS elements on project outcomes. Petroleum and chemical projects in Saudi Arabia were selected as a case study to validate the research model.

Data from a survey of 400 project managers in Saudi’s petroleum and chemical industry reveal that successful PCS are the key to achieving all project outcomes, but they are particularly critical for meeting project cost objectives. Project Governance was identified as the most important of the six PCS elements for meeting project objectives. A lack of standard processes emerged as the most significant barrier to achieving effective project governance, while having skilled and experienced project team members was the most significant enabler for implementing earned value.

The study offers a direction for implementing and developing PCS as a strategic tool and focuses on the PCS elements that can improve project outcomes.

This research contributes to project management knowledge and differs from previous attempts in two ways. Firstly, it investigates the elements of PCS that are critical to achieving project scope, schedule and cost objectives; secondly, enablers and barriers of PCS success are examined to see how they influence each element independently.

As the cost of completing a transaction, the green merger and acquisition (M&A) premium paid on mergers can influence whether the acquisition creates value or not. However, studies linking M&A premiums to firm value have had mixed results, even fewer studies have examined the effect of green M&A premiums on bidders’ firm value. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how green M&A premiums affect firm value in the context of China’s heavy polluters.

Using 323 deals between 2008 and 2019 among China’s heavy polluters, this paper estimates with correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.

Green M&A premiums are negatively associated with firm value. The results are more significant when firms adopt symbolic rather than substantive corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Robustness and endogeneity tests corroborate the findings. The negative relation is stronger when acquiring firms have low governmental subsidy and environmental regulation, when firms have overconfident management, when firms are state-owned and when green M&A occurs locally or among provinces in the same region. This study also analyzes agency cost as an intermediary in the relationship between green M&A premium and firm value, which lends support to the agency-view hypothesis.

This study provides systemic evidence that green M&A premiums damage firm value through agency cost channel and the choice of CSR strategies from the perspective of acquirers. These findings enrich the literature on both the economic consequences of green M&A premiums and the determinants of firm value and provide a plausible explanation for mixed findings on the relationship between green M&A premiums and firm value.

This paper investigates the overall system risk for a foodgrains supply chain capturing the interrelationship among the risk factors and the effect of risk mitigation strategies.

This paper first calculates the weight of risk factors using an integrated approach of failure mode, effects analysis and fuzzy VIKOR technique. Next, the weights are utilized as input for the weighted fuzzy Petri-net (WFPN) approach to calculate the system risk.

Two different WFPN models are developed based on the relationships among the risk factors, and both models demonstrate a higher risk value for the overall system.

The proposed methodology will help practitioners or managers understand the complexity involved in the system by capturing the interrelationship behaviour. This study also considers the concurrent effect of risk mitigation strategies for calculating the overall system risk, which helps to improve the system’s performance.

Drawing on the resource-based view, ecological modernization theory and upper-echelon theory, this study aims to explore how green manufacturing practices (GMGP) affect the sustainable performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

It also examines the mediating role of green innovation (GIN) and the moderating role of managerial discretion (MD). To test the hypothesized model, the data was collected from 394 manufacturing SMEs though survey and analyzed using SPSS and AMOS (SEM).

The results provide evidence for the positive relationship between GMGP and corporate sustainable performance (CSPR), mediated by GIN. Furthermore, the presence of MD enhances the positive effect of GMGP on CSPR through GIN. Thus, this study enhances the understanding of the relationship between GMGP and CSPR, including its underlying mechanism and conditional effects.

This study collected sample from SMEs located in Punjab province of Pakistan which represents majority of the SMEs; however, future research can take data from other province and with large sample size.

The findings highlight the significance of GMGP and GIN in the manufacturing sector for attaining CSPR goals. GMGP guides business leaders to be more inclined toward the energy and resource consumption as well as waste generation within their organizations which lead to improved CSPR outcomes.

The findings of this study make significant contributions to the existing literature, shedding light on the dynamics between GMGP and CSPR. Moreover, the study offers managerial implications for organizations aiming to enhance their sustainable performance by implementing effective GMGP.

While, supply chain resilience (SCRES) continues to be a dominant topic in both academic and business literature and has gained more attention recently, there is limited knowledge on SCRES capabilities specific to business functions. The purpose of this paper is to identify and investigate capabilities shared between supply, operations and logistics that are most important for SCRES.

To address this gap, the authors followed a multi-method research approach. First, the authors used the grounded theory method to generate a theoretical framework based on interviews with 51 managers from five companies in automotive SCs. Next, the authors empirically validated the framework using a survey of 340 SC professionals from the manufacturing industry.

Five significant capabilities emerged from the qualitative study; all were significant in empirical validation. This research advances the knowledge of SCRES as it informs managerial decision-making by identifying capabilities common to supply, logistics and operations that impact SCRES.

This research advances the knowledge of SCRES as it informs managerial decision-making by identifying capabilities common to supply, logistics and operations that impact SCRES. In addition, the findings of this research help managers better allocate resources among significant capabilities.

This paper aims to investigate sustainability-led innovation, focusing on the interplay between product and process innovation for sustainability goals and the underlying supplier–customer relationships. Thus, the paper delves into sustainability-led innovation and how it affects supplier–customer relationships, and vice versa, thus providing a twofold perspective.

The textile industry is the empirical context of this study, which is exploratory research based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs, managers and experts in the textile industry.

In the textile industry, sustainability-led product innovation concerns mainly product durability and performance, product recyclability and the use of waste for new product development. Process innovation deals with circular economy, traceability and water and chemical use minimization. The paper also shows how sustainability-led innovation is implemented in more technical terms and regarding supplier–customer relationships.

The paper adopts an original perspective on how processes take place in the relationships between suppliers and customers, where there is no dominance of one actor, but innovation emerges from interdependence and interaction. Such perspective allows to provide an in-depth analysis of the supplier–customer relationships and underlying dynamics that affect sustainability-led innovation; moreover, the authors study how such innovation impacts supplier–customer relationships and the underlying relational dynamics. The value of the paper also stands in delivering a real representation of the innovation processes grounded in the textile industry.

Output from the Irish Dairy Industry has grown rapidly since the abolition of quotas in 2015, with processors investing heavily in capacity expansion to deal with the extra milk volumes. Further capacity gains may be achieved by extending the processing season into the winter, a key enabler for which being the reduction of duration of the winter maintenance overhaul period. This paper aims to investigate if Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques can be used to enhance operational maintenance performance, thereby releasing additional processing capacity.

Combining the Six-Sigma Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) methodology and the structured approach of Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) widely used in process industries creates a novel hybrid model that promises substantial improvement in maintenance overhaul execution. This paper presents a case study applying the DMAIC/TAM model to Ireland’s largest dairy processing site to optimise the annual maintenance shutdown. The objective was to deliver a 30% reduction in the duration of the overhaul, enabling an extension of the processing season.

Application of the DMAIC/TAM hybrid resulted in process enhancements, employee engagement and a clear roadmap for the operations team. Project goals were delivered, and original objectives exceeded, resulting in €8.9m additional value to the business and a reduction of 36% in the duration of the overhaul.

The results demonstrate that the model provides a structure that promotes systematic working and a continuous improvement focus that can have substantial benefits for wider industry. Opportunities for further model refinement were identified and will enhance performance in subsequent overhauls.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the structure and tools of DMAIC and TAM have been combined into a hybrid methodology and applied in an Irish industrial setting.

Continuous improvement in an integrated approach is a philosophy developed over decades based on a set of management practices. It comprises enhancement methodologies that escalate success as well as diminishes letdowns. The state-of-the-art literature finds a variety of practices for the execution of continuous improvement (CI) system. However, it is rare to find an empirical study with an inclusive system that considers various practices in one frame for improving competitiveness. With this outlook, therefore, this study aims originally to identify drivers, motivations and barriers for the application of integrated CI system, and then conduct an empirical investigation within the context of Ethiopian manufacturing industries.

Justification of the problem, extensive review of literature, identification of practices, developing research framework, investigational analysis of the empirical study using reliability and descriptive statistical analysis and identifying leading drivers (unique practices and common factors), motivations and barriers are the research approaches used in this study. Furthermore, the primary data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire and were analyzed using a statistical package for social science (SPSS) 23 and the findings were triangulated to relate to the existing state-of-the-art literature.

The findings indicate 17 common factors associated with human, strategic, operational, technology, structure, resource and information factors; 21 unique practices of just-in-time (JIT), lean-six sigma (LSS), supply chain management (SCM), total productive maintenance (TPM), and total quality management (TQM) methodologies; 20 barriers connected with internal and external issues and 17 motivations linked to operational, innovation and business results are identified. In general, the empirical analysis discovers the practices are noteworthy and commonly supported by a least of 52% of the respondents. As a result, the first five prominent common factors, barriers, unique practices and motivations are also supported by a minimum of 72%, 73.9%, 65.8% and 75% of the respondents, respectively.

Even though this is the first-ever study in the Ethiopian manufacturing sector with the focus on integrated CI practices of JIT, TQM, TPM, SCM and LSS initiatives, some limitations have existed and the major limitations of the study are, targeted merely small number manufacturing companies despite the fact that there are hundreds of companies implementing CI system in Ethiopia, and the data collected were only based on the perception of the respondents, and other information’s like annual reports was not employed to support the findings.

The findings of this study underlined that the implementation of drivers in relation to common factors and unique practices supported by exterminating barriers in manufacturing industries of Ethiopia enables to enhance competitiveness through attaining operational, innovation and business results though it requires a practical case application to prove this perception-based analysis.

Though there are a number of studies published on integrated continuous improvement, currently it is found that there is no literature focused on the identification and empirical investigation of drivers (common factors and unique practices), motivations and barriers for application of integrated CI system with the focus of JIT, TQM, TPM, SCM and LSS initiatives. Therefore, this is the first-ever study, and the empirical analysis of the study discovered that identified practices are providing valuable insights for manufacturing industries which will be on board on this voyage including institutions, practitioners and other sectors.

Environmental disasters are preventable, but this remains a complicated and elusive prospect. This article discusses factors that combine to limit and undermine environmental disaster prevention efforts and explores directions for improved theory and practice.

The challenge of integrating root cause analysis of environmental disasters with interventions and preventive measures at later stages of disaster incubation is outlined. The prospect of learning and transferring lessons from past environmental disasters is discussed. Eighteen environmental disaster cases are summarized and analyzed.

A range of factors, including complexity, lack of lesson transfer, perceived lack of incentives and inaction, limits advances in environmental disaster prevention. Theoretical challenges involve better bridging of root cause and incubation analyses, enhanced understanding of the nature and discipline of foresight and greater documentation of alternative approaches to prevention, including post–normal techniques. Although a transformative breakthrough in environmental disaster prevention is unlikely, substantial progress could be made through better lesson transfer and application of alternative approaches.

This article draws attention to problems and opportunities surrounding the challenge of environmental disaster prevention and proposes directions for improved theory and practice.

The ongoing paradigm shift in the energy sector holds paramount implications for the realization of the sustainable development goals, encompassing critical domains such as resource optimization, environmental stewardship and workforce opportunities. Concurrently, this transformative trajectory within the power sector possesses a dual-edged nature; it may ameliorate certain challenges while accentuating others. In light of the burgeoning research stream on open innovation, this study aims to examine the intricate dynamics of knowledge-based industry-university-research networking, with an overarching objective to elucidate and calibrate the equilibrium of ambidextrous innovation within power systems.

The authors scrutinize the role of different innovation organizations in three innovation models: ambidextrous, exploitative and exploratory, and use a multiobjective decision analysis method-entropy weight TOPSIS. The research was conducted within the sphere of the power industry, and the authors mined data from the widely used PatSnap database.

Results show that the breadth of knowledge search and the strength of an organization’s direct relationships are crucial for ambidextrous innovation, with research institutions having the highest impact. In contrast, for exploitative innovation, depth of knowledge search, the number of R&D patents and the number of innovative products are paramount, with universities playing the most significant role. For exploratory innovation, the depth of knowledge search and the quality of two-mode network relations are vital, with research institutions yielding the best effect. Regional analysis reveals Beijing as the primary hub for ambidextrous and exploratory innovation organizations, while Jiangsu leads for exploitative innovation.

The study offers valuable implications to cope with the dynamic state of ambidextrous innovation performance of the entire power system. In light of the findings, the dynamic state of ambidextrous innovation performance within the power system can be adeptly managed. By emphasizing a balance between exploratory and exploitative strategies, stakeholders are better positioned to respond to evolving challenges and opportunities. Thus, the study offers pivotal guidance to ensure sustained adaptability and growth in the power sector’s innovation landscape.

The primary originality is to extend and refine the theoretical understanding of ambidextrous innovation within power systems. By integrating several theoretical frameworks, including social network theory, knowledge-based theory and resource-based theory, the authors enrich the theoretical landscape of power system ambidextrous innovation. Also, this inclusive examination of two-mode network structures, including the interplay between knowledge and cooperation networks, unveils the intricate interdependencies between these networks and the ambidextrous innovation of power systems. This approach significantly widens the theoretical parameters of innovation network research.