Purpose - The paper aims to test and validate the complementarity effects on operational performance of two of the main lean manufacturing bundles, just-in-time (JIT) and total quality management ...(TQM). The paper also explores the role played by the human resource management (HRM) bundle as an enhancer of the complementarity between JIT and TQM.Design methodology approach - The paper is based on statistical analysis on the high performance manufacturing round III database, a survey that involves 266 plants in nine countries across three different industries (electronics, machinery and transportation components).Findings - The paper proves the existence of complementarity between JIT and TQM and shows the enabling role of HRM on such complementarity.Research limitations implications - The paper provides analytical and empirical argumentations showing that JIT and TQM mutually reinforce each other's marginal returns on operational performance. The study also indicates that only those plants characterized by a significant implementation of HRM practices enjoy the complementarity effects of TQM and JIT on operational performance.Practical implications - The research suggests a pattern of improvements where JIT and TQM have to be implemented hand-in-hand to take full advantage of their complementarity. HRM, the soft part of lean initiatives, provides the ground over which complementarity originates, spreading its benefits throughout the organization.Originality value - The study represents one of the few attempts trying to operationalize and empirically validate the concept of complementarity. The study also provides original suggestions to practitioners on how to make the most out of lean initiatives.
Fashion companies are extremely sensitive to the new challenge emerging from recent sustainability scandals. Existing literature has debated sustainability extensively by considering practices of ...sustainability that companies should apply. However, little research has focused on the design of a proper sustainability roadmap from a supply chain (SC) perspective to address the steps involved in implementing sustainability practices. The objective of this study is to design a sustainability roadmap for fashion companies. Based on case studies of three tiers of three fashion SCs as an empirical basis, social and environmental sustainability practices were grouped into a five-step roadmap. The main result of the paper is a five-step roadmap, characterised in terms of practices and main goal. The roadmap is then discussed in terms of possible paths of developing, in terms of evolution within a step and among different steps.
Recent contributions in management and organizational literature call for research to investigate how companies can simultaneously pursue initiatives of improvement and innovation. Questions also ...remain about the extent to which a commitment to continuous improvement hinders innovation. Blending organizational literature with lean management literature on Just in Time, we propose a model that shows how improvement and innovation can co-exist within the same manufacturing plant. We test our hypotheses on an international database using structural equation modelling. Findings show that improvement and innovation coexist within those plants that nurture a supportive organizational context and implement JIT at the same time. While a supportive organizational context is necessary for the coexistence of innovation and improvement, JIT acts as a catalyst that provides resources to innovation activities and incentivizes the firm to replace ill-designed products and processes. Our study offers original contributions that lie at the intersection of operations management and organizational literatures.
•Both improvement and innovation have the same supportive organizational context.•JIT acts as a catalyst for innovation activities.•Improvement has no direct but only a mediated effect on manufacturing performance.
As manufacturing plants strive to achieve more environmentally sound operations, management teams must undertake pollution prevention projects that do not hamper manufacturing results. In these ...projects, firms often adopt both lean and green practices. The literature has provided some evidence of the synergistic interaction of lean practices and green practices to improve plant performance. However, few studies provide a thorough and in-depth examination of such processes' interactions. Using a case study methodology, this paper aims to discern how the two sets of practices interact and how they yield maximum synergy in improving both operational and environmental performance. Based on the analysis of three pollution-prevention projects undertaken by two manufacturing plants of two large multinational firms, we find that lean and green practices may be implemented either sequentially or simultaneously, generating sequential or reciprocal interdependencies, respectively. The latter case is more likely to be associated with the involvement of external suppliers and, ultimately, with higher operational performance.
Purpose
Due to the recent development of Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) technology solutions in customer relationship management (CRM), this paper provides a systematic overview of the ...field, thus unveiling gaps and providing promising paths for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 212 peer-reviewed articles published between 1989 and 2020 were extracted from the Scopus database, and 2 bibliometric techniques were used: bibliographic coupling and keywords’ co-occurrence.
Findings
Outcomes of the bibliometric analysis enabled the authors to identify three main subfields of the AI literature within the CRM domain (Big Data and CRM as a database, AI and machine learning techniques applied to CRM activities and strategic management of AI–CRM integrations) and capture promising paths for future development for each of these subfields. This study also develops a three-step conceptual model for AI implementation in CRM, which can support, on one hand, scholars in further deepening the knowledge in this field and, on the other hand, managers in planning an appropriate and coherent strategy.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to systematise and discuss the literature regarding the relationship between AI and CRM based on bibliometric analysis. Thus, both academics and practitioners can benefit from the study, as it unveils recent important directions in CRM management research and practices.
A rich research stream investigates the drivers and enablers of supplier sustainability practices, usually classified into suppliers' monitoring and collaboration with suppliers. Differently from ...previous works analysing relationships between supplier sustainability practices and drivers or enablers, this research investigates how well-defined configurations of monitoring and collaboration can be characterised in terms of drivers and enablers. In this way, it intends to advance knowledge by identifying what drivers and enablers are important and distinctive for the different configurations of supplier sustainability practices. A first result is that moving from configurations of plants which less adopt supplier sustainability practices (i.e. non-adopters) to those which invest on monitoring and/or collaboration to a limited extent (i.e. partial adopters) up to the most advanced ones (i.e. full-adopters), the pressure due to cost reduction lessens its relative importance as a driver, while the pressure due to regulations remains essential. Other relevant results are that plant size acts as a barrier for non-adopters, and the alignment between the sustainability project and plant goals results determinant especially for full-adopters. This research also enriches the debate on the opportunity of differentiating between supplier monitoring and collaboration when investigating drivers/enablers, providing evidence of the risk of oversimplifications for some enablers/drivers.
PurposeDrawing on the theoretical concept of organisational fit, this paper questions the relevance of employees' participation in the link between continuous improvement (CI) and operational ...performance. The literature has long emphasised that to be successful, CI implementation needs to rely on employees' involvement as soon as its inception. This paper argues that this approach is not generalisable.Design/methodology/approachBased on a database of 330 firms across 15 countries, regression analyses were used to hypothesise that the fit between CI and employee participation is positively associated with operational performance, and that the fit between CI and centralisation of authority is negatively associated with operational performance. The authors also ran a robustness check with polynomial regression analyses and the response surface methodology.FindingsCI–employee participation fit is positively associated with operational performance, suggesting that there is less need for employees to be involved when a firm has scarcely developed CI. Employee participation becomes gradually more relevant as CI progresses. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the CI–centralisation of authority fit is negatively associated with operational performance, suggesting that a top-down management approach with centralised authority is preferable when CI is low, whereas a bottom-up management approach is helpful when a firm has extensively developed CI.Originality/valueThis research draws on the concept of organisational fit to explore the relationships between internal practices in the operations management literature. The authors suggest that managers should dynamically balance the practices of employee participation and centralisation of authority as CI improves. This study highlights that CI has different evolutionary levels that require different managerial approaches and practices.
Los modos de conceptualizar la comunicación alternativa, sus preocupaciones y agendas, se fueron desplazando con el correr de las décadas. Aparece como constante el horizonte del cambio social, la ...construcción junto al movimiento de base y los objetivos de intervención político cultural, así como la conciencia de la importancia de poner en circulación voces y perspectivas negadas en las agendas de los medios comerciales. Pero al tratarse de experiencias sociales, los cambios en los contextos fueron modelando y reorientando las prácticas, la definición de sus tareas y los modos de entenderlas. En este artículo nos proponemos trazar un recorrido que dé cuenta de los principales desplazamientos operados en el campo de la alternatividad, partiendo del momento de surgimiento del campo de la comunicación y la cultura en América Latina hasta nuestro presente, que reclama un balance de estos cuarenta años de democracia. Identificador permanente (ARK): http://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s18535925/amrdq08aj
•The literature on CRM performance measurement is explored, highlighting needs and avenues for improvements.•Based on an in-depth literature review and experts’ opinions, this study develops an ...innovative CRM performance evaluation method to support managers in assessing the organizational and strategic impacts of a CRM project.•The accuracy and meaningfulness of the method are validated, and its utility and feasibility tested within a sample of companies.
Despite the awareness of academics and managers of the impact that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can have on firm’s performance, contributions on methods to measure CRM performance, other than economic and financial ones, are neither well developed nor well communicated. Academics and practitioners call for new empirical models and performance metrics to testify and measure the overall contribution of a CRM project to firm performance, as traditional methods of evaluating the return on investment do not capture the multifunctional and complex nature of CRM. Thus, this study aims to develop a CRM performance evaluation method that helps companies to evaluate the organizational and strategic impacts of CRM. To this end, first, based on an in-depth review of the literature and experts’ opinions, we develop an original method that overcomes the prevalent shortcomings of previous studies. Second, we validate its accuracy and meaningfulness. Third, we test its feasibility and utility within a sample of companies. The proposed method is based on multiple perspectives and conditional factors and includes objective and perceptual measures, accounting for the opinion of key informants and CRM users. The method monitors the organizational and strategic performance of CRM over time, thus allowing for a clearer decision-making process and an orientation towards the future.
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