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Although technologies such as blockchain (BCT) hold great potential to improve global food supply chains (GFSCs), our understanding of BCT use in GFSCs remains limited. The purpose of this study is to broaden BCT discussions by exploring its benefits and challenges across the entire GFSC.

Qualitative interviews with 23 industry experts were used to identify and comprehend the nuanced issues with BCT application in GFSCs.

The study identifies 21 perceived benefits and challenges with BCT use in GFSCs, including the benefit of broader data incentives beyond BCT use and the challenge of reluctance to assume dominant roles among the GFSC actors.

While prior studies mostly focused on BCT use for traceability and food safety in the GFSC midstream, this study extends the scope to include upstream and midstream actors. It highlights socio-economic benefits for traditionally disadvantaged farmers in the upstream and normative challenges to its adoption in the GFSC midstream and downstream. It also identifies three paradoxes emerging with BCT use in the GFSCs including the paradoxes of food technology, transparency and de-centralization.

This study aims to explore how to deanonymize cryptocurrency money launderers with the help of machine learning (ML). Money is laundered through cryptocurrencies by distributing funds to multiple accounts and then reexchanging the crypto back. This process of exchanging currencies is done through cryptocurrency exchanges. Current preventive efforts are outdated, and ML may provide novel ways to identify illicit currency movements. Hence, this study investigates ML applicability for combatting money laundering activities using cryptocurrency.

Four supervised-learning algorithms were compared using the Bitcoin Elliptic Dataset. The method covered a quantitative analysis of the algorithmic performance, capturing differences in three key evaluation metrics of F1-scores, precision and recall. Two complementary qualitative interviews were performed at cryptocurrency exchanges to identify fit and applicability of the algorithms.

The study results show that the current implemented ML tools for preventing money laundering at cryptocurrency exchanges are all too slow and need to be optimized for the task. The results also show that while not one single algorithm is most suitable for detecting transactions related to money-laundering, the specific applicability of the decision tree algorithm is most suitable for adoption by cryptocurrency exchanges.

Given the growth of cryptocurrency use, this study explores the newly developed field of algorithmic tools to combat illicit currency movement, in particular in the growing arena of cryptocurrencies. The study results provide new insights into the applicability of ML as a tool to combat money laundering using cryptocurrency exchanges.

The study aims to compare management practices in private and publicly owned elderly care homes. The demands for cost-effective care combined with emphasis on client experience highlights the importance of appropriate management practices.

The study utilises a survey of 500 homes covering management practices on monitoring, performance management and staff development. These are highly correlated, allowing for treating the practices both in aggregate and individually in the analysis. Additional questions capture information on site and management conditions.

Management practices employed at the elderly care homes vary greatly, with high and low individual scores found in most homes. But private homes consistently score higher than public homes, especially when it comes to incentive practices. Also, elderly care homes of both ownership forms score at the top and bottom of each management practice. But looking at the average management score, there are fewer private homes that score really low and more private homes that score really high.

The results identify given characteristics and maturity of the various management practices employed to plan and control operations in the elderly care homes and provides managerial and staff insights into their use.

The application and impact of standard management practices has previously been limited in publicly funded services. Little is known about management practices in elderly care and whether the practices are associated with better performance.

Innovation is a key source of competitiveness in the knowledge economy, and continuous improvement (CI) is a key element of such corporate pursuit. The purpose of this paper is to explore links to prevalent shop floor conditions which support or prohibit the effective realisation of CI. Lean is a globally competitive standard for product assembly of discreet parts. Successful Lean application is conditioned by an evolutionary problem‐solving ability of the rank and file. This is in itself contingent on employee involvement in improvement programs and the implementation of appropriate practices. But the challenge of operating innovative Lean systems lacks statistically valid guidance.

This empirical study is based on 294 worker responses from 12 manufacturing sites in four industry sectors.

The study identifies particular practices that impact employee participation in improvement activities and their performance outcomes. Process suggestions are driven by a combination of difficult working conditions that the workers seek to improve and team‐based work. However, for suggestions on product improvements, significant practices are worker favorable industrial relations and human resource practices.

To test work practices, work practice variables were measured with single items, trading lower measurement reliability for increased scope. Also, there is a moderate sample size, if addressed by selecting sites with a variety of practices.

The results indicate that the main business benefit is in enhanced product quality through process, rather than product, improvements, suggesting that management should pursue worker involvement on continuous process improvements, and employ designated design teams for product improvements.

The paper empirically identifies the relationship between particular work practices and product and process improvement in a Lean setting.

The characteristics of successful lean operations make a committed workforce a necessity. However, there is an ongoing debate over whether lean characteristics inherently enhance or impede commitment. The purpose of this paper is to help settle the debate, as well as provide insights into the role specific work practices play.

Based on responses from 1,391 workers at 21 lean sites, the authors examined the relationship between the degree of lean implementation and worker commitment; as well as the commitment effects of 21 lean work practices.

The paper examines relationships between worker commitment and lean production, sheds light on the lean commitment debate and provides guidance for designing lean systems that complement high‐commitment work practices.

The results will be of value to readers with interests in operations, human resources and high‐performance work practices, as well as the management and implementation of lean and its associated practices.

The study described in the paper is unique in that it establishes a statistically valid relationship between lean production and worker commitment and associated work practices.

The question of whether a business should pursue a marketing strategy that is standardised across national markets or adapted to individual markets has long troubled practicing managers and academics. The purpose of this study is to examine such marketing mix standardisation in the Baltic states.

This cross‐sectional study employs a survey of management responses from multinational companies active in the Baltic states to capture their marketing strategies. Another survey is used to capture customer perceptions of the degree of marketing mix standardisation.

This research supports the idea of marketing standardisation across the Baltic countries, but it also points at particular areas for adaptation.

The three Baltic countries present an interesting case due to close geographical location, shared history and economic development, alongside differences in consumer behaviour caused by independent national development. This makes for unique market conditions when it comes to marketing standardization in the region.

The research results support multinational firms in their pursuit of the right balance between adaptation and standardisation in their marketing mix.

This study contributes to research in the areas of international marketing strategy and marketing standardisation.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical discussion about the roles that a performance measurement system should perform. The enterprises' operations systems and environments, characterized by their complexity and dynamics, are challenging the strategic operations management models.

The developed theoretical construction is based on a literature review. The measurement system is studied in the context of a strategic operations management system.

The structures, processes and spaces were the lens used to study the performance measurement system and contributed to organize the concepts in tables, that is, roles statements were created based on these guidelines. These tables synthesized and identified the main roles that the system should perform, stating their definitions and related perspectives.

The generated framework is theoretical in essence and needs to be tested, although the theoretical exercise showed a common sense around the articulated main concepts.

The understanding of the performance measurement system roles contributes to improve design, implementation and use of the performance system.

The paper's main contribution is the theoretical underpinning used to develop the performance framework. The system design approach used will enable further research into strategic performance measurement application for the design and use of such a system. Continuous improvement, organizational learning and the management of change process will be required properties for the strategic management of the operations function.

This empirical paper seeks to address the neglected work condition aspect of lean production (LP) implementation, specifically the relationship between LP and worker job stress.

The Karasek job stress model was used to link shopfloor practices to expected worker stress. The model incorporates the effects of job demands (physical and psychological), job control and social support. The study employs management and worker questionnaires, management interviews and structured plant tours. The response variable is total worker job stress – the sum of the physical and mental stress levels. The independent variable for the first question is the degree of lean implementation at the sites.

The results are based on 1,391 worker responses at 21 sites in the four UK industry sectors. About 11 tested practices are significantly related to stress and an unexpected non‐linear response of stress to lean implementation is identified. Results indicate that LP is not inherently stressful, with stress levels significantly related to management decisions in designing and operating LP systems.

The hypotheses tests shed light on the relationships between LP practices and job stress, and reveal a significant managerial influence on stress levels. The regression model shows the scale and significant lean practices of this influence, with the work practices explaining 30 percent of job stress variations. The stress reduction and stress control opportunities identified in the study show the potential for designing and operating effective lean systems while also controlling stress levels.

This is the first known multi‐industry empirical study of the relationship of job stress to a range of lean practices and to the degree of lean implementation.