Search results

In this paper we describe a novel human machine interface system aimed primarily at those who have experienced loss of extremity motor function. The system enables the control of a wide range of assistive technologies such as wheelchairs, prosthetics, computers and general electrical goods at the ‘flick of a tongue’. This system could benefit a huge sector of people including those who have suffered a spinal cord injury, stroke or quadriplegia.The technology focuses on a unique hands‐free interface whereby users can issue commands simply by performing subtle tongue movements; these tongue motions are continually monitored by a small microphone positioned comfortably within the ear canal. Due to the physiological connections between these regions and the distinctive nature of the signals, these commands can be detected and distinguished allowing a control signal to be issued.This inexpensive device offers significant advantages over existing technologies by providing unobtrusive, hygienic control through natural tongue motion. New software has been implemented, achieving over 97% correct classification across four different tongue movements for seven test subjects. Feasibility of the system as an interface for a variety of devices is demonstrated through simulation studies including controlling a prosthetic manipulator and power wheelchair.

The purpose of this paper is to carry out the literature search on manufacturing organizations and total productive maintenance (TPM). This research aims at studying TPM attributes and barriers in line with the TPM framework for effective implementation of TPM. This study identifies the barriers in TPM implementation and the critical success factors (CSFs) for effective TPM implementation.

In this manuscript, the study of TPM in the manufacturing sector has been considered a broad area of the research and emphasis on the TPM literature review, which primarily relates to the contribution of manufacturing sector and employment availability. Next sections covers TPM history, importance, justification, pillars, obstacles and TPM implementation procedure and models. Thereafter author identified the gaps in existing literature.

The existing literature shows that very few TPM implementation models are available for the manufacturing sector. The study also found that there is no systematically conducted large-scale empirical research which deals with TPM implementation. In order to bridge this gap, an investigation into the successful implementation of TPM in is truly needed. The finding of the literature shows that there is a need of TPM model specially developed for the manufacturing sector. The identified critical factors derived from the extensive literature review help to overcome the barriers for effective TPM implementation.

This review study is limited to Indian manufacturing industries. The identified TPM CSFs are based on the TPM pillars and their sub-factors. This cross-sectional study was based on the existing TPM model.

This paper can increase the significance of TPM strategy, which could help managers of organizations to have a better understanding of the benefits of implementing TPM and therefore enable patient satisfaction within their organizations.

The literature review covers methodical identification of TPM barriers and critical factors for maintenance performance improvements. It allows the practitioners to apply these identified CSFs for TPM implementation to achieve an improvement in industrial performance and competitiveness.

Entrepreneurial alertness is a key factor in business opportunity identification. Scholars have determined that successful entrepreneurs have high levels of entrepreneurial alertness, but only a limited number of studies are available on the concept. One of the major reasons identified is the fragmented constituents and less knowledge of the components determining the level of alertness. The present study aims to integrate the varied research on entrepreneurial alertness, identify its core components and develop the understanding of the concept of entrepreneurial alertness.

The study is based on a systematic review of secondary research. The first stage involved identifying relevant publications and applying practical screening. In the second stage, the resources were screened for the inclusion criteria, and in the final stage, the articles meeting the inclusion criteria were read in detail for the final analysis.

The review resulted in identification of the following core components of the alertness construct – sensing and searching information, cognitive ability, personality factors (like creativity and self-efficacy), environment, social networks, knowledge and experience. The review also highlighted that cognitive ability plays a central role in alertness.

Based on the review of literature, the study proposes a model of the alertness construct, which attempts to draw a relationship between the identified components. The review also uncovers several unexplored areas, which still need to be addressed in the area of entrepreneurial alertness.

This paper aims to explain how the dynamic demand environment influences strategic firm behavior along an industry’s evolutionary path. A conceptual gap concerning the influence of demand-side environmental factors (vis-à-vis changes in technology and policy) on firms’ strategic choices motivates the theory developed herein. The paper’s contribution to the literature on “evolutionary perspective in strategy” also addresses an important gap in the emerging literature on “strategy dynamics”.

The conceptual framework in this paper features a dynamic demand environment that provides the structural context for firms’ strategic choices. It conceptualizes demand-side competence as a mediating firm-specific construct to explain the endogenous relationship between the characteristics of the demand environment and firms’ path dependent demand-side investments.

A review of the literature on evolutionary perspective in strategy reveals an important conceptual gap concerning the structural determinants of dynamic firm behavior. There is no explanation of the endogenous relationship between dynamic demand structure, firms’ dynamic demand-side competence, and temporally heterogeneous strategic choices.

The demand-side explanation of how idiosyncratic firm behavior is endogenously determined, with both structural characteristics (demand structure) and firm competences (demand-side competence), addresses an important conceptual gap. The novelty of the theory developed herein lies in its explication of the effect of dynamic demand environment on the evolution of idiosyncratic strategic firm behavior – entry, investment and exit – along the evolutionary path of an industry. The theory developed herein not only explains the effect of both determinants of idiosyncratic strategic firm behavior – the external industry environment (dynamic market structure) and internal firm environment (dynamic firm competences) – but also explains how the determinants evolve along the industry’s lifecycle.

The main objective of this paper is to integrate a typology of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices, performances, pressures and barriers with organizational performance theories. Also the aim of this paper is to investigate the present statues of GSCM amongst Indian manufacturer.

Through a systematic review, the study identified 27 GSCM practices, 16 GSCM performances, 06 GSCM pressures and 15 GSCM barriers that were organized into categories according to their theoretical conception, organizational context and characteristics. The survey and interview methods are used for data collection and analyzed by five-point Likert scale.

The main finding of this paper is ranking of identified GSCM practices, performances, pressures and barriers. The study identified three organizational context dimensions (innovation, performance and management) and investigated the present status of GSCM. The main contribution of the study is the alignment of each category of GSCM practices, performances, pressures and barriers and organizational dimension with the selected theoretical lenses that can help future investigations to deepen the analysis of GSCM. Besides the theoretical contributions, the authors believe this contribution can also achieve practitioners.

The authors provide a comprehensive typology of GSCM practices, performances, pressures and barriers based on empirical evidence and conceptual arguments.

This study aims to analyze the impact of ethical leadership on organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intention of employees working in the financial sector, considering procedural justice as a mediator.

Data was collected from 306 employees working in the financial sector (banking, insurance and mutual fund) in India. The data was collected in two phases to avoid common method bias by using standardized close-ended questionnaires. Data for this study was assessed using Smart Partial Least Square (PLS) 3.

The results show that ethical leadership is significantly associated with procedural justice, organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intention. Further procedural justice acts as a mediator between ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior; also between ethical leadership and turnover intention.

The research contribute in understanding the role of procedural justice as a mediator between ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intention for the employees working in the financial sector in India.

Given the dominant share of India in global production of fruits and vegetables, this paper intends to analyze the export competitiveness of India and other major food exporters in the world trade. The purpose of this study is to examine export structure, substitutability and complementarity of selected fresh and processed fruits and vegetables of top ten food exporters for the period 2010-20.

Balassa’s (1965) revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index was used to measure RCA indices of selected fruits and vegetables under study. Also, revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) and normalized RCA (NRCA) indices have been calculated. Further, Spearman rank correlation coefficients were computed to analyze changes over the study period for India and other competing countries. The export data have been sourced from UN Comtrade, an electronic database of United Nations, as well as World Trade Statistical Review, a database of World Trade Organization. The analysis was undertaken at Harmonized System (HS) four-digit classification for the period 2010-20.

The results disclosed an improvement in India’s comparative advantage over the period of 2010-20 in HS 07 product category, whereas the advantage ceded to other competitive nations in HS 08 product category. Further, Spearman rank correlation coefficients revealed that India faces competition from countries like China, Indonesia, Brazil, Thailand, Argentina and European Union for HS 07 product category, while countries like Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and Thailandare the major competitors of India in HS 08 product category.

The paper expands the existing agricultural trade literature in three ways. First, it is one of the very few studies that have analyzed RCA for Indian fresh and processed fruits and vegetables using three different types of indices, namely, Balassa’s RCA, RSCA and NRCA. Second, the authors provide a number of comparisons related to RCA for Indian fruits and vegetables with other top food exporters in the world for a period of 10 years (2010-20). Third, the authors contribute to agricultural trade literature by assessing the substitutability or complementarity of India in the export of fruits and vegetables with other competing nations by using Spearman rank correlation coefficients.

Although there are many studies investigating attributes affecting productivity, the research into measurement of those attributes has been incomplete. In an attempt to bridge this gap, the authors reviewed the productivity literature, identified and integrated previously described attributes, and developed a measure to estimate those attributes. The developed questionnaire – questionnaire on productivity attributes (QPA) – is based on a five-dimensional conceptual framework, which consisted of human resource management, management strategy, organizational culture, production methodology, and performance. A model that measures a way to construct a linear scale from ordinal data has also been introduced. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Initially, a pilot survey among Indian academic and industrial experts as well as employees working in manufacturing industries was conducted to optimize clarity, readability, and construction of the QPA. After pilot-testing, the 45 QPA items were further field surveyed amongst a representative sample of 311 Indian engineers, managers, and workers from manufacturing industries. One-way analysis of variance is performed to examine whether there are differences among engineers, managers, and workers in the understandability or applicability of QPA. Exploratory factor analysis is used to confirm the five-dimensional conceptual framework. Also, infit and outfit measures have been used to check the QPA model fit. To increase confidence, all retained items are tested for goodness-of-fit test. Finally, the functioning of optimal response categorization of the QPA is demonstrated in terms of frequencies, average measures, and standard error.

A five-dimensional conceptual framework is identified. A generic short scale was constructed. Finally, the developed questionnaire provides new insights into how to avoid the trade-offs commonly observed in productivity research.

The newly designed QPA appears as a general measure for productivity attributes which can be used by scholars and practitioners to conduct basic research on productivity improvement in various industries.

The objective of the present study is to identify and analyze a set of critical success factors (CSFs) for ice-cream industry [cold chain management (CCM)] that helps in increasing the efficacy, quality, performance and growth of the supply chain organization.

A questionnaire survey with companies in ice-cream sector and a panel study with experts were conducted to identify and validate CSFs and their associated sub-factors. Eight CSFs identified from the cold chain domain vetted for the ice-cream industry and then prioritized by using one of the most well-known decision-making frameworks, Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory. The general verdicts of the modelling and its application to the real-world case have been tested through an ice-cream company supply chain.

The result shows that the significant CSFs accountable for the growth of the ice-cream industry are the infrastructure and capacity building, consistent product improvement and operational efficiencies of the value chain. Subsequently, it was identified that the use of IT and related technologies and improved processes for operations also play a considerable role in the performance of ice-cream industry.

The study successfully outlines the effective CCM practices for critical issues. The proposed methodology and factor modelling case demonstration might be useful in analyzing the logistic chains of products such as fruits, drugs and meat.

The meritorious identification of critical areas and executing mitigation plans bring notable benefits to the firms such as improved operational efficiencies, improved time to market performance and product innovation, which bring additional benefits to the producers.