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This study aims to explore the interrelationships among human-related lean practices, lean production shop floors, process quality, inventory management, operational productivity and business productivity.

This study used a cross-sectional survey approach, and quantitative data were collected from 324 Indian auto-component manufacturing firms. Confirmatory factor analysis was used, followed by structural equation modelling techniques for the conceptual model, which incorporated a complete set of 11 hypotheses.

The results confirmed that human-related lean practices trigger lean production shop floors and improve process quality. Furthermore, the study revealed the positive impact of a lean production shop floor on process quality and inventory management and the positive impact of process quality on both operational and business productivity. Finally, inventory management is of the utmost importance in achieving better operational and business productivity, and operational productivity positively leads to business productivity.

The findings of this study can benefit auto-component manufacturing firms by elucidating the complex relationships between human-related lean practices, lean production shop floors, process quality, inventory management, operational productivity and business productivity. Better knowledge of these relationships will enable firms to enhance efficiency levels, reduce costs and resource wastage and improve their overall performance. This study provides a good understanding of the interplay between lean and quality factors and their influence on inventory management and business performance.

In this study, the authors assess the current state of lean product development and the lean production shop floor, along with the impact of the former on process quality and the latter on product quality and customer complaint reduction. The interplay between process and product quality and customer complaint reduction is assessed, along with their impacts on business performance.

Data were collected from 377 managers working at auto-component manufacturing firms in India. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for scale validation, and structural equation modelling was employed to test the research hypotheses.

The results of the statistical analyses reveal the positive influence of a lean production shop floor on process quality and lean product development on product quality and customer complaint reduction, and thereby on business performance.

The findings of this research provide insights into the interplay between lean and quality factors and their influence on customer complaint reduction and business performance. Practitioners can use the proposed model to strategically design unique products and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the production shop floor, which can help enhance the product and process quality. This can reduce customer dissatisfaction and improve the business performance.

Few studies have simultaneously investigated the influence of lean product development and lean production shop floors in the Indian manufacturing context. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to include customer complaint reduction as a construct in a lean model. It helps identify and prioritise the enablers of business performance and provides valuable insights for practitioners to strengthen lean implementation to attain a competitive edge.

The purpose of this paper is to present an organized review of existing research on reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS). The paper considers majority of the prominent research articles in the domain of RMS published ever since RMS was envisaged in 1997.

The paper systematically reviews, classifies and analyses the published literature on postulations and design of RMSs. The general observations from the literature and research gaps recognized thereon are highlighted at the end of each section/sub-section.

The paper reveals important aspects related to RMS research since its inception. It also recognizes the areas of RMS research requiring more focus. The study also highlights open issues and future directions for further research.

The literature in the domain of RMS has so far been narrow. This paper reviews the prominent research in this field and presents an overview of its conceptual developments and various mathematical models for the RMS design and its optimization so far developed by the researchers. Further, manufacturing advancements and future directions have also been proposed for the efficient execution of RMS paradigm in manufacturing industries.

The paper provides an organized listing of published research work in the field of RMS. This work will provide an insight to the researchers, practitioners and others related directly or indirectly to this field to develop and understand better strategies for supervising and controlling the smooth implementation of RMS.

Global competition has intensified pressure on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to implement lean. Recently, the debate has converged to the role of lean implementation barriers (LIBs). The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate by exploring the LIBs in SMEs through three case studies.

A case study approach was employed followed by interpretive structural modelling (ISM) to model the interrelationship among the LIBs.

This study reveals that lack of management commitment, leadership and resources are the key barriers to lean implementation in SMEs in India. Furthermore, poor communication between different levels of the organisation and inadequate dissemination of the knowledge of lean benefits also creates hindrance in lean implementation. Managerial implications of the identified barriers for lean implementation in SMEs have been discussed.

The research regarding lean implementation in SMEs is scarce. This study is the first attempt of its kind to identify the lean barriers in a small industry setup through mathematical analysis.

The present study compared Indian consumers' attitude (AT) toward and purchase intention (PI) from Western apparel brands, as a function of their Western acculturation (WA), consumer ethnocentrism (CE) in apparel consumption, consumer cosmopolitanism (CC) and country of residence (India vs the USA).

The sample included Indians residing in India and the USA, who were 19 years or older, and visited online or brick-and-mortar apparel stores. An online survey was administered through Amazon Mechanical Turk to collect the data. The data was analyzed through multi-group structural equation modeling.

WA engenders CE among Indian consumers, especially among Indians residing in India. WA and CC positively influence AT. CE did not have a significant negative influence on AT. Although a high CE lowers the PI, a high WA, CC and positive AT can translate into high PI.

The study did not use an experimental design. Therefore, causal relationships between the research variables could not be explained. Majority of the respondents were male. This might have confounded the findings with potential gendered effects.

Western apparel brands targeting Indian consumers in India and the USA should focus on projecting their cosmopolitan and pro-Indian image to target this population's cosmopolitan and ethnocentric outlook, thereby enhancing PI.

The study proposed and empirically tested a conceptual model indicating the relationship between some of the important predictors of Indian consumers' PI in the context of Indians residing in the USA and India.

The case aims to deal with multigenerational entrepreneurship. The family business of sports goods was initiated by Yashpal Aggarwal and his friends in the 1950s. Yashpal acquired the art of doing business and started initially with trading of sporting goods in Mumbai. Yashpal had three sons, Ashok, Ashwini and Rajesh, who ventured into sports trading business as well. After the demise of Yashpal, Ashok shifted to Jalandhar and started a manufacturing unit, producing roller skates. Ashwini, being entrepreneurial and innovative, had always desired to professionalise the business and hence started with Okini Sports. Okini Sports emerged as the first organised professional sports mall in India.

Based on case research, individual interviews at different levels, testing the case several times and filling the case gaps during the process to authenticate information, multiple sources of information have been used.

Businesses largely compete on the basis of available talent, competency and capability. Family businesses must be open to induct competent people within the family with the required skills to lead the company. If a family nurtures a member with requisite skills, values, to keep shareholders, key customers, and suppliers loyal to the business, then family leadership is the best option. As the business grows in dimension, differential capabilities are required to run the business competitively, hence, inducting talented individuals as professionals is a better option. A family must be realistic about the talents available internally.

This case is restricted to sports family business entrepreneurship in the context of India, but has a great learning towards multigenerational entrepreneurship.

The case is original with the family in its fourth generation, the youngest looking to diversify and professionalize the business, set his family dreams of setting up the biggest sports mall in India.

This paper aims to discuss the concept of leanness and provide an effective assessment tool for measuring leanness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

A hybrid interpretive structural modelling–analytical network process (ISM-ANP) approach is used to develop leanness index for SMEs. The parameters for leanness are extracted from the literature survey, and the inter-relationships among them are identified through ISM approach. Further, the ANP tool is used to derive the weights of the parameters, and the leanness index is developed for SMEs.

A leanness assessment model is developed, which considers the interdependencies among leanness parameters. Continuous improvement, Just in Time and active management participation, respectively, get first, second and third ranks for leanness measurement in SMEs.

This study is based on the expert’s opinion, and it may tend to be biased. However, future study will be performed as empirical research to catch more explicit concept and more insights of leanness in context of SME sector.

This paper provides guidelines to the managers of SMEs for measuring the leanness index and planning for future. This leanness index gives information regarding the degree of lean adoption in the organization.

The proposed model has been developed by the expert opinion of academicians and practitioners. The proposed model can provide guidelines and directions for managers for leanness assessment in SME context.

Although lean thinking is deemed to be a gold standard of modern production management, a lot of scepticism still remains regarding its applicability in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to understand the perception of lean in SMEs and establish the relationship between lean adoption and operational performance.

With the help of a survey, data were collected from 425 SMEs in India and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Operational performance of the firms was found to be positively related to lean implementation.

This study also furnishes practitioners with a better understanding of lean thinking in SMEs and its impact on performance.

This study aims to evaluate the nature and extent of sustainability disclosure practices of publicly listed companies in India. Further, it investigates the impact of potential determinants on the sustainability disclosure of companies.

The study analyzes data of 75 top listed nonbanking companies operating in India included in NIFTY100 Index for the years 2014-2015 to 2018-2019. In the present study, environment, social and governance disclosure dimensions were considered to evaluate the sustainability reporting performance of companies using content analysis. Panel data analysis was conducted to investigate the impact of various factors on the extent of sustainability information disclosure.

Results indicate that environmentally polluting industries disclose significantly higher sustainability information than non-polluting industries in India. The empirical findings suggest that determinants such as company size, age, free cash flow capacity, government ownership and global reporting initiative (GRI) usage positively related to the extent of corporate sustainability disclosure. Contrary to the expectations, financial leverage and profitability were found to be negatively related to the sustainability disclosure of companies in India.

This study provides empirical evidence for regulators, practitioners and corporate strategists to assess the progress in the sustainability reporting landscape in India. The finding implies that large and established companies can reduce legitimacy costs through higher sustainability information disclosure. Interestingly, this premise did not hold in the case of high leveraged and profitable companies. Overall findings can also help policymakers to incorporate necessary reforms to improve sustainability reporting in India.

This study is one of the first studies to investigate the nature, extent and potential determinants of corporate sustainability disclosure in India. The paper adds to the existing literature on sustainability reporting by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between sustainability reporting and potential determinants such as government ownership, size, leverage, profitability, age, free cash flow capacity, industry and GRI usage.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of perishable food supply chain quality (PFSCQ) and to suggest a structural model that counts the influence of PFSCQ practices on organizational sustainable performance.

On the basis of comprehensive literature review, PFSCQ highly significant practices were examined and designated. These practices were classified into four dimensions: upstream quality (supplier quality), downstream quality (customer focus), internal quality (process and logistics quality) and support practices (top management leadership and commitment to quality, quality of human resource, quality of information and supply chain integration). The measurement instrument of organizational sustainable performance was also build on, containing three aspects: economic, environmental and social performance.

An inventive conceptual model that specifies a comprehensive image cover up core dimensions of PFSCQ and various aspects of organizational sustainable performance was suggested. This conceptual model can be used as “a directive” for theory developing and measurement instrument development of PFSCQ practices and organizational sustainable performance. More prominently, on the road to achieving additional insight, an extensive structural model that makes out direct and indirect relationships between PFSCQ practices and organizational sustainable performance was also developed. Practitioners can apply this model as “a path plan” for implementing PFSCQ practices to improve organizational sustainable performance.

The integration of quality and supply chain even now remains inadequate in the literature. Consequently, it is required to have a more focused approach in assessing quality issues inside the upstream, internal and downstream of the supply chain. This study concentrates on the practices which make better quality aspects of the supply chain, known as PFSCQ practices. Suggested research models in this paper contribute to conceptual frameworks for theory building in PFSCQ and sustainable organizational performance. It is also expected that this research can suggest a useful direction for determining and implementing PFSCQ practices as well as make possible further studies in this arena.