Delving Into the Interdependencies in the Network of Economic Sustainability Innovations

Legislative pressures and public awareness are urging companies to foster sustainability innovations that improve business operations. Limited studies explored the underpinnings of the economic dimension of sustainability innovations; studying economic innovation criteria in the manufacturing sector of emerging economies can inform other industries while recession fears loom the financial prospects. This article develops a decision analysis and evaluation framework for investigating the interdependencies in the network of economic sustainability innovation criteria using fuzzy Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM). It is found that the ‘‘availability of financial resources for promoting innovation’’ is the criterion with the most network relations; this is what the managers should focus on to better pursue sustainability innovations in the supply chains and facilitate the shift towards sustainable industrial development. The study is concluded by providing practical insights into the economic dimension of sustainability innovations for industrial managers and academics

Behavioural factors on the adoption of sustainable supply chain practices

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has become a popular research topic among scholars as evidence suggests it has significantly contributed to achieve more environmentally conscious and socially responsible supply chains. Operational excellence (OE), on the other hand, can be achieved by incorporating SSCM practices within existing supply chain operations. However, due to human expertise, involvement and commitment towards excelling at sustainable and operational performance, the effective deployment of SSCM practices now depends on various humanbased behavioural factors (BFs). Human behaviour is dynamic in nature and hence has an effect on the implementation of SSCM practices. Nevertheless, research on BFs in view of SSCM practices is limited. To fill this knowledge gap, this study examines the nature of BFs for SSCM practices towards OE in supply chains, particularly within the context of the footwear industry of Bangladesh. In the first phase, the BFs were identified and determined through a literature review and empirical investigation. In the second phase, the Hesitant Fuzzy DEMATEL method was used to establish the cause-effect relationships among the factors. The influence of group validation by experts and a literature survey, along with managerial implications, was discussed and explained in the third phase of the study. The results suggest that the factor, 'organisation culture' is the most influencing behavioural factor, followed by 'commitment from higher authority'. Both theoretical and practical contributions of the study are drawn from its findings, helping footwear industry managers to more effectively adopt SSCM practices in the supply chain operations of their organisations to achieve OE.N/

Benchmarking the outsourcing factors of third-party logistics services selection: analysing influential strength and building a sustainable decision model

Purpose: Outsourcings always affect crucial supply chain functions concerning flexibility and cost. During the decision to outsource and consider third-party logistics service (3PLs) provider selection, decision-makers need to pay more attention to certain critical outsourcing factors such as coordination, integration and cooperation as these key factors are essential to improve overall supply chain performance. The main purpose of this work is to identify the inter-relations among outsourcing decision factors to highlight the most important and influential factors that should be considered and carefully thought through when making outsourcing sustainable decisions. Methodology: A two-phased methodology has been used in this study. In the first phase, outsourcing decision factors are identified from existing literature and validated by decision-makers from industry and academia. To understand the influential strength and build a sustainable model, the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method is employed. A courier company in the United Arab Emirates is considered for implementation. Findings: All identified and validated factors are segregated into two categories (cause and effect). The result shows that the most influential factors are; developing strategic alliances, uncertainty and risk mitigation and deficiency of internal resources for a service. Practical implications: There are several insights for industry managers and practitioners. The results of the study may help practitioners and logistics managers to make the logistics service sustainable and more efficient for businesses. Originality/value: The originality of the study is that this study focuses on a courier company to understand the interdependencies among outsourcing decision factors; this is unique in this field of literature

Evaluating barriers to implementing green supply chain management: an example from an emerging economy

This study proposes a fuzzy-based VIKOR (VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) framework for evaluating barriers to implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) in the context of an emerging economy. The methodology uses a mix method approach combining literature review and opinions of some selected managers from the plastic industry of Bangladesh to identify four main-barriers and twenty-five sub-barriers relevant to GSCM implementation. Fuzzy-VIKOR approach was applied to aid in the analysis of the barriers in the plastic industry of Bangladesh. The findings of the study show the order/rank of intensity and severity of the main-barriers to implementing GSCM practices in the plastic industry of Bangladesh as follows: “inadequate knowledge and support”, “insufficient technology and infrastructure”, “financial constraints and unsupportive organizational”, and “operational policies”. The results also show the rankings of the sub-barriers under each main barriers. This research contributes to the literature in a number of ways. First, it identifies multi-levels of barriers to GSCM implementation. Secondly, it identifies and proposes alternative action plans (strategies) to help mitigate and implement GSCM practices. Though this study has significant contributions, a number of limitations do exist. The barriers in this study were identified using the extant literature review and industrial managers’ opinions. A more scientific approach and empirical validation is required, especially in the plastic manufacturing industry of Bangladesh to identify more new challenging barriers. However, this study can provide managers with a better understanding of the barriers to implementing GSCM practices and motivate the researchers to further extend the investigation on the insights for developing strategic plans for implementing GSCM practices in the plastic industry of Bangladesh

Assessing challenges for implementing Industry 4.0: implications for process safety and environmental protection

Researchers and practitioners are giving significant attention to Industry 4.0 due to its numerous benefits to manufacturing organizations. Several aspects of Industry 4.0 have been studied in the literature. However, studies on the challenges for implementing Industry 4.0 in manufacturing operations have received less attention. To address this gap, this study identifies a set of challenges (framework) for implementing Industry 4.0 in manufacturing industries. This framework is evaluated in the leather industry of Bangladesh aided by a novel multi-criteria decision-making method named Best-Worst method (BWM). The findings of the study showed that ‘lack of technological infrastructure’ is the most pressing challenge that may hurdle the implementation of Industry 4.0 whereas ‘environmental side-effects’ is the less among the challenges that may hinder implementation of Industry 4.0 in the Bangladeshi leather industry. This result may help decision makers, industrial managers and practitioners in the Bangladeshi leather industry to realize the actual challenges confronting them when attempting to implement Industry 4.0 and focus their attention on how to address these challenges to pave ways for a successful implementation of Industry 4.0

Driving sustainable healthcare service management in the hospital sector

Sustainability in service management is a crucial issue in today's competitive business environment. Previous researchers have conducted studies on healthcare sustainability from various areas, but none has been conducted on the assessment of driving factors to sustainable service management in the hospital sector. This study fills this research gap by identifying and assessing the driving factors behind sustainable service management in the hospital sector from an emerging economy context. The study does so by utilizing integrated qualitative and quantitative research methods. Primarily, the study performed a Delphi study to identify the most relevant driving factors and then utilized the integrated grey-based decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) model to aid the evaluation within the Bangladesh hospital sector. The study identified eleven factors as the causal and nine factors as effect group factors. Furthermore, the factor “Engaging experienced doctors in top management (D20)” was identified as the most prominent driving factor for sustainable hospital service management. The driving factor “Implementation of public health policies (D18)” was identified as the topmost causal factor, and “Proper maintenance and monitoring of hospital support services (D9)” identified as the most influenced/impacted effect group driving factor. The study's findings have significant policy implications for service operations and managers in the hospital sectors. The service managers should give special attention to the causal group driving factors and invest heavily in them as that will help to improve the effect group factors within the system

Drivers to mitigate climate change in context of manufacturing industry: An emerging economy study

Business strategy and the environment are becoming increasingly central within the global agenda. In particular, some emerging countries such as India show strong growth in the manufacturing sector while also exhibiting high emission values. This inevitably creates a paradox. Therefore, this study aims to determine the drivers for Indian manufacturing firms to pursue sustainability. The methodologies used in this work is comprised of modified total interpretive structure modeling (m-TISM) that is based on 21 drivers to mitigate climate change and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) that evaluates the dependence power and driving power of the drivers. The findings from the study reflect that there are nine levels into which the clusters are divided. “greenhouse gas performance” and “encouraging low carbon products” are influenced by all other drivers, while the driver “dynamic transitions in economic and political situation” occupies a mirror position. This last driver has the greatest impact on the achievement of the goal along with “persistent with corporate conventionalities” and “dynamic transitions in economic and political situation.” The economic dimension has a key asset in the manufacturing context, but the influence of sustainable technology on the supply side and of the responsible consumption on the demand side cannot be overlooked. Businesses that focus on short-term maximization by not focusing on renewable and circular resources may be uncompetitive in the long-term

Key performance indicators for adopting sustainability practices in footwear supply chains

The footwear industry has contributed notably to different countries’ economic development. Therefore, it needs to focus on operational excellence in order to achieve a sustainable level of development. Achieving sustainability in the footwear industry, however, is a complex task since various issues are involved in the footwear manufacturing process. Currently, in order to see how firms can sustain their place in the competitive global business environment, researchers and practitioners are giving special attention to operational excellence in the footwear manufacturing industry. Operational excellence is a business term that indicates the actual performance of an organization. To make the supply chain agile, resilient, and sustainable, it is imperative that firms incorporate sustainable practices in the footwear industry, and operational excellence can help in this regard. The sustainability of the footwear industry can be examined by using a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, identifying and examining the KPIs for adopting sustainable practices in the footwear supply chain is a very important task. There is still a knowledge gap in research on the KPIs for attaining sustainability in the footwear industry. To fill in this knowledge gap, this study contributes to the existing literature by identifying and assessing the KPIs by using a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method named the best-worst method (BWM). This study uses a previous study to identify some relevant KPIs, some of which were included in the assessment process based on footwear industry experts’ feedback. After finalizing the relevant KPIs, BWM was utilized to find the most important KPIs for adopting sustainability practices in the footwear industry’s supply chains. The findings of this study reveal that the KPIs “quality production”, “timely order processing” and “accuracy of moulding” received the first three positions in the rankings we performed. The results of this study will help practitioners, industry experts, and decision-makers to find out a pathway for easily adopting sustainability practices in the footwear supply chains

Driving sustainable healthcare service management in the hospital sector

Sustainability in service management is a crucial issue in today’s competitive business environment. Previous researchers have conducted studies on healthcare sustainability from various areas, but none has been conducted on the assessment of driving factors to sustainable service management in the hospital sector. This study fills this research gap by identifying and assessing the driving factors behind sustainable service management in the hospital sector from an emerging economy context. The study does so by utilizing integrated qualitative and quantitative research methods. Primarily, the study performed a Delphi study to identify the most relevant driving factors and then utilized the integrated grey-based decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) model to aid the evaluation within the Bangladesh hospital sector. The study identified eleven factors as the cause and nine factors as effect group factors. Furthermore, the factor “Engaging experienced doctors in top management (D20)” was identified as the most prominent driving factor for sustainable hospital service management. The driving factor “Implementation of Public Health Policies (D18)” was identified as the topmost causal factor, and “Proper maintenance and monitoring of hospital support services (D9)” identified as the most influenced/impacted effect group driving factor. The study’s findings have significant policy implications for service operations and managers in the hospital sectors. The service managers should give special attention to the causal group driving factors and invest heavily in them as that will help to ensure that the effect group factors are also improved within the system

Treatment of tannery wastewater by different membrane bioreactors: A critical review

A multitude of tannery wastewater (TWW) is a key challenge for the tanning industry. Developing efficient and new technology is crucial to regulate the disposal of TWW. Many scientists developed a variety of types of membrane bioreactor-based technologies to treat TWW. This study performed a critical review to understand the existing membrane bioreactor-based TWW treatment technologies. The review revealed that many studies tried to understand the removal efficiency of the membrane bioreactor-based technologies for treating TWW. The study findings depicted that scientists tried to develop various types of membrane technologies, i.e., modified membrane bioreactor (MBR), anaerobic MBR, moving bed biofilm bioreactor (MBBR) and hybrid MBBR, osmotic membrane bioreactor (OMBBR), hybrid MBR. The MBBR technologies performed better than the existing MBR techniques among the currently employed MBR. The review suggests a set of future research domains for sustainable treatment of TWW by applying MBR. In the future, the research focus could be on the development of novel biocarriers, application of 3D printing and the implementation of process simulation to enhance process efficiency and sustainability. . The review will aid scientists in enhancing their comprehension of the processes associated with different MBR treatment technologies used for treating TWW. This will, in turn, accelerate the advancement of process parameters and techniques