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Strategic consensus can be defined as agreement on strategy content and process across all levels of an organisation. Although strategic consensus is considered a major factor for the success of an...

Many hospitals have achieved high levels of lean performance only to lose it later on. This research develops a theoretical understanding of how organisations can sustain lean in healthcare, throug...

Organisations worldwide are likely to face increasing pressure to pursue sustainable consumption and production patters due to the establishment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development from ...

This article makes a case for the importance of exploring patterns in the relationship between the adoption of lean manufacturing practices and business performance. This relationship has been described as ambiguous, because it has variously appeared to be positive, insignificant, and negative. Accordingly, this article tests this relationship for non-linearity and shows that it follows the S-Curve theory. A survey of manufacturing companies in an industrial cluster in Brazil was undertaken. This region faces infrastructural challenges, such as geographic distance between purchasers and suppliers and a shortage of skilled Labour. Despite the conditions, these companies have significantly improved their operational, financial, and environmental performance through the adoption of lean practices. Thus, this article contributes to the literature on lean manufacturing by: (a) furthering the debate on the relationship between lean practices and business performance, and testing its adherence to the S-curve theory by means of survey research; and (b) simultaneously testing operational, financial and environmental performance as a result of the adoption of lean manufacturing practices. As a consequence of the S-shaped relationship demonstrated, managers need to be aware of the presence of inertial and saturation points in the adoption of lean manufacturing practices, so they can correctly allocate resources for improving the adoption of lean practices.

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-30T01:30:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2013-01-01 With growing institutional pressure from the Brazilian government to increase the impact of research that it funds, Brazilian researchers are increasingly interested in discovering factors that affect the citation of their articles. The aim of the present article was to assess the perceptions of Brazilian sustainability researchers to identify factors that influence the impacts of their research. A survey was conducted with researchers in the field of sustainability and 89 questionnaires were completed. All of those researchers have articles or research projects in the field of sustainability (mixing environmental, social and/or economical) recorded in the Scielo or Lattes Curriculum Brazilian databases. Results suggest four factors that may explain the impact of article citations: (1) “prestige of the author and the research network;” (2) “prestige of the means of publication and indexing;” (3) “accessibility and quality characteristics of the article;” and (4) “international nature of communication and scope of the study”. Surprisingly, such factors were not statistically significant in explaining the citations of the participating researchers. These results show the need to consider other factors that can explain the impact of research, discovering the missing links. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. UNESP-Univ Estadual Paulista (The Sao Paulo State University) Av. Eng. Edmundo Carrijo Coube, 14-01, Bauru, Sao Paulo USP-University of Sao Paulo, Av. Bandeirantes, 3900, FEA-RP, Ribeirão Preto UNESP-Univ Estadual Paulista (The Sao Paulo State University) Av. Eng. Edmundo Carrijo Coube, 14-01, Bauru, Sao Paulo

This introduction article is for the special issue ‘Managing organizations for sustainable development in emerging countries: natural resources, biodiversity, and climate change’ in the International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology and presents an introduction to the topics and summarizes accepted contributions in the special issue. The accepted works may contribute with organizational management in the search for more sustainable organizations. The works focus on the challenges of managing organizations in a context of degradation of natural resources, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. Accepted papers discuss these issues, based on the reality of emerging economies (e.g. Brazil, India, and China).