Seamus O'REilly

Editorial: Journey to sustainable supply chains: insights from the 26th ISL - Author: Seamus O'Reilly, Matthias Kalverkamp, Helen Rogers

This study addresses the challenge of achieving Strategic Alignment in Sales & Operations Planning. A Conceptual Framework emerges providing the basis for research propositions to guide empirical investigation to improve understanding for practice. An Integrative Literature Review was employed to synthesise a broad range of literature.

Purpose: Sustainability challenges are omnipresent. This study aims to identify consumer segments based on food consumption practices from purchasing to disposal. A priori work identified quality attributes, food responsibility, dietary choices and food organisation and management within the home as key influences. Each represents an opportunity for consumers to employ more sustainable food behaviours. A priori work identified several indicators for each of these influences. This study explored the suitability of these indicators for measuring the identified key influences.Design/methodology/approach: The authors used an online survey of 324 Irish food consumers in January 2021 to address online food interests, purchasing preferences and purchase behaviour linked to food sustainability.Findings: The authors identify four consumer segments – food dabblers, food appreciators, pro-sus and pressured – which present a holistic view of the sustainable behaviours practiced by food consumers. The findings provide insight into the range of sustainability-related food behaviours actioned by consumers – from interest in meat-free products, organics and local produce to having an organised stock at home and minimising waste. The findings shed light on how consumers integrate elements of sustainability into their food lifestyles.Originality/value: This study captures sustainability-related food behaviours from the point of purchase through to consumption and disposal and identifies four new consumer segments based on interests, preferences and behaviours.

This exploratory article gives a cross-sectional account of how established health-care systems have responded to the novel challenge of drug shortages. In line with previous research, our analysis confirms the existence of strong path dependence in the adoption of policy responses. This path dependence is manifested in a pronounced typology of response patterns where jurisdictional approaches to the management of drug shortages differ along two core dimensions. These are the salience attributed to the problem, and the level to which state organisations engage with the problem. These patterns are mirrored in the conceptual framing and strategic orientation of the respective drug shortage policies, with: Spanish and Irish drug shortage policies focusing on the individual product level and being largely reactive; US policies focusing on the therapeutic level, with a focus on mitigation; and German and Austrian policies seeking to address the active ingredient level, with a proactive focus on shortage prevention. Despite the importance of legacies, we find evidence of innovation and path creation particularly in relation to the US and German approaches, which we explain by the simultaneous occurrence of internal crisis and pressures from local stakeholders. Points for practitioners: This article addresses a major challenge, drug shortages, which has emerged in recent years and could be characterised as a ‘system shock’. A typology of policies adopted based on an analysis of a range of health system responses is developed. Fundamental differences across these responses are evident, such as level of action (individual product level/therapeutic level/active ingredient level), time frame (from ad hoc/short term to long term) and strategic approach (reactive/mitigating/preventive). This analysis finds fundamentally different policies, such as delegated institutional powers and census management/network governance. The typology based on the salience attributed to the problem and the nature (proactive/reactive) of policymaking may assist stakeholders in health systems to critique their approach to this challenge and, at a more fundamental level, how the system responds to disruptive events.

The paper’s purpose is to contribute to a developing literature in relation to Continuous Improvement (CI), incorporating Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This paper follows on from a previous study which focused on the initial steps taken by an Irish university on its CI journey by discussing the next steps, detailing the findings from these.

A range of push and pull factors encourage Irish farmers to diversify their operations, but they remain largely reluctant entrepreneurs, wedded to productivist models of agriculture. This paper is based on a study which involved intensive inter-views conducted throughout Ireland in 2013 with a sample of 15 farm households who are "bucking the trend" and selling farm produce into short food supply chains. Using the literature on farm entrepreneurialism as an organizing framework, this paper explores the journey taken by these farm households and identifies the motivations and abilities that initiate and sustain this behavior. The results demonstrate the dynamic and complex nature of family farm entrepreneurialism. Of particular note is the importance of more ideological and socio-cultural motivations. This highlights the need for farm diversification supports to be themselves multifaceted as well as tailored to the circumstances of individual farm households. The paper emphasizes the inherent value of the more small-scale farmer entrepreneurs who may never "scale up," but who contribute to overall rural sustainability and economic life and who are meeting their own multiple goals.

Purpose: – Increased economic development in emerging economies has spurred the growth of “fast fashion” and this in turn has led to not only an opportunity for recycling activity but also a need to do so from a sustainability perspective. The purpose of this paper is to consider the emergence of such recycling activity in a developing economy.Design/methodology/approach: – A process flow approach guides identification of stakeholders and an analysis of reverse supply chain structure and processes. An adapted and extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model is employed to explore recycling behaviour at the household level.Findings: – The authors find rather haphazard garment recycling channels in Delhi NCR. In particular product acquisition processes are characterised by poor value appropriation and provide a limited service to households. This is supported by the householder survey that finds poor satisfaction levels with most recycling channels. PLS path modelling tested hypotheses that each of the four constructs (attitudes, subjective norm, perceived control and sense of duty) are significant determinants of “intention to plan to recycle”. Having tested for various possible meditating effects, sense of duty was found to act as a precursor to attitude. In this model all other constructs were significant determinants of intention to recycle garments. Thus the study highlights the role of “sense of duty” in attitude formation, a key determinant of intention to recycle garments. This highlights the importance of adherence to sustainable practices and the need for associated governance and regulation. Subjective norm points to the impact of a range of people, including experts. While perceived control points to difficulties encountered both from a self-efficacy and external (opportunity) perspectives.Practical implications: – The findings suggest that reverse supply chain design should address the limitations of the product acquisition process (especially poor value appropriation and limited collection services) and respond to household motivational factors and perceived difficulties.Originality/value: – The study considers the impact of the garment product lifecycle on household behaviour. In this context the adapted TPB model addressed the role of conscious planning. The model is extended to include sense of duty, this contributes to emerging work in this field.