Due to various added advantages over the conventional material removal processes, non-traditional machining (NTM) processes have now been widely applied in different manufacturing industries. To achieve the desired response values, it is always recommended to operate these NTM processes at their optimal parametric settings. Various single response optimization techniques are already available to determine the optimal combinations of NTM process parameters for achieving maximum or minimum value of a single response. In this paper, a multivariate quality loss function approach is adopted for simultaneous optimization of responses for three NTM processes. It is observed that this approach outperforms the other multi-response optimization techniques, like desirability function, distance function and mean squared error methods with respect to the achieved re-sponse values. With modification of the corresponding objective function and constraints of the de-veloped non-linear programming problem, it can be effectively applied to any non-traditional as well as conventional machining process as a multi-objective optimization tool.

Information System (IS) is a strife to exploit Business Intelligence (BI) in an organization. In the Malaysian Halal Food Manufacturing, a league of Information Technology (IT) professional and decision makers is the architect of the perspective in IT. There are numerous research studies on utilizing and investigating strategic effects of environmental factors augmentation on the organizations, but compact information is acknowledged prevailing how the subjective conception for the strategic source of deci-sions is transformed into the objective principle. Hence, general interpretation of the IT professional and the decision makers is crucial for a comprehensive and collaborative decision-making process. Therefore, prosper stimulate assimilation of the environmental factors that persuade the knowledge integration between IT professionals and decision makers is compulsory. BI and Big Data (BD) help organizations derive enhance decision-making process and knowledge creation. The objective of this research study is to emerge knowledge from organizing BD and to utilize BI together with perceiving MIT90s framework and environmental factors for the analysis of decision-making process of halal food manufacturers in Malaysia. The study applied regression analysis to predicted 103 responses to determine decision making of business performance. The results indicate that halal market demand played important role in predicting business performance of halal manufactures. This study provides some insights into decision making perspectives of business performance management among halal food manufacturers in Malaysia.

The two-tier board system practiced in Indonesia provides greater opportunity for the majority shareholders to place representative on board which may expropriate interest of minority share-holders and increase information asymmetry. This study looks at the influence of family ownership on firm’s performance, by differentiating the influence of family ownership from family involvement in companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. Family ownership is measured based on family’s equity ownership in the firm and family’s involvement. This study explores family in-volvement in threefold: involvement in the board of commissioners, involvement in the board of directors and involvement in both boards. Firm performance is measured based on Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC) which comprises of capital employed efficiency, human capital efficiency, and structural capital efficiency. Data was collected for a period of three years from 2007 to 2009 on 155 firms which were identified as family firms. The findings show that family ownership has a positive influence on firm performance. Family involvement, however, shows mixed results. Family involvement in the board of commissioners has a positive but insignificant influence on firm’s performance. Family involvement in the board of directors has a negative influence on firm’s performance. Family involvement in both boards has a positive influence on firm performance. The findings suggest that family involvement in both boards creates a balance between the supervisory function and the management function, thus resulting in a more effective monitoring of firm’s management.

Halal industry in Malaysia provides a great opportunity for food manufacturers to expand their businesses, globally. However, the business has faced with some difficulties to improve performance due to complexity in halal supply chain. This paper studies the adoption of halal food supply chain (HFSC) factors on business performance among halal food manufacturers in Malaysia. Data were collected randomly from Halal Development Council (HDC) directory website. Using regres-sion analysis, 103 responses were analyzed to determine the effects of adoption factors of HFSC on business performance. The results indicate that the context of technological, organizational and environmental can improve business performance of halal manufacturer. Perceived benefits in the context of technological gives the best predictor on business performance. In the context of organizational, readiness provides the best predictor of business performance. Meanwhile, halal market demand in the context of environmental gives the best predictor of business performance. The paper examines business performance in food industry; however other industries in halal are not focused. The results provide some insights into business performance among halal industry in Malaysia.

Teamwork, for competitive advantage, involving techno-socio-cultural aspects of organizations for engineering developments, is gaining importance rather rapidly due to advent of globalization. The purpose of this study is to identify the importance of teamwork culture for new product develop-ment (NPD) success through enriching the NPD team’s capability in Indian manufacturing industries. It accumulates the teamwork culture dynamics and practices, their interrelationships and their combined impact on NPD team’s capability in terms of technological developments for NPD success. This practical analysis collects primary data from 263 design and development experts from Indian engineering manufacturing companies. Structural equation modeling (SEM) approach is applied to investigate the interrelationship among associated variables of teamwork culture and NPD team’s capability for NPD success. Concurrent engineering team (CET), communication infrastruc-ture (CI), system integration (SI) and result orientation (RO) have been recognized as allied factors of teamwork culture. Successful adoption of associated variables ensures NPD success through influencing NPD team’s capability which in turn articulated by technological developments. The realization of combined impact of teamwork and its allied variables escalates technological developments which in turn enriches NPD team’s capability assuring organizational success. The result indicates that both CI and SI support CET for accelerating NPD team’s capability through technological developments. Besides, CET motivates innovation orientation most precisely referred as RO for escalating NPD team’s capability through technological developments for innovation.

The aim of the present article is substantiation of theoretical provisions and development of practical recommendations for reporting in the field of sustainable development formation in compliance with the international standard “Guidelines for sustainability reporting” elaborated within the scope of Global Reporting Initiative. The research objectives are to study the content of non-financial re-porting generated in compliance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines and to offer new methodological approaches towards sustainability reporting formation. Using such general scientific methods as systematic approach, comparison, method of systematization and generaliza-tion of data, the research work revealed the essence, content, principles of formation and reporting structure in the field of sustainable development. The work contains recommendations on social activity accounting organization with the use of information technology, such as: supplementary invoices application for accounting, and development of forms for reports containing information of social character.

The primary objective of the research paper is to provide some insights on the concepts of intellec-tual capital and its important dimensions alongside to investigate the possible association between intellectual capital and attainment of competitive advantage. This study focuses on Iraqi hotel industry which is an under-research area in the context of intellectual capital and its relationship with competitive advantage. An adapted questionnaire was utilized to collect the responses from top and middle level managers of four and five-star hotels in Iraq. The reliability and validity of data collec-tion instrument were measured through Cronbach’s alpha, Composite Reliability and Average Var-iance Extracted respectively. The competitive advantage was then regressed against Human, Rela-tional and Structural capital by application of Partial Least Square methodology. Results of the study showed a positive and strong connotation among intellectual capital and attainment of competitive advantage. The human capital had the highest contribution for competitive advantage in hotel sector of Iraq. The top management of hotels should take interest to develop, maintain and retain human capital to attain competitive advantage over competitors.

An effective operations of a projection spot welding (PSW) machine is closely related to the effec-tiveness of the maintenance. Timely maintenance can prevent failures and improve reliability and maintainability of the machine. Therefore, establishing the maintenance frequency for the welding machine is one of the most important tasks for plant engineers. In this regard, reliability analysis of the welding machine can be used to establish preventive maintenance intervals (PMI) and to identify the critical parts of the system. In this reliability and maintainability study, analysis of the PSW machine was carried out. The failure and repair data for analysis were obtained from automobile manufacturing company located in Uzbekistan. The machine was divided into three main sub-systems: electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic. Different distributions functions for all sub-systems was tested and their parameters tabulated. Based on estimated parameters of the analyzed distribu-tions, PMI for the PSW machines sub-systems at different reliability levels was calculated. Finally, preventive measures for enhancing the reliability of the PSW machine sub-systems are suggested.

The objective of this research is to determine the factors that can effectively predict adoption of mobile commerce in Nigeria. In doing this, 192 questionnaires were analyzed using Smart PLS-SEM. While majority of previous studies revealed negative relationship between perceived risk and system usage, the result of this study however indicated a positive relationship with mobile commerce adoption especially with the incorporation of perceived fun that tends to make mobile commerce platforms to be enjoyable. The study provides further insights into how perceived risk and fun can be used to increase the rate of adoption of mobile commerce by coming up with policies that can be used to improve the platform while marketability of mobile commerce can be enhanced.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of total quality management (TQM) between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and SME export performance in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. This study was originated from the fact that only a few studies have examined on how the firm’s intangible resources and capabilities such as EO and TQM drive SMEs’ export performance. Some questionnaires in Likert scale were used to collect the data and 364 usable responses were received from the owner/managers of exporting SMEs. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for the data analysis. The findings reveal significant relationship between EO and TQM with SME export performance. Furthermore, this study found the complementary mediating role of TQM between EO and SME export performance of manufacturing sector of Pakistan. This study has implications for owner/managers of SMEs. The results offer a better understanding regarding EO and TQM implementation to SMEs owner / managers. Thus, owner/managers of SMEs can take better decisions for the implementation of TQM practices. Furthermore, to the best of researcher’s knowledge, this study is the first work, which examines Pakistan`s SMEs export performance in association with the TQM as the mediating factor between EO and SME export performance.

This paper has been retracted.