Purpose: With the growing importance of performance measurement and management, this exploratory study intends to examine the practices of maintenance managers with regards to maintenance measures, as used in their organizations. In this process, the study attempts to uncover the relevant maintenance performance dimensions from the perspectives of the surveyed managers. In addition, the mediating effect of information availability on the main performance measures utilization is studied. Design/methodology/approach: The research at hand is survey-based. It utilizes the responses of a sample of ninety-five (95) experienced maintenance managers to identify the most relevant maintenance performance measures. Factor analysis is then utilized to uncover the important dimensions of performance, as seen by the respondents. Additionally, using the Partial Least Squares method, several models were studied. Findings: The findings of this exploratory research appear to suggest that maintenance managers are beginning to broaden their perspective with regard to performance management. While machine and plant-related performance measures are still emphasized, maintenance managers are slowly moving toward a wider organizational orientation. While the manufacturing organizations are becoming more and more customer-oriented open systems, the maintenance function of these organizations is still, for the most part, operating under the semi-open system orientation. Overall, it appears that an emerging maintenance strategy is slowly taking shape. Research limitations/implications: For the most part, performance measures and measurement related to maintenance have not received enough attention from researchers. Therefore, the literature dealing with the different facets of performance in maintenance has not been forthcoming. The study attempts to fill this apparent gap in the literature. This is important, as maintenance managers are being asked to contribute to the achievement of the competitive strategies of their organizations. Therefore, they must quickly learn how to view maintenance from a coherent strategic organizational perspective. Such a perspective should help in integrating the maintenance, resources, capabilities, and technical know-how in order to serve the strategic goal of their organization. The research at hand is limited to a sample from Portugal. Therefore, the results and conclusions must be interpreted accordingly. Practical implications: As maintenance managers struggle to move from a machine-orientation to a more organizational-wide strategic orientation, they are often left with many questions and few answers. This study attempts to bring this problem to the spotlight so that it can receive more systematic empirical and practical research. In this context, the role of maintenance managers in the process of organizational strategy formulation should be examined. Originality/value: The study presented in this article has practical, as well as theoretical contributions. It deals with an area of performance measurement, which so far has been relatively ignored. It uses a system orientation (closed vs open), in addition to the strategic orientation (single vs multi-faceted strategy) in order to shed some light on the need to have consistency between the nature of the system and its strategic objective.

The role of sales has evolved over the last decade, mostly driven by technological and social changes. One major shift is the growth in importance and in size of the inside sales function. Inside sales are sales that are conducted remotely or virtually using one or more Information Technology (IT) tools without the traditional in-person interaction. Despite the growing importance of inside sales, studies that show the key determinants and practices that can improve inside sales success are rare and have tended to focus on determinants affecting individual salesperson performance. Moreover, existing approaches to customer acquisition in inside sales often rely on subjective intuition, expert suggestions and gut feeling, which often hurts the chances of qualifying and converting leads to sales, and eventually diminishes inside sales success. This research aims to address such shortcomings by: 1) investigating the key dimensions and determinants of inside sales success by summarizing the existing body of knowledge using a systematic review and meta-analysis; and 2) develop comprehensible lead conversion models that integrate the interplay of relevant determinants in the lead conversion process. This doctoral research aims to: (1) Synthesize the literature and draw a big picture of B2B sales success by providing practitioners and scholars with a comprehensive state-of-the-art understanding of the determinants of B2B sales success and their significance in inside sales. (2) Identify and validate several key lead engagement factors crucial for inside sales success. (3) Demonstrate the potential of data-driven analytics by collecting multiple historical datasets from several companies representing different industries. This includes investigating and discovering new insights that will improve lead conversion outcomes, which contributes to the literature on the ongoing discussion of effective sales pipeline management. (4) Provide sales practitioners with comprehensible lead conversion models that integrate industry specific behavior and performance of salespeople, characteristics of leads and/or prospects, and workflow strategy aspects. This will help sales practitioners to better understand problems and opportunities in lead management, take proactive actions, and improve their sales success.

En el presente trabajo se ha llevado a cabo un análisis minucioso de la visión de las capacidades dinámicas, específicamente enmarcadas en el área de dirección estratégica, con la intención de proponer y testar empíricamente un modelo integral en el que se contemple la influencia que pueden ejercer las capacidades dinámicas sobre el rendimiento de una organización junto con la incorporación de otras variables organizativas reseñables. Dicho modelo ha sido aplicado en uno de los sectores más relevantes de la economía española, el turístico, en concreto en el sector hotelero, El trabajo queda dividido en ocho capítulos que abordan la idea principal desde un punto de vista teórico y práctico, precedidos de un capítulo introductorio, En esencia, en los primeros capítulos se profundiza teóricamente sobre los orígenes de la visión de las capacidades dinámicas. En los siguientes capítulos se leva a cabo un análisis preciso de la metodología de investigación utilizada, se describe el contexto empírico objeto de aplicación y se plantean los resultados obtenidos y su correspondiente discusión. Finalmente, las conclusiones principales, limitaciones y futuras líneas de investigación del proyecto son expuestas, tomando un especial interés la reflexión sobre los efectos del Covid-19 en el sector turístico, dada la relevancia y actualidad de estos hechos en el momento de finalización del proyecto de tesis doctoral.

Purpose: With the growing importance of performance measurement and management, this exploratory study intends to examine the practices of maintenance managers with regards to maintenance measures, as used in their organizations. In this process, the study attempts to uncover the relevant maintenance performance dimensions from the perspectives of the surveyed managers. In addition, the mediating effect of information availability on the main performance measures utilization is studied. Design/methodology/approach: The research at hand is survey-based. It utilizes the responses of a sample of ninety-five (95) experienced maintenance managers to identify the most relevant maintenance performance measures. Factor analysis is then utilized to uncover the important dimensions of performance, as seen by the respondents. Additionally, using the Partial Least Squares method, several models were studied. Findings: The findings of this exploratory research appear to suggest that maintenance managers are beginning to broaden their perspective with regard to performance management. While machine and plant-related performance measures are still emphasized, maintenance managers are slowly moving toward a wider organizational orientation. While the manufacturing organizations are becoming more and more customer-oriented open systems, the maintenance function of these organizations is still, for the most part, operating under the semi-open system orientation. Overall, it appears that an emerging maintenance strategy is slowly taking shape. Research limitations/implications: For the most part, performance measures and measurement related to maintenance have not received enough attention from researchers. Therefore, the literature dealing with the different facets of performance in maintenance has not been forthcoming. The study attempts to fill this apparent gap in the literature. This is important, as maintenance managers are being asked to contribute to the achievement of the competitive strategies of their organizations. Therefore, they must quickly learn how to view maintenance from a coherent strategic organizational perspective. Such a perspective should help in integrating the maintenance, resources, capabilities, and technical know-how in order to serve the strategic goal of their organization. The research at hand is limited to a sample from Portugal. Therefore, the results and conclusions must be interpreted accordingly. Practical implications: As maintenance managers struggle to move from a machine-orientation to a more organizational-wide strategic orientation, they are often left with many questions and few answers. This study attempts to bring this problem to the spotlight so that it can receive more systematic empirical and practical research. In this context, the role of maintenance managers in the process of organizational strategy formulation should be examined. Originality/value: The study presented in this article has practical, as well as theoretical contributions. It deals with an area of performance measurement, which so far has been relatively ignored. It uses a system orientation (closed vs open), in addition to the strategic orientation (single vs multi-faceted strategy) in order to shed some light on the need to have consistency between the nature of the system and its strategic objective.

E-government is basically described as using all available electronic media to provide an online public services companies, agencies, citizens or persons in certain country or region. This provision can be provided by the government institutions, agencies, or organisation, in addition to public and private sectors subject to government policies and legislation. Political instability, armed conflict, corruption and chaotic situations are considered to be an obstacle confronting public services delivery and governance in some developing countries around the world. Therefore, Libya is selected a case study of this research. Post the 2011 ousting of the Gadhafi regime in Libya, the country has been experiencing a severe and deep-rooted environment of conflict and chaos, which has destabilised and in some cases dismantled government institutions throughout the country. Within this environment, the original aim of this study was to explore the possibility of implementing e-government services that can provide public services to citizens and, if so, how and what services could be utilised. An exploratory qualitative pilot study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of e-government implementation in Libya utilising the knowledge of government officials. The study found that, the Libyan government had recently and successfully implemented an online e-passport service. An extensive literature review carried out in relation to e-government implementation to help understanding lesions learned and factors behind such success then to utilise the knowledge for further services implementations. Critical success factors of e-government implementation were addressed but available ones are related to stable countries under normal situations. This research is aiming to investigate its implementation in chaotic environment where not much of research is available. During the chaotic environment and instability, different factors may emerge to drive the implementation and the usage of e-services such environment. From government perspectives, it is noticed that cases of corruption, lack of citizens’ safety and poor infrastructure were found to be drivers behind the success of existing government institutions and departments of implement e-passport system. Social collaboration and trust in government institutions’ commitment were emerged from the citizens’ perspectives as factors encouraged the citizens to use the e-passport system. Quantitative data analysed using structural equation modelling techniques using SmartPLS (3.2.7) together with the SPSS 23 were used to analyse the collected data. The outcome were used to propose a framework that can improve the implementation of public e-services while the country at unrest. Another contribution of this studies is the proposal of social collaboration model towards better e-services in such environment.

No description available.

Yes / The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision-making model for supporting the management of risks in supply chain. This proposed model is applied to the case of the oil industry in Nigeria. A Partial Least Square Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) is developed to measure the significance of the influence of risk management strategy on mitigating disruption risks and their correlations with the performance of activities in the supply chain and relevance of key performance measures in the organisation. The model considered seven aspects: behavioural-based management strategy, buffer based oriented management strategy, exploration and production risks, environmental and regulatory compliance risks, geopolitical risks, supply chain performance, and organisational performance measures. A survey questionnaire was applied to collect data to populate the model, with 187 participants from the oil industry. Based on the PLS-SEM methodology, an optimised risk management decision-making method was developed and accomplished. The results show that behavioural-based mechanism predicts the capacity of the organisation to manage risks successfully in its supply chain. The approach proposed provides a new and practical methodology to manage disruption risks in supply chains. Further, the behavioural-based mechanism can help to formulate risk management strategies in the oil industry. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo, 12 months from first publication date.

Dans un marché en permanente progression et pour répondre aux besoins des brasseurs en malt de qualité, la maîtrise du procédé de maltage est indispensable. La qualité du malt est fortement dépendante des conditions opératoires, en particulier des conditions de trempe, mais également de la qualité de la matière première : l'orge. Dans cette étude, nous avons établi des modèles polynomiaux qui mettent en relation les conditions opératoires et la qualité du malt. Ces modèles ont été couplés à nos algorithmes génétiques et nous ont permis de déterminer les conditions optimales de maltage, soit pour atteindre une qualité ciblée de malt (friabilité), soit pour permettre un maltage à faible teneur en eau (pour réduire la consommation en eau et maîtriser les coûts environnementaux de production) tout en conservant une qualité acceptable de malt. Cependant, la variabilité de la matière première est un facteur limitant de notre approche. Les modèles établis sont en effet très sensibles à l'espèce d'orge (printemps, hiver) ou encore à la variété d'orge utilisée. Les modèles sont surtout très dépendants de l'année de récolte. Les variations observées sur les propriétés d'une année de récolte à une autre sont mal caractérisées et ne sont donc pas intégrées dans nos modèles. Elles empêchent ainsi de capitaliser l'information expérimentale au cours du temps. Certaines propriétés structurelles de l'orge (porosité, dureté) ont été envisagées comme nouveaux facteurs pour mieux caractériser la matière première mais ils n'ont pas permis d'expliquer les variations observés en malterie.Afin de caractériser la matière première, 394 échantillons d'orge issus de 3 années de récolte différentes 2009-2010-2011 ont été analysés par spectroscopie MIR. Les analyses ACP ont confirmé l'effet notable des années de récolte, des espèces, des variétés voire des lieux de culture sur les propriétés de l'orge. Une régression PLS a permis, pour certaines années et pour certaines espèces, de prédire les teneurs en protéines et en béta-glucanes de l'orge à partir des spectres MIR. Cependant, ces résultats, pourtant prometteurs, se heurtent toujours à la variabilité. Ces nouveaux modèles PLS peuvent toutefois être exploités pour mettre en place des stratégies de pilotage du procédé de maltage à partir de mesures spectroscopiques MIR / In a continuously growing market and in order to meet the needs of Brewers in high quality malt, control of the malting process is a great challenge. Malt quality is highly dependent on the malting process operating conditions, especially on the steeping conditions, but also the quality of the raw material: barley. In this study, we established polynomial models that relate the operating conditions and the malt quality. These models have been coupled with our genetic algorithms to determine the optimal steeping conditions, either to obtain a targeted quality of malt (friability), or to allow a malting at low water content while maintaining acceptable quality of malt (to reduce water consumption and control the environmental costs of malt production). However, the variability of the raw material is a limiting factor for our approach. Established models are very sensitive to the species (spring and winter barley) or to the barley variety. The models are especially highly dependent on the crop year. Variations on the properties of a crop from one to another year are poorly characterized and are not incorporated in our models. They thus prevent us to capitalize experimental information over time. Some structural properties of barley (porosity, hardness) were considered as new factors to better characterize barley but they did not explain the observed variations.To characterize barley, 394 samples from 3 years of different crops 2009-2010-2011 were analysed by MIR spectroscopy. ACP analyses have confirmed the significant effect of the crop-years, species, varieties and sometimes of places of harvest on the properties of barley. A PLS regression allowed, for some years and for some species, to predict content of protein and beta-glucans of barley using MIR spectra. These results thus still face product variability, however, these new PLS models are very promising and could be exploited to implement control strategies in malting process using MIR spectroscopic measurements

Malgré le nombre important de spécialités pharmaceutiques mises sur le marché, certains patients hospitalisés ne peuvent bénéficier d’un traitement pour lequel aucun dosage et/ou forme pharmaceutique n’est disponible. Dans ce cas, la pharmacotechnie hospitalière peut être autorisée à formuler et contrôler des préparations.L’objectif de ces travaux a été de développer une forme transdermique semi-solide, à partir de véhicules prêts à l’emploi et contenant trois antiémétiques, pour traiter les nausées et vomissements chimio-induits. Pour ce faire, l’ondansétron, la dexaméthasone et l’aprépitant ont été formulés dans cinq véhicules commerciaux de composition liposomale (PLO®, Lipovan®, Pentravan® et Pentravan Plus®) ou phytosomale (Phytobase®). Après avoir protocolisé la formulation, un contrôle qualité a été réalisé sur chaque préparation finie. Il a essentiellement porté sur l’évaluation de la teneur en principes actifs dans les formulations et sur leur homogénéité. Dans ce but une méthode séparative utilisant la CLHP-UV et une méthode basée sur la PLS-UV ont été développées et validées selon les recommandations de la Société Française des Sciences Techniques et Pharmaceutiques pour doser simultanément les trois antiémétiques.Deux études in vitro ont ensuite été mises en œuvre sur des cellules de Franz. La première, menée à l’aide de membranes d’acétate de cellulose, a montré que le PLO® et le Pentravan Plus® sont les véhicules les plus performants pour libérer les trois principes actifs (PA) formulés séparément. La seconde visait à évaluer la perméation des mêmes PA à travers des épidermes de peau d’oreilles de cochon. Elle a mis en évidence les performances du Pentravan Plus® comme véhicule pour l’administration simultanée de l’ondansétron et de la dexaméthasone par voie transdermique. La perméation de l’aprépitant étant trop faible pour envisager son administration par voie transdermique, il n’a pas été intégré à la formulation finale. Différents promoteurs d’absorption ont été évalués afin d’améliorer le passage transcutanée : le tween 20 s’est révélé tout aussi performant que l’éthanol classiquement utilisé pour l’incorporation des PA dans ces véhicules. / Despite the high number of formulations available for a drug on the pharmaceutical market, it can arise that a patient needs a treatment for which none pharmaceutical form or dosage is available. In this case, pharmacy department of the hospital may have to prepare this form, in accordance with health agency.The goal of this work was to develop a semi-solid transdermic formulation from ready for use vehicle and containing three antiemetic drugs for the treatment of chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. Hence, ondansetron, dexamethasone and aprepitant have been formulated in five commercial vehicles of liposomal (PLO®, Lipovan®, Pentravan® and Pentravan Plus®) or phytosomal (Phytobase®) composition. After development of a formulation protocol, quality control was carried out on every finished preparation It focused on the evaluation of the content of active ingredients in formulations and their homogeneity. For this purpose a separation method using HPLC-UV and a method based on PLS-UV have been developed and validated according to the recommendations of the French Society of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology to assay the three antiemetics simultaneously.Two in vitro studies were then implemented on a Franz cell. The first, using cellulose acetate membranes, has shown that the PLO® and the Pentravan Plus® are the most efficient vehicles for releasing the three drugs formulated separately. The second one was performed to assess the permeation of the same drug through pig ears skin epidermis. It highlighted the performances of Pentravan Plus® as a vehicle for the simultaneous transdermal administration of ondansetron and dexamethasone. Nevertheless, as permeation of aprepitant is too poor to consider its transdermal administration, it has not been included in the final formulation. Different chemical enhancers were evaluated to improve the transcutaneous passage: tween 20 appeared to be as powerful as ethanol conventionally used for the incorporation of drugs in these vehicles.

Cette thèse explore la perception par les consommateurs de services offerts par des firmes organisées en réseau. De nos jours, les clients sont confrontés de plus en plus à des situations de service complexes bien différentes des situations simples analysées traditionnellement par le marketing et le management des services (un seul service délivré par une entreprise bien identifiée et choisie par le client). Les entreprises de services ont évolué vers des offres de plus en plus complexes et riches (« fleurs de services », « bouquets » ou « constellations ») dans lesquelles le client se voit proposer des offres intégrant plusieurs prestataires, parfois mal identifiables. Le choix du client gagne en simplicité mais perd en liberté et l'on sait peu de choses sur les conséquences que cela peut avoir sur son comportement ultérieur. L'hypothèse centrale est qu'à la suite d'une expérience de ce type de service, le client opère une synthèse en termes de valeur perçue du réseau, et que cela détermine largement son comportement ultérieur. Une enquête par questionnaire menée dans le contexte des alliances aériennes, confirme que cette hypothèse peut être acceptée. Les alliances globales formées par les compagnies aériennes constituent un terrain d'observation privilégié car les services sont offerts aux clients à la fois par des compagnies de transport indépendantes et par une organisation commune assurant la coopération et la coordination nécessaires. Le modèle d'équations structurelles estimé par PLS-SEM identifie en outre les déterminants de la valeur perçue d'une alliance dans le cadre de transports aériens de longue durée et permet de hiérarchiser leurs impacts respectifs. / This research explores the services offered by networked firms and the way in which they are perceived by the customers. Nowadays customers are facing more and more often complex service situations which drastically differ from the simple situations traditionally analysed by service marketing and management studies (a single service delivered by a well identified single firm deliberately chosen by the consumer). Service firms now propose more and more complex and enriched offerings (service "flowers", "bunches" or "constellations") grouping several providers, but among them some are hardly identifiable by the customer. Consumers' decision is made simpler but a part of their liberty of choice has been lost. Little is known about the consequences this can have on their future behaviour.The main hypothesis is that after experiencing a service delivered by networked firms, the consumers synthesize all their perceptions in terms of the perceived value of the network; furthermore, this assessment will largely determine their behavioural intentions. A quantitative survey shows that such a hypothesis can be accepted. This survey was conducted in the field of airline industry, aiming at multi-lateral airline alliances. This context is particularly appropriate to our subject because during such a travel, services are delivered to passengers by independent airline companies as well as by the common organisation in charge of the co-ordination and co-operation. The structural equations model tested using the PLS-SEM method also identifies the determinants of perceived value of an alliance in the specific context of long haul flights and their respective weights and contributions.