Lean bundles within Jordanian manufacturing SMEs and their effect on business performance

A rigorous and extensive application of the value chain management (VCM) has become the vogue in modern day business practices and processes. However, due to the complex and multidimensional nature of value chains, achieving efficient and effective value chain management in real value chains remains a major conundrum for practitioners. Many unknown barriers continue to impede effective and efficient value chain management in developing countries’ industrial value chains. The purpose of this study was to find out the common barriers to effective value chain management in a developing country’s industrial value chains using evidence from the cotton industry in Zimbabwe. The analysis was based on survey data sets obtained from 157 purposively sampled experts from the cotton industry value chain in Zimbabwe. Exploratory factor analysis was used to find the barriers to effective value chain management. The results revealed both architectural and governance barriers to effective value chain management. The findings also presented major policy implications for industrial value chains in the developing countries and also indicated areas for further robust research founded on a broader data set from other developing countries’ industrial chains as a way of validating the findings of this study.

Due to the country’s lack of natural resources and its dependence on human resources, Jordanian universities have started to implement quality assurance system aiming to improve effectiveness and efficiency of the higher educational system. This paper presents the results of a research that aims to identify the main issues and challenges facing these universities in implementing quality assurance system. Data for this research were collected using a survey mailed to all public and private universities to investigate the main issues affecting the implementation of quality assurance system in Jordanian universities. The results of this research showed that the most important challenges faced by Jordanian universities are: human and lack of awareness, resistance to change and cultural among others. The research findings hoped to be useful for both universities and policy makers in the government in order to realize the full benefits of implementing quality assurance system. Hence, this and other research on implementing quality assurance in higher educational institutions might be of assistance.

Realization of agricultural production complying with the sustainable development principles has resulted in a separate direction – organic farming. Its big difference from all other economy sectors is in its dependence on the natural and climatic conditions. Therefore, agricultural production has a dual nature, namely it depends on the environment health on the one hand, and, on the other hand, directly affects this health through the use of technologies that can both improve and substantially worsen the environmental situation. The institutional support for the organic farming is of great importance. This issue is relevant for scientists from countries, where organic farming is actively developing. In Ukraine, this is also a topical issue. The paper presents a conceptual framework of institutional support for the organic farming development, which includes elements such as state regulation, self-regulation, objects and subjects of organic farming, as well as an organic product market. Legal, informational, infrastructure and financial directions of ensuring the development of organic farming are also defined. The essence of each element is revealed. The main indicators of the organic farming development in Ukraine are analyzed, i.e. the organic farming areas, their proportion in agricultural lands, the number of producers, the volume of the organic market, the volume of organic consumption per capita, as well as the share of domestic organic land in the world's territory. A correlation analysis based on data from the largest world market of the USA made it possible to determine the factors that have the greatest impact on the development of the organic agricultural sector. The number of organic producers is statistically significant, and the share of land in the organic farming does not have a significant impact on the organic product consumption. At the same time, this can be seen from the point of view that the more producers will offer their products, the more saturated the market will be, and therefore the level of the organic products coverage can be greater.