Business prospect conversion is a critical process in achieving sales performance within Business-to-Business (B2B) telecommunications services. However, many organizations experience difficulties in converting prospects into customers due to various operational constraints throughout the sales process. This study aims to identify the primary constraints affecting the conversion of business prospects into customers at Telkom Manyar Regional Office by applying the Theory of Constraints (TOC) approach. The study integrates prospect data quality measurement using Tuple Completeness and predictive analytics through a Decision Tree model. A quantitative descriptive approach was employed using 600 prospect records collected from January to June 2025. Tuple Completeness was utilized to evaluate the completeness of prospect data, while Fishbone Diagram analysis was used to identify root causes of conversion constraints. Furthermore, a Decision Tree model was developed using Altair AI Studio to predict conversion outcomes and identify influential variables. The results indicate that prospect data quality represents the primary constraint in the conversion process. Prospects with 100% Tuple Completeness achieved a conversion rate of 79.29%, while prospects with 67% and 33% completeness achieved conversion rates of 25.15% and 0%, respectively. The Decision Tree model achieved an accuracy of 86.11%, identifying Tuple Completeness as the most influential predictor of conversion success. These findings demonstrate that improving prospect data quality can significantly enhance customer conversion performance. The study contributes to the integration of Theory of Constraints, data quality assessment, and predictive analytics in the context of B2B customer acquisition within the telecommunications industry.

ABSTRACT Restaurants are seeking new ways to present their menu and offerings. Indigenous languages are endangered due to globalization, settler colonialism, and social injustice. Māori are the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand and this paper are examined the restaurant sector’s potential for using te reo Māori in menu and restaurant marketing. Incorporating Indigenous languages into menus allows restaurants to celebrate Indigenous identity while innovating their offering. Despite the recognised economic and cultural importance of Indigenous tourism, little empirical research addresses this. Drawing on constraints theory and interviews with award-winning restaurants, this study examines how restaurant owners and chefs view the incorporation of te reo Māori in their offerings and the constraints they perceive in doing so.

ABSTRACT Family tourism plays a crucial role in enhancing well-being, strengthening familial bonds, and creating lasting memories. This study extends Travel Constraints Theory by analysing family travel constraints through a data-driven examination of peer-to-peer knowledge exchange platforms, such as TripAdvisor and Reddit, using text mining and topic modelling. The findings reveal that travel constraints are highly context-dependent, varying significantly across different types of family travel. The study challenges the conventional three-category constraint model (intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural) and proposes a refined two-level classification framework, offering a more insightful understanding of family travel decision-making. Highlighting the diverse challenges families face, it offers valuable insights for the tourism industry, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches to addressing travel constraints in family tourism.

Purpose This explorative study investigates the role of policy in freight transport systems and its implications for post-disaster freight movement. Using a qualitative scenario-based approach in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, it examines how policy-related underlying causes affect freight performance after a major natural disaster. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 30 industry and policy experts, followed by a thematic analysis to identify the key constraints in the post-disaster transport system under study. Building on the Theory of Constraints' theoretical perspective that most constraints within a system originate from policy-related root causes, a Current Reality Tree was built to capture and visualise these constraints, their cause-and-effect relationships, and their root causes. Findings The analysis identifies a complex web of interconnected constraints and causal relationships, revealing 18 underlying root causes that drive cascading and escalating effects across the freight system. These root causes trace back to six policy areas: government funding, infrastructure governance, emissions policy, land use and development, labour policy, and information governance. Originality/value This research shows that the performance of post-disaster transport systems is strongly influenced by government policy. Addressing key policy areas can enhance freight resilience, support continuity in the movement of goods, and ensure availability for production, trade, and consumption after a natural disaster.

Critical factors for sustainable perishable food supply chains: Insights from Malawi banana supply chain

Pandemic-scale disruptions can trigger disaster-related buying behaviors (DRBBs) that amplify shortages and strain supply chains, making it essential to understand how households adjust essential-goods inventories during crises. Using COVID-19 as an empirical case, this study offers the first multi-country Latin American comparison of DRBBs, measured as revealed changes in household inventory-days, and integrates Prospect Theory and Liquidity Constraints Theory to explain how perceived losses and risk interact with financial capacity. Survey data collected April–June 2020 across seven Latin American countries (N = 1,821) are analyzed using a Poisson rate model with an offset for baseline inventory-days. Results indicate that households with children and those facing greater pandemic severity tend to maintain higher inventory levels of basic supplies, while the effects of income and experienced shortages vary across countries, with reduced purchasing power and constrained access often associated with lower inventory levels. These findings guide targeted interventions to reduce DRBB externalities and protect equitable access to essentials in future crises.

Amorphous systems lack long-range order, making their properties strongly dependent on short-range order (SRO) and medium-range order (MRO) structural motifs and their network connectivity. While graph neural networks (GNNs) excel for crystalline materials, their performance on amorphous systems is limited by graph construction ambiguities, message-passing bottlenecks, data scarcity, and transferability issues. This review surveys traditional descriptors and then focuses on topological approaches: complex network descriptors, persistent homology, rigidity theory (also known as topological constraint theory), and graph limit metrics. We summarize how rings, voids, and percolating backbones correlate with mechanics, transport, and thermodynamics across metallic glasses, oxide glasses, polymers, and organic semiconductors, among others, highlighting their potential to inform the exploration and design of amorphous energy materials. Finally, we provide a shortlist of topological variables with potential for property modeling and set out three directions in datasets, unified topology modeling and topology aware GNN architectures.

ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence holds transformative potential for public services, yet its adoption in developing countries remains underexplored. This study examines AI adoption in Philippine public sector, addressing gaps in understanding challenges during later adoption stages in resource-constrained environments. Guided by the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and Technology Affordances and Constraints Theory (TACT) and using a qualitative multiple case study based on semi-structured interviews with 10 key stakeholders from seven Philippine public sector AI projects, we analyze seven cases across the AI life cycle: design, development, and deployment. Findings reveal affordances and constraints influencing AI adoption in developing countries: strong leadership facilitates early design, but limited infrastructure, financial instability, talent attrition, and weak governance hinder development and deployment—challenges less prominent in developed contexts. This study contributes theoretically by integrating TOE and TACT with a life cycle perspective and empirically by uncovering AI adoption in developing countries, while offering actionable recommendations for practitioners.

ABSTRACT Previous research has demonstrated grammatical constraints under which phonologically-related words help to resolve tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states: Words in a different grammatical class from the TOT increase resolution while words in the same grammatical class do not. The present research investigated whether grammatical class effects on TOT resolution result from nonpresented neighbours, which can be activated via nonword primes’ suffixes. During TOTs, participants completed an auditory lexical decision task where one item was a first-syllable nonword prime or unrelated nonword. Suffixes of nonword primes, which lack lexical representations, indicated a part of speech different from the target, same as the target, or ambiguous in part of speech. Different part-of-speech nonword primes and ambiguous part-of-speech nonword primes increased TOT resolution, whereas same part-of-speech nonword primes did not. These results refine earlier theories of grammatical class constraints on phonological priming of TOT resolution by documenting a novel influence of a TOT's first-syllable neighbours.

Today’s business environment is characterized by increasing uncertainties. Supply chain optimization has emerged as an important new approach for enterprises to achieve profit and market share objectives and improved risk management. Now, more than ever, the world population is aware of the negative effects caused by poor management of products and services in organizations, including food and beverage manufacturing firms. The primary goal of this study is to determine the influence of supply chain optimization practices on the performance of food and beverage manufacturing firms in Kenya. This research was based on the following objectives: data forecasting, supplier management, supply chain automation and inventory optimization on the performance of food and beverage manufacturing firms in Kenya. The theory of planned behavior, Kraljic Portfolio Purchasing theory, competency theory, and theory of constraints were studied and used as its theoretical foundations. The study employed a cross-sectional survey approach and mainly concentrate on 197 food and beverage manufacturing firms in Kenya that are listed under KAM, 2017, and specifically targeted Supply Chain Managers and Procurement Officers. In order to meet the research objectives, the respondents were chosen at random. The sampling frame for this study included 197 food and beverage manufacturing firms in Kenya. The food and beverage manufacturing firms were employed as unit of analysis, while the Supply Chain Managers and Procurement Officers were employed as the unit of observation. The pilot study targeted 19 respondents which is 10% of the final study sample size, with respondents chosen at random in the procurement departments of 10 food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The primary data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire that had both open and closed ended questions, designed to obtain definite responses. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 28) was used to analyze the data and present the variables through coding and summarizing the responses of all the respondents and the analyzed data was presented in form of tables. The study findings showed that supply chain optimization practices namely data forecasting, supplier management, supply chain automation and inventory optimization significantly influence the performance of food and beverage manufacturing firms in Kenya. The study concluded that performance was predicted to improve for every unit increase in these practices. The study further recommends that food and beverage manufacturing firms should regularly evaluate the accuracy of their forecasting models to improve performance. They can achieve this by systematically comparing forecasted demand against actual sales using performance metrics such as Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), and Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and by continuously fine-tuning and retraining models based on recent data to improve prediction reliability and decision-making accuracy. This will ensure improved supply chain optimization practices and improve performance of food and beverage manufacturing firms.

ABSTRACT This study explores the impact of armed conflict (AC) on adolescents’ leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) in Iraq, an under-researched area despite its relevance to wellbeing. Interviews with fifteen adolescents aged 17–19 exposed to ISIS-related AC generated seven interrelated themes: play spaces transformed into survival spaces; leisure as passive waiting; spatial confinement and embodied decline; relational collapse of physical activity; physical activity as a sacrificed luxury; collapse of family support; and loss of future orientation and meaning. Findings show that AC disrupts the social, spatial, and moral conditions that sustain LTPA, producing cumulative, non-negotiable constraints that reshape routines, motivation, and social connections. The study advances leisure constraint theory under extreme adversity and underscores the need for interventions that restore safe, structured, and socially supportive environments to preserve the developmental and psychosocial benefits of adolescent LTPA.

The methodology examines the organizational architecture of the early stage of drug discovery as a governed system for the accelerated reduction of scientific uncertainty. The relevance of this methodology is determined by the rising cost of drug development, the high cost of operational failures, and the need to transform Early Drug Discovery from a collection of fragmented experiments into an integrated circuit of reproducible learning. The aim of this work is to formulate theoretically and practically grounded principles for the design and reorganization of R&D structures that ensure synchronization among scientific hypotheses, execution, data, managerial decision-making, and capital allocation. The novelty of the methodology lies in the integration of systems engineering, the theory of constraints, lean manufacturing, and QMS into a unified operational model of a Discovery organization, incorporating a five-layer governance framework, Handover Gate interface gateways, the ELN/LIMS linkage, and principles for managing distributed teams and CROs as nodes of a single research system. The conclusions are that the effectiveness of early Drug Discovery is determined by the quality of scientific ideas, the resilience of cross-functional interfaces, the traceability of data, the cadence of DMTA cycles, and the protection of critical flow constraints. The methodology will be useful to R&D leaders, operational executives, architects of research processes, and managers of biotechnology organizations.

This study sought to develop a structured framework for enhancing the operationalization of the job rotation policy at Zamtel, a telecommunications company based in Lusaka, Zambia. The specific objectives were firstly, to examine the job rotation provisions embedded in Zamtel’s Human Resource policy, secondly, to assess the job rotation activities implemented across departments, and thirdly, to evaluate the applicability of the Theory of Constraints to Zamtel’s job rotation strategy. The study adopted a qualitative research approach grounded in the interpretivist paradigm and employed a phenomenological research design to capture employees lived experiences and perceptions. A purposive sampling technique was used to select fifteen (15) participants comprising Human Resource personnel and departmental heads. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis and analysed using thematic content analysis guided by the study objectives and the Theory of Constraints framework. The findings revealed that although job rotation is formally recognised within Zamtel’s Human Resource policy, its implementation is inconsistent across departments. While some administrative units applied job rotation practices, specialised departments exhibited limited participation. Planned job rotation activities such as structured onboarding, cross-functional attachments, and mentorship programmes were found to be irregular and weakly coordinated. The study further identified key constraints affecting effective operationalization, including limited budgetary support, low employee readiness, and resistance linked to career progression concerns. The study concludes that job rotation at Zamtel has the potential to support employee development and retention but is undermined by structural and resource-based constraints. It recommends the adoption of a standardized job rotation framework, improved budget allocation, and enhanced communication to support uniform implementation across departments. Future research is recommended to examine employee perceptions in greater depth and to benchmark best practices from comparable organisations.

The central principle of the theory of constraints is that in any complex system there are only a few constraints that limit the performance (ie, "throughput") of the system. These constraints are rate-limiting steps to throughput. Once the constraint or bottleneck is identified, resources are used to improve the utilization rate at the point of the constraint to make the process as productive as possible. Others in the organization also must work to maintain the high utilization rate at the constraint. Strategies such as buffers are used to increase throughput at the constraints. Although it was initially developed in manufacturing, the theory of constraints has been applied to many industries. By using the theory of constraints to evaluate the radiologic workflow, constraints can be identified through targeted process improvement projects for optimization at steps that affect the total throughput of the system. Constraints can be physical, such as equipment or space (eg, imaging units or recovery room beds), or related to personnel. Because radiology is currently in a resource-constrained environment, targeted interventions with highly effective processes could improve productivity or flow. Given the workforce shortages in radiology, determining whether the constraint is equipment- or personnel-related may lead to different improvement projects.

Purpose While existing literature acknowledges the importance of top management support for organisational success, the specific mechanisms through which it enhances business performance remain underexplored, particularly in emerging economy contexts. Prior studies have predominantly examined the direct relationship between top management support and business performance, overlooking the underlying pathways through which this relationship operates. Addressing this gap, this study investigates how continuous process improvement and workforce commitment mediate the relationship between top management support and business performance in Bangladesh's ready-made garments (RMG) sector. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional research design. A self-administered survey questionnaire was employed to gather data from employees working in various ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh. A total of 367 useable responses were collected from employees directly involved in the production process. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to assess construct validity and reliability and to test the hypothesised direct and indirect relationships. Findings The findings indicate that top management support, continuous process improvement and workforce commitment positively influence business performance in the RMG sector. Among the three factors, workforce commitment has the highest effect on business performance (ß = 0.274), followed by continuous process improvement (ß = 0.248) and top management support (ß = 0.165). Additionally, the results suggest that continuous process improvement and workforce commitment partially mediate the relationship between top management support and business performance. The model explains 29.9% of the variance in business performance. Practical implications The study's findings provide valuable guidelines for practitioners and policymakers to implement necessary initiatives that enhance business performance in the RMG sector. Given that workforce commitment has the strongest influence on business performance, managers should prioritise employee engagement, motivation and retention strategies. Additionally, the findings are expected to assist industry actors in ensuring that management practices improve continuously and promote workforce commitment. Originality/value This study fills a critical gap in the literature by uncovering the mediating mechanisms, namely continuous process improvement and workforce commitment, through which top management support enhances business performance in the RMG sector. Through the extension of the application of the theory of constraints (TOC) to this context, the study develops and empirically tests a novel model that demonstrates how leadership actions are transmitted through process-level improvements and employee-level commitment to influence performance outcomes. This research offers industry leaders and policymakers a strategic framework to improve business performance and strengthen competitiveness in the global market.

This study examines the financial, market, and regulatory constraints affecting Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TEVET)-aligned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Lusaka, Zambia. Despite their critical role in job creation, innovation, and industrial diversification, these enterprises face persistent barriers that hinder growth and sustainability. Guided by the Constraint Theory of Entrepreneurship, Institutional Theory, and the ResourceBased View (RBV), the study adopted a mixed-methods approach involving 47 TEVET-SME owners and 141 TEVET graduates. Data were analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic analysis. Findings reveal that TEVET-aligned SMEs are vital to Zambia’s local economy but remain constrained by limited access to finance, weak managerial capacity, unstable markets, and bureaucratic regulatory environments. The paper concludes that integrating skills development with financial inclusion, institutional coordination, and digital innovation can transform TEVET from a training system into a driver of industrialisation and inclusive growth.

Purpose This study aims to develop an integrated analytical framework to evaluate the barriers limiting modular construction adoption in residential projects within developing countries, emphasizing a structured examination of their severity and interdependencies. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-method research design was employed. The process began with a systematic literature review and a Delphi study to identify 20 key barriers, later refined to fifteen significant indicators. These were categorized using constraint theory into physical, financial, organizational and policy groups. The analytical approach integrated two techniques: fuzzy set theory (FST) was applied to convert linguistic expert assessments into calibrated quantitative scores, addressing uncertainty in judgments; followed by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine structural interdependencies among barrier categories and generate a composite barrier index. Data were collected from 371 validated professional responses from the Egyptian construction industry. Findings The analysis reveals that financial and physical constraints are the most influential. Key barriers include high capital costs, transportation challenges, design freeze and a shortage of experienced designers. Organizational and policy-related constraints, though comparatively weaker, also remain significant. The hybrid model effectively captured uncertainty in expert input while exposing latent structural relationships, producing a robust ranking of critical barriers. Originality/value This study proposes a novel framework that innovatively integrates FST and PLS-SEM to model both uncertainty and interdependence. Methodologically, it develops a composite barrier index for systematic prioritization. Contextually, it is uniquely tailored to data-scarce environments in developing countries, providing a practical decision-support tool for policymakers and practitioners in the modular housing sector.

The stability of backfill strips is a central focus in strip backfill mining, as it determines both the design rationale and the applicability range of this mining technique. However, analytical approaches for evaluating backfill strip stability remain underdeveloped. In this study, a novel aeolian sand-based paste backfill material was developed using aeolian sand as the aggregate and alkali-activated fly ash as the binder. The resulting material exhibits high fluidity and substantial strength, offering a cost-effective and high-performance backfill solution for coal mining in aeolian sand-rich regions. A numerical simulation model for strip backfill mining was established, showing that the plastic zone width of aeolian sand-based backfill strips increases with greater mining height and depth but decreases with a higher area filling ratio. Through ternary linear regression, an empirical equation was derived to relate plastic zone width to these three parameters. By comparing the mechanical behaviors of backfill and coal strips and integrating A.H. Wilson's two-zone constraint theory with King's effective area theory, a stability expression for backfill strips was formulated for the first time. Field verifications demonstrated that the proposed stability analysis method for aeolian sand-based paste backfill strips is both rational and accurate, providing a reliable theoretical basis for engineering applications.

Proper inventory control is a key element for the efficient management of material resources within public institutions. This study analyzes the application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) as an improvement tool for inventory control in the disposal warehouse of the Instituto Tecnológico de Pachuca. The research arises from the identification of several issues related to the uncontrolled accumulation of movable assets, lack of proper classification, material deterioration, and the absence of timely updates in the institutional inventory system (SIBISEP). These conditions generated operational risks, loss of control over assets, and inefficient management of available storage space. To address this situation, a strategy based on the principles of the Theory of Constraints was implemented, aimed at identifying the main bottlenecks within the system and establishing improvement actions. Among the implemented measures were the delimitation of the warehouse area through a functional layout, the classification and organization of assets by categories, the application of the 9S methodology to improve order and cleanliness, and the incorporation of QR code labels to facilitate asset identification and control. In addition, administrative and operational procedures were established to register, document, and monitor the assets designated for disposal. The results show a significant improvement in warehouse organization, asset control, and inventory process efficiency. The implementation of these strategies strengthens the management of institutional resources and demonstrates that the application of industrial engineering methodologies can optimize inventory management in educational institutions.

This research is purposed to establish the influence of PMIS tools to the performance of mechanical building services in construction projects in Kiambu County in Kenya. The major cause of failure in building construction projects is lack of adoption of technology among those involved in Mechanical Building Services in construction. Developing countries have a high rate of lower project performance compared to developed countries. Project Management Information Systems (PMIS) tools are integral tools for efficient planning, execution, and monitoring of Mechanical building services in construction projects globally. However, despite their widespread adoption, the extent to which PMIS tools contribute to the overall performance of building construction projects is unclear. The study seeks to examine the influence of project management information system tools on performance of Mechanical Building Services in construction projects in Kiambu County, Kenya. The specific objectives that the study seeks to achieve are to examine the influence of quality of PMIS tools, PMIS tools information output status, utilization level of PMIS tools and PMIS tools software ability on the performance of Mechanical building services in construction projects in Kiambu County, Kenya. The study has adopted three theories; Theory of Constraints, Resource Based Theory and Systems Theory. The study has developed a conceptual framework to show the relationship between Project Information Management System tools and performance of Mechanical building services in construction projects in Kenya. The study will adopt a descriptive research design. The target population for the study will be engineers, architects, contractors and project managers. The data collection instrument will be a semi-structured questionnaire. A pilot study will be conducted to verify the validity and reliability of the data collection tools before actual data collection. Data analysis will be carried out using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Presentation of data will be in form of charts and tables as it will be deemed appropriate