To be sustainable and growing amongst uncertain environments and intensive global competition, supply-chain network leaders have established supply-chain management systems (SCMS) to leverage the resources and knowledge of their partners to achieve greater supply-chain capabilities (SCC) to respond to market changes and complexity. Although several studies have investigated the benefits to network leaders from these systems in various industries, little attention has been paid to the delivery of substantial benefits and advantages to its partners. Based on information technology (IT) applications and SCC literature, this paper proposes a model relating partners use of SCMS to benefits. Data from 168 partners using an SCMS implemented by a leading bicycle supply chain in Taiwan to test the hypotheses that SCC and operational performance has a mediating role linking SCMS use in order to affect a partner's performance. The results indicate that SCMS implementation has a significant impact on SCC, which in turn create a significant positive effect on operational (sustainable) performance, ultimately leading to improved growth rate and profitability in partners. Another interesting finding of the research is that SCMS cannot directly affect financial performance. In addition, from sustainable performance aspects, it is revealed that IT enables supply chain management (SCM) to achieve environmental value through information sharing (up and down), process integration (vertical and horizontal) and automation (i.e., planning, operation and control). This finding highlights the importance for maximizing benefits and sustainability for the whole supply-chain partners, the IT implementation must be integrated with the sustainable development goals and inserted in the eco-operation supply-chain platform process. The results also contribute to the debate in prior studies by disclosing why so many partners could not find to gain benefit from these IT implementations. Furthermore, this study represents the first attempt to examine how partners benefit from IT use in SCC for traditional industry.

Continuous improvement and innovation are solid foundations for the company to maintain excellent performance and competitive advantage. As the limited resources possessed by companies generally result in the incapability of implementing several improving plans simultaneously, researchers advocate that companies should evaluate the influential relationships among key success factors (KSFs) to explore the more dominant determinants for designing improving actions. This study focused on the auto lighting aftermarket (AM) industry in which the KSFs have not yet been adequately performed to explore the decisive criteria of an improvement strategy. After a literature review and a survey of experts, a preliminary list of suitable evaluation criteria was derived. Consequently, the fuzzy and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method were employed to analyze and establish the causal relationship among criteria. This study contributes to the auto lighting AM industry by using a novel approach for identifying and prioritizing the KSFs. The result indicates that product integrity was the “cause” construct on the constructs of operating cost, quality and brand, technology development, and customer satisfaction. These findings contribute to help practitioners better design effective improvement strategies.

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The global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional learning methods, leading to a surge in online learning. It has been found that the low course completion and performance are associated with online learning. There has been increasing and urgent necessity to identify effective and decisive ways to address these challenges. Self-directed learning and online learning attitudes are key factors that influence learning behavior and outcomes, while the general traditional statistical method often does not perform well in identifying those categories. To fill the gap, this study applies the fuzzy Delphi method and the fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method to clarify and analyze the relationship of influence among indicators of self-directed learning and online learning attitudes, develop a cause–effect model, and ultimately identify an effective and decisive strategy for improving online learning. According to the cause–effect relationship among indictors, the computer/smartphone and internet confidence, computer/smartphone usage, and computer/smartphone preference are the three decisive strategical ways for online learning. To improve learners’ attitudes towards online learning, teachers need to develop or improve students’ computer/smartphone and internet confidence, computer/smartphone usage skills, and develop their self-directed learning abilities to inspire and increase their willingness and ability to participate effectively in online courses. Moreover, this study first applies the fuzzy DEMATEL method to assess, analyze and develop a causal model of self-directed learning and online learning attitudes for academics to further explore and confirm the complex interrelationships among the key learning behaviors of online learners.

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