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PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand how digital servitization enables the process of internationalization for industrial SMEs.Design/methodology/approachThe present study has adopted an exploratory multiple case study, conducting a total of 40 interviews in a two-phased approach to data collection. The first phase consisted of exploratory interviews with twenty-six industrial SMEs connected to the manufacturing industry in Sweden and Finland. Then, six SMEs were selected in the second phase to participate in additional in-depth interviews.FindingsFirst, this study identifies three gradual enabling phases concerned with the digital service maturity of SMEs consisting of digital awareness, digital service innovation and digital service mass customization. Second, the three interdependent phases of ecosystem knowledge synergy, ecosystem integration and ecosystem value co-creation were identified to improve ecosystem involvement. Finally, a process framework has been developed for SME internationalization consisting of a digital servitization innovation strategy, a digital servitization ecosystem strategy and a digital servitization scaling strategy.Originality/valueThe present research contributes to how digital servitization enables SME internationalization by demonstrating how the development of digital service offerings and ecosystem partnerships supports the internationalization process. This research extends the literature by proposing a process framework for the digital-servitization-enabled internationalization of SMEs. This process perspective provides a richer explanation of the complex interplay between servitization, digitalization and ecosystems choices, which supports the expansion into international markets.

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Today, the uncontrolled urban expansion and ever-increasing rise of construction have caused the need for food, urban greenery, and a healthy environment to be felt more than any other time. On the other hand, population growth and the reduced production of agricultural products and food have jeopardized food security in urban areas, which will endanger the sustainable development of cities. However, the main problem, in which many societies are involved, is how to respond to these needs in a sustainable way. One of the ways of responding to these dilemmas in large cities is the purposeful implementation of urban agriculture. Urban agriculture development, as an important issue, requires the adoption of fundamental and logical policies. In this regard, this research was conducted to evaluate the extent of adherence to urban agriculture in Iran's eight densely populated cities using a new combined approach of the best-worst method (BWM) and weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS). The results indicated that urban agriculture still has a long way to go and should be considered more seriously. Moreover, vertical farming has been suggested as one of the ways of promoting urban agriculture in the country and smoothing the way to sustainable development.

PurposeNowadays, the risk assessment and reliability engineering of various production processes have become an inevitable necessity. Because if these risks are not going to be evaluated and no solution is going to be taken for their prevention, managing them would be really hard and costly in case of their occurrence. The importance of this issue is much higher in producing healthcare products due to their quality's direct impact on the health of individuals and society.Design/methodology/approachOne of the most common approaches of risk assessment is the failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), which is facing some limitations in practice. In this research, a new generalized multi-attribute failure mode analysis approach has been proposed by utilizing the best–worst method and linguistic 2-tuple representation in order to evaluate the production process of hemodialysis solution in a case of Tehran, Iran.FindingsAccording to the results, entry of waste to the mixing tanker, impurity of raw materials and ingredients and fracture of the mixer screw have been identified as the most important potential failures. At last, the results of this research have been compared with the previous studies.Originality/valueSome reinforcement attributes have been added to the traditional FMEA attributes in order to improve the results. Also, the problems of identical weights for attributes, inaccuracy in experts' opinions and the uncertainties in prioritizing the potential failures were improved. Furthermore, in addition to the need for less comparative data, the proposed approach is more accurate and comprehensive in its results.