Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the limitations and emerging trends of Six Sigma through an empirical study. Six Sigma is one of the most powerful business process improvement strategies used by numerous World Class corporations for over three decades. A handful of existing publications address some limitations and potential trends of Six Sigma, yet there are no empirical studies investigating the fundamental limitations and emerging trends of Six Sigma. Design/methodology/approach: The authors developed an online survey instrument based on the existing literature addressing the above. In this study, 61 Six Sigma Master Black Belts and Black Belts from large manufacturing companies and 25 academics who are familiar with the Six Sigma topic participated and contributed to the research. Findings: The study reports the top 5 limitations and emerging trends of Six Sigma from the viewpoints of both academics and experts from large manufacturing companies. These are: integration of Six Sigma with Big Data, use of Six Sigma in small medium and micro enterprises, over emphasis of Six Sigma on variability reduction, poor implementation of Six Sigma and its negative impact on employee satisfaction and non-exploitation of integration of Six Sigma with Industry 4.0. Practical implications: In order to sustain Six Sigma initiatives, it is imperative that limitations and fundamental gaps are understood, and strategies developed to address them. The authors argue that leading academic scholars have a vital role to play in working with industry practitioners to overcome the limitations and emerging trends addressed above. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study looking into the limitations, research gaps and emerging trends of Six Sigma.

Background: Technology is increasingly being used and evolving in the dementia care landscape. One such technology that has gained traction over the last decade is virtual reality (VR). VR is being applied in many areas of dementia care, including cognitive assessment and training, reminiscence therapy, music therapy, and other recreational VR applications. Despite the plethora of applications, they are often not shaped by the experiences and perceptions of older adults living with dementia. Currently, there is no qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) to explore this area. This review aimed to provide qualitative evidence supporting existing systematic reviews in this area. Objective: The aim of this QES was to explore key stakeholders’ experiences and perceptions of VR for older adults living with dementia. It aimed to explore the barriers and facilitators to VR use and provide recommendations for future design and implementation. Methods: QES was used, which involved a systematic search of 6 databases to identify studies that qualitatively explored key stakeholders’ experiences and perceptions of VR for older adults living with dementia. Thematic synthesis was used to integrate the findings of 14 studies (from 15 reports). The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool was used to assess the methodological quality of the included studies. The confidence placed in the review findings was assessed using the GRADE-CERQUAL (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research). Results: A total of 15 reports from 14 studies were included in the review, consisting of a range of levels of VR immersion, stages of dementia, and care contexts. Three analytical themes were generated: stepping into virtuality, a virtual world, and returning to reality. The results indicate the importance of sensitively designing and introducing VR to this population, as older adults living with dementia often have no prior experience of using this technology. VR can be a positive experience for older adults living with dementia and can provide meaningful interactions, positive expressions, and long-term impacts on everyday functioning. However, it should be acknowledged that some negative associations must be accounted for before, during, and after use. Conclusions: This review highlights the positive implications as well as negative associations of VR use. It emphasizes the need for VR design and implementation driven by the needs and views of older adults living with dementia as well as with other key stakeholders. Future research needs to explore the vital role that older adults living with dementia can play in the design process and how they can be empowered to meaningfully design and use this technology.

Since a pandemic was declared in 2020, Irish higher education institutions transitioned from on-campus to online delivery. This disruption created challenges to students’ acquisition of hard and soft skills. With greater employee mobility, there is an increased emphasis on soft skills development, especially those skills that enhance employability, i.e., creativity, leadership, communication, innovation, teamwork, adaptability, resilience, time management, organization, self motivation, ability to work under pressure, critical thinking and problem solving and organizational ability. The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of COVID-19 on fears for the future and on soft skills development. In this study, 111 Software Engineering university students were surveyed. The results show heightened fears for the future with regard to job opportunities, the loss of time and the lack of control. While females reported to being more fearful, they also reported enhanced empathy and strengthened resilience. Postgraduate students were less fearful about the future compared to undergraduate students whilst also reporting better time management and organization skills. This study showed that despite disruptions to education, the Software Engineering students self-reported enhancements to resilience, empathy, time management and organizational skills, with the greatest impact on resilience and time management.

In order to stay competitive and relevant in the business environment, companies need to embrace and address internal and external change and understand how to deal with it. It is necessary for them to develop knowledge about the success and failure factors of handling change and how the latter can be resolved. The aim of this study was to identify change management success and failure factors and provide a method dealing with failure factors. In the systematic literature review, 38 success factors and 23 failure factors from 2006 to 2021 were identified. In comparing the frequency of the occurring factors, 4 main success and 3 failure factors emerged. The success factors included: communication, create a vision/change message, early active participation of all individuals and top management commitment. The failure factors included; resistance to change, standardised concepts and viewing change initiatives as short-term. Complementarity and dependency links between failure factors and success factors were highlighted. Solutions for resolving three failure factors were found using Ishikawa-Diagrams and applying root cause analysis. Identifying key factors that affect project success is part of handling change. To support any necessary change a consistent change management framework that is adaptable to individual organisations is also recommended.

Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly being applied in dementia care across a range of applications and domains including health and wellbeing. Despite the commercial availability of VR, informants of design are not always aware of its functionality and capabilities, to meaningfully contribute to VR design. In designing VR applications for people living with dementia, it is recommended that older adults living with dementia and their support persons be involved in the design process using participatory approaches, thereby giving them a voice on the design of technology from the outset. A VR technology probe is a useful means of familiarising older adults living with dementia and their informal caregivers with the knowledge and understanding of interactive VR to employ technology that supports them to maintain their social health. This paper charts the implementation and evaluation of a VR technology probe, VR FOUNDations. To explore their experiences, nine older adults living with dementia and their nine informal caregivers trialled VR FOUNDations and completed semi-structured interviews after its use. Overall, older adults living with dementia and their informal caregivers perceived VR FOUNDations to achieve its aim of increasing understanding and inspiring future design decisions. The findings also identified promising positive experiences using a VR technology probe which may be indicative of its applicability to social health and wellbeing domains. This paper advocates for the structured design and implementation of VR technology probes as a pre-requisite to the participatory design of VR applications for the health and wellbeing of people living with dementia. The use of such technology probes may afford older adults living with dementia and their informal caregivers the best opportunity to contribute to design decisions and participate in technology design to support their health and wellbeing.