Purpose: Recent literature recognizes the role of warehouses in enhancing the overall logistics performance. Thus, lean thinking has recently found its way in supporting warehouse and distribution centre operations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among warehouse waste reduction practices, warehouse operational performance, distribution performance and business performance.Design/methodology/approach: A two-stage study was conducted. First, a Delphi technique was adopted to develop a relevant questionnaire. Second, this questionnaire was used to measure the degree of waste reduction in the different warehouse activities and to test the developed research hypotheses. The authors test the hypotheses with a sample of Middle Eastern warehouse operators.Findings: There exists a positive relationship between warehouse waste reduction level and both warehouse operational performance and distribution performance. There was no direct relationship between warehouse waste reduction level and business performance. However, results revealed that the relationship between warehouse waste reduction level and business performance was mediated by warehouse operational performance and distribution performance.Practical implications: The developed instrument provides a guide for logistics managers as to understand how to reduce waste in each warehousing activity. The results also inform logistics managers of how distribution performance can be improved through lean warehousing. The resulting performance improvements in the distribution operations will ultimately be reflected in the logistics performance of downstream retailers.Originality/value: The study develops an original instrument for measuring waste reduction in warehouses, and provides insights into the evolving lean warehousing research area. This is the first scholarly work to uncover the relationships among warehouse waste reduction practices, warehouse operational performance, distribution performance and business performance.

Purpose: Organizations have varied levels of success with Lean implementation and many did not see tangible results. Some scholars believe the reason has to do with weak Lean culture or Lean values (LVs). The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between Lean implementation practices and LVs. The research goes further to study the nature of this relationship; does LVs affect Lean practices only or do they affect each other in a reciprocal manner? Design/methodology/approach: Literature regarding Lean implementation in various sectors was reviewed. Representatives from several organizations were surveyed. Results from both approaches are compared and presented to highlight the key challenges and drivers facing Lean implementation. Findings: Lean works well on enhancing organization performance (OP) but the implementation has to be preceded by careful nourishment of the proper Lean culture and LVs. The relationship between Lean implementation and LVs is of a complex nature and driven by OP. Practical implications: The study has important managerial implications that is if Lean is going to be sustained, continuous efforts has to be exerted by Lean professionals to engage leaders and decision makers in the organization and ensure proper values are nurtured. Originality/value: This is the first study to examine the reciprocal relationship between Lean implementation practices and LVs while focusing on OP by employing a structural statistical model.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a maturity model to improve warehouse performance.Design/methodology/approach: This paper will follow De Bruin et al’s (2005) suggested six relevant phases: scope, design, populate, test, deploy and maintain in developing the proposed maturity model. This study concentrates on the first five phases.Findings: The proposed warehouse maturity model can be used as descriptive, benchmarking and a prescriptive with a road map for improvement.Practical implications: The warehouse maturity model was proposed to let warehouse managers evaluate their practices and assess them by maturity level. Then, the proposed warehouse maturity model can be utilized to develop a set of plans for conducting projects to improve the warehouse practices, techniques and tools.Originality/value: The proposed warehouse maturity model contributes to fill the shortages of maturity model addressing the warehouse environment. In particular, it provides a useful tool to establish the overall maturity level of a warehouse system. The proposed maturity model supports strategic decisions oriented toward improvement capabilities of the warehouse and to compete based on service level provided.

Recent arguments states that competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains to support different competitive priorities. Effective supply chain management (SCM) practices have become a recognized way of achieving competitive advantage and improving organizational financial performance. This paper presents an exploratory study of the relationship between (SCM) practices and organizational financial performance. Although research on the relationship was investigated by relating SCM practices and single organizational financial performance, but no research have surrogated many organizational financial performance in one measurement. Technical efficiency was used to surrogate organizational financial performance of Jordanian manufacturing companies. Data for the study was collected from 28 manufacturing companies registered in first market of Amman Stock Exchange. The results indicate a strong relationship between SCM practices and bottom-line profits of an organization.

Barriers to trade are known to be large due to visible and invisible practices, which directly affect transportation landed cost. The intra-regional trade statistics clearly show the Israeli domination over Jordanian intra-regional trade with the West Bank (Palestine). The aim of this study was to show that the Government of Israel is imposing a non-tariff measure (NTM) on imports to the West Bank through King Hussein Bridge which is a higher landed cost than imports to the West Bank from Israel (through check points), which is evidence that the NTM is trade-restrictive.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate and examine the impact of strategic purchasing practices (SPP) on strategic-fit (SF) by analyzing the influence of SPP on purchasing involvement in business strategy formulation with path-goal theory leadership styles as moderators.Design/methodology/approach: Using survey data from 320 respondents representing 64 manufacturing firms in the Middle East, the authors measure SPP, purchasing involvement, leadership styles and SF of the purchasing function with business strategy.Findings: Building on the path-goal approach to leadership, results suggest that participative, supportive and achievement-oriented leadership (AOL) styles are pure moderators, while directive leadership style (DLS) is a quasi-moderator in boosting the relationship between SPP and strategic purchasing involvement (SPI).Research limitations/implications: Limitations of the sampling methodology and sample size restricts the scope for generalizing the hypotheses. Further, data were collected only from manufacturing companies. The paper provides managerial implications on purchasing involvement in business strategy formulation and the different roles of leadership styles.Originality/value: This is the first scholarly work to examine the different leadership styles as a moderator that affects the strategic involvement and status of strategic purchasing.