Sustainable Competitiveness Through Quality Transformation: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Quality Award Winners And A Proposed Framework

Quality management is a dynamic philosophy that underlines the organisational adaptation and proactive transformation that enables firms to reap real benefits from market opportunities. The faster the market changes, the quicker the transformation that is required for sustaining the firm's internal capabilities and its external competitiveness. Under a competitive pressure, a firm will need to learn faster and lead in best practice for operational excellence and continuously finding ways to shield its advantage from imitation. In the search for determinants for sustainability, this article analyses best practices adopted by quality award-winning organisations and synthesises a collection of critical factors that could assist organisations in improving their performance. From a longitudinal learning on how these leading organisations led themselves into a new sustaining paradigm, the article makes explicit the factors that were considered of paramount importance to sustainability. These success factors become a basis for others to leapfrog ahead into a new performance orbit. A proposed model for sustaining competitiveness has been developed from the creative learning of best practices of leading organisations. This proposed framework presents companies with an opportunity to emulate successful implementation of TQ-based initiatives, and to embed these pioneering concepts, particularly in the context of emerging countries

Knowledge and best practice management through benchmarking: A global survey

Developing best practice through benchmarking features as a critical activity in the business world as it is a vital approach for sharing and transferring knowledge.Companies across the globe have embraced these concepts but have done so with a varied level of success.Some have managed to create huge market place advantages whilst others have fared less favourably.The purpose of this research is to establish the level of benchmarking activity and application globally.The information gathered included both the hard and soft issues associated with benchmarking and following analysis,attempted to evaluate the level of benchmarking maturity reached across different industry fields and size of operation.This global survey helps understand what leads to effective benchmarking and development of best practices

Testing the criticality of HR-TQM factors in the Malaysian higher education context.

The aim of this paper is to provide evidence on the degree of criticality and reliability tests for human resource (HR) related critical success factors (CSFs) in TQM implementation. This involves identifying and defining the HR-related CSFs from an exhaustive source of literature reviews on quality initiatives. In higher education (HE) contexts, the CSFs in TQM programmes emphasise more management commitment, HR management and quality working attitudes for customer satisfaction. Therefore, the ‘soft’ or HR aspects in the literature review stand as the fundamental issue of concern for organizational management in quality planning and creating a quality working climate to ensure successful expected performance. Using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), the HR-related CSFs that have high mean scores and reliability coefficients, are teamwork spirit, competent staff, customer-focus orientation and visionary leadership. Other factors have reasonably high scores and are recommended to be included in similar research in contexts other than simply the HE context

HRM issues in quality initiatives for Malaysian universities

The aim of this paper is to provide evidence on the importance of human resource (HR) related factors in total quality management (TQM) implementation. This involves identifying and defining HR-related critical success factors (CSFs) from an exhaustive source of literature reviews on quality initiatives. The ‘soft’ or HR-related CSFs in the literature review stand as the fundamental issue in building a theoretical framework. Non-scheduled-structured interviews were conducted on seven Malaysian universities involved in IS09000 certification processes. Results from the qualitative survey suggest the importance of effective communication, visionary leadership, congruent objectives and recognition and motivation as the four most critical HR factors in TQM implementation in the HE context. Practically, quality HRM as suggested in this study is not only the listing of human resource management (HRM) factors, but also to recommend that H-R-related CSFs are the crucial factors that must go right to ensure successful quality initiatives. Quality HRM demands that the management of an organisation consider the factors required to produce excellent performance. The ‘soft’ aspect is always suggested theoretically to be important to ensure successful TQM implementation. The findings on HR-related CSFs put forward in this research serve as building blocks for the development of a comprehensive conceptual theory in TQM. This study suggests and validates those HR-related CSFs that play crucial roles in successful quality initiatives

Business process reengineering: Critical success factors in higher education

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical success factors of business process reengineering (BPR) in higher education (HE).Design/methodolog/approach – Empirical case studies collected from three private higher education institutions in Malaysia, which have embarked on BPR successfully.Findings– Seven factors were found to be critical to BPR implementation success.The factors are teamwork and quality culture, quality management system and satisfactory rewards, effective change management, less bureaucratic and participative, information technology/information system, effective project management and adequate financial resources.Research limitations/implications – The paper provides a framework for future research to explore organisational development in making BPR happen successfully. Originality/value – This research contributes to studies of BPR in HE context, by considering the soft issues in its implementation