Strategies for business excellence under an economic crisis

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 610-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evangelos P. Afthonidis ◽  
George D. Tsiotras
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Strategic Plan ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Total Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Excellence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reveal the appropriate course of actions of any executive toward attaining business excellence, under the limitations and particular conditions that arise in an economic crisis environment. Design/methodology/approach – This paper takes the approach of an extended literature review. Findings – Business excellence is an ideal path for any enterprise which seeks the attainment of a strong competitive advantage in times of economic crisis. This path, through the implementation of the principles of Total Quality Management, leads to a strategic plan that helps the enterprise not only to survive but also to strengthen its position while exploiting opportunities that arise during the recession. The basic elements of such a plan are the satisfaction of all customers and stakeholders, the quest for innovation and the implementation of an aggressive policy in marketing and investments. Toward this target, the most crucial elements are the involvement of the management and, second, the commitment and efforts of all human resources. Practical implications – The business community and specifically the higher management of any company could reformulate its strategic plan according to the findings of this survey, in order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage over competition. Originality/value – On the basis of extended literature review, there has been no research work to connect the strategic thinking of enterprises and their management with business excellence in times of economic crisis, which is attempted in this paper. The added value of attaining this goal during harsh times should be a beacon for the higher management in its quest for sustainable competitiveness.

Exploring the interrelationship between quality, safety and HR within crisis management framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Nizamidou ◽  
Fotis Vouzas ◽  
Katerina Gotzamani
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Top Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of the paper is twofold: first, to examine the interaction of quality, safety and crisis management (CM), and second, to explore the role played by an HR department in terms of CM. Design/methodology/approach This paper consists of two parts: theoretical and empirical. The theoretical part follows the approach of an extended literature review. The empirical part illustrates the statistical analysis of the obtained data from Greek organizations that employ the largest number of employees, regardless of their business sector. Findings The statistical analysis allowed the authors to confirm their main research hypotheses. First, it showed the interrelationship that exists between safety, quality and CM. Second, it presented the impact of this relationship on human resources and the vital role of HR department, in case of a crisis. Practical implications Organizations and their top management can review and redesign their CM procedures according to the findings of this survey, aiming a fast recovery and a return to normalcy. Originality/value Based on the literature review, there has been a little research work on the interrelationship between safety, quality and the level of CM familiarity and the role of HR department at the times of crisis. The added value of attaining this goal may become a motivational element for any organization and its top management to continue investing more in safety, quality and CM issues.

The contribution of preoccupation with failure to TQM, crisis management and HR aiming to overcome crises

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1077-1098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Nizamidou ◽  
Fotios Vouzas
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Total Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is binary. At first, it explores the contribution of preoccupation with failure to total quality management (TQM) and crisis management (CM). Then, it analyzes how preoccupation with failure can advance the role of human resources department (HRD) in terms of CM.Design/methodology/approachThis paper consists of the theoretical and the empirical part. In the theoretical part an extended literature review takes place. In the empirical part, the research statistical analysis is presented. The research was conducted in organizations that employ the largest number of employees in Greece and represent various corporate sectors.FindingsThe research permitted the authors to confirm their research hypotheses. It presented how preoccupation with failure can advance continuous improvement and CM. Moreover, it illustrated the impact of failure to the key role of HRD against crises.Practical implicationsOrganizations and managers can reconsider their perspective towards failure. Additionally, they can review and redesign their TQM and CM procedures based on the research findings aiming to overcome crises.Originality/valueThe literature review indicated that limited research deals with the benefits of preoccupation with failure regarding TQM and CM. Specifically, the research advances the contribution of failure in relation with the level of CM intimacy to the role of HRD against crisis. The added value of the present is to make organizations and their top management realize the significance of failure and use it to promote learning, TQM and CM.

Model behavior

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-6
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Reading Time ◽  
Strategic Plan ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pertinent Information ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Right ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings One of the essential aspects of strategy that many executives struggle to come to terms with is the ethereal nature of it as a pursuit. Unlike logistics or finance, it has a wispy, intangible nature that refuses to be nailed down for a minute. Just as one executive thinks they have the right strategic plan, then the market will change, the environment will change, or any of the thousands of things that the strategy depended on will shift, leaving the firm high and dry, still looking for that killer app that will lead to competitive advantage. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Qualitative study of challenges and strategies of Indian IT organizations toward global branding

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 708-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keshab Ray ◽  
Meenakshi Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Brand Strength ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Branding ◽  
It Organizations ◽  
The Impact

Purpose There is a lacuna in research work in terms of understanding how Indian IT organizations can become global brands. Benchmarking has not received much attention in marketing literature due to lack of benchmarking framework, and IT organizations are yet to make progress in benchmarking. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of brand strength on global branding by developing a conceptual benchmarking framework for Indian IT organizations. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured in-depth interviews are conducted with thirty middle-level managers from two Indian IT organizations, two US-based global IT organizations and one UK-based leading bank, which is a customer of these IT organizations. Findings Results show a positive relationship between brand strength and global branding, between customer loyalty and global branding, between brand loyalty and competitive advantage and between global branding and competitive advantage. Indian IT organizations can benchmark global IT organizations to improve delivering brand promise, positioning, awareness building and authenticity toward making Indian IT organizations future ready to address the entire breadth of opportunities in the evolving world of cloud and digital. Practical implications This research helps managers with a brand strength-based benchmarking framework toward global branding of Indian IT organizations. Social implications IT is instrumental for rapid growth of Indian’s economy. India should optimally utilize its greatest wealth, its human potential, with the latent global demand in IT through building global IT brands. Originality/value The originality of the study lies in conducting a qualitative study on global branding of Indian IT organizations and also proposing a conceptual benchmarking framework. The study further validates the model using qualitative analysis.

scholarly journals Seeking competitive advantage with service infusion: a systematic literature review

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ville Eloranta ◽  
Taija Turunen
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Dynamic Capabilities ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Concepts ◽  
Service Infusion ◽  
Management Theories

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the service infusion literature explains competitive advantage through services. The four strategic management theories – competitive forces, the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, and relational view – are applied in the analysis. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic literature review analyzes the links between the service infusion and strategy literature. Findings – The review reveals that although discussion of service infusion applies strategic management concepts, the stream lacks rigor with respect to construct definition and justification. Additionally, contextual variables are often missing. The result is an over-emphasis of contextually bound measures, such as technology, and focal actors. Research limitations/implications – The growing trends toward social networks, co-specialization, actor dependency and shared resources encourage service infusion scholars to focus on network-related and relational capabilities, co-opetition, open business models, and relational rent extraction. Furthermore, service infusion research would benefit from considering strategy-based theoretical discussions, constructs, and constraints that would improve the scientific rigor, impact and contribution. Originality/value – This paper represents a systematic attempt to link the service infusion literature with strategic management theories and thoroughly analyzes the knowledge gaps and possible misconceptions.

Strategic impact of SCM and SCQM practices on competitive dimensions of Indian manufacturing industries

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 696-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandeep Kaur Sidhu ◽  
Kanwarpreet Singh ◽  
Doordarshi Singh
Keyword(s):  
Business Performance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Discriminant Validity ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Manufacturing Industries ◽  
Combined Approach ◽  
Total Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Manufacturing Organizations

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the capabilities of total quality management (TQM) and supply chain management (SCM) and extract various significant factors which influence the implementation of SCM alone and synergy of both TQM–SCM in terms of business performance of Indian medium and large scale manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach In the present study, 116 Indian manufacturing organizations have been extensively surveyed to ascertain the inter-relationships between various success factors and competitive dimensions of SCM alone and for combined approach (TQM–SCM), through different statistical techniques. Further, to evaluate the significance of time period on competitive dimensions, two-tailed t-test has been deployed. Finally the discriminant validity test has been applied to extract highly successful and moderately successful organizations for both approaches. Findings The study compares the contributions played by only SCM initiatives and combined approach (TQM–SCM) initiatives toward realization of significant improvements of various competitive dimensions of Indian manufacturing organizations. Finally, this study reveals that synergistic relationship of TQM and SCM paradigms can be more helpful as compared to only SCM initiatives for Indian manufacturing industries to enhance overall business performance. Originality/value TQM and SCM are considered as performance improvement techniques by the manufacturing organizations. The present research work establishes that combined (TQM–SCM) initiatives have effectively contributed for realization of significant competitive dimensions, progressively from introduction to maturity phases. So, the study stresses upon the need for improving coordination between various manufacturing parameters as well as competitive dimensions of TQM and SCM paradigms to enjoy higher potential of business performance.

Academic leadership and Lean Six Sigma

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 1002-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Anthony ◽  
Jiju Antony
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Six Sigma ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Lean Six Sigma ◽  
Academic Leadership ◽  
Total Quality ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Content Type

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ability to researchers of using design of experiments (DoE) as a structured and systematic approach to performing systematic literature reviews. The authors demonstrate a simple case study illustrating the application of DoE in executing a systematic literature review on two popular topics in higher education: academic leadership and Lean Six Sigma. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology involves the systematic literature review of linking academic leadership with terms such as Lean, Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, Maturity Model and Continuous Improvement. The main tool used to structure the systematic literature review is a Taguchi Orthogonal Array design, specifically an L16 grid and the method is verified by conducting another review, replacing the term academic leadership with simply leadership. Findings – The approach identified at first no research papers linking the terms; however, when academic leadership was replaced with university, 19 research papers where discovered. The verification exercise, linking just leadership with the other search string generated over 1,000 results – demonstrating that the tool can find large volumes of articles if they exist, the search was completed for a ten year time frame – 2004 to 2014. Research limitations/implications – The case study focussed on a field which is known to have little current research and the verification exercise deliberately targeted a known large body of research. The authors will continue to use the approach and refine the technique over time. Practical implications – This approach would help any researcher despite of their discipline to identify opportunities and gaps in the current literature. Originality/value – The paper shows how DoE can be used in an academic research-based process. No other literature review approach currently exists which uses Taguchi approach to DoE to filter the search criteria.

A “knowledge value chain” framework for contractor organisations to maximise chances of winning tenders

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaveesha Gihani Dewagoda ◽  
B.A.K.S. Perera ◽  
Sepani Senaratne
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Competitive Tendering ◽  
Knowledge Value Chain ◽  
Expert Interview ◽  
Knowledge Value

PurposeKnowledge is a critical asset that places contractor organisations at a competitive advantage when they take part in competitive tendering. However, a dearth of literature exists on the mechanisms that contractor organisations can adopt to utilise knowledge to gain competitive advantage and win tenders through competitive tendering.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted an interpretive stance with a qualitative approach that comprised a literature review, 15 expert interviews and three case studies. The literature review and expert interview findings were used to develop an intermediate framework of knowledge value chain (KVC), while the case study findings were used to develop the final KVC framework with the intermediate framework as the basis.FindingsThe study developed, in three distinctive steps, a KVC framework based on Powell's (2001) KVC for use by the tendering divisions/units of contractor organisations employing quantity surveyors (QSs) to handle tendering work and to increase their chances of winning tenders.Originality/valueThe study developed a KVC framework for the use of contractor organisations to maximise their chances of winning tenders in the field of quantity surveying.

A systematic literature review on total quality management critical success factors and the identification of new avenues of research

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Aquilani ◽  
Cecilia Silvestri ◽  
Alessandro Ruggieri ◽  
Corrado Gatti
Keyword(s):  
Quality Management ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Total Quality Management ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Success Factors ◽  
Total Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Success ◽  
And Performance ◽  
New Research

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review to identify new avenues of research in line with the ongoing changes in quality and management required to firms, especially regarding customers. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a systematic review of the literature contained in the three databases Ebsco, JSTOR, and Springerlink and on the search engine Google Scholar. Findings An analysis of the literature identifies three different clusters of papers: “identification” papers, which show that customer focus has gained importance in recent times; “implementation” papers, which highlight that a general or shared model or scale to successfully implement total quality management (TQM) does not yet exist; and “impact-on-performance” papers, which show that few studies have considered the relationship between TQM and the issues of both marketing and performance, underlining the most significant gap in the TQM literature. Research limitations/implications This study is limited by the small number of databases and search engines used and by the restricted number of keywords used in searching these sources. Practical implications This work highlights a gap in the existing research and thus an incomplete consideration of the interplay between management, marketing, and quality issues, all centered on customers and other stakeholders. Researchers and firms are thus advised to adopt a wider view that considers the role of the quality process to support the firm’s engagement of customers in activities that enhance both the customer role and customer satisfaction. Originality/value This study uses a systematic literature review to review all critical factors of TQM and identifies new research avenues and different approaches to implementing TQM, focusing on the central role that customers play in achieving firm success.

A review of the importance of business process management in achieving sustainable competitive advantage

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 522-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devika Nadarajah ◽  
Sharifah Latifah Syed Abdul Kadir
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Dynamic Capability ◽  
Sustainable Competitive Advantage ◽  
Total Quality ◽  
Content Type

Purpose – In today's height of competition, business process management (BPM) is regarded as best practice management principle that can assist companies in sustaining competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to strengthen theory building of BPM in fostering sustainable competitive advantage based on dynamic capability theory. Design/methodology/approach – BPM owes its existence to total quality management (TQM) and business process reengineering and has gained importance as an enabler to coordinate the intricacies of the organisations. Past researches on BPM have been largely conceptual using case studies with scarce evidence for theory building. Findings – Based on the review of literature, the study of BPM can be studied based on dynamic capability theory. Originality/value – The outcome of this paper would add value to theory building for BPM.

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