Six Sigma in Human Resources

HR business partner, Business Excellence are some buzzwords in the industry nowadays. Profitability and efficiency are being driven through various strategic initiatives aligned to the vision of the organization. Customer satisfaction is now being replaced by customer delight. Organizations are taking steps ahead of voice of customer. The consumer insights are thoroughly analyzed and interpreted. Data analytics is not restricted to only finance and operation functions but are widely used across the support functions along with line functions. Human resource is now considered as an asset. Organizations are also trying to find out ways to capitalize the full potential of human asset. Various tools and methodologies are paving its way to bring efficient human resource management practices. Six Sigma is one of the tools, which is booming into the application space of Human Resource Management. Six Sigma is being considered as a business process and is helping the in shaping and improving their bottom line by designing and monitoring various activities to reduce the defects.

Socially Responsible Target Marketing and Marketing Communications – Concerns and Initiatives

Companies are in business to generate revenues and profits and achieve business excellence. Now-a-days, companies are becoming sensitive towards their social responsibilities of ensuring not only consumer welfare but also the welfare of all stakeholders including the society at large. Companies do target marketing and marketing communications to communicate about their offerings to target markets. They adopt socially responsible target marketing, marketing communications, and advertising campaigns. Various issues in advertising campaigns include deceptive advertising, and unethical practices in fashion advertising and in cosmetics industry. Companies adopt advertising campaigns for social causes, socially responsible sales promotion, and personal selling. Companies should ensure consumer privacy, safety, and security. Various stakeholders want to be assured that businesses care about their welfare. Businesses should ensure consumer welfare and welfare of the society at large. This will allow them to achieve business excellence and stay ahead in the competition.

Business Excellence Models and External Stakeholders Influencing the Late Adoption of Quality Management Systems in Zimbabwe Hotel Industry

The main objective of this paper was to determine business excellences and stakeholders influencing the late adoption of quality management systems in Zimbabwe hotel industry and suggest recommendation that encourages adoption of quality management systems. The study followed a multi case study approach, with 9 hotels from Harare chosen purposively to represent the hotel industry in Zimbabwe. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to get data from hotel managers, key stakeholders and staff members. Directed content analysis was used to analyse data. The results revealed that hotels in Zimbabwe do not follow internationally recognised business excellence models. Five key external stakeholders – banks, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe, Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe, tourists and Standard Association of Zimbabwe were identified to be influencing adoption of quality management systems in the hotel industry. The study recommended for the establishment of local business excellence models that are specific to hotels in Zimbabwe and for the government to avail accessible revolving bank loans for the hotels to invest towards quality management systems. The determination of the external stakeholders influencing late adoption of quality management systems in the hotel industry and use of business excellence models will help improve the adoption of QMSs under Zimbabwe's National Development Strategy 1 (NDS) to realise Vision 2030 "Towards a Prosperous and Empowered Upper Middle-Income Society".

Comparative Study of Business Excellence Frameworks and Awards in Southeast Asian Countries

Many countries have initialized and adopted the business excellence framework to encourage high-quality achievements and be recognised internationally, including in Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN as an economic and political organization of 11 countries located in Southeast Asia, established a business excellence framework to promote international organizational excellence and serve as national quality awards, which most of them adopted the Baldrige Excellence Framework (BEF). This study utilizes the accumulation and analysis of qualitative information using several sources and evidence from the business excellence frameworks and awards in ASEAN countries. This paper presents analytical comparisons of various aspects of the framework, such as their goals, award and recognition, categories, and score points (scores). It also discusses the similarities and differences among them.

From quality control to TQM, service quality and service sciences: a 30-year review of TQM literature

Purpose This paper aims to review total quality management (TQM) literature in the past three decades to identify the quality related key terms, to analyse their linkage among the identified key terms and their developmental trends. Design/methodology/approach Bibliometric and statistical methods are used to analyse article titles published in the Total Quality and Business Excellence journal during 1990–2019. The current research is based on a search from the ProQuest academic database and the journal’s website, resulting in 2,452 articles collected. The VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel were then used for the analyses. Findings A total of 52 key terms were extracted from the journal’s 2,452 article titles, the top three key terms in terms of occurrences were “quality,” “total quality management” and “service quality.” Five themes were then proposed from clustering the 52 key terms: “frameworks/models,” “essentials/enablers,” “methods/techniques,” “culture/characteristics” and “effects/results.” Trend analyses were also conducted regarding the five themes in an attempt to highlight the patterns of research publications from 1990 to 2019. It is found that the research publications for “essentials/enablers,” “methods and techniques” and “effects/results” have steadily increased during the analysis period, while “frameworks/models” and “culture/characteristic” have slightly decreased. These insights provide implication for the historical evolution of quality from “quality control,” “total quality management” and “service quality,” combining with the development of “service sciences.” Originality/value This paper highlights the concept of quality since its meaning has changed and evolved over time from quality control, TQM to service quality. And it is emerging in the present and future development of service sciences because of both of TQM and service sciences having the same nature of multidisciplinary background and characteristics. Also the authors can conclude that quality and service sciences are in fact two sides of the same coin because both of them having the same duality of “tangible-intangible” and “physical-virtual” faces which are the important topics that TQM should focus on.

A national framework for promoting business excellence (NFPBE)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a national framework for promoting business excellence (NFPBE) using a quality management assessment framework (QMAF) with information knowledge communication (IKC) as an enabler.Design/methodology/approachThe NFPBE using the plan–do–check–act (PDCA) cycle is developed, re-enforcing key quality management aspects/areas including national quality awards, QMAF summary and national innovation programmes using a meta-analysis.FindingsThe operationalising of the NFPBE is enabled and supported by an auditing tool to assess the degree of mentoring provided by universities/research institutions/consulting firms to participating firms whose progress will be assessed by the QMAF. It was emphasised that the success of the framework requires the buy-in of national governments to support the programme through stimulus incentives such as government assistance with the costs of research and development, and cooperative research ventures between universities and companies.Research limitations/implicationsThe framework is conceptualised into a process flowchart, which is a blueprint to advancing business excellence in organisations at a national scale. The study is limited to only the conceptualisation of the framework. Therefore, an extended study of the framework implementation/application is required for revealing implementation guidelines.Practical implicationsThe national framework has a propensity to enhancing the business excellence of organisations at a national level. Therefore, quality managers and policy makers could use the framework to understand the quality management shortfalls and consider strategies to achieving business excellence.Originality/valueThis research study proposed a blueprint to advancing quality excellence in organisations at a national level, guided by several quality frameworks.

Formulation of Change Management Model for Achieving Business Excellence in Large Organizations

This study aims to investigate how the different leadership levels can apply change management successfully in larger organisations, in order to facilitate business excellence. First, change models and leadership theories are analysed under EFQM principles, as it is selected as the framework for excellence. Then, a theoretical change management process is synthesised in alignment with leadership organisational levels. The main challenge of this research is to adequately connect theory about leading organisational change with practice. The research process is enriched by 6 semi-structured interviews in two different case studies, while the previous findings are validated through 3 structured interviews in a third case study. The analysis shows that although leaders believe that they identify the need for change, sometimes they do not, or they make sense of it too late. As such, a five-step change process model is created as the conclusion of the theoretical and case studies analyses. The value of this research is the connection between theory and practice as it tries to identify the responsible gaps for wrong or not fully successful organisational change projects. The suggested model simplifies the theory into practical steps while the success factors ensure that the enablers can support change efficiently. Further research based on the adoption of Senge’s systems theory for network leadership level is recommended to organisations.