Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss areas where there could be gaps between traditional quality management concepts and the reality, and point out the modern‐day paradigm shifts as thoughts and ideals of the past gradually give way to realistic assessments and concrete tools of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to ask how the EFQM Excellence Model and organizations' self‐assessment practice could contribute to the managerial and quantification efforts of intellectual capital (IC) and how indicators and measures applied during self‐assessment can be connected...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to elaborate, interpret, discuss and decode excellence in a new way by focusing on some of the critical success factors for attaining and sustaining excellence. Design/methodology/approach – The framework used for analysis is an old text which explains...

Purpose – The purpose of the framework here proposed is to introduce an industrial culture within the service organizations. Concepts such as employees empowerment, ownership, continuous improvement, together with the systematic implementation of quantitative methods builds the organizational...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate service improvement initiatives within a major UK bank, and assess issues which may have contributed to the current financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach – Primary research includes a survey of bank staff and longitudinal on site...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to: analyze the meaning of sustainability and its relation to excellence, in an era of management transformation, integration and evolution; to present the global challenges for sustainable management of the future; and to examine how sustainability should...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on how organisations can benefit from adopting an organic paradigm of management to maximise the benefits of quality and business excellence strategy. Mechanistic approaches do not offer long-term sustainability and do not facilitate learning and...

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to the debate on business excellence by comparing the business excellence models of Malcolm Baldrige, European Foundation for Quality Management and Swedish Institute for Quality. By assessing these in relation to today’s new business landscape, the...

Purpose – This paper aims to present and discuss the current state of quality‐improvement activities in Swedish companies. The paper focuses on the drivers for quality improvement; types of approaches, tools and techniques, and organizational aspects influenced by quality improvement; and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a rationale for the epistemological and ontological development of total quality management (TQM) utilising action modalities. The ability to harness and transfer knowledge is a key attribute of research‐led universities, and a factor which is...