Purpose – The authors analyze the principles and results of lean production and compare the lean production philosophy with the six sigma quality process and the principles of total quality management (TQM). At the end of the paper, it is discussed how to build the necessary company culture...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to present and discuss the Kansei engineering (KE) methodology, and to reflect on the future development of KE. The paper presents a model of the KE methodology and illustrates how this model was applied on a simple example which all may understand –...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the development of a system for assessing and improving technology development and innovations. The system components comprise: a framework or model for assessing, measuring, diagnosing and improving innovation enablers and results;...

Purpose – An overall aim with a new human‐oriented TQM metrology is to help managers in giving answers to the questions of what to measure, how to measure and why? It is the purpose of this paper to give input to answering these questions. In doing so the measurement problems are to be...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review and identify the dominating paradigms within management control theories in order to investigate adoptability of the European excellence model (EEM) as an alternative management control model or a framework. Design/methodology/approach – The...

Purpose – Recently, the operations management academic literature has seen articles focusing on the transfer of “lean” thinking or kaizen concept from the private to the public sector. In Spain, during the last 15 years, some local councils have also followed similar improvement...

Purpose – Parallel with increasing awareness of importance in learning during the last few decades, numerous theorists from various disciplines have tried to shape ideas concerning learning seen from their perspectives. One negative consequence of these efforts has been observed as increased...

Purpose – The main aim of this study is to provide an empirical analysis on the practice of quality management among employees of Malaysian public hospitals at the district, state and national level hospitals. This paper aims to perform a comparative analysis on quality management practices...

Purpose – National Health Systems (NHS) experience low trust and lack of public confidence while receiving strong pressure from governments and societies to improve their quality and compete effectively. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to investigate how patients perceive...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how different management practices drive key financial performance and business success in Danish companies. Design/methodology/approach – Both qualitative and quantitative research is conducted to study the relationships between eight...