Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the historical development of quality assessment methods in manufacturing industry and healthcare. It examines the gap between methods across the two sectors, as well as the extent to which industrial techniques have been successfully adopted in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the development of total quality management (TQM) from the very beginning to the present and to give a proposal for a redefinition for the future. Design/methodology/approach – To reach this purpose, experiences and problems from the past are...

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 this paper is to develop an understanding of how patients experience their health problems and how they can generate innovative ideas about health care services. The research questions that guide the present study are: how can solicited diaries be used for capturing...

Purpose – Appreciative inquiry (AI) is an inquiry into the “best of” what already exists in a system. Applying AI at the start of a design process gives a process that is very different from traditional design approaches, in other words “appreciative design” is achieved. The overall...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how decision makers in organizations can emulate the practices of winning organisations and in so doing, improve their own managerial practices. The paper draws on a four‐year empirical study of 11 of Australia's high performing organisations...

Purpose – The Gemba‐Kaizen approach is a key business process strategy employed by companies (multinationals also) to enhance their manufacturing performance. However, whilst there is significant research information available on implementing management systems in a sequential manner, there...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to see how quality management is carried out in hotels in the Basque Country, a region in the north of Spain with a long tradition in the tourist sector. Design/methodology/approach – The objective of the study was to establish what approaches to...

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 describe health promotion activities accomplished within a project and to measure the conditions for sustainable health within the case organizations. Also, the purpose is to test a previously developed measurement approach, which measures...