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Service-oriented innovation economies are becoming the new trend for the construction industry. Benchmarking the quality management level of developed countries and improving quality management are also becoming necessities for promoting innovation in the economy. The purpose of this study is to analyse the internal relationships between the five enablers of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence model, based on a market-oriented strategy, to serve as a framework for managing and improving quality.

Considering the different market environment and culture, this study refines the strategy enabler based on Zebal and Goodwin's (2011) Developing Country Market Orientation Scale, and builds a market-oriented EFQM Excellence model. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to analyse the results of a questionnaire survey of 683 China construction industry top enterprises to explore the internal relationships between the model's five enablers.

(1) “Leadership” has a positive influence on “Market-Oriented Strategy”, “People” and “Partnerships and Resources”; (2) “Market-Oriented Strategy” has positive influence on “Partnerships and Resources”; (3) “People” has a low influence on “Processes, Products and Services”; (4) “Partnerships and Resources” has a medium influence on “Processes, Products and Services” and (5) the relationships between “Market-Oriented Strategy” and “People”, “Partnerships and Resources” are not significant.

This study refines the strategy enabler of the original EFQM Excellence model with Zebal and Goodwin's (2011) Developing Country Market Orientation Scale. It also develops a market-oriented EFQM Excellence model that is suitable for developing countries, and it tests the implicit relationships of its five new enablers in an innovation environment where cultural differences exist.

The main goal of the research is the investigation of quality management (QM) practices in the West Balkan countries and their advancement according to the models in developed countries presented in this paper. For the purpose of this investigation the model for the assessment of QM practice was developed.

The improvement of QM in industrially developed countries is essentially based on the application of business excellence models. Different business excellence models respect specific features of environments in which they have been developed and in fact represent QM paradigms based on total quality management (TQM). The implementation of these models in transitional economies or in economies with lower level of development where quality management paradigm is based on inspection, quality control (QC) or quality assurance (QA) does not provide the most suitable information for improvement, i.e. process re‐design for QM.

The paper reviews a developed model for assessment of QM maturity built on evolutionary development of QM paradigm through inspection, QC, QA and TQM. The identification of individual evolutionary phases through improvement paradigms such as: SDCA – product, SDCA – manufacturing processes, SDCA – supporting processes, PDCA – product and process thus creating precondition for the assessment of effectiveness of applied paradigm, as well as for diagnostics in cases of non‐effectiveness, i.e. failure in QM development. The change of management paradigms is not evolutionary in character, but actually represents a breakthrough approach.

The above investigation was carried out on the sample of 59 certified organizations amounting to about 5 percent of the total number of QMS certificates issued in Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. All assessed organizations of different size (SME or bigger) belonged to the manufacturing sector.

The transition process of the West Balkan countries to the EU require the harmonization of QM practice issues as well. This investigation is a contribution to the development of good QM practice in the organizations from these countries.

The application of the model based on evolutionary management development enables the transfer of knowledge about process re‐design for QM and thus provides a sustainable development of QM in manufacturing systems with lower level of development.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an optimal model of an integrated quality and safety management system (QSMS).

Keywords related with these systems were identified from international standards and subsequently mined from a selection of peer reviewed articles that discuss and propose varying forms of integrated models for both systems. Cluster analysis was used to establish the degree to which integrated models, as described in the articles were quality dominant vs safety dominant. Word counts were utilized for establishing content and attributes for each category. An optimal integrated model was developed from the final cluster analysis and substantiated by a one-way analysis of variance. Experts from industry were consulted to validate and fine-tune the model.

It was determined that characteristics of an optimal integrated model include the keywords “risk,” “safety,” “incident,” “injury,” “hazards,” as well as “preventive action,” “corrective action,” “rework,” “repair,” and “scrap.” It also combines elements of quality function deployment as well as hazard and operability analysis meshed into a plan-do-check-act type work-flow.

Given the vast array of clustering algorithms available, the clusters that resulted were dependent upon the algorithm deployed and may differ from clusters resulting for divergent algorithms.

The optimized model is a hybrid that consists of a quality management system as the superordinate strategic element with safety management system deployed as the supporting tactical element. The model was implemented as a case study, and resulted in 13 percent labor-hour saving.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the causal relationships in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) Education Performance Excellence Criteria.

Using a sample of 220 respondents from 15 United Arab Emirates (UAE) universities and colleges, results of regression analysis and confirmatory structural equation modeling show that all of the hypothesized causal relationships in the Baldrige model are statistically significant.

A comprehensive “measurement model” grounded in the Baldrige Performance Excellence in Education Criteria for the 33 items of measurement is developed, tested, and found to be valid and reliable. Leadership is identified as a driver for all components in the Baldrige System, including measurement, analysis and knowledge management, strategic planning, faculty and staff focus and process management. All Baldrige components (categories) are significantly linked with organizational outcomes as represented by the two categories of organizational performance results and student, stakeholder and market focus. The paper also tests the statistical fit of the only Baldrige model dealing with higher education, which was published in 1998 by Winn and Cameron.

The data obtained are based on a sample of UAE higher education institutions. Studies in other countries should be conducted using the developed model to ensure the reliability of the results obtained.

A greater understanding of the linkages between the elements making‐up the MBNQA Education Performance Excellence Criteria model, facilitating the guiding role that the award models play in the implementation of quality management in higher education.

For the first time, an instrument of the MBNQA Education Performance Excellence Criteria is developed and tested. A new in‐depth and holistic perspective for examining the relationships and linkages in the MBNQA Education Performance Excellence Criteria model is provided.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, confirm and verify leadership with regards to quality management measurement models. This research focused on identifying individual staff members’ leadership attributes at the Thai National Institute of Health in relation to quality management.

The research instrument used in this study was a modified questionnaire on self-leadership and quality management that was distributed to the institute’s staff. Leadership and quality management construct variables were observed and measured through staff perceptions, attitudes, practices and existing facts at the institute. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to examine the data.

The questionnaire had a 65 percent response rate. EFA revealed six factors from 27 questionnaire items and CFA was used to confirm the measurement models that were fitted to the data. The leadership attributes of staff members at the institute were statistically associated to and impacted on quality management by SEM analysis.

In-depth understanding of leadership and quality management could be done through a longitudinal study because the two factors would change over time. Even though this model is not a longitudinal study, it could help the institute facilitate and manage quality in practice through leadership.

A cross-sectional study is used to examine the effect of leadership on quality management through factor analysis and SEM, which provided empirical evidence for future research. Leadership and quality management measurement models have statistically proven to be appropriately, technically and theoretically correct by design for observing variables used in the leadership measurement model that affects quality management.

In many industries (e.g. cars and clothing) manufacturing complexity and unpredictability have increased over the last couple of years because of an increasing variety of products and shortening product life cycles. At the same time the manufacturers in these industries appear to have more problems with maintaining high quality levels. This paper aims to develop a methodology to study the effects of these developments on quality management systems.

At three European automotive manufacturers the two trends have been studied by means of a case study approach. Simons' four levers of control model is utilised to categorise and interpret the results of the case studies.

The application of a management control model in the field of quality management is found to be useful in explaining what changes are necessary to maintain high quality levels. From the case studies in the automotive sector it is concluded that there is a shift in quality management systems from a diagnostic towards a more interactive approach. This is in line with what can be expected as a result of the increasing uncertainty in the automotive sector, caused by shortening life cycles of car models and smaller batch sizes.

This research presents a novel application of Simons' four levers of control model to the field of quality management. Based on the experience with three case studies at European automotive manufacturers, this approach seems to have potential.

Companies pursuing certification to quality standards must apply change methodologies to institutionalize the requirements into the business. Existing change models, such as Burke‐Litwin, can serve as the foundation for identifying underlying, predictive variables impacting response variables of a quality management system including quality and delivery performance. The models were selected based on their applicability and similarity in integration of organizational variables with great similarities to those of a typical quality management system. Adaptation of change models specifically to quality management standards provides the conceptual framework in which businesses can operate. The discussion reviews quality management standards, organizational change and models, and change management in pursuit of certification. A conceptual model was developed and serves as the foundation for empirical research efforts. This bridges the gap between organizational change models and quality management systems.

Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has become an established social sciences multivariate analysis technique. Since quality management researchers also increasingly using PLS-SEM, this growing interest calls for guidance.

Based on established guidelines for applying PLS-SEM and evaluating the results, this research reviews 107 articles applying the method and published in eight leading quality management journals.

The use of PLS-SEM in quality management often only draws on limited information and analysis results. The discipline would benefit from the method's more comprehensive use by following established guidelines. Specifically, the use of predictive model assessment and more advanced PLS-SEM analyses harbors the potential to provide more detailed findings and conclusions when applying the method.

This research provides first insights into PLS-SEM's use in quality management. Future research should identify the key areas and the core quality management models that best support the method's capabilities and researchers' goals.

The results of this analysis guide researchers who use the PLS-SEM method for their quality management studies.

This is the first article to systematically review the use of PLS-SEM in the quality management discipline.

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model has been widely used by higher education institutions (HEIs). However, knowledge about the state of the art concerning its application in the context of HEIs is still reduced. The purpose of this paper is to provide groundwork able to boost coordinated research efforts toward the development of the knowledge body in the field.

This research is based on a systematic literature review (SLR) of 25 papers identified in the ISI Web of Knowledge and SCOPUS databases, and considered relevant for analysis.

The paper provides a broad overview of the main issues explored so far in literature: potential benefits, potential barriers and critical success factors. By highlighting the main shortcomings of current research and the corresponding opportunities for additional research directions, the authors hope to boost further research efforts in the field.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first SLR in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe research presented in the International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management (IJQRM), thereby creating an increased understanding of how the areas of research have evolved through the years. An additional purpose is to show how text mining methodology can be used as a tool for exploration and description of research publications.

The study applies text mining methodologies to explore and describe the digital library of IJQRM from 1984 up to 2014. To structure and condense the data, k-means clustering and probabilistic topic modeling with latent Dirichlet allocation is applied. The data set consists of research paper abstracts.

The results support the suggestion of the occurrence of trends, fads and fashion in research publications. Research on quality function deployment (QFD) and reliability management are noted to be on the downturn whereas research on Six Sigma with a focus on lean, innovation, performance and improvement on the rise. Furthermore, the study confirms IJQRM as a scientific journal with quality and reliability management as primary areas of coverage, accompanied by specific topics such as total quality management, service quality, process management, ISO, QFD and Six Sigma. The study also gives an insight into how text mining can be used as a way to efficiently explore and describe large quantities of research paper abstracts.

The study focuses on abstracts of research papers, thus topics and categories that could be identified via other journal publications, such as book reviews; general reviews; secondary articles; editorials; guest editorials; awards for excellence (notifications); introductions or summaries from conferences; notes from the publisher; and articles without an abstract, are excluded.

There do not seem to be any prior text mining studies that apply cluster modeling and probabilistic topic modeling to research article abstracts in the IJQRM. This study therefore offers a unique perspective on the journal’s content.