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Soft total quality management (STQM) is a requisite for the successful implementation of hard total quality management interventions. However, there is limited empirical evidence on the implications of adopting soft total quality management practices. Inter alia, little is known about the consequences of employee involvement in addressing organizational and management challenges. To fill this gap, the article investigates the effects of employees' involvement on their commitment to organizational excellence.

Secondary data were collected from the European Company Survey (ECS). A large sample of 15,958 European companies was involved in the analysis. A parallel mediation model was devised to investigate the effects of employee involvement on commitment to organizational excellence. Training and motivation were contemplated as mediating variables to investigate the indirect implications of employee involvement on commitment to organizational excellence.

Employee involvement contributed marginally towards establishing an increased individual commitment to organizational excellence. Training and motivation played a relevant and statistically significant mediating role, boosting the implications of involvement on commitment to organizational excellence.

Employee involvement is critical for establishing an organizational climate conducive to organizational excellence. However, its implications should be contextualized in light of the mediating role of training and motivation. On the one hand, training is expected to increase employees' participation in the enhancement of organizational excellence. On the other hand, motivation fosters employee engagement in the improvement of organizational dynamics.

The article investigates the implications of employee involvement on commitment to organizational excellence in a large sample of European companies, emphasizing that soft TQM interventions should be implemented according to a systemic perspective in order to pave the way for a viable commitment to organizational excellence.

The Forte Hotel Group today is very different from what it was three years ago. With the arrival of Antoine Cau as new chief executive at the beginning of 1998, the company was restructured into clear non‐competing brands. In line with the brand restructuring, the company also embarked on a radical culture change programme, commitment to excellence, which touched every single employee across Forte’s head offices and 250 hotels worldwide. The more than one million training hours required to implement commitment to excellence were phased over three years with the final group of hotels completing the training in September 2000. The positive impact on employee satisfaction and guest satisfaction is a clear indication that commitment to excellence is working and, to ensure continuous improvement, Forte has planned a wide range of activities to complement and reinforce the commitment to excellence ethos.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) development, in accordance with the dimensions of Maon et al.’s (2010) model, which could be achieved when organisations adopt the EFQM model, as well as how the EFQM model can foster this CSR development.

The research method chosen was a qualitative methodology involving multiple case studies. The empirical research relies on an in-depth study of four cases of organisations recognised by the EFQM model in Spain.

The findings show that, although a higher commitment to the EFQM model implies a greater level of CSR development, with the knowledge and attitudinal dimensions more developed than others, organisations still have to make CSR an internalised management ideology.

The very nature of the process of EFQM assessment does not ensure uniformity in all aspects of management. Limitations that are inherent to case studies: factors that can be chosen by the researcher, such as geographical location, size, sector and ownership, can have an influence on the characteristics of the CSR practices that are found.

This study contributes to the literature on excellence by approaching the EFQM model as a tool to integrate CSR issues into management.

A relationship between commitment to excellence and CSR development does exist.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous analysis has been performed to address the potential relationship between CSR development in accordance with Maon et al.’s (2010) model and commitment to excellence.

This article offers a novel approach that brings together management, engineering and organizational behavior. It focuses on the understanding of organizational dynamics in an era of technological change, upholding the importance of organizational agility and of the cultural paradigm in the management of organizations.

In this work, the authors present the conclusions from a set of studies carried out in organizations operating in technical and technological industries. The authors assessed the capabilities of these organizations in terms of operational excellence maturity and its impact on the organizational culture and organizational agility.

Results show the importance of operational excellence either in developing or expanding organizational agility capabilities while reinforcing the cruciality of an excellence-oriented culture to sustain these efforts over time.

Increasingly unstable business environments have led to a growing interest in how to develop and maintain operational excellence in the face of continued and disruptive change. However, this interest has, so far, been advanced with little empirical evidence to support the corresponding predictions. This work offers the first practical evidence that continued focus and optimization of operations, with the right cultural alignment, helps organizations survive and thrive in increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments.

A self‐help guide to achieving success in business. Directed more towards the self‐employed, it is relevant to other managers in organizations. Divided into clear sections on creativity and dealing with change; importance of clear goal setting; developing winning business and marketing strategies; negotiating skills; leadership; financial skills; and time management.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of business excellence in Asian organisations. The study examines the effectiveness of business excellence in the organisations that adopt it as well as the approaches used to deploy business excellence. Finally, the study investigates the attitudes of organisations with respect to business excellence awards.

A questionnaire survey of 74 organisations across five Asian countries was carried out in order to collect quantitative data. In addition, qualitative data was collected from 21 discussion groups held in all five countries and from 13 interviews held with senior executives of organisations that had won business excellence awards.

The organisations believe that business excellence is important in helping them reach their organisational goals. The results also show that participation in and winning business excellence awards is a key objective for many organisations in the region. However, the region still suffers from some barriers to long‐term commitment to business excellence including lack of development of a business excellence culture, a lack of resources and a failure to fully educate the majority of staff in business excellence.

The study was directed at organisations that were deploying business excellence. It therefore provides an insight into their activities but it does not explore levels of adoption of business excellence in the study countries and consequently, does not investigate reasons for non‐adoption in organisations that have not used business excellence.

National productivity organisations and national award administrators have a crucial role to play in ensuring that Asian organisations are aware of business excellence initiatives and that the necessary support structures and activities to facilitate deployment are made available.

While there are many studies on the adoption of business excellence in western countries, no such studies have been carried out in Asian countries to date. Even in the west, few studies have obtained the views of so many national award winners (30 in this study) and few have investigated the role of the award administrators. Given that the adoption of business excellence in Asia lags western countries, it is important to understand how it has been adopted in Asia and the perceptions of the organisations that have adopted it.

This paper aims to identify important challenges to sustaining business excellence amongst award‐winning companies in Australia.

Companies which had won Australian Business Excellence Awards were chosen as cases for this research since they had used the excellence framework over many years and, having achieved significant results, now potentially faced issues in sustaining a high level of performance. Interviews with key managers, published materials and information provided during industry visits were used as the primary information sources in the study.

Findings suggest that the primary challenges include; leadership support, drive and consistency throughout the organisation and communicating strategy and making it meaningful for people at all organisational levels. These were addressed in a variety of ways in the companies.

Companies which are successful at business excellence experience challenges which require ongoing management.

This research offers insights into the difficulties faced by successful organisations in their quest to build and maintain excellence and how they manage these.

This study investigates service excellence and hospitality perceptions in a hospital setting for an exploratory study of the familiarity of hospital administration with the topic of hospitality and service excellence. It is unique from other hospitality and service research in that it considers hospitality and service excellence as separate concepts, and specifically considers hospitality, such as service excellence, as a philosophy that may be transcend its traditional industries of origin. Part of the premise of this study explores how hospitality in a healthcare setting extends past service excellence in offering a service to a patient to create a comfortable and welcoming environment to combat patient anxiety and stress. This exploratory research provides a necessary foundation for more extensive empirical testing of the premise.

Using a qualitative case study, this research measured top management's perceptions of service excellence and hospitality within one community-based hospital located in Orlando, Florida. Three conclusions were revealed: (1) a mixed commitment by top management to concepts of service excellence and hospitality, (2) the terms “service excellence” and “hospitality” were generally discussed as though they were equivalent, and (3) significant external and internal barriers to the delivery of service excellence and hospitality in the hospital setting were identified.

The study has implications for healthcare organizations seeking to implement practices of hospitality and service management to improve overall healthcare service delivery. Additionally, the study of hospitality outside of its traditional industry boundaries may result in the generation of new improvement options/opportunities for traditional managers of hospitality businesses and organizational researchers. The study can be used as a foundation for the formulation of additional studies in the area of service excellence and hospitality applied to other layers in an organization irrespective of industry setting.

This editorial essay aims to focus on research integrity and commitment to excellence by analyzing the transitioning symptom associated with the Chinese research community as causes for concerns in research ethics and misconduct. The authors highlight their editorial process and practice in safeguarding research integrity at JCHRM and address related ethical issues on duplicate submissions in relation to their editorial experience.

This article adopts an approach combining literature review and reflexive analysis.

The current academic misconduct and ethical concerns in China are caused by a number of concurrent counterforces: increased attractive opportunities in moonlighting; research mindset rooted in the traditional learning orientation on imitation and contemporary education on rote learning; and heightened publication‐based performance requirement enforced by the government and institutions. These counterforces are further complicated by the ongoing socio‐cultural context, e.g. the drinking and eating culture. The authors report their editorial steps in safeguarding research integrity and commitment to excellence. In relation to submitting translated published papers to an English journal, they emphasize that originality is the core. They are committed to facilitate the transition of Chinese HRM research community to conform to the international standard.

This article links professional ethics, research integrity, and commitment to excellence to developing Chinese scholarly human resources. It articulates specific goals, principles, and responsibilities of JCHRM editorial practices for promoting high‐quality Chinese HRM research.

Organizations looking to pursue a programme of excellence and show their commitment to investing in their staff can benefit from developing the links between the European model for business excellence and the Investors in People standard.