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With increasing market pressure and fragmentation Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) must move beyond the change philosophy of Continuous Improvement (CI) and develop a culture of innovation. To find out if SMEs could go beyond CI to achieve effective business innovation as a change management philosophy, a literature survey and a research survey on 15 SMEs was conducted to provide additional relevant information. The main research findings were: the SMEs exhibited a range of Continuous Improvement and innovation characteristics – some had adopted a culture of Continuous Improvement, while others had not; the SMEs which had adopted a culture of Continuous Improvement found that it could provide a solid foundation on which to build a culture of effective business innovation; and these SMEs were found to have embraced all the different components of innovation, as measured, more readily than those SMEs which did not have a culture of Continuous Improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the history and existing research on continuous improvement (CI).

Extensive review of the literature.

This paper provides an overview of CI, its inception, how it evolved into sophisticated methodologies used in organizations today, and existing research in this field in the literature.

The literature on classification of CI has so far been very limited. The paper reviews a large number of papers in this field and presents the overview of various CI implementation practices demonstrated by manufacturing organizations globally. It also highlights the sophisticated CI methodologies suggested by various researchers and practitioners in the field of CI.

The literature on classification of CI has so far been very limited. The paper reviews a large number of papers in this field and presents the overview of various CI implementation practices demonstrated by manufacturing organizations globally. It also highlights the sophisticated CI methodologies suggested by various researchers and practitioners in the field of CI.

The paper contains a comprehensive listing of publications on the field in question and its classification. It will be useful to researchers, improvement professionals and others concerned with improvement to understand the significance of CI. It should be of value to practitioners of CI programmes and to academics who are interested in how CI has evolved, and where it is today. To the authors’ knowledge, no recent papers have provided an historical perspective of CI.

To test the strength of the relationship between motivation for seeking ISO 9000 certification, quality culture, management responsibility, and the perceived benefits derived from ISO 9000 certification.

The research involved the development and application of a survey instrument applied to a sample of 1500 ISO 9000 certified organisations. The response rate was 27 per cent (400 responses). The data was analysed using SPSS for Windows, multivariate functions.

Amongst the major findings is organisations that seek ISO 9000 certification with a proactive approach driven by a continuous improvement strategy are more likely to derive significant business benefits as a result. We also found that organisations can effectively use ISO certification as a means of promoting and facilitating a quality culture, where the quality auditor is an important player in the process.

The paper reinforces the long held anecdotal view that the development of a strong quality culture should precede ISO certification. Yet results also show that ISO certification can promote this culture. We conclude that the motivation for seeking certification would determine which comes first: the quality culture or ISO 9000 certification. The findings are important evidence for managers to make a decision whether to seek ISO 9000 certification or not. Our research results show that ISO 9000 certification can deliver significant business benefits if it is implemented as part of a continuous improvement strategy.

This paper aims to provide a TQM framework that stresses continuous improvements in teaching as a plausible means of TQM implementation in higher education programs.

The literature survey of the TQM philosophies and the comparative analysis of TQM adoption in industry versus higher education provide the theoretical and practical background for this work. The analysis of TQM in higher education was done considering various critical factors such as existing educational practices, the barriers of TQM and the return on investment (ROI) of TQM implementations. These explorations led to the development of a TQM framework that adopts Deming's wheel of Plan‐Do‐Check‐Act (PDCA) cycle for implementing continuous improvements in higher education programs.

Unlike the scenario in industry, TQM philosophies have to be adapted suitably for a successful implementation in higher education. The proposed TQM framework with six core quality elements encompassing the seven‐step course evaluation process flow provides a systematic guideline for an effective and efficient implementation of TQM in higher education.

This paper fulfils the need for a systematic, feasible and cost‐effective TQM framework for higher education. The new seven‐step course evaluation process flow offers a practical guidance for academics to implement TQM in higher education programs.

This study advocates a planned and integrated approach for achieving continuous improvement in an organisation. A model based on ten essential criteria and supporting elements of “best practice” is provided. The role of senior management in ceaselessly driving the improvement cause is emphasized together with the need to focus on stakeholder requirements, measure performance and learn from results. The underpinning foundations are seen to be a culture for innovation, focusing on critical processes and the involvement of employees, together with the integration of improvement activities throughout the organisation. Use of the proposed model is seen as preparatory for, and complementary to, the more complex models (such as the business excellence model or Baldrige criteria) which are useful where an organisation already has the foundations and culture for improvement and wishes to stretch itself further.

A conceptual model of health care, a theory of quality improvement in health care and the role of patient, physician and employee judgements as part of organisation‐wide improvement are introduced. The conceptual model of health care shows how the practitioner, the locus of care‐giving and the social context interact to meet the needs of patients and highlights potential sources of unwanted variation in outcomes. This theory of quality improvement stresses the continuous improvement of processes throughout the entire organisation to meet the needs and expectations of customers. Basic building blocks for continuous improvement ‐ knowledge of customers, knowledge of work as processes, and statistical and scientific thinking ‐ are discussed along with the need to transform the entire organisation. A method for gaining customer knowledge and for monitoring hospital quality, based on measuring quality from patients′, physicians′, and employees′ judgements of quality, is introduced. The method, called the Hospital Quality Trend (HQT) family of quality measures, is described and its uses to promote organisation‐wide quality improvement are illustrated. Health care work is complex and unique. Careful analysis of the way that work is done and knowledge of the customers in defining and improving quality is essential for achieving better quality and value from the health care system.

The ideals of total quality view contradicts with the traditional prevention‐appraisal‐failure (PAF) model. The PAF model, based on the “higher quality‐higher cost” notion, fails to explain the “higher quality‐lower cost” premise of total quality. The purpose of this study is to examine the behaviour of quality costs and investigate the two contradicting views.

Based on the literature, a generic descriptive model is developed to examine the dynamics of quality costs and quality level over time. Through illustrative examples, the behaviour of quality costs is demonstrated and relevant implications are highlighted.

The proposed model supports continuous improvement regardless of the effectiveness of the firm's quality improvement programs. When the quality improvement program is highly effective, the “higher quality‐lower cost” phenomenon is observed; whereas, in a less effective quality improvement program, the authors observe the “higher quality‐higher cost” phenomenon, which still calls for increased improvement effort necessary for quality sustainability.

The proposed model explains well the dynamics of quality costs, however, it can be further enhanced by incorporating the dynamics of the effectiveness of the firm's quality improvement program and its relation to quality level and quality costs.

The proposed model is a useful tool especially for quality improvement planning and budgeting decisions.

Balancing between the two contradictory views of quality costs, this study provides a deeper understanding of the relationship of quality costs and quality level.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a relationship between the leader’s management problem-solving styles (MPSS) and total quality management (TQM) focus.

The study is based on C.G. Jung’s (1923) four psychological functions or cognitive styles, which are involved in information gathering and evaluation by sensing, intuitive, thinking, and feeling. The combination of these psychological functions makes possible ways of results: sensing-thinking (ST), sensing-feeling (SF), intuitive-thinking (NT), and intuitive-feeling (NF) for management problem solving. The empirical data for this study were drawn from a survey of 111 firms in India. A one-way analysis of variance approach has been applied for analysis in this study.

The authors review the extant literature and present a conceptual framework to establish the relationship between different management problem-solving styles and TQM focus. The literature on TQM shows two distinct achievable results: continuous improvement and innovation. The findings of the study support all the hypotheses and the results show that leaders with ST and SF profile are comfortable with the continuous improvement while leaders with NT and NF profile focus on innovation in the organization.

The results of this study emphasize the importance of knowing the appropriate MPSS to TQM focus. The results will help leaders in continuous improvement and innovation to make proper decisions and smooth functions to achieve maximum performance.

This paper can be useful for the organizations to achieve more effective leadership in decision making and improve perception-information model as a leader’s cognitive style. Moreover, this paper also attempts to inspire researchers to include the cognitive styles in studying the effect of the leaders on TQM focus while implementing it effectively in the organizations.

The resources department has introduced a wide range of initiatives to achieve quality management with the aim of delivering quality services to customers. Research has shown an improvement in quality management and a commitment to further improvement. Notable improvements include a change to the organizational culture, the application of continuous improvement and the development of a quality assurance programme which can be extended to include ISO 9000. The commitment to further improvement needs to be considered in terms of a more formal approach to total quality management (TQM). An established integrated approach called the TQMEX model is particularly appropriate for consideration. The output of the research is a TQM strategic plan based on the status quo of Leicester City Council, the theoretical background of the TQMEX model, and the experience of the author in total quality practices and from his attendance at the 1st International Conference on ISO 9000 and Total Quality Management (1st ICIT) in April 1996.