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Quality initiatives in the West have produced limited long‐term success compared with equivalent initiatives in Japan. Some claim that this is due to the absence of explicit links between strategy and operational initiatives. The paper aims to tests this claim and suggests an approach that better supports quality management initiatives. The paper is based on a combination of literature review and case studies. It supports the assumption that an explicit link between strategy and operational initiatives is a critical success factor in deriving long‐term benefits from quality initiatives. It is an equally important feature of best practice performance management system design and the paper finds that quality management initiatives can be implemented more successfully, when associated with a robust corporate performance management approach based on modern strategic control principles. The paper demonstrates how the latest evolution of balanced scorecard – third‐generation balanced scorecard – adheres to such control principles and illustrates how it supports effective application of a number of popular quality management tools. The limited success of quality initiatives, along with the continued popularity of some of these tools, suggests that any approach, which effectively helps decrease the risk of failure, would carry significant value.

Roskilde University was established in Denmark in 1972 as a critical reform university based on the principles of participant directed problem-oriented project learning (PPL). In 2009, the university launched a new master programme in Urban Planning (Planning Studies). This chapter presents experiences from student projects working with action research in facilitating citizen-driven urban development. Firstly, we outline the key theoretical foundations of the Planning Studies programme: planning as social learning, empowerment and social mobilization. Secondly, we describe the principles of the Roskilde University pedagogical model (PPL) rooted in the tradition of experiential and critical pedagogy of Oskar Negt, John Dewey, Paulo Freire and others. Thirdly, we present two cases of problem-oriented projects working with action research in bottom-up urban planning and sustainable transition in Copenhagen. The first case concerns the involvement of local residents in the redesign of a public square through a series of aesthetic experiments. The second case concerns an experiment with alternative transport solutions and sustainable street transition through reduction of private car use and the creation of new public spaces on former parking lots. The article concludes that action research in problem-oriented project work is promising way of involving students in community empowerment processes. Doing action research strengthens the students understanding of ‘the logic of practice’ and their ability to master practical and ethical judgements in complex real-world empowerment and learning processes. This both prepares them for professional practice and provides them with an embodied and pragmatically empowered understanding of how transformations towards a more sustainable and just society can be brought about.

This paper proposes a progressive, multi-level framework for diagnosing maintenance performance: rapid performance health checks of key performance for different equipment groups and end-to-end process diagnostics to further locate potential performance issues. A question-based performance evaluation approach is introduced to support the selection and derivation of case-specific indicators based on diagnostic aspects.

The case research method is used to develop the proposed framework. The generic parts of the framework are built on existing maintenance performance measurement theories through a literature review. In the case study, empirical maintenance data of 196 emergency shutdown valves (ESDVs) are collected over a two-year period to support the development and validation of the proposed approach.

To improve processes, companies need a separate performance measurement structure. This paper suggests a hierarchical model in four layers (objective, domain, aspect and performance measurement) to facilitate the selection and derivation of indicators, which could potentially reduce management complexity and help prioritize continuous performance improvement. Examples of new indicators are derived from a case study that includes 196 ESDVs at an offshore oil and gas production plant.

Methodological approaches to deriving various performance indicators have rarely been addressed in the maintenance field. The proposed diagnostic framework provides a structured way to identify and locate process performance issues by creating indicators that can bridge generic evaluation aspects and maintenance data. The framework is highly adaptive as data availability functions are used as inputs to generate indicators instead of passively filtering out non-applicable existing indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences between public and private organizations in the paths of business excellence models and to identify the key drivers for creating business results and customer satisfaction.

The partial least squares structural equation modeling technique is used to compare the path coefficients and to identify the key driver constructs for creating business results.

The variation in endogenous constructs is found to be more difficult to explain or predict for private organizations than for public organizations, despite the fact that the performance of private organizations is almost always higher than or equal to the performance of public ones in all criteria. The effect of “leadership” on “management of processes” is significantly higher in public organizations than in private ones. However, “management of processes” in public organizations does not seem to translate into “results.” The effect of “strategic planning” on creating business “results” is negative for public organizations and remains inconclusive, due to insufficient evidence, for private organizations.

The results may not be generally applicable to other countries. However, they do support the move toward more tailor-made models for specific sectors.

It is necessary to review the national business excellence model in order to fit specific sectors.

This is the first study to investigate the differences between private and public organizations in the Swedish business excellence model.

This study contributes to the understanding of the health effects of pesticides exposure and of how pesticides have been and should be regulated.

This study presents literature reviews for the period 2000–2013 on (i) the health effects of pesticides and on (ii) preference valuation of health risks related to pesticides, as well as a discussion of the role of benefit-cost analysis applied to pesticide regulatory measures.

This study indicates that the health literature has focused on individuals with direct exposure to pesticides, i.e. farmers, while the literature on preference valuation has focused on those with indirect exposure, i.e. consumers. The discussion highlights the need to clarify the rationale for regulating pesticides, the role of risk perceptions in benefit-cost analysis, and the importance of inter-disciplinary research in this area.

This study relates findings of different disciplines (health, economics, public policy) regarding pesticides, and identifies gaps for future research.

The construction industry is one of the least automated industries. In the aspect of automation, the technical understanding is very dominant. Focus has mostly been on tools, robots and industrialisation. sociomaterial design shows us that what may first appear technologically deterministic can be replaced and actually call for reinvisioning the traditional focus. The purpose of this study is to introduce the agency of a sociomaterial designer in construction.

This is a conceptual paper with an empirical example. To understand the sociomaterial complexity and dynamics of automation, practice theories are applied. To test this approach, the authors give an example from a Danish (global) supplier engaged in a development project about technical aid (tools) in mounting and assembling gypsum walls.

The sociomaterial-designer can help to understand and make innovation happen when doing automation in construction; as the centre of innovation in construction processes, she works all day with practice, together with practitioners, focusing on material arrangements as located not only in practice, but also in the artefacts. She can help the supplier of construction materials in understanding different professional practices and the transformation to use smarter tools.

This research is within a new practice domain “sociomaterial-design” and it has to follow up with an empirical study that covers a development project with a sociomaterial-design approach.

Developing competences (agency) as a sociomaterial-designer when linking the sociotechnical understanding of Automation with practice.

This research showcases how sociomaterial perspectives can inform automation in construction.

Creating high quality, liveable urban settings that facilitate a transition to lower carbon living and work environments is central to achieving more sustainable cities and communities. For over two decades, city builders and planners have advocated compact growth to facilitate these transformations. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has heralded a conceptual shift in debates on urban density, mobility and accessibility with the idea of the ‘15-minute city’ (Moreno, 2016) gaining increased prominence and traction among policymakers. Popularised by Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris, proximity and accessibility, together with density, underpin an ideal that privileges the relocalisation of work, home and leisure activities. Broadly described, the concept centres on the (re)development of urban neighbourhoods where basic services – access to public transport, grocery, social and healthcare, leisure and amenity – can be provided within a 10-, 15- or 20-minute walk or cycle from home. Since the publication of the National Planning Framework in 2018, more compact urban growth has become a core principle underpinning spatial planning at a range of scales in Ireland and the development of low-carbon and vibrant urban centres is now a key objective of Irish policymakers. The Southern Regional Assembly has been promoting the ‘10-minute town’ ideal through its Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy (RPO 176) and pilot projects in 3 medium sized towns (Carlow, Tralee and Ennis). However, scaling up the concept to accommodate the region's larger cities is relatively unexplored. As the smallest of the three cities in the southern region, and with significant redevelopment potential at the heart of the urban core, Waterford is in a dynamic position to accommodate the 15-minute concept. Furthermore, Waterford's more recent population growth suggests the need to cement the 15-minute city concept as a baseline for the design of the city as it develops and evolves in both new and emerging neighbourhoods. This chapter examines the potential and challenges of embracing the 15-minute city concept in Waterford as a way to meet the objectives set out in the National Planning Framework, Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy and by Waterford City Council, and discusses lessons for the Irish context more broadly. The chapter concludes that while the framework conditions for success appear to be largely in place, whether the governance and political system at the metropolitan and local levels is courageous enough to embrace and harness these opportunities remains to be seen.

Today, many IC approaches and company cases of IC reporting exist, but a common framework is lacking. This article explains policy and business perspectives for IC reporting and analyses the current IC approaches for defining essential drivers and policy strategies for such a framework. Focusing on external reporting and ‘value in use/stakeholder’ criteria is seen as a set of drivers that can combine policy and company perspectives and at the same time ensure involvement of a larger part of the business community and a framework recognisable to users of IC reports.

The theoretical approach of the five clusters relies on the distinction of the three welfare state regimes proposed by Esping-Andersen (1990, 1999) (Esping-Andersen, Gallie, Hemerijck, & Myles, 2003). Indeed, Europe as a whole provides the highest level of social protection and the widest “decommodification” of this social protection. Therefore, the bulk of nonprofit organizations – not only those providing education, health, and social services – cannot be understood without a reference to the kind of welfare state that shaped the whole modern society. The change or crisis of the welfare state over time gives indeed new opportunities to the third sector. We refer also to the social origins theory (Salamon et al., 2004), more global and complex, and try to make this theory more specific in the European Union. Empirical data are numerous because 16 countries over 27 were included in the second phase of the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Sector Comparative project (CNP2; Salamon et al., 2004). Exchanges among European researchers complete more qualitatively these figures (Salamon et al., 1997).

Over the past few decades, the subject of governance has come to the fore in many public discussions, notably with regard to reforms of the social protection system. Without entering into various debates the concept has generated, we shall use it in its positive sense (Gilly, Leroux, & Wallet, 2004), to designate all of the interactions between various public and private actors in the elaboration and implementation of public policies to attain shared objectives of general interest (Enjolras, 2008; Le Galès, 1998). Governance thus reflects a change in the forms of collective action – which certainly would qualify as modernisation – and the growing importance granted to management strategies in this change. It also brings out the complexity of the interrelationships between the different levels of decision-making (horizontal and vertical), which might be characterised as ‘poly-governance’ (Eme, 2005). And governance also permits a simultaneous approach to the new territorial, productive and partnership arrangements emerging in response to the different levels of constraints and socio-demographic changes. These issues lie at the heart of the transformations of the welfare state and related policies for rationalising public intervention and stabilising public finances. Studies dealing with welfare mix and welfare pluralism (Evers & Svetlik, 1993; Esping-Andersen, 1999; Ascoli & Ranci, 2002; Pestoff, 2006; Richez-Battesti, 2008) bring out different ways of combining sources of risk protection or other forms of solidarity. Such research reinforces analyses of co-ordination, as well as those of management and decision-making.