Search results

Implementing total quality management (TQM) is not without difficulties and achieving its promised benefits is not easy. The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to TQM successful implementation.

A literature review has been done to explore the major reasons for the failure of TQM programmes.

An examination of 54 TQM empirical studies identified 54 obstacles to successful TQM implementation. There are both theoretical and practical difficulties in applying TQM in organisations. An ineffective TQM package, inappropriate TQM implementation methods and an inappropriate environment for implementing TQM are the main reasons for TQM failure. The most frequently mentioned reasons for TQM implementation failures include insufficient education and training, lack of employees’ involvement, lack of top management support, inadequate resources, deficient leadership, lack of a quality-oriented culture, poor communication, lack of a plan for change and employee resistance to the change programme.

The review was limited to articles written in English language during the past 30 years (1980-2010).

TQM does deliver better performance when an appropriate model of TQM is appropriately implemented in a supportive environment. The findings of this paper provide managers with a practical understanding of the factors that are likely to obstruct TQM implementation. Managers should overcome these barriers to achieve the TQM benefits.

Understanding the factors that are likely to obstruct TQM implementation will help organisations in planning better TQM models.

This paper reports the study of key success factors (KSFs) in the project management of the implementation of strategic manufacturing initiatives (SMIs).

In order to gather the experience and knowledge of many industries, from different geographic locations, in a broad range of types and sizes of SMIs, a questionnaire‐based survey of practitioners worldwide was selected as the most appropriate research method among those available.

The identification of those tasks and activities that must be done well in order to succeed in the implementation of a SMI in practice.

Practitioners focusing their attention on the KSFs identified are more likely to succeed. Once these factors have been identified, the value of benchmarking project management methodologies then comes from drawing attention to those tasks that are key to the success of the implementation of SMIs.

The paper presents new thinking by bringing project management into the operations strategy implementation literature as an important mediating factor for success. In this context the factors that are required for successful implementation are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main organizational factors that contribute to the successful implementation of business process reengineering (BPR) in the Egyptian banking sector. These factors include management commitment, information technology (IT) infrastructure, people management, change readiness, centralization and formalization.

The key organizational enablers were identified through an extensive literature review. Then, statistical analysis was carried out based on data collected, using a questionnaire instrument, from 184 managers employed in 38 banks operating in Egypt.

The results of the study indicate that management commitment, IT infrastructure, people management, change readiness and organizational structure with a low degree of formalization are critical enablers for implementing a successful BPR program within the Egyptian banking sector.

The results may support managers of banks in identifying and assessing the influence of integrating organizational factors that facilitate or hinder the successful implementation of BPR.

Since 2004, the Egyptian banking system has involved in major reform programs and many BPR efforts. Much research effort is required to investigate the BPR projects within the Egyptian banks in order to develop a concrete base of knowledge and understanding of the nature of BPR and factors that support its successful implementation. Moreover, there is an insufficiency of empirical studies regarding the implementation of BPR within the Egyptian service sector. The current study fills this gap by exploring and examining the main organizational factors affecting BPR implementation in a developing country.

Activity Based Costing (ABC) has been researched extensively in developed countries. Research on these issues in South Africa is limited. This article creates a better understanding of the design of ABC systems in South Africa, comparing ABC implementation in South Africa to that in several developed/developing countries. A quantitative methodology was adopted to evaluate the extent of ABC implementation. A survey‐case study methodology was used to identify reasons for implementation/ non‐implementation, problems and critical success factors relating to implementation. The results show that the extent of ABC implementation in South Africa is lower than that found in developed countries, but the evidence is inconclusive. Nevertheless, the results suggest that the issues facing ABC implementers in South Africa are similar to those faced in many other countries. This study provides South African companies with a comparative framework of important variables to be considered in implementing ABC.

Many healthcare organisations have found it difficult to implement total quality management (TQM) successfully. The aim of this paper is to explore the barriers to TQM successful implementation in the healthcare sector.

This paper reports a literature review exploring the major reasons for the failure of TQM programmes in healthcare organisations.

TQM implementation and its impact depend heavily on the ability of managers to adopt and adapt its values and concepts in professional healthcare organisations. Unsuccessful TQM efforts in healthcare organisations can be attributed to the strongly departmentalised, bureaucratic and hierarchical structure, professional autonomy, tensions between managers and professionals and the difficulties involved in evaluating healthcare processes and outcomes. Other obstacles to TQM success include lack of consistent managers' and employees' commitment to and involvement in TQM implementation, poor leadership and management, lack of a quality‐oriented culture, insufficient training, and inadequate resources. The review was limited to empirical articles written in the English language during the past 30 years (1980‐2010).

The findings of this article provide policy makers and managers with a practical understanding of the factors that are likely to obstruct TQM implementation in the healthcare sector.

Understanding the factors that obstruct TQM implementation would enable managers to develop more effective strategies for implementing TQM successfully in healthcare organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a unified framework that captures the antecedents of e-business implementation, that is; organizational factors which is decomposed into organizational capabilities (training availability, technical expertise, knowledge level), knowledge management capabilities (knowledge acquisition, application, and sharing), adhocracy culture, and top management support, e-business implementation, and organizational performance (efficiency, sales performance, customer satisfaction, relationship development).

Data from a survey of 258 top managers in Saudi Arabian enterprises were collected to empirically test the proposed research model. Additionally, the statistical techniques employed included a confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and structural equation modeling using AMOS is utilized to test the hypotheses.

The findings of this study suggest that organizational factors influence e-business implementation. Moreover, e-business implementation affects organizational performance.

This study did not investigate all organizational factors and knowledge management processes. Future research could assess the influence of additional factors such as technology and environment contexts on e-business implementation.

Owners/managers considering e-business implementation would be best to focus on internal (organizational) factors and their interaction within and beyond the organization, rather than focussing exclusively on technological considerations.

This study is significant for at least two reasons: it determines the key antecedents to successful business implementation based on organizational factors and it helps to understand the effects of e-business implementation on organizational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main problems that can be encountered during the implementation and use of a performance management system (PMS).

Problems encountered during the implementation and use of a PMS were collected from the literature and put into a survey which was sent to 31 experts in performance management (PM). These experts gave their opinion on the frequency, impact and solvability of the listed problems as they encountered these in practice.

The study shows that the failure rate of PM implementations has decreased in the past decade from 70 to 56 percent, and that the most severe problems organizations encounter are: lack of top management commitment; not having a PM culture; PM getting a low priority or its use being abandoned after a change of management; management putting low priority on the implementation; and people not seeing (enough) benefit from PM.

The main limitation is that the number of experts could be higher in order to get an even broader view on the main problems.

The practical implication of the study is that management can now better prepare itself for the issues to be expected while introducing PMSs in the organization.

The need for an efficient and effective PMSs has increased over the last decade and the successful implementation and use of these systems has become of paramount importance to organizations. Unfortunately, until now only scattered information was available in the literature about the problems that can be expected during the implementation and use processes. Even the failure rate, which is often mentioned in the literature has never been substantiated. This paper gives, for the first time, a systematic overview of the main problems to be expected, and a more accurate failure rate of PMSs.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a model of different aspects of ISO 9000 implementation in terms of their relationships with three key supply chain (SC) management practices (internal processes, supplier relationships, and customer relationships). In addition, it aims to examine the relationship between the three key SC activities and operational performance.

Data were collected from 321 middle and senior managers of ISO 9001 certified firms in Australia who were responsible for managing the quality systems in their organizations. The structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was employed using LISREL software to test the research model and the hypotheses in this study.

The results show that advanced implementation of ISO 9000 is positively related to all three aspects of SC activities (internal, customer, and supplier process management), while supportive implementation is positively related to internal and customer process management. However, basic implementation has no direct influence on any SC management practices. The results also indicate that supplier and internal process management both have a positive effect on operational performance, while customer process management has no significant impact on operational performance.

The results provide key insights for managers on the extent to which different aspects of the implementation of a quality management system would produce benefits for the organization within the SC context.

Despite the central premises of ISO 9000, which are concerned with internal processes and SC management practices, only a few studies have examined this matter to date. The current study seeks to bridge this gap by examining the effect of ISO 9000 implementation on operational and SC management practices that, in turn, will predict the operational benefits within adopting firms.

Quality management, by means of total quality management (TQM), is considered to foster organisational performance characterised by competitiveness and long‐term profitability. Since the benefits of quality management cannot be achieved without the sustained performance of equipment affecting product quality, maintenance management has become important. This has led to the development of maintenance methodologies, such as total productive maintenance (TPM) and reliability centred maintenance (RCM). TQM, TPM and RCM implementation have, however, often failed or been poorly executed. This has affected organisations' performance and ultimately survival in a competitive environment. This paper includes a comparative study of literature on TQM, TPM and RCM implementation, focusing on organisational change. The study found several common categories of activities when implementing TQM and the maintenance methodologies. These categories can be considered crucial to obtain management and employee commitment. Case studies on TQM, TPM and RCM implementation are used to validate the categories identified, and to yield recommendations on the handling of activities within these.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated theoretical framework of the interrelation of the key success factors in the process of standards implementation.

Extensive case study work was carried out in ten American plants that had adopted ISO 9001 and or ISO 14001. First, within-case analysis captures the uniqueness of the implementation processes at each plant and leads to construction of the causal maps. Next, cross-case comparison identifies the key factors and the relationship between them, resulting in the theoretical framework.

The key factors affecting implementation effectiveness include focus on internal improvement, top management support, design of the system around existing processes, use of information technology, positive employees’ attitude, and employees’ usage of the system. The resulting framework suggests three alternative pathways to effective implementation of standards: (i) incentives pathway, i.e., by providing the right incentives; (ii) integration pathway, i.e., by designing the system around existing processes; and (iii) information technology pathway, i.e., by using information technology.

The key contribution of this research is the integrated theoretical framework.

Practically, this framework provides managers a clear depiction of the key actions required at each stage of standard implementation.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first integrated framework of the factors affecting standard adoption. We believe this framework is applicable to other meta-standards.