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The study aims to develop an organizational culture typology and explore how different logistics service provider (LSP) and customer archetypes interact to generate performance improvements in logistics outsourcing relationships.

A multiple case study approach with 12 dyads was employed. Interviews as well as public and internal data from LSPs and customers were analyzed.

The results reveal four archetypes each for LSPs and customers, characterized by two dimensions: “activeness” and “openness”. Furthermore, analyzing the interaction among the archetypes, three relationship patterns are identified (“static”, “restrained”, and “progressive”) that differ in the exploratory and exploitative improvement outcomes.

The study contributes to theory development at the intersection of organizational culture and logistics outsourcing.

The study provides a typology of organizational culture in logistics outsourcing and how different archetypes interact to generate improvements.

This study seeks to investigate empirically the impact of organizational culture (bureaucratic, innovative, and supportive) and quality improvement practices.

Data used in this study were obtained through a questionnaire by random sampling, which took place in four large public hospitals, located in Irbid Governorate, Jordan, involving 271 managers, physicians, and nurses.

Quality improvement practices were measured by 16 statements on a five‐point rating scale. Each of the three types of organizational culture was measured using five items on a five‐point rating scale.

The three types of culture have a significantly positive influence on quality improvement practices, and account for 62 per cent of the variation of quality improvement practices. Compared with bureaucratic and supportive cultures, innovative culture appears to play a stronger role in quality improvement practices. Contrary to expectations, the analysis shows that bureaucratic actions enhance rather than hinder quality improvement practices. Respondents with a bachelor or a higher degree and participating in a training course related to quality reported higher prevalence of each culture and a higher level of quality improvement practices.

Innovative culture has a crucial role in quality improvement practices compared with bureaucratic and supportive cultures.

Corporate culture plays a key role in the adoption and maintenance of a continuous improvement environment. Yet the role that culture does play and its nature tend to be overlooked or simplified so as to be almost meaningless. Overviews aspects of corporate culture and uses a case study of a professional company to show how they went about developing a continuous improvement environment. The key lessons from the case study include the need for “ownership” of jobs, self‐esteem as a driving force for continuous improvement, importance of activities related to customers, achievement requiring teamwork, function replaced by process and understanding through involvement in quality improvement programmes.

The purpose of this study is to examine the direct and indirect effects of organizational culture and quality improvement practices on the relationship between green practices and sustainability performances by using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach.

Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 330 full-time managerial employees in established businesses. The relationships depicted in the proposed conceptual model were tested through six hypotheses. IBM SPSS Statistics and SEM-AMOS were used to test the hypotheses.

The results supported proposed relationships in the model, except the one between organizational culture and green practices. The findings indicate that the more employees are aware of companies’ green practices, the more likely they are going to feel positive about the sustainability performance of the organization. Additionally, a strong organizational culture that supports the green movement and quality improvement practices lead to positive sustainability outcomes.

A larger sample size in several major industries would allow the development of industry-specific sustainability strategies and best practices. In addition, a study based in a different geographical location in the USA or in a different country is recommended to see if the findings can be generalized across different industries, geographical locations or countries.

Sustainability has undoubtedly become a major concern for many companies today. The findings of this study provide important guidelines for practitioners to balance the implementation of green practices, organizational culture, quality improvement practices and sustainability performance dimensions. Profitability and sustainability can be achieved together when companies are willing to continuously pay attention to environmental issues and strategically invest in initiatives that are cost-efficient and eco-friendly.

This study is one of the first that explores how organizational culture and quality improvement practices affect directly and indirectly the relationship between green practices and sustainability performance. The results imply that organizational culture and quality improvement practices significantly affect the relationship between green practices and the sustainability performance dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediator role that knowledge sharing plays between organisational culture, organisational structure, and technology infrastructure and process improvement in a knowledge management context in manufacturing enterprises operating in the food, beverage and textile industry.

An empirical study is conducted with a sample of 200 food, beverage and textile companies. Data are obtained by means of a survey questionnaire applied to general managers in each of the sample firms. The impact of the factors organisational culture, organisational structure and technology infrastructure on process improvement via knowledge sharing is assessed. Structural equation modelling and maximum likelihood estimation are applied to find the direction and strength of the relationships.

The main findings indicate the significant relationships between knowledge sharing and process improvement, between organisational culture and knowledge sharing, and between organisational structure and knowledge sharing. The relationship between technology infrastructure and knowledge sharing is found not to be significant.

The findings of the present study are limited to the food, beverage and textile industry. Future research could incorporate data from other manufacturing sectors or service companies.

This study provides practical guidance for general managers who wish to implement process improvement programmes.

Several authors have noted that there are few research studies concerning the interaction between each phase of knowledge management and total quality management practices. This study is interested in knowledge sharing and its impact on process improvement in a knowledge management context.

This study investigates the relationship between lean manufacturing practices, management accounting and performance measurement (MAC & PM) practices, organizational strategy, structure, and culture, and facility performance. We extended past research by examining the relationships between lean manufacturing, MAC & PM practices and performance in a broader organizational context. Our study was performed using survey data provided by managers and executives at 368 facilities that had contacted the Shingo Institute for information or that had entered a Shingo Prize competition. Consistent with past research we found a significant positive association between lean manufacturing practices and lean MAC & PM practices. We found that greater employee empowerment, use of process performance measures, and use of lean accounting practices were driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. We also found that changes in organization structure to support lean are driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by lean manufacturing practices. Change toward lean culture, on the other hand, is driven by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. Further, we found that emphasizing process performance measures does not reduce emphasis on results performance measures and emphasizing results performance measures leads to improved financial performance. Process and results measures are being used in tandem and value stream costing has not replaced traditional accounting. The results of our study provide important insights for managers of companies engaged in lean transformation and for academics who teach or research lean accounting.

This research aims to examine the relationships among leadership and culture, human resources and process improvement in lean hospitals from the socio-technical perspective.

The survey instrument was developed from literature reviews, verified by experts and confirmatory factor analysis. Multiple responses were used to collect data from 473 care providers in 220 outpatient departments of Thai hospitals to improve reliability of the obtained data. Path analysis of structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the hypotheses.

It was found that human resources has a significant positive direct effect on process improvement. Leadership and culture not only has significant direct positive impacts on human resources and process improvement but also has a significant indirect positive impact on process improvement through human resources.

This is one of the first examples of research to present insights into the links between soft and hard factors of lean hospitals at strategic and operational levels.

Improving hospital patient safety means an open and stimulating culture is needed. This article aims to describe a patient safety culture improvement approach in five Belgian hospitals.

Patient safety culture was measured using a validated Belgian adaptation of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) questionnaire. Studies before (autumn 2005) and after (spring 2007) the improvement approach was implemented were completed. Using HSOPSC, safety culture was measured using 12 dimensions. Results are presented as evolving dimension scores.

Overall, 3,940 and 3,626 individuals responded respectively to the first and second surveys (overall response rate was 77 and 68 percent respectively). After an 18 to 26 month period, significant improvement was observed for the “hospital management support for patient safety” dimension – all main effects were found to be significant. Regression analysis suggests there is a significant difference between professional subgroups. In one hospital the “supervisor expectations and actions promoting safety” improved. The dimension “teamwork within hospital units” received the highest scores in both surveys. There was no improvement and sometimes declining scores in the lowest scoring dimensions: “hospital transfers and transitions”, “non‐punitive response to error”, and “staffing”.

The five participating hospitals were not randomly selected and therefore no representative conclusions can be made for the Belgian hospital sector as a whole. Only a quantitative approach to measuring safety culture was used. Qualitative approaches, focussing on specific safety cultures in specific parts of the participating hospitals, were not used.

Although much needs to be done on the road towards better hospital patient safety, the study presents lessons from various perspectives. It illustrates that hospital staff are highly motivated to participate in measuring patient safety culture. Safety domains that urgently need improvement in these hospitals are identified: hospital transfers and transitions; non‐punitive response to error; and staffing. It confirms that realising progress in patient safety culture, demonstrating at the same time that it is possible to improve management support, is complex.

Safety is an important service quality aspect. By measuring safety culture in hospitals, with a validated questionnaire, dimensions that need improvement were revealed thereby contributing to an enhancement plan.

The purpose of this paper is to present the research carried out on a conceptual approach in business improvement termed as culture driven regeneration (CDR). The research positions CDR as business improvement tool that leverages organizational learning, organization culture and corporate knowledge in implementing changes. The CDR concept is positioned half way between business process re-engineering (BPR) that thrives on radical design and process changes, and total quality management (TQM) that takes the slow and incremental approach to improvement. CDR regenerates the processes in the journey to business improvement.

A structured and a comprehensive literature review were carried out on BPR and TQM in the context of leadership, organization learning, organizational learning and corporate knowledge. The review confirmed that TQM and BPR are connected to the four areas. This connection led to the conceptualization that organizations deploy culture and corporate knowledge to drive business improvement. Organization culture and knowledge was quantified based on previous research in this area and methods applied in other research studies relating to benchmarking. There are no empirical analyses included in this paper, however knowledge and culture were given scores in illustrating the CDR concept.

This conceptual paper has pointed out that organization culture, knowledge, organizational learning and leadership are important components of a business improvement tool such as BPR and TQM. The CDR concept leverages those components and draws on the organization’s corporate culture to enable change.

Additional empirical studies are required on various types of industries, organization cultures, organization structures and professions to establish more robust scores for knowledge and culture applied in the CDR concept. The concept could be further expanded into a framework that could be applied across a number of industries.

The CDR concept is a business improvement tool that enables organizations to leverage their existing culture in driving change. The concept is built up on the existing relationship BPR and TQM has with organization learning, organization culture, corporate knowledge and the quantification of culture and knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss improvement of the business of health care delivery through the application of systematic problem solving. This was strengthened by recurrence prevention through standardization at every level transforming into culture.

The methodology utilized is set derived from the true fiber and fabric of Toyota, the Toyota Business Practice (TBP) or eight-step problem solving and its translation into health care thinking by aligning to the process of clinical diagnosis of patients. The methodology that gives energy and direction to TBP is Hoshin Kanri, a Japanese approach to strategic planning. When you combine focus and purpose through strategic direction alongside a culture of systematic problem solving you get results.

The application of the Toyota mindset resulted in a cultural shift which built on the strength of the current organizational culture. This approach had a broad impact on the program impacting leadership and management roles, improved employee engagement, complete visibility of organizational priorities, improved system performance, visibility and awareness of the vision and defined measures that drive the health care system. This has also resulted in cost diversions of approximately five million dollars CDN.

A grass roots application of real-time problem solving through strategic alignment.