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This paper records the research on the investigation of the empirical relationship between employee involvement (EI) and quality management. It is based on data from a survey of 180 manufacturing companies. The main findings are: EI is positively correlated with total quality management (TQM) enablers; EI is positively correlated with improvements in business performance; EI positively influences the contribution of TQM to the improvement of business performance; EI is marginally related to ISO registration; and EI has no effect on the contribution of ISO 9000 registration. The conclusion is that EI should be incorporated into TQM and ISO 9000 registration. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed.

Research on best practices suffers from some fundamental problems. The problem addressed in the article is that authors tend to postulate, rather than show, the practices they address to be best – whether these practices do indeed produce best performance is often not investigated.

This article assumes that the best performing companies must be the ones deploying the best practices. In order to find out what are those practices, the highest performing companies in the 2002 International Manufacturing Strategy Survey database were identified, and the role 14 practices play in these companies was investigated.

Process focus, pull production, equipment productivity and environmental compatibility appear to qualify as best practices. Quality management and ICT may have been best practice previously, but lost that status. E‐business, new product development (NPD), supplier strategy and outsourcing are relatively new, cannot yet be qualified as, but may develop into, best practice. Four other practices do not produce any significant performance effects.

There are four limitations to the research: Incompleteness of the set of practices tested: lack of insight into the effects of interaction between practices and the way in and extent to which they were implemented; good explanatory but poor predictive power; and lack of contextuality.

Taking the position that best practice must be what best performing companies do, the paper is useful for managers using benchmarking to review the design and performance of their manufacturing system, and for scholars engaged or interested in best practice studies.

This paper intends to contribute to a better understanding of manufacturing strategy content by describing and analysing the content and formalisation of manufacturing strategies, and by exploring the relationships between the formalisation of manufacturing strategy, business/competitive objectives, improvement goals, and action plans. The study is based on the data from the third International Manufacturing Strategy Survey, which was conducted in more than 20 countries. The analysis shows that in companies with a formal strategy competitive priorities, improvement goals and action programs are significantly better aligned in companies without such a strategy. This finding is encouraging for operations management scholars, as it suggests that after 30‐odd years Skinner's missing link has been re‐discovered, and it supports OM practitioners in their ongoing battle to safeguard the position of manufacturing in the corporate debate.

This paper investigates the pattern or trajectory of implementing ISO 9000 standards versus TQM in Western Europe from a longitudinal perspective, using empirical data. The research is based on three large‐scale surveys conducted in 1992‐1993, 1996‐1997 and 2001‐2002 respectively, in 13 Western European countries. The results of the surveys show that European companies have put considerable effort into ISO 9000 certification. However, the results also reveal that, around 1996‐1997, European companies had also planned to implement TQM. However, the result of the planned “go beyond ISO to TQM” fell short of the anticipated extent, indicating that the adoption of TQM in Europe was slower than expected. Early in the twenty‐first century, European companies are still very keen on implementing TQM, indicating an obvious intention to shift from ISO 9000 to TQM. To ensure that the shift will occur this time however, the two approaches must be integrated properly. Although both ISO 9000 standards and the TQM/EFQM model have been recently updated or modified, how to best incorporate the two systems remains one of the major tasks of quality management in the future.

Introduces the special issue of the papers presented at the 9th International EurOMA Conference, 2‐4 June 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark. The articles represent the wide variety of topics presented at the conference and also a common theme: “mew challenges in operations management”.

Last decades scholars in the field of human resource management (HRM) have intensely examined the contribution of HRM to organizational performance. Despite their efforts, at least one major research shortcoming can be identified. In general, they have devoted far too little attention to an aspect of HRM potentially beneficial for organizational performance: worker participation, and especially its indirect or representative forms. In contrast, for academics embedded in the industrial relations tradition, worker participation is a prominent theme, even though less emphasized in its relationship with company objectives. One might defend traditional scholars' reservations by arguing that participations main goal concerns workplace democratization and not organizational prosperity. However, several writers state that industrial democracy involving worker participation can channel conflicts of interest between employees and employers and stimulate desired employee attitudes and behavior, consequently enhancing organizational performance (e.g., Gollan, 2006; Ramsay, 1991; Taras & Kaufman, 1999). And, indeed, several studies have shown positive effects of both direct participation (e.g., European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1997) and indirect participation (e.g., Addison et al., 2000, 2003; Frick & Möller, 2003) on organizational performance.

Nevertheless, to date, the absence of an integrated model explaining the connection between worker participation and organizational performance leads to the following question that still is in need of an answer: how do direct and indirect forms of participation – separate as well as in combination – affect organizational performance? This chapter aims to contribute to the filling of the aforementioned knowledge gaps. In so doing, we focus on direct and indirect, nonunion participation on the firm level, using a Western European and especially Dutch frame of reference.

This article empirically examines whether the ratio of research and development (R&D)spending to sales and marketing spending has an impact on the valuation of Dot Com companies. These companies are currently trading in today’s stock market. Previous research has not been able to link the lofty market value of Dot Com companies to a distinguishable trait. Many theories have been proposed without empirical findings to support them. We find those Dot Com companies with higher ratios of R&D spending are more likely to have higher stock market values in the subsequent year than those with lower ratios. A sensitivity test shows that the results are qualitatively the same even after market correction of high‐tech stock.

Environmental knowledge management (EKM) has been studied mainly owing to the increasing awareness of environmental issues. Such issues have generated a warning in the tourism industry that has stimulated a new wave of research on EKM. EKM forges landscape characteristics and so destination image. In turn, EKM sounds affecting tourism destination which calls for destination personality which shows a research context less explored. From a knowledge management perspective, The present research aims to investigate on EKM to understand how it leverages tourists' and destination personality.

With the intent of exploring EKM, the research uses a quantitative analysis on a sample of 2,222 young Chinese tourists. In this context, EKM is linked with destination’s personality and tourists’ personalities, their satisfaction with the destination and their behavioral intentions.

By SPSS regression model, EKM and destination personality are positively linked. This positive relationship is also reflected on destination personality and destination satisfaction, behavioral intention.

The authors’ original contribution to the knowledge management literature extends the new wave of research on EKM. The research also proves the need to make a close collaboration between tourists, the local community and marketers. Marketers need to pay more attention to what tourists want to do and see in the place visited. In a nutshell, there is the need of enforcing and promoting EKM.

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate health conditions prior to and at least two months after the start of consuming raw fermented milk (RFM) products.

One-Item health score, 1-item immunity score, immune status (ISQ), mood, bowel and skin conditions were rated for the period prior and post switching to RFM products. A linear mixed model was used to evaluate the post to prior RFM health and mood scores, taking into account gender, location of living and health group. Data from 390 participants (mean age of 54 years old) were included for the analysis, of which 277 (45 per cent) were allocated to the poor health group. Participants were allocated to the poor health group if they reported being immune depressed or suffering from a chronic disease prior to RFM; otherwise, they were allocated to the normal health group.

The highest intake of RFM was from RF kefir. Post RFM, people consumed around 1 glass (200 ml) of RF kefir per day. After switching to RFM, significant improvements on health and mood scores were reported. The strongest improvements after switching to RFM consumption were seen in subjects from the poor health group. With the exception of skin score, all measured health items significantly improved (p < 0.001). Health, immunity, bowel and mood scores increased with around 20 per cent in the poor health group and around 8 per cent in the normal health group. Women had more health complaints prior to RFM and had stronger health improvement post RFM compared to men. Bowel and mood scores were overall lower in women than in men. Living location had no significant impact on RFM-related health changes. This consumer survey suggests that positive health and mood changes are associated with the consumption of RFM products.

The consumption of RFM products improved the self-reported health status of adults. Immune-depressed people or people suffering from a chronic disease prior to RFM reported the strongest impact on their health, immunity, bowel and mood scores post switching RFM consumption compared to people with a normal health.