Search results

The management of professional organizations, such as management consultancies, audit companies, legal firms, training, educational and research institutes, automation consultancies, organizations in health care, and professional staff departments in organizations, can encounter several problems when it wants to organize the quality management of the professional services better and more systematically. Distinguishes four problems and discusses (1) determining quality norms; (2) developing a quality management methodology which fits the specific character of the professional organization; (3) demonstrating quality; (4) developing organizational quality management next to the individual professional quality management which usually already exists. Discusses the concepts of quality management, professional services, quality and professional quality. Works out the four quality management problems and suggests solutions.

Many views on quality management in professional service firms derived from ideas of industrial quality management. It seems that in the area of professional services these ideas are taken over without much criticism. For instance, the ideas on quality control and quality assurance generally are heavily based on the ISO 9000 standards. In The Netherlands the PACE‐standards have been deduced from the ISO 9000 standards for application in hospitals. In this paper it has been argued that in many cases a more situational approach will be preferable. A global framework for a quality system in a professional service firm has been presented.This framework has been compared with the restrictions for quality systems in hospitals, following from the PACE‐standards.

To test the validity of the presumed characteristics of professional services by studying their manifestation in the problem solving that occurs in service production.

The paper uses medical research as secondary data to study the existence of associations between the presumed characteristics of professional services and problem solving in the medical context. A systematic review of empirical studies concerning physicians' prescribing decisions is conducted.

Supporting assumptions presented in the literature, specialist knowledge of professional and customer participation was found to influence prescribing decisions. The assumption regarding collegial control was partially supported. Some degree of contradiction was found with respect to the presumed professional autonomy and altruism. Whilst the professional services literature emphasises factors related to the client's problem, the service encounter and the profession, we conclude that problem solving is influenced also by factors embedded in the related organisational, market and institutional environments.

Further empirical validation of the presumed professional characteristics is needed. The results indicate that professional services research should pay more attention to the role of the wider context in professional problem solving. Medical researchers might also benefit from a broader perspective on patient participation.

An holistic view of factors that influence physicians' prescribing decisions is of use to managers of health care organisations, marketers of pharmaceuticals, and policy makers and third‐party payers.

By using an interdisciplinary approach, the paper contributes to professional services research by providing empirical support for the often repeated characteristics of professional services and outlining factors that potentially influence problem solving within professional services.

This paper presents an exploratory study to understand the distinctive quality dimensions of high-contact Professional Service Firms (PSFs) and develop a conceptual model for Quality Management (QM). The paper is based on empirical evidences from multiple cases in leading Indian law firms.

The paper adopted an exploratory, multiple, embedded and comparative case study design. The empirical evidence from multiple case studies in 10 law firms (data includes 42 individual interviews, archival records, field notes) was used to explore the QM dimensions for PSFs.

The results showed that QM in PSFs is a multifaceted and continuous process rather than a straightforward and episodic one. The findings reveal three distinctive dimensions of QM for PSFs: managing the firm's image; managing the client-firm interaction and support processes and; managing the perceived value of service outcome. Further, the results showed a significant variation in the design of QM practices in a relatively homogenous group of PSFs (law firms). This reflected the influence of personnel and organizational characteristics on the QM.

The research is based on evidences collected from 10 Indian law firms and the research design is exploratory in nature. The future research is suggested in terms of extending the scope and research design.

The insights obtained from the paper have implications for managers working on the design of service operations and particularly service quality in high-contact PSFs similar to law firms. While the study does not prescribe a standard design of QM systems for PSFs, it seeks to foster the thinking of managers by helping them conceptualize the broad quality-control checkpoints and quality attributes specific to PSF settings

The academic research in the management of professional service quality is dominated by conceptual/theoretical models for customer evaluation of service provider's performance and the issue of operationalization of QM in PSFs is still needs further investigation. This paper contributes to the theory of service operations management (SOM) by focusing on the structure of QM systems in PSFs.

Although it is often posited that quality circles are an instrument for improving both efficiency and quality of working life, little systematic research has been done. In 1985 therefore, the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment initiated a research study. Describes the results of this study in seven Dutch organizations about the effect of quality circles on the quality of working life. First presents an analytic model in which the main assumption is that the structure of the production process can be considered as an important contingency for the success of quality circles. Next, examines seven cases of Dutch quality‐circle programmes. These programmes are analysed using the above mentioned framework. One of the main overall conclusions is that whether quality circles are a means to improve the quality of working life or not is, among other factors, determined largely by the characteristics of the production structure. Therefore, more attention should be focused on the given production structure of organizations whenever quality circles are initiated.