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The key issue of continuous improvement (CI) seems to be the problem of combining extensive employee involvement with market orientation and continuation of CI. In this article we review some existing organisational designs for CI on these three essential characteristics of CI. As an alternative to the shortcomings of current organisational designs for CI we present the mini‐company concept, related to the sociotechnical concept of the self‐managing team. The mini‐company concept incorporates the three key issues: it has a self‐propelling capacity for CI, involving everyone on the shop floor. A constant and market‐oriented source for improvement is found in the clients and suppliers of the mini‐company. Results of an in‐depth case‐study are presented, showing some strong effects of the mini‐company concept.

Sociotechnical systems theory (STS) does not address in full the implications of the team‐context relations, despite its open systems character. There is a need to open STS into a sociotechnical business systems (STBS) theory and practice. We observe three interrelated aspects that are important for STBS. First, the design of the production structure is a traditional STS aspect. Second, the design of the control structure on the team level needs an elaboration compared with STS. The third aspect is the social‐dynamic alignment. We describe the mini‐company concept and argue that this concept is a specification of STBS covering the three aspects. The case of the implementation of mini‐companies in a Dutch manufacturing plant illustrates the strengths of the concept.

Entrepreneurship is not only seen as an important factor for economic growth and welfare but also as a vehicle of societal development and change, both at the regional, national and international level. Thus, entrepreneurship education at schools plays an increasingly important role, linking policy, businesses, education and science. However, research on entrepreneurship education programmes, especially on mini-companies which rely on an experiential learning setting, is still a young field and shared frameworks concerning entrepreneurial competences and longitudinal research designs are missing. This paper addresses to this research gap by analysing whether students who participate in a mini-company develop entrepreneurial competences.

The study is conducted in a quasi-experimental design, building upon a validated and psychometrically sound research instrument that is based on a newly designed entrepreneurial competence framework. In total, 100 pupils from grammar schools in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, participated in the experimental and control group at both time points.

The results show that students expand their entrepreneurial competences on an economic level. In comparison, they show only limited developments on the personal and team level. The findings have important implications for the further development of entrepreneurship education programmes as well as on the interaction between schools and (regional) entrepreneurs, business partners and enterprises.

This study examines pupils' development of entrepreneurial competences in a quasi-experimental design. It highlights that participating pupils develop economic competences when participating in mini-companies in comparison to pupils participating in regular economics classes. This study sheds further light on the effects of mini-companies, and thus contributes to the discussion of entrepreneurship education at schools.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate to what degree participation in mini-companies impact young women and men with regard to the perceived desirability and perceived feasibility of self-employment. The Company Programme (CP) is the largest mini-company scheme in European secondary school.

The data derived from a survey conducted in Norway with 1,160 students in upper secondary school (17-18 years of age). The quasi-experimental research design enabled a comparison of compulsory CP-participants with non-participation and control for several competing factors.

The investigation demonstrated that CP positively influenced the perceived feasibility of self-employment for both young men and young women, and CP also increased the perceived desirability of self-employment among young women.

It could be that the impact of CP varies according to time spent on the CP or position in the mini-company. The study does not measure whether CP-participants actually create a business.

Central to explaining the stronger impact on young women is a particular concern with female entrepreneurship in CP. The majority of CEOs in mini-companies are young women, and all women that manage mini-companies can participate in the coaching programme “Girls and Leadership”.

CP-participation could boost the chance of individuals attempting to start a business at a later point in their lives. In the longer run, CP could contribute to reducing the gender gap in self-employment.

Investigating some of the impacts of CP in a gender perspective, this paper adds a fresh viewpoint to the state of knowledge about entrepreneurship education in secondary schools.

A new form of organizational structure is helping the giant Philips electronics company to gain more improvements and innovations from workers on the shopfloor at one of its components plants. Philips Components has adopted the mini‐company concept at its Roermond factory in The Netherlands. The plant makes ceramic multilayer actuators, an important device for inkjet printers, for a Japanese customer. Demand for the product is rising quickly but the market is very dynamic. Short time‐to‐market, high flexibility and tough competition are typical. So, too, is close co‐operation with the customer on product development.

Continuous improvement (CI) is regarded as a powerful approach to achieve business excellence. However, the implementation is not simple as it involves managing a considerable amount of tangible and intangible factors throughout the whole organization. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap by presenting first-hand information about how companies really implement and organize their CI processes.

The study was based on semi-structured interviews in ten high performing companies in the Basque Country, a region in northern Spain well known for its business quality. The objective was to analyze the state of their CI processes, putting special focus on how the organizational structure integrates with the CI processes and what are the characteristics of the corresponding measurement system.

The study shows a lack of company-wide focus on CI, little written evidence of previous improvement activities, unclear improvement process owner, and poor use of adequate measurement systems to monitor CI.

Managers should understand that is not enough to guarantee their own commitment and provide the structure, since in order to become learning organization, a different holistic approach towards the CI process must be adopted.

While most previous work on this field have focused primarily on how to implement different techniques in order to achieve better productive performance, this study presents empirical research from a more holistic approach, assessing the characteristics affecting CI by considering strategy, structure, and the measurement system.

A research study of both kaizen and re‐engineering programmes in a leading international company indicated that the process life cycle has four characteristic stages. A newly designed process commonly suffers from a variety of teething problems during the initial post‐commissioning phase. Once these have been eradicated achieving smooth product flow becomes important in accordance with JIT philosophy. A stable process may be improved by applying a kaizen continuous improvement programme. A dramatic step‐change in performance may be achieved by radical re‐engineering. It is suggested that each of these phases has its own characteristics which should be taken into account when determining performance metrics and designing approaches to process monitoring and control. Explicitly recognising the stage a process has reached in the life cycle provides guidance for practitioners effectively to direct and manage a programme of performance improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the emergence of pupils' firms in Germany since the beginning of the 1990s.

The exploratory study is mainly based on a survey conducted with 88 projects that were presented at a pupils' firm fair in Berlin in November 2005, where pupils' firms from all over Germany presented themselves. During the fair, pupils, teachers and representatives of supporting organisations were interviewed. Furthermore, a comparison of other pupils' firms and supporting organisations' information material was undertaken.

The paper concludes with questioning the exclusive conceptualisation of the pupils' firms as educational projects within school and renders problematic their emphasis on providing business ideas and management skills. The paper argues for more reflection on the wider social and political implications around issues to do with pupils' autonomy and makes a case for preferred forms of self‐determined and cooperative working.

The paper discusses the goals and interests pursued in founding and promoting pupils' firms. It asks what experiences, opportunities and risks are involved for the pupils and what further approaches are becoming apparent, or are thinkable. In Germany, pupils' firms have not been systematically analysed.