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Modeling of the methods for providing improvements in business processes by value adding is researched with an integrated approach. The main purpose in this approach is improving the processes by determining and analyzing the weak points and reducing the weakness degrees.

The designed model determines weak points that need to be improved, analyzes them to find privileged processes in improvement by considering improvement costs and obtains the improvement degrees for defining the improvement strategy by four‐phase business process improvement framework: start‐up, self analysis, defining improvement strategy for making changes, feedback, and continuous improvement.

The key factor in keeping up with changes in market conditions is systematic application of improvement efforts and providing planned and controlled value addition with these improvements. Decision problems in process improvement can be structured to provide input data suitable for multi‐criteria decision making techniques and results meet the solution expectations.

The reason for using analytical hierarchy process, goal programming, and linear programming model is to select the process and determine its improvement degree. Solving the decision problems by these techniques is a time consuming process, so forming suitable programs with decision support systems will be useful.

The theoretical structure of the modeled techniques in this study was examined with an industrial application. The application process and the results suitability were determined.

The proposed model shows improvement amounts according to the amount of defined importance degrees. It presents an advantage to decision makers by giving concrete improvement values from model results determining their improvement strategies.

This paper aims to establish an 11‐step “improvement decision model” to enhance learning satisfaction.

This model integrates Kano's model and the relevant concepts for decision making, and puts forward an “improvement decision diagram and principles”. This paper also establishes “constructs of the learning satisfaction measurement” and a “teaching quality management cycle” to make it easy for instructors, administrators and students to jointly upgrade teaching quality.

The “improvement decision model” can effectively assist teachers to enhance their instructional materials and elevate student's learning satisfaction.

With enthusiastic participation of four instructors, the results of the case study are found to be satisfactory and support the applicability of the model proposed in this paper.

This paper provides insights into the applicability of excellence models (in particular the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model), for use in the nonprofit context as a strategy for performance improvement aiming to enhance sustainability.

The study is based on an exploratory, qualitative in‐depth case study approach, which includes three UK‐based nonprofit organizations (NPOs) as research case studies.

In general, we found the quality models to be relevant to the NPO context, and potentially effective and useful as a performance improvement strategy for NPOs. However, we also propose some modifications to the EFQM model to address the specific characteristics of this sector. Additionally, we compare two of the most widely used quality models (EFQM and MBNQA), and suggest that although both are relevant for NPOs, the EFQM model has some superior advantages.

This paper contributes to the debate about the sustainability of organizations and the underpinning mechanisms behind their efficiency. Many researchers and practitioners are continually debating how an organization can optimize its available resources, as this is considered to be one of the primary foundations for organization sustainability. The added contribution of this paper advances this debate a step further by providing insights into how concepts and tools which have been initially designed for the for‐profit sector can be deployed by nonprofit organizations (NPOs). In addition, the paper provides further views about the approaches NPOs might use in response to the current political and financial challenges.

The main goal of the research is the investigation of quality management (QM) practices in the West Balkan countries and their advancement according to the models in developed countries presented in this paper. For the purpose of this investigation the model for the assessment of QM practice was developed.

The improvement of QM in industrially developed countries is essentially based on the application of business excellence models. Different business excellence models respect specific features of environments in which they have been developed and in fact represent QM paradigms based on total quality management (TQM). The implementation of these models in transitional economies or in economies with lower level of development where quality management paradigm is based on inspection, quality control (QC) or quality assurance (QA) does not provide the most suitable information for improvement, i.e. process re‐design for QM.

The paper reviews a developed model for assessment of QM maturity built on evolutionary development of QM paradigm through inspection, QC, QA and TQM. The identification of individual evolutionary phases through improvement paradigms such as: SDCA – product, SDCA – manufacturing processes, SDCA – supporting processes, PDCA – product and process thus creating precondition for the assessment of effectiveness of applied paradigm, as well as for diagnostics in cases of non‐effectiveness, i.e. failure in QM development. The change of management paradigms is not evolutionary in character, but actually represents a breakthrough approach.

The above investigation was carried out on the sample of 59 certified organizations amounting to about 5 percent of the total number of QMS certificates issued in Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. All assessed organizations of different size (SME or bigger) belonged to the manufacturing sector.

The transition process of the West Balkan countries to the EU require the harmonization of QM practice issues as well. This investigation is a contribution to the development of good QM practice in the organizations from these countries.

The application of the model based on evolutionary management development enables the transfer of knowledge about process re‐design for QM and thus provides a sustainable development of QM in manufacturing systems with lower level of development.

This study advocates a planned and integrated approach for achieving continuous improvement in an organisation. A model based on ten essential criteria and supporting elements of “best practice” is provided. The role of senior management in ceaselessly driving the improvement cause is emphasized together with the need to focus on stakeholder requirements, measure performance and learn from results. The underpinning foundations are seen to be a culture for innovation, focusing on critical processes and the involvement of employees, together with the integration of improvement activities throughout the organisation. Use of the proposed model is seen as preparatory for, and complementary to, the more complex models (such as the business excellence model or Baldrige criteria) which are useful where an organisation already has the foundations and culture for improvement and wishes to stretch itself further.

The steady incline in oil prices combined with the recent credit crisis and downturns in financial markets has driven organizations to re‐evaluate their manufacturing processes and bottom line. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a bottom‐up approach that may be used by firms in planning, managing and forecasting productivity improvements.

A multiple‐case study approach was used: two comprehensive cases and seven short cases were used to illustrate the model.

The lack of understanding of the relationship between productivity, profitability and performance has led to the application of piece‐meal solutions for problems in productivity. Bottom‐up approach in improving productivity will provide better results than top‐down approach.

This paper describes the bottom‐up approach which has been successfully used for managing productivity improvement initiatives.

The importance of culture is often emphasized for continuous learning and quality improvement within health care organizations. Limited empirical evidence for cultivating a culture that supports continuous learning and quality improvement in health care settings is currently available.

The purpose of this report is to characterize the evolution of a large division of physical therapists and occupational therapists in a pediatric hospital setting from 2005 to 2018 to identify key facilitators and barriers for cultivating a culture empowered to engage in continuous learning and improvement.

An ethnographic methodology was used including participant observation, document review, and stakeholder interviews to acquire a deep understanding and develop a theoretical model to depict insights gained from the investigation.

A variety of individual, social, and structural enablers and motivators emerged as key influences toward a culture empowered to support continuous learning and improvement. Features of the system that helped create sustainable, positive momentum (e.g., systems thinking, leaders with grit, and mindful design) and factors that hindered momentum (e.g., system uncertainty, staff turnover, slow barrier resolution, and competing priorities) were also identified.

Individual-level, social-level, and structural-level elements all influenced the culture that emerged over a 12-year period. Several cultural catalysts and deterrents emerged as factors that supported and hindered progress and sustainability of the emergent culture.

Cultivating a culture of continuous learning and improvement is possible. Purposeful consideration of the proposed model and identified factors from this report may yield important insights to advance understanding of how to cultivate a culture that facilitates continuous learning and improvement within a health care setting.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a structured overview of so‐called business process improvement (BPI) approaches and their contribution to the actual act of improving. Even though a lot is said about BPI, there is still a lack of supporting the act of improving the process. Most approaches concentrate on what needs to be done before and after the improvement act, but the act of improving itself still seems to be a black box.

This paper is mainly based on a review of literature that deals with the term “Business Process Improvement”. The analysis of the literature is supported by qualitative content analysis. The structure of the evaluation follows the mandatory elements of a method (MEM).

A lot of literature and consulting approaches deal with the restructuring and improvement of business processes. The author finds that even so‐called BPI approaches do not describe the act of improvement itself. And if they do, they lack a methodological structure that can be reused.

To constrain the complexity of this research at this first stage of investigation only the search criterion “business process improvement” was used in the database search (EBSCO and Emerald).

The paper is valuable for academics and practitioners because the impact of BPI on organizational performance is high. Its originality is in the structured evaluation of so‐called BPI approaches according to the MEM, which so far no one has investigated.

This paper aims to examine and compare a performance measurement system and performance frameworks commonly used within the construction industry. The paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of balanced scorecard (BSC) and business excellence model (BEM) to propose an integrated model for measuring strategic performance of construction organisations as a single model. The purpose is to help organisations achieve performance excellence, financial integrity and continuous improvement in business results to sustain competitive advantage.

This paper examines and compares performance measurement system and performance frameworks commonly used within the construction industry. The paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of BSC and BEM to propose an integrated model for measuring strategic performance of construction organisations as a single model. The purpose is to help organisations achieve performance excellence, financial integrity and continuous improvement in business results to sustain competitive advantage.

The study reveals that the most popular performance measurement framework in construction includes: BSC; Key Performance Indicators and European Foundation for Quality Management. However, literature also reveals that Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is being used to measure performance in the construction. The study findings indicated that BSC and BEM could be combined to provide an integrated model that will encompass every facet of construction performance measures.

The paper integrates the BSC and BEM performance measurement models, to provide construction organisations the opportunities of benefitting from the two models as a single tool without having to use more than one model or miss out any important aspect of performance measures. The model will assist organisations perform regular health checks of all business process and at the same time help align organisational activities with strategic primacy.

The paper offers an integrated construction excellence model as a useful tool for measuring both financial and non-financial performance aspects of construction organisations. This will provide managers, owners and other stakeholders the chance of measuring processes and pre-eminent strategic initiatives using a single model.

The conceptual paper presents an integration of processes and perspectives for measuring performance as a new and useful tool in the context of the South African construction industry. The paper suggests that research efforts should be directed on how to implement the strategic performance model efficiently within a specific construction environment.

This paper describes how to establish a management process for continuing business model innovation, a potent way to enhance overall competitive performance. The findings are based on research about the current best practices among companies that have gained large competitive advantages in revenue and profit margin growth through continually improving and replacing their business models. Such a process requires articulating and communicating the best practices of the current business model, establishing an appropriate vision for serving stakeholders better in gaining competitive advantage through business model improvements and replacements, stimulating many relevant experiments and tests for potential business model improvements and replacements, and becoming effective in implementing the surviving new business models. Our primary research method is through statistical analysis of the most common elements of business model innovation processes used by the most effective business model innovators.