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Student retention is important in the management of any university especially one which is not financially independent. Administrators in such institutions need to investigate ways to improve the retention rate in order to avoid the loss of revenue. One of the methods is to ensure that students are able to follow their study pathway and complete their study on time instead of dropping out. The purpose of this paper is to establish a system that allows the university to monitor the progression of these students and highlight the need for counselling when necessary. It is also hoped that this paper helps to improve the student retention rate using quality analysis tools and add knowledge into factual-based problem-solving methodology.

This paper is a co-relational study based on secondary data. It is a continuous improvement method adopting the “plan-do-check-action” model. Quality analysis tools adopted are failure modes and effects analysis and process mapping, where both are the quality analysis tools commonly used in solving product design or assembly process issues in manufacturing. Using the case study of Wawasan Open University, the authors will adapt the aforesaid quality analysis tools from design and manufacturing sectors into an open distance learning education design. It is hoped that the identified process facilitates certain functions of the departments of the organisation to be more effective.

This paper provides a practical approach on the methods to improve the retention rate in a private higher education institute. Stakeholders are more willing to embrace the improvement when there is proper factual analysis to support the plans. A cross-departmental team is formed to brainstorm the various aspects of the process and the potential failure modes. In a resource-constrained environment, prioritisation is important to identify the high-impact problems. It is also important that a mechanism is available to deliver information to the area where decisions and actions can be made. The failure modes are prioritised systematically and the corresponding solutions installed. The end result is a system with the process that reduces interdepartmental inconsistency thus providing students with a clearer visibility of their study pathway so that they can complete their study on time instead of dropping out.

This study is performed within the context of an institute. The generalisation is low. Other researchers are encouraged to explore further.

This paper provides some practical actions for the improvement of student retention in the university. It is hoped that other researchers will be attracted to explore further on using quality analysis tools to solve non-technical problems.

This paper provides a structured problem-solving method in a service-oriented organisation.

This paper aims to examine the relationships among supplier management practices, organizational context and supplier performance. The contexts selected for supplier management practices are economics transactional practices and high involvement work practices (HIWP); while power asymmetry and competition intensity are considered within the organizational context.

A questionnaire survey was conducted on a multinational semiconductor company. A two‐phase statistical analysis, which comprised phase one (reliability and factor analysis), and phase two (hierarchical multiple regression analysis), was used to analyze the data.

The study provides empirical evidence to support the conceptual and prescriptive statements in the literature regarding the impact of supplier management practices and the dynamics between organizational context and supplier management towards supplier performance. The results show that high involvement work practices (HIWP) mediate the impact of competition intensity on suppliers' quality performance and partially mediate the effect of competition intensity on suppliers' flexibility. The limitation of this study is that it does not use longitudinal data, which would be more useful to examine changes in variables that affect performance; nevertheless, as this study was conducted in‐house, it was able to control the extraneous factors.

The study provides important insights for managers to understand the disposition of the firm to better leverage organizational context by exploiting relationships with suppliers. The paper has extended organizational theory and marketing theory into a supply chain context. Moreover, it is among the first empirical work that specifically investigates the relationship between organizational context and supplier management practices; thus the paper fills an important gap in the supply chain literature.