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This paper presents an example of how to integrate the values of sustainable development in a business excellence model. It discusses definitions and measures of sustainable development, integrating values of total quality management with global human and environmental stakeholder interests. Requirements, core values, main criteria and different concepts of measures for sustainable development are examined, discussed and defined. Existing methods and strategies for quality and business excellence are compared with definitions of sustainable development. Indicators for sustainable development in an organisational and business context are discussed and a rough framework is presented.

In order to stay competitive most small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) need to make decisions and improve their processes in a more efficient way. To manufacturing companies this is crucial not the least within the design and production phases. This means that a deeper understanding of the concept of variation, identification of causes of variation, and handling of these causes are important factors within SMEs. This paper presents two studies of implementation of statistical methods. One is related to the use of process capability studies in Swedish industry. The other one is related to the use of design of experiments at two small enterprises within the high performance ceramic industry. From both the studies we find recommendations how to implement statistical technics in SMEs in order to increase the possibilities of success.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore important quality-related challenges facing organizations, and investigate how current excellence models incorporate these challenges.

The paper is based on a Delphi study of Swedish organizations. Forty-nine challenges were generated and ranked according to importance and the ten top-ranked challenges were compared to the principles of four excellence models.

The excellence models still seem to be relevant since their content matches many of the identified challenges. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Swedish Institute for Quality models were found to have the most comprehensive coverage, while the International Organization for Standardization model had limited coverage.

Three areas for further research were identified: first, how quality management (QM) can evolve in different contexts that have varying needs in terms of adaptive and explorative capabilities; second, the interfaces of QM and sustainability, and ways to understand how customers and stakeholders can be active contributors to improvements; and third, the roles of the owners and board of directors regarding QM, and how to organize and distribute responsibilities of the QM work.

There are three important challenges that future revisions of excellence models could address: first, making QM a strategic issue for company owners; second, involving customers in the improvement activities; and third, developing processes that are robust yet still easily adaptable.

The Delphi study identified upcoming challenges in the QM area based on input from 188 quality professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate program management teams' views on issues and challenges in managing a large, multi-sectoral child health promotion program in Sweden.

In total, 17 participants representing two autonomous program management teams, one strategic and one operational, were interviewed. Analysis of interview data was complemented with reviews of program documents.

Program management teams identified important issues concerning the program's formal structure, goals, role distribution, and change and dissemination processes, but lacked a shared mental model of the situation. Inter and intra group communication, long- and short-term strategic planning were further areas in need of improvement. While issues and challenges might seem to be agreed upon by the program's change agents, closer inspection reveals variation in key characteristics as well as in perspectives on solutions.

Health promotion programs are challenging. Researchers trying to understand program success have focused on particular interventions, contextual factors and program recipients. Less research has focused on the internal processes of teams tasked with wide-ranging change mandates and the effects such processes can have on program outcomes. This study contributes to a deeper understanding on internal processes and mental models of change agent teams.

The application of a process view, as complement to the traditional functional division, is often a way to highlight organisational improvement potential. This paper examines the process of providing university level education in quality management, using Sweden as an example. The purpose is to assess the performance of university education as part of the supply chain of providing quality management to a society. This has been done by studying the actual offering compared to a notional benchmark of best performance. Preliminary results indicate that there could be a significant improvement potential in both providing more education of the right type and in the right way. A lot of similar basic courses are given but with varying names, possibly reflecting difficulties in defining the area of quality management and its constituents. An important reason for the detected improvement potential seems to be the lack of ownership of the studied supply chain of providing university level quality education to the Swedish society.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Agria Animal Insurance Sweden (Agria) has organised its quality‐related work through a sustained and systematic focus on basic elements of quality management such as value focused leadership, employee involvement, process management and control, customer focus, and continuous improvement.

The study has been based on interviews, document studies and action research. It is a single case study design with limited intentions of generalisation.

The analysis shows that the top management at Agria has been a strong driving force that has effectively united leaders at all levels as agents of change. Additional success factors have been the deployment of basic values, the “five always”, and the value focused leadership. Further on the company has succeeded in creating a cultural basis and structures for systematic work with improvements.

A way to address corporate culture in order to open up for a climate of micro improvements of practice within present routines is illustrated in this paper.

Agria could be considered an example for others to study and get inspired by when working with quality‐related issues.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of a methodology for identification of stakeholders, their demands, wants and expectations.

Within the public eldercare, data were collected by means of participant observations to assess the methodology under development and to explore the stakeholder view within public eldercare.

In public eldercare, the customer focus is often emphasised, but not always apparent. Nursing staff have the responsibility to give patients the right care. However, these customers often have to be satisfied subject to meeting demands from relatives, management and society, just to mention a few of the other potential stakeholders. Indeed, nurses have diverging views of who the stakeholders are and also find it problematic to prioritize between stakeholders' interests. The findings include a stakeholder methodology, which suggests steps for identification of stakeholders and stakeholders' demands, wants and expectations on an individual employee level as well as steps for group discussions concerning how to achieve a common view and balance different interests on an organizational level.

The implications of the findings are mainly valid for the Swedish public eldercare. However, both experiences and the stakeholder methodology should be valuable both for other public and private organisations.

The study might stimulate the debate on the somewhat controversial customer focus in public eldercare. It explores the suitability of stakeholder theory on an individual level and presents a tentative stakeholder methodology.

This conceptual paper presents a process model combining TQM values and indicators of sustainable development (SD). The intention is to find synergies in applying a process view on different systems for SD measurements. A global process is introduced and global sustainability is related to critical elements of production, resources and population growth. Indicators of organisational performance are classified into drivers, input, enablers, output and outcome. SD is described with the three dimensions of economy, environment and ethics, representing a modified version of the triple bottom line. Existing measurement systems for SD are categorised according to the proposed organisational process model and positioned within the 3E dimensions. The use of indicators for SD in different organisations, including small and medium‐sized enterprises, is discussed.

Sustainability can be assessed in the dimensions Profit, Planet and People. A problem with the approach is that these dimensions cannot be added. Another problem is that performance seldom is related to global system boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to study the “what” of sustainability by linking this to global boundaries and proposing “how” the authors could manage change toward sustainability.

Sustainability definitions are reviewed to identify main stakeholders. People value defined as utility is compared to Planet harm as carbon emissions and People harm as prices of products. This approach is examined in business studying the global processes of housing, transporting, providing food and cement manufacturing.

The relative indicators with focus on People utility compare to Planet and People harm seem to be relevant for measuring the level of sustainability. The Crippled Bottom Line of People value/Planet harm and People value/Planet harm is proposed as the “what” to measure and the change process of “understanding-defining-measuring-communicating-leading change” is proposed as the “how” to change.

The research is based on identifying the main stakeholders based on sustainability definitions and from that point mostly on deductive reasoning.

The practical implications are that organizations could define sustainability indicators with objectives that are linked to global limits.

Advocating the use of price as a social indicator could have social implications.

The paper contributes to the discussion of how to link global limits to organizational measurements and targets.

The study identifies the variation of change strategies used in a complex large scale change program in health and social services in Sweden, aimed at changing professionals' health promoting practices. The purpose is to investigate the change strategies used over time and describe the potential variation in key change agent views, using a framework inspired by De Caluwé and Vermaak's multi paradigm change typology.

The first six years of the regional multi-sector program are examined. Results are based on content analyses of interviews with key change actors, and archival data describing program activities. Respondents belonged to either the strategic or the operational program management team, representing different sectors of health and social services in a region.

Multiple strategy paradigms showed varying influence over the program's different phases, partly due to program progress, change agent influence and/or varying contextual demands. Respondents' views on strategies and program focus varied depending on their program roles. Respondents expressed insights about the varying conditions for change and on the conflicting expectations within and between program management teams.

This study introduces the application of a new framework on a large scale, complex change program. The framework sheds light on a number of basic assumptions and change strategies that can be further compared with content and context factors, barriers, facilitators, outcomes, and in turn with other programs.