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This paper examines the importance of quality management for Yemen, a developing country, in the light of challenges introduced by recent changes in levels of protection from international competition previously enjoyed by Yemeni companies. The current state of quality practices in Yemeni organisations is investigated and discussed. Then a variety of issues relating to the introduction and use of quality management approaches such as ISO 9000 and the European business excellence model (EBEM) are raised, with particular emphasis being placed on cultural issues. This paper also introduces a methodology to test the cultural acceptability of the European business excellence model in Yemen that could be accomplished in Yemen. Finally, the results of surveys and trials conducted in Yemen are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the perception of total quality management (TQM) benefits, practices and obstacles in Kuwaiti industrial organizations certified against ISO 9001:2000 (or later) and following a TQM approach. A discrepancy in perception between project managers (PMs) and quality management representatives (QMRs) of organizations in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries has already been identified (Jaeger and Adair, 2013), and this study compares the perception of these two groups in more depth.

Extensive representatives of both groups have been individually interviewed, a classification system for TQM benefits, practices and obstacles has been developed, and interview responses have been analyzed against this classification system.

It emerges that all responses matched one of the benefits, obstacles and practices of the classification system. Comparing the total group of PMs with the total group of QMRs, it was found that both groups agree on their perception of the most important practice (i.e. an implemented management system) and, the biggest obstacle (i.e. lack of employee involvement). However, they disagree on their perception of the most important TQM benefit (i.e. PMs prefer quality of products and services, and QMRs prefer productivity).

The results of the total groups and sub-groups give new insights regarding the different perceptions of PMs and QMRs. Also, the results enable practitioners of these two functions to discuss the differences and align their perceptions. This should increase the effectiveness of the TQM approach in their organizations. Finally, the results allow management consultants to focus on areas with high potential for improvements.

To identify some psychological and social variables that could enhance employees' adoption of total quality management (TQM) in an organization that chooses to implement the management philosophy.

A survey research was conducted, using 418 middle management staff, randomly drawn from some TQM and non‐TQM courier organizations in Nigeria. Respondents received standardized scales measuring perception of their leaders' leadership styles, organizational reward system and self‐report of personality attributes (psychological variables), along with items measuring gender, age, job tenure and level of education (social variables). They also responded to questionnaire items measuring the extent to which they practice TQM.

Correlation analysis show that higher level of maintenance leadership style along with lower level of performance leadership style, low levels of extraversion and neuroticism, higher level of education and shorter job tenure enhance subordinates' practice of TQM. t‐test results show that Employees in TQM organizations were significantly higher on perceived maintenance and performance leadership styles and reward but significantly lower on extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism than their non‐TQM counterparts.

All measures were based on self‐report of the respondents and data were from only service organizations, thus, limiting generalizations of the findings.

Implementers of TQM in organizations in Nigeria should endeavor to put in place appropriate leadership styles, consider personality attributes, level of education and duration of working in any non‐TQM organization among other personnel issues for selection and retention in a TQM practicing organization.

TQM is a management technique being adopted in Nigeria with some difficulties. The present study brings to focus psychological and social variables that could ease its implementation.

While ISO 9001 standard certification is approaching saturation in developed countries, other nations are still struggling with the implementation of ISO 9001. This study provides insights into countries with a very low number of registered certifications to understand the reasons behind the limited implementations, more particularly using evidence from Yemen. The objective of the study is to assess: the awareness, understanding, motivations, barriers and the benefits of implementing ISO 9001.

A survey was conducted to measure awareness levels, understanding, driving factors, barriers and the benefits of ISO 9001. Data collection was carried out through the classification of targeted firms into two separate categories, certified and noncertified organizations. The classification of firms was conducted to enrich the understanding from two different perspectives. A total of 72 responses, from companies ranging in size from large to small, and in both the private and public sectors, were analyzed using the descriptive and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA).

The data analysis showed that the limited implementation of ISO 9001 certifications could be due to several internal and external factors such as the relatively low awareness level of the certification and guidelines, and the inconsistency of understanding the certification purpose. The benefits focused solely on improving the quality of systems efficiency and increasing quality awareness, and not on internationalization.

The findings of this work provide the groundwork for decision-makers to understand the drivers and challenges of ISO 9001 to plan corrective actions and contribute to promote and increase the number of certified organizations in similar countries and economies. While the data in this study were collected in the context of one country, the methodology and framework used in this study can be utilized by other researchers to collect data in similar countries with a low number of ISO 9001 certifications.

This research is one of the very few that addresses the limited implementation of ISO 9001 in the Middle East and North Africa region and Yemen in particular.

Private telecommunication companies in Yemen face huge challenges to improve their competitive position. Many of them suffer from performance management systems (PMS) that are not aligned nor integrated and do not give adequate support. This research aims at identifying the current state and quality of PMS in Yemeni private telecom companies and developing recommendations that will assist in improving their performance and competitive position.

As research tools, the performance management analysis – used to measure the quality of a PMS – and the high performance organization (HPO) framework – used to measure the quality of an organization and thereby its ability to achieve sustainable high competitive performance – are applied at three Yemeni private telecom companies.

There is a considerable performance gap between the actual and the ideal PMS in the Yemeni private telecom companies; this performance gap is highly correlated with competitive performance in a negative relationship. Both the structural and behavioral dimensions’ performance gaps have a significant impact on competitive performance, with the impact of the behavioral dimensions being considerably higher than that of the structural dimensions.

The current academic literature on HPOs and PMS in Yemen is scarce. This study adds knowledge to these areas, and thus provides a basis for further study. This research results also help managers of the Yemeni private telecom companies to take strategic action to redesign and implement new and improved PMS to increase their competitive performance.

Quality criteria of The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) have been used as a standard for organisational self‐assessment and benchmarking. The threefold purpose of this paper is: to analyse the individual weights of the MBNQA criteria for organisations of the construction and the manufacturing industry within the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries in order to create a basis for self‐assessment and benchmarking; to identify differences of criteria importance between the construction and the manufacturing industry (external alignment) in order to identify challenging areas on TQM when two organisations from the respective industries collaborate; and to compare the perspectives of project managers with those of quality management representatives (internal alignment) in order to identify challenging areas on an organisation's TQM caused by not aligned or contradicting perspectives.

Questionnaire based in‐depth interviews of GCC project managers and quality management representatives were analysed using a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to calculate the weights and subsequent ranking of seven quality criteria.

When compared to the original weights of the MBNQA criteria, the “results” criterion was found to be ranked the same. However, clear differences were identified regarding the criteria “leadership” and “measurement/analysis”. The differences between the two analysed industries were not significant, whereas project managers and quality management representatives have clearly differing views on all seven criteria.

First, the analysed ranking of MBNQA quality criteria in the GCC countries gives organisations of the construction and the manufacturing industry a benchmark for comparison with their ranking of the MBNQA criteria. Second, clients may assume a common and hence strong basis for TQM when organisations belonging to the construction industry collaborate with organisations belonging to the manufacturing industry. Third, the organisations’ internal communication between project managers and quality management representatives needs to be improved in order to pursue common TQM goals effectively.

Natural collective phenomena, for example, the movement of crowds of pedestrians and the impressive nest formations of social insects, provide us with an existence proof that sophisticated constructions may be built by swarms of relatively simple artificial agents. The constructions often appear to have required impressive control and coordination – yet each agent in the collective does not appear to be provided with an internal world model or blue‐print for the complete construction. These macroscopic structures emerge as the consequence of interaction of agents, carrying out simple rules based upon the local state of the world, which includes the interaction between agents and the growing structure. In an attempt to understand the underpinning principles of structure formation in collectives of minimal mobile agents the paper focuses on an investigation of automata‐like agents in a two‐dimensional lattice. All agents start their evolution at the same site on the lattice. Every agent moves at random until it finds a neighbourhood it likes more than other neighbourhoods. The agents form a stationary structure of their immobile bodies. The paper focuses upon the parameterisation of the rule space and the mapping between parameter space and the resulting global structure formed by the agents.

The authors address the failure of companies to reach a sufficiently mature stage of quality required to be truly competitive and to exhibit the characteristics of so‐called “excellent companies”. The authors set out to answer some hard questions identified during their research: for instance, why is it that companies know what they should be doing but fail to do it? Why is it that barriers to progress fail to be overcome? Why is there such a large gap between management theory and practice? Five themes emerge which offer a means of exploring these issues in greater depth in order to develop a way of resolving them: competitiveness ‐ the challenges faced by industry today; current “state of the art” strategic quality management ‐ where are we?; the learning organisation; the role of self‐assessment frameworks; performance management system approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors influencing service quality of the property managers to the occupiers of shopping complexes in Ibadan, Nigeria. This was with a view to providing information that could enhance property management practice.

Primary data were used for the study. The study area was stratified into five axes using major roads where shopping complexes were highly concentrated. Systematic sampling technique was used to select 139 out of 276 shopping complexes in the study area. The data obtained were analyzed using mean ranking and principal component analysis.

The study found that ineffective employee’s compensation, high employee turnover, lack of continuous improvement culture, inadequate use of employee empowerment, inadequate staff, lack of teamwork, inability to see tenants as customer, lack of motivation, education and training of the property managers and poor planning among others were the most significant factors influencing service quality of the property managers using mean ranking. The study further found that professional and empowerment factor, teamwork and motivation factor, customer related factor, work volume and operation factor, skills and job satisfaction factor, top-management commitment factor, experience and communication factor as well as financial factor were the factors influencing service quality of the property managers using principal component analysis.

This study will aid the property managers of shopping complexes in identifying areas which needed to be improved upon in order to provide quality service to occupiers thereby enhancing tenant retention and loyalty.

Previous studies on factors influencing service quality have been focusing on hospitality, healthcare, real estate agency and library industries. This study is one of the very few studies that examined factors influencing service quality of property managers of shopping complex. Also, the paper underlines the need for property managers of shopping complexes to give required attention to factors influencing service quality for enhanced property management practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore the main barriers of ISO 9000 implementation in local government (LG) organizations. In addition to this, this study also determines whether these barriers are different between the various types of LG organizations or otherwise.

Based on previous studies and research, related and relevant information had been gathered in order to develop the questionnaire form used in this research to ensure adequacy and accuracy of the survey tool content. The main content of the questionnaire focuses on statements that relate to the barriers which normally occur in implementing ISO 9000. The data that was garnered from this survey was then analysed using quantitative methods in line with answering the related research questions.

Descriptive statistical analysis shows that, in total, there are five main barriers and two additional barriers that have been faced by LG organizations in implementing ISO 9000. Five of these barriers are the common barriers as frequently discussed in previous studies, while the remaining two main barriers are new findings that were discovered through this study. The non‐parametric analysis results also indicate that from the seven discovered barriers, only four have differences based on the types of LG organizations.

The top management of LG organizations must realize that the implementation of ISO 9000 in their organizations has been certainly hindered by several barriers. Therefore, certain specific measures must be undertaken to ensure that these obstacles may be overcome and subsequently enable a LG organization to meet the target of acquiring accreditation within a shorter period of time. This will in turn facilitate more LG organizations to achieve this certification in line with the aim of the government.

This paper has discovered the specific main barriers that obstruct ISO implementation in Malaysian LG organizations. The findings of this study indicate that these main barriers constitute obstacles that have been previously discussed as well as new hindrances which have yet to be explored in detail. This study could also be used to further expand research regarding the ISO 9000 subject matter, specifically within the context of the public sector which is relatively scarcely researched especially in Malaysia.