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Focusing on the adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles in universities, this research paper explores how the “soft” dimensions of TQM trigger its “hard” dimensions considering them at the individual (micro-) and the university (meso-), and eventually at cluster (system-), levels.

Adopting a qualitative approach, this study presents an in-depth, longitudinal case study of University of Siena, one of the oldest Italian universities, that has been at the core of the research-based cluster on vaccines, today converged in the Tuscan Life Science Cluster. In particular, data were collected between 2018 and February 2022 and consists of archival data (press articles, websites, books), nine interviews to key informants, multiyear experience of the Life Sciences sector by two of the authors and other material put at disposal by university offices, and emails. Data analysis relied on a timeline, a coding procedure that considered three levels of analysis (individual, organization and cluster). Finally, the authors looked at the “how” and “why” the emerged themes have contributed to academic excellence.

This paper unveils how “soft” and “hard” sides of TQM are blended across multiple levels for reaching academic excellence. The grounded model emerged enlightens the importance of an individual “soft” dimension, academic passion (composed by its three subdimensions of individual research, teaching and entrepreneurial passion) and also sheds light on the organizational “soft” and “hard” sides that the university has been able to design for encouraging research, teaching and third mission quality. Academic excellence has been possible thanks to the capitalization of the individual and organizational “soft” sides into real outcomes as represented by the organizational and individual “hard” sides.

The paper suggests the importance of TQM principles applied at universities' level, providing an in-depth description of “soft” and “hard” sides dimensions of TQM and their impact on all the three pillars of academic excellence. The study findings suggest implications for managers and professionals in the higher education domain as well as for policymakers emphasizing the importance of supporting the individual and organizational soft sides of TQM. The authors provide practical implications recommending universities to consider not only the organizational dimensions but also individual ones when pursuing higher education excellence. In particular, individual passion plays a crucial role and universities need to identify ways of nurturing it. The authors also recommend policymakers to think about new ways to sustain universities as crucial actors in boosting a cluster development, as well as to consider higher education institutions, especially in more rural areas, as a privileged player not only capable of nurturing academic excellence but also able of creating an internationally renowned cluster.

TQM principles have been intensively analysed from an industrial perspective focusing on manufacturing and services, while this paper focuses on TQM in universities, presenting a grounded model that blends the individual and organizational “soft” and “hard” sides.

This paper explores total quality management (TQM) soft domain efficacy in social care organizations to determine the extent to which an organization's project success may stem from soft TQM critical success factors (CSFs).

Non-structured interviews were conducted with 16 managers overseeing the prosthetic device regeneration project of the Italian local health unit (located in Salerno) to explore which soft factors could contribute to the success of a social care multifunctional organization.

Organizations' handling of certain projects, such as pivoting on soft TQM issues, may allow them to be configured as multiservice organizations. Therefore, a conceptual model of a multiservice social care organization is proposed.

From a managerial perspective, this study presents an interesting success case of a multiservice social care organization with a total annual expenditure of €20 million on prosthetic assistance. Preliminary data show a 13% reduction in public expenditure for Salerno's local health unit via a refurbishment project.

The paper contributes to the soft TQM literature debate: although Italian local health professionals appear aware of soft TQM issues' implementation and consciously apply them in their organization and projects, this occurs more with specific CSFs emerging from the literature. Therefore, this article paves the way for further quantitative and theoretical investigations on the adoption of TQM soft issues in social care organizations' performance measurement.

This study aims to analyze how the interplay between hard and soft elements of total quality management (TQM) produces the conditions for sustaining success in the quest for quality.

A qualitative analysis (Gioia method) was carried out on an original dataset collected through both direct and indirect methods (i.e. archival sources, interviews and observations) to generate a new interpretive framework.

The interpretative framework identifies four categories of elements: trigger elements create the starting conditions for a quality virtuous cycle; benchmarking tools set the standards of performance; improvement tools enable exploration of the space of possible alternative practices and finally, catalytic forces allow the institutionalization of effective techniques discovered in this search process into new standards.

The findings the authors present in this paper are derived by a single case study, limiting the generalizability of our results in other settings.

This study has three implications: first, the design of trigger elements is critical for the success of any TQM initiative; second, the interplay of improvement and benchmarking tools at several levels should be coherent and third, to exploit the potential of TQM, efforts should be devoted to the dissemination of new effective practices by means of catalyzing elements.

The model provides a more specific understanding of the nature and purpose of the hard and soft elements of TQM and the dynamic interaction between the two classes of elements over time.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived effects between soft management practices, employee behaviours and the implementation of digital technologies in manufacturing plants, as well as how these relate to the emergence of digital waste.

This paper uses case-based research. Data was collected in two large manufacturing companies based in Norway and Sweden through semi-structured interviews with two management representatives and four shop-floor employees. The data was used to evaluate 29 variables describing lean- and total quality management (TQM)-associated employee behaviours and soft management practices, in light of digital transformation.

The results suggest that several variables were positively influenced by the digital transformation process. These were top management leadership, middle management involvement, employee education, corporate social responsibility focus, innovation, knowledge sharing, work-family balance, psychological capital, job satisfaction and career commitment. Training employees, creativity, discretionary effort, turnover intention and proactivity appear to be negatively influenced by digital transformation The findings also indicate that several soft management practices and employee behaviours were not only influenced by manufacturing digitalization but also themselves influenced the process. The potential for digital waste creation was also detected in several variables, including reward and recognition and training employees.

Managers, practitioners and academics may learn about the importance of certain managerial practices and employees’ behavioural needs during the digital transformation process. The findings may help in prioritizing TQM and soft lean management practices and certain employee behaviours during the digital transformation and in creating awareness of digital waste.

This study builds on several existing studies discussing the impact of digital transformation on soft management practices and employee behaviours. It provides insights from a lean and TQM angle and offers a means of prioritizing certain practices and behaviours during a digital transformation. This study also highlights the significance of digital waste.

This study aims to empirically investigate the effects of both soft and hard quality management (QM) on innovation and organizational performance. It also examines the mediating role of hard QM, administrative innovation and technical innovation on the relationship between soft QM and organizational performance in higher education (HE).

The approach of this study is quantitative. The data used to test the hypotheses were obtained through online questionnaire sent to the academic staff of public universities in Naples (Italy). The hypothesized relationships are tested with data collected from 356 respondents by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique (PLS-SEM).

The results show that quality practices improve innovation and organizational performance, while innovation positively impacts organizational performance. The findings also indicate that soft QM affects organizational performance directly and indirectly through hard QM. Hard QM and innovation show a partial sequential mediating effect on soft QM-performance relationship

In order to implement quality management properly in HE, directors need to recognize the different roles that soft and hard QM can have on innovation and organizational performance. It is important that higher education institutions (HEIs) allocate resources to establish both types of QM practices to achieve the effectiveness of the whole QM system.

Despite the existence of numerous studies on the relationship between QM, innovation and organizational performance in manufacturing and services, studies conducted in higher education are still few. This is one of the earliest studies that adopt the multidimensional approach of QM in HE which could help directors understand the interdependencies and different roles of soft and hard quality practices.

This study investigates the role of “soft” factors of total quality management – in terms of empowerment and engagement of employees – in facilitating or hindering organizational performance of the university technology transfer offices.

The authors developed an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), multiple regression model to test if empowerment and engagement affect organizational performance of the university technology transfer offices.

The authors found that “soft” factors of total quality management – in terms of empowerment and engagement – facilitate the improvement of organizational performance in university technology transfer offices.

The authors’ analysis shows that soft total quality management practices create the conditions for improving organizational performance. This study provides practical implications by showing that, in the evaluation of the technology transfer office, not only the “hard” variables (e.g. number of employees and employee experience) but also the “soft” one (e.g. empowerment and engagement) matter. Therefore, university technology transfer managers or university technology transfer delegates should take actions to promote not only empowering employees but also create a climate conducive to employees' engagement in the university technology transfer offices.

With regards to the differences in organizational performances of university technology transfer offices, several studies have focused their attention on technology transfer professionals in technology transfer offices, but only a few of them have examined the “soft side” of total quality management. Thus, this study examines the organizational goals of technology transfer offices through “soft” factors of total quality management in terms of empowerment and engagement employees.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between employee training and bank risk to verify whether and to what extent an increase in employee training, as a soft component of total quality management (TQM), affects bank risk.

The research adopts a panel regression, based on a unique dataset of a sample of Italian banks over the period 2011–2018, to test whether employee training affects bank risk, measured alternatively in terms of Z-score, a proxy of bank stability and non-performing loans (NPLs)/gross loans ratio as a proxy of credit risk.

Research findings reveal that increasing employee training leads to growing bank stability. In contrast, credit risk is not affected by employee training. However, by investigating training heterogeneity, this study found that the increase in the number of managerial training hours, as a proxy for soft skills training, negatively impacts credit risk. Therefore, an increase in soft skills leads to a reduction in bank credit risk.

This study provides empirical evidence in support of the relationship between employee training and bank risk, which seems novel in the literature. From a managerial point of view, this study highlights the need for banks to pay attention to the skills, particularly soft skills, that banks' employees must possess to effectively manage bank risk and, more specifically, the core bank risk.

Empirical evidence on the relationship between employee training, soft/hard skills and bank risk appears limited if not absent. Therefore, the findings provide insights for a more nuanced interpretation of variables that affect bank risk.

This study investigates the effect of total quality management (TQM) on customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction and company reputation.

The study results rely on a structured survey conducted among an extensive sample of Finnish SMEs. In addition to the examination of the relationship between TQM and company performance in terms of customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction and company reputation, the study takes a view on the possible effects of the industry, the company size and the certified quality system.

The results reveal that two TQM dimensions, namely Customer Focus and Product Management, were related to companies' customer satisfaction, whereas four TQM dimensions, namely Management/leadership, Customer Focus, Personnel Management and Risk Management, were related to personnel satisfaction. None of the TQM dimensions were related to company reputation. The control variables – the industry, the company size and the certified quality system – were not found to affect customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction or company reputation.

Most previous studies have been based on traditional TQM classification and have not shown the effects of the latest TQM-related dimensions. Compared to previous studies, this work integrates risk management, digitization, system deployment efficiency and stakeholder management into TQM, which has not been implemented in any previous study. The roles of hard and soft TQM factors have been carefully considered in this study; thus, the study does not place too much emphasis on either direction but provides a balanced picture of the performance of the management systems studied. Although there are studies on the effects of TQM on personnel satisfaction, customer satisfaction and reputation, they are based on a much narrower definition of TQM than that in this study. The business environment is constantly changing, but only a few studies have been conducted to extend the TQM approach. This has led to duplication of studies, and the effects of performance-relevant procedures have not been extensively studied in the past as part of TQM. Therefore, the concept of this study brings significant added value to TQM research and returns the TQM concept to the overall level while considering the requirements of the ISO 9001: 2015 and EFQM 2019 quality standards. The study also considers the effects of ISO 9001 certification and EFQM requirements.

Lean Six Sigma in public and private healthcare organisations has received considerable attention over the last decade. Nevertheless, such process improvement methodologies are not generalizable, and their effective implementation relies on contextual variables. The purpose of this study is to explore the readiness of Italian hospitals for Lean Six Sigma and Quality Performance Improvement (LSS&QPI), with a focus on gender differences.

A survey comprising 441 healthcare professionals from public and private hospitals was conducted. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine the mean scores on the LSS&QPI dimensions based on hospital type, gender and their interaction.

The results showed that public healthcare professional are more aware of quality performance improvement initiatives than private healthcare professionals. Moreover, gender differences emerged according to the type of hospital, with higher awareness for men than women in public hospitals, whereas for private hospitals the opposite was true.

This study contributes to the Lean Six Sigma literature by focusing on the holistic assessment of LSS&QPI implementation.

This study informs healthcare managers about the revolution within healthcare organisations, especially public ones. Healthcare managers should spend time understanding Lean Six Sigma as a strategic orientation to promote the “lean hospital”, improving processes and fostering patient-centredness.

This is a preliminary study focussing on analysing inter-relationship between perceived importance of soft readiness factors such as gender dynamics as a missing jigsaw in the current literature. In addition, the research advances a holistic assessment of LSS&QPI, which sets it apart from the studies on single initiatives that have been documented to date.

This study examines the theoretical and empirical relationships between LM&SS, human resource management (HRM), climate for LM&SS and outcomes (employee well-being and performance) in hospitals. As part of this research, the authors examine the interplay between “hard” and “soft” practices for LM&SS and “soft” HR practices.

A cross-sectional, multisite survey study covering all internal service units at all eight Dutch university hospitals was conducted (42 units, N = 218 supervisors, N = 1,668 employees), and multivariate multilevel regression analyses were performed.

A systems approach involving “soft” LM&SS practices that are specifically HR-related has a positive effect (β is 0.46) on a climate for LM&SS. A climate for LM&SS is not related to perceived performance or employee health. It is, however, positively related to employee happiness and trusting relationships (both βs are 0.33). We did not find that a climate for LM&SS had a mediating effect.

This study shows that a balanced approach involving both “hard” and “soft” factors is crucial to achieving the desired breadth and depth of LM&SS adoption at the macro, meso, and micro levels. The authors found that a climate for LM&SS positively affects employee well-being in hospitals.

In their attempt to create mutual gains for both their organization and their employees, hospitals that adopt LM&SS should foster a climate for LM&SS by embracing a balanced approach consisting of both “hard” and “soft” practices, thereby internalizing LM&SS at the macro, meso, and micro levels.

This is one of the first studies to examine in-depth the impact of “hard” and “soft” LM&SS on both employee well-being (subdivided into different components) and performance in healthcare, as well as the role of “soft” HRM in this relationship. Linking LM&SS, HRM and outcomes to a climate for LM&SS is relatively a new approach and has led to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the internalization of LM&SS in healthcare.