National Process of Quality Management Education : The Swedish Example

Isaksson, Raine,Hansson, Jonas,Garvare, Rickard The Korean Society for Quality Management 2007 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.8 No.2

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 Effect of Organisational Structure on Quality Management in Public Hospitals in a Developing Nation: A Comparative Study Between District, State and National Level Hospitals in Malaysia

Manaf Noor Hazilah Abd. The Korean Society for Quality Management 2006 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.7 No.1

The objective of the study was to empirically assess the practice of quality management among employees of Malaysian public hospitals at the district, state and national level hospitals. Comparative analysis on the practice of quality management was made among the three groups of hospitals. Self-administered questionnaire was the main method of data collection. Twenty-three public hospitals throughout Peninsular Malaysia participated in the survey. Practice of quality management was found to be significantly higher in district hospitals than in the national referral centre, which is based in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. However, there was no significant difference in perception of implementation outcome between the three levels of hospitals. Among the factors of quality management, teamwork was found to be significantly higher in district hospitals than in state hospitals and the national referral centre. Leadership and management commitment was found to be significantly higher in district and state hospitals than in the national referral centre. The effect of organizational structure could have an effect on practice of quality management.

A Study of General Reducing Criteria of Customer -Oriented Perceived Gap for Hotel Service Quality

Chen, Ching-Piao,Deng, Wei-Jaw,Chung, Yi-Chan,Tsai, Chih-Hung The Korean Society for Quality Management 2008 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.9 No.1

In recent years, speedy development of Taiwan's hotel industry intensifies market competition, customers' demands on hotel services quality also increase with the increase of their consumption consciousness, and their demands on hotel types diversify, therefore hotel industry should concern on their unique management services quality brought by their different hotel types. The current designed service system or service transmission process may fail to meet customers' demands owing to emphasizing degree gap in service quality. What is worse, it is difficult for hotel industry to actualize complete customer segregation and to provide customized services, therefore comprehensive understanding of customers' demands on the service quality of different types hotels would contribute to operating management improvement of Taiwan hotel industry. This paper divides Taiwan hotels into three types: international tourism commercial type, holiday type and motel, the general hotels. It studies the emphasize degree gap in service quality between the industry and the customers. Data analysis shows that service quality gap (perceived gap) of hotels of different types exists in several quality aspects; what's more, the perceived gaps, service quality aspects, and its items of different types of hotel are also different. After an integrated analysis, this paper puts forward a general and customer-oriented quality item suitable for hotel industry to shorten the perceived gap of service quality, so that the hotel industry could design a service system and service transfer system, which could meet most lodging customers' demands in the context of pluralized customer sources.

Effect of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Quality on Entrepreneurship Performance

이은지,조영주,Lee, Eun-Ji,Cho, Young-Ju Korean Society for Quality Management 2022 품질경영학회지 Vol.50 No.3

Purpose: As the public interest in entrepreneurship has been highlighted and entrepreneurship policies have been generated, this study is to construct Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (EE) models which have a significant relationship to national entrepreneurship with quantitative analysis. It aims to provide implications to EE policymakers that which national components are effective in cultivating innovative entrepreneurship and validate its EE quality based on quantitative performance goals. Methods: This study utilizes secondary data, categorized under the PESTLE factor from credible international organizations (WB, UNDP, GEM, GEDI, and OECD) to determine significant factors in the quality of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This paper uses the Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) analysis to select the significant variables contributing to entrepreneurship performance. Using the AUC-ROC performance evaluation method for machine learning MLR results, this paper evaluates the performance of EE models so that it can allow approving EE quality by predicting potential performance. Results: Among nine hypothesis models, MLR analysis examines that the number of the Unicorn company, Unicorn companies' economic value, and entrepreneurship measured as GEI can be reasonable dependent variables to indicate the performance derived from EE quality. Rather than government policies and regulations, the social, finance, technology, and economic variables are significant factors of EE quality determining its performance. By having high Area Under Curve values under AUC-ROC analysis, accepted MLR models are regarded as having high prediction accuracy. Conclusion: Superior EE contributes to the outstanding Unicorn companies, and improvement in macro-environmental components can enhance EE quality.

Research on Value Creativity of Taiwan's Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Tien, Shiaw-Wen,Chung, Yi-Chan,Tsai, Chih-Hung,Hsieh, Chia-Hsiang,Chen, Hung-Hsi The Korean Society for Quality Management 2007 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.8 No.1

This research probes into the execution of small and medium-sized enterprises' value creativities by a difference analysis with different classifications, different capital, different turnover, different employees, and different established years. This study develop a questionnaire about value creativity with five dimensions and thirty-five items according to "Valuation" by McKinsey and Company, Inc. and Copeland et al., such as: "Aspiration and target," "Portfolio management," "Organization design," "Process management," and "Business and individual performance management." The results are as follows: (1) Most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have executed value creativities; (2) There is a difference in the execution of value creativities between the livelihood industry and the chemical industry; the execution of value creativities by livelihood industry is better than the chemical industry; (3) For value creativities of the execution of different capital and turnover for SMEs, bigger entities are better than smaller ones; (4) For the value creativities of the execution of different numbers of staff in SMEs, those with more staff are better than those with fewer staff; (5) For the value creativities of the execution of different established years for SMEs, those established longer are better than those established shorter.

Expanding the Concept of Quality Management to Global Supply Chains

Neergaard Peter,Pedersen Esben Rahbek The Korean Society for Quality Management 2005 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.6 No.1

In the light of globalisation and the international division of labour, the article will stress the importance of a new conception of quality management, focusing more on the social and environmental aspects of quality in global supply chains with a particular emphasis on suppliers' perspectives. The increasing focus on corporate social responsibility, business ethics, corporate citizenship, sustainable development etc. indicates that managers have failed to see social and environmental aspects of the production as an integrated part of quality.

Adopting Process Management-the Importance of Recognizing the Organizational Transformation

Hellstrom, Andreas,Peterson, Jonas The Korean Society for Quality Management 2006 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.7 No.1

The purpose of this study is to investigate what happens within an organization when a process view of the business is adopted. With the example of an empirical case, we aim to illustrate: how members of the organization make sense of process management; what contributions members of the organization consider to be the result of adopting a process view; and the relationship between the functional and the process structure. The empirical base in this study is one of Sweden's largest purchasing organizations within the public sector. The results are drawn from interviews with the process owners and a survey to all members involved in process teams. The case findings reveal an ambiguous image of process management. At the same time as process management solved specific organizational problems, it generated new dilemmas. It is argued that it is more rewarding to consider the adoption of the process view a 'social negotiation' rather than the result of planned implementation. The study also highlights that the meaning of process management is not anything given but something being created, and its negotiation and translation into organizational practice is open-ended. Furthermore, the study gives an illustration of the conflict between the adopted process view and the existing functional organization.

Improving Product Quality through Conflict Management: A Study of Hong Kong ODM Suppliers

Lam, Ping-Kit,Chin, Kwai-Sang The Korean Society for Quality Management 2004 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.5 No.2

Client-supplier collaboration in new product development (NPD) has been a strategy in response to fierce global competition. Traditionally, Hong Kong suppliers collaborate with worldwide clients through original equipment manufacturing (OEM) arrangement in which suppliers manufacture products according to clients' design. In recent years, a growing number of Hong Kong suppliers have transformed to original design manufacturing (ODM) in which they are assigned a design responsibility other than manufacturing products. The ODM arrangement necessitates a close interaction between clients and suppliers, which brings about intense conflict. Conflict has been recognized as an important factor affecting NPD performance including product quality. This paper studies the conflict handling practices of Hong Kong ODM suppliers based on 87 survey data. The results show that the suppliers frequently adopt effective conflict handling practices by which they can develop products of good quality through better design decisions. The results also suggest that the use of ineffective conflict handling behaviors, particularly avoiding, should be reduced for better product quality.

Exploring the Use of Balanced Scorecards in Swedish Health Care Organizations

Kollberg, Beata,Elg, Mattias The Korean Society for Quality Management 2006 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.7 No.2

Many Swedish health care organizations have during the last decade started implementing the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a systematic way of following-up and analyzing their activities. However, the knowledge of its use and contribution in a health care context is insufficient. Based on a multiple case study the authors explore the use of the BSC in the Swedish health care services. The authors conclude that the concept in a health care context is used as a quality management tool that make new demands on management. In addition, the authors bring out important factors for a long-term use of the BSC.

A Study of Environmental Management Investment Allocation

Tien, Shiaw-Wen,Chang, Ting-Ting,Chung, Yi-Chan,Chen, Ching-Piao,Tsai, Chih-Hung The Korean Society for Quality Management 2008 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.9 No.2

The $21^{st}$ century is a new century of environmental protection. Environmental protection is one of the most important subject matters yet to come. Moreover, as the public pays more attention to environmental problems, enterprises should increase their investment in environmental management. Therefore, determining the investment level for environmental management and allocating the investment to associated environmental management activities has become a major task. The principal and agent theory and sales response functions are used for analysis in this research. The allocation of capital investment in environmental management is found to have significant impact on the aggregate sales response, aggregate profit and investment level. Therefore, in preparing the budget for environmental management, enterprises should focus on investment allocation decisions, determine the investment level and allocation method using integrated means, and apply submarket data in the allocation decision-making process. In other words, in setting the investment level, executive management should take managers' willingness into consideration. In allocating capital investment, managers should identify the optimal allocation method based on submarket characteristics.