Special issue for the Multinational Alliance for the Advancement of Organisational Excellence

Citation

Hensler, D. (2002), "Special issue for the Multinational Alliance for the Advancement of Organisational Excellence", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 6 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2002.26706baa.001

Special issue for the Multinational Alliance for the Advancement of Organisational Excellence

Special issue for the Multinational Alliance for the Advancement of Organisational Excellence

This special issue of Measuring Business Excellence consists of a selection of papers presented at the Second International Research Conference of the Multinational Alliance for the Advancement of Organisational Excellence (MAAOE). The conference brought together researchers and practitioners representing over 15 countries from around the globe to explore conceptual, empirical and practical matters of organisational excellence. While many of the papers addressed business excellence, others addressed excellence in the educational, health, not-for-profit, and governmental sectors.

MAAOE was formed in November 1998 with a vision of creating, disseminating and applying knowledge relevant to the advancement of organisational excellence. MAAOE sees next-generation quality management as being multinational, multidisciplinary and performance focused. MAAOE's participant profile is consistent with that view, numbering approximately 400 individuals from a broad array of disciplinary backgrounds that hail from more than 20 nations on five continents. The MAAOE vision is supported by three strategic intents, each with several supporting goals and objectives. These strategic intents are the creation, dissemination and application of new knowledge to advance organisational excellence. Organisational excellence is regarded as the overall way of working that balances stakeholder concerns and increases the probability of long-term organisational success through operational, customer-related, financial, and marketplace performance excellence.

In this issue we present seven papers that we believe will have special interest to our readership. They address business excellence in a variety of countries including Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, France, and Great Britain. The contributors are Milé Terziovski (Australia), Danny Samson and David Challis (Australia), Jacob Eskildsen, Kai Kristensen and Hans Juhl (Denmark), J.P. Briffaut and G. Saccone (France), Louise Boulter and Tony Bendell (Great Britain), Valérie Barraud-Didier and Sylvie Guerrero (France), and Doug Hensler and Rick Edgeman (United States).

The empirical piece by Terziovski examines a strategic approach or radical innovation and continuous improvement in Australian and New Zealand manufacturing firms. He finds that a bottom-up continuous improvement strategy is preferred when the objective is customer satisfaction and productivity. In contrast, he finds that a top-down strategy is preferred when the objective is increasing technological competitiveness. An integrated strategy of the two does not provide substantial explanation of performance excellence.

In a conceptual paper from Australia, Samson and Challis examine patterns of business excellence. They describe a holistic management system with guiding principles common to "best" companies. They detail 14 guiding principles that demonstrate patterns of business excellence.

Eskildsen, Kristensen and Juhl examine the Danish case relative to the EFQM excellence model criterion weights. While the allocation of weights across Danish companies is fairly stable, save one criterion, they find that the EFQM criterion weights and the way that companies are working in Denmark are not consistent.

In a conceptual piece, Briffaut and Saccone examine the effect of process modeling on business performance sustainability. The processes implemented incorporate deliverables costing, operations control, and information systems design in a system that aligns these with business procedures and organisation structure.

In a study of UK-based SMEs, Boulter and Bendell address the question of how ISO 9000:2000 can help companies achieve excellence. They studied over 1,000 respondents to a survey aimed at providing company views of the value of the new standard in their efforts toward excellence and what they need to accomplish to make the standard work. They provide additional perspectives from face-to-face interviews with personnel from non-certified companies.

Barraud-Didier and Guerrero examine the impact of the social innovation of high-involvement practices on French companies. They study effect on firm performance of changes to high-involvement practices in a survey of 180 companies and find that the relationship is positive. Additionally, their work shows that "bundling" these practices provides a stronger impact than the sum of the individual practices.

Finally, Hensler and Edgeman present a conceptual and graphical model that addresses BEST business excellence. In a joint optimisation model, they show how firms can seek to achieve economic, social, and environmental sustainability through the implementation of technology. Their conceptual framework holds implications for global, continent, country, industry and firm optimisation.

We think that you will find that these contributions have substantial and significant use in the practitioner arena as either readily applicable methods or food for thought. We hope that our readers find this work useful in advancing the excellence of their efforts.

Doug Hensler