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The purpose of this paper is to examine questions concerning service improvement and the possible contribution of action learning as a means of bringing about both personal and organisational development. A second companion paper deals with the facilitation issues in this context (submitted to Leadership in Health Services, December 2007).

This research reports on the experiences of participants on a leadership development programme, who were seeking to effect service improvements in their professional domains. Data were collected via telephone interviews, focus groups, action learning sets and a world cafe event.

The paper concludes that the definition of “service improvement” is multiple and problematic. It concludes that action learning and service improvement can be natural partners but only if the action learning design is crafted to the specifics of the context.

This case study was developed at a time of great turmoil in the NHS. The findings may be taken as indicative and instructive rather than reproducible.

NHS service improvements are failing to keep pace with targets due to an over‐reliance on centrally initiated programmes and a deficit in local efforts. NHS and other managers will find this paper useful to help them bring about service improvements at local level.

As far as the authors know there are no other published accounts of service improvement initiatives developed via action learning.

Reviews the range of quality activity in a National Health Service hospital trust, using a staff questionnaire survey, self‐assessment against the Baldrige Quality Award criteria, and the application of the SERVQUAL approach to service quality assessment. Reviews the acute health care quality programme literature. Finds that there are needs for greater integration of quality effort, to engage with patients in a more meaningful manner, and to achieve greater commitment and involvement from clinicians and managers. Identifies lack of time and resources as a major barrier to greater application of quality programmes. Explores ways of developing a more holistic and integrated programme of quality improvement. Describes the creation and implementation of a model for continuous improvement in health care quality.

This paper presents nine key considerations for improvement in health and social care drawn from recent national and international experience and describes the ways in which some of these ideas are being incorporated into local whole systems intervention.

Outlines and describes the results of research at Cardiff Business School into the sustainability of process improvement involving shop floor personnel. The study identified a number of factors that influence the success or inhibit progress in terms of performance and sustainable improvement. The findings identify what companies perceive to be inhibitors and enablers for sustainability, within 21 companies who have conducted process improvement (PI) activities using a common intervention approach. The paper presents five classificatory profiles and concludes that managers can easily identify specific inhibitors in their own companies, but find it difficult to formulate specific enablers associated with successful and sustainable improvement. The general and cultural nature of the identified enablers indicates that managers perceive progressing PI activities are reliant on a change of culture within their organisations in parallel with “up‐skilling” the technical knowledge of employees for change to be successfully enacted. The lack of specific processes to change culture, identified in the enablers, also indicates that managers do not know what to do to change their cultures or how best to deal with the inherently challenging and demanding nature of process improvement with shop floor operators.

This study aims to use pre‐treatment assessment scores to predict the drop out of 103 incarcerated male violent perpetrators undertaking a long‐term aggression programme, namely the Cognitive Self Change Programme (CSCP), in six English prisons. A hierarchy of best predictors of attrition in this sample is developed. Results found eight out of the 46 assessment variables analysed had a significant association with treatment drop out. Further to this, discriminant function analysis predicted group membership with 80% accuracy, successfully distinguishing perpetrators who dropped out of the programme from those who completed it. The findings support the use of identifying risk factors pre‐treatment to predict drop out and offer a practical way to identify group members who are likely to drop out of the CSCP in addition to identifying markers for programme improvement. The need for further research to increase our understanding of the underlying causal explanations that link specific assessment items to treatment dropout is discussed.

The paper presents results of a pilot programme aimed at efficiency improvement in a multi‐site factories system for automotive component production. Firstly, the company background has been outlined and main problems of the old manufacturing system have been examined. In order to increase competitiveness in global and turbulent markets a renewed organization approach has been proposed based on total manufacturing management and just‐in‐time methodologies. Improvements in set‐up and lead times, work in progress, material handling, product and process quality, environmental effects, have all been assessed, keeping a quite low project cost (around $4 million).

Physical activity (PA) has been widely studied for its individual and societal benefits, but research on how organisations can effectively promote workplace physical activity (WPA) programmes is lacking. This article aims to examine the organisational-level benefits and value drivers of corporate PA programmes whilst also exploring the factors that motivate employees to participate in these programmes.

The authors used the self-determination theory (SDT) and the Hungarian Sport Motivation Scale (H-SMS) – which was modified and validated from the original English SMS scale, which is one of the six most highly cited motivation questionnaires in sports – to assess employees' motivation towards sports. In conjunction, in-depth interviews with company representatives were conducted to create a mind map outlining the impacts and advantages of WPA programmes. The study involved interviews with 13 managers in Hungary and a survey completed by 728 employees.

The findings of the authors' study indicate that WPA programmes had positive effects on employee engagement, turnover reduction and absenteeism. However, the authors' results also revealed that employee motivation to participate in these programmes was primarily driven by external factors, such as identified and introjected regulators, indicating a low level of intrinsic motivation for sports in the workplace. It is important to classify employees based on their motivation and behaviour to design and promote effective PA programmes in the workplace and to increase participation rates.

The authors' findings indicate the importance of aligning WPA programme promotion with employee motivation. This can encourage organisations to initiate their programmes, address participation challenges and strive for higher engagement rates. Further research on employee motivation can support the development of more effective communication strategies for companies in this context.

The manufacturing strategy literature suggests a number of areas in which decisions are of strategic importance. This study uses a survey of manufacturing executives from 213 business units in the United States to explore empirically the concept of strategic decision categories and improvement programmes that are related to each category. The concerns expressed by the 213 manufacturing executives are categorised and are shown to correspond fairly well with the strategic decision categories from the literature. The survey responses to questions about plans for programmes and activities to improve manufacturing over the next 2 years are also categorised. The relationships between planned programme categories and the strategic concerns that underlie them are explored and summarised.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the longitudinal effect of innovation programmes on improving the process of innovation in manufacturing SMEs. The process of innovation in organisations covers people, process and technology. Therefore interventions in the form of innovation improvement programmes often require high levels of complexity. This complexity is compounded in SMEs, where issues such as scarce resources and skill shortages must be recognised.

A multiple case research methodology combined with an innovation evaluation model is used to evaluate the longitudinal effect of an innovation intervention programme, which combined taught modules and Critical Action Learning networks over an eighteen month period. Within‐group comparisons are made.

The findings reveal that SMEs, which have high levels of innovation improvement, adopted a broad process based approach to innovation rather than using a narrow technical definition of innovation. These SMEs also developed a process of critically reflective action learning to ground the innovation in organisational practice.

There is a paucity of longitudinal research studies on innovation interventions in SMEs.

Calls for theoretically informed interventions and a more reflexive stance are apparent in social marketing. Moving from a “prove” to “improve” mentality requires evaluations that learn from experience gained to identify improvements to inform future programme success. This paper considers the value of inclusion of stakeholders in process evaluation.

Two participant groups (n = 90, n = 182) and one key stakeholder group (n = 22) were surveyed in person, over the phone and online. Open-ended qualitative responses were analysed for recurring themes.

Key stakeholders contribute unique and valuable insight into programme implementation and engagement, expanding evaluation beyond participant feedback. Most notably, the process evaluation illuminated the engagement insight of programme volunteers, mid-level expansion opportunities offered by participating chefs and the perceived value of involvement across all stakeholder groups.

The study is limited by a lack of systematic stakeholder identification and to a single context, namely food waste.

This paper affirms the importance of process evaluation and application of stakeholder theory to social marketing. These contributions suggest a widened focus for the widely accepted NSMC benchmark criteria which centre attention on the end users targeted for change. Stakeholders should be included in process evaluations given they contribute important and unique partnership insights.

This paper extends stakeholder theory use in social marketing providing showcasing potential for this approach to deliver a more reflexive stance.