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Explores recent approaches to international best practices and how they relate to context and innovation in health services.

Critical review of existing research on best practices and how they created, diffused, and translate in the international setting.

Best practices are widely used and discussed, but processes by which they are developed and diffused across international settings are not well understood.

Further research is needed on innovation and dissemination of best practices internationally.

This commentary points out directions for future research on innovation and diffusion of best practices, particularly in the international setting.

A recognition that pockets of business and process excellence existed alongside mediocrity led Texas Instruments to establish a Best Practice Sharing programme under the direction of the Office of Best Practices. The Office of Best Practices, launched in 1994, is a dedicated unit which helps Texas Instruments’ worldwide businesses to identify, access and transfer best practices. TI’s Best Practice Sharing initiative was implemented to provide a mechanism for dialogue between TI leadership and TI employees and to facilitate collaboration based on the company’s strengths and business gaps. The goal is to provide a quicker path to achieving business excellence. In addition to providing these solutions, the Best Practice Sharing project has provided TI employees with a greater sense of the synergies possible across the company and a greater feeling of shared vision. This paper reviews the TI‐BEST programme, the Best Practice Sharing initiative, and examines the lessons learnt and benefits gained from best practices knowledge sharing.

Features two case studies. The first of these focuses on Royal Mail, provider of a universal delivery service within the UK. Notes how total quality management has evolved within the organization and how the role of internal good practice has underpinned the development of a continuous improvement environment. Identifies the key enablers for the effective transfer of good practice and the process models adopted. The second case study focuses on Texas Instruments Europe, part of the TI Group and a previous winner of the European Foundation for Quality Management Award. Investigates how different sources provide an extensive database of knowledge for the organization wishing to locate best practices. Identifies the approach adopted to best practice sharing in order to remain focused and achieve maximum benefits within the shortest timeframe. The organization has set up its own office of best practice (OBP) to support the best practice drive and the article focuses on how the OBP expertise is deployed to maximum effect within the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there are some existing widespread and common models and definitions for organizational change best practice in the literature.

This paper builds on previous research to define a model of evidence‐based change management base practice. A structured literature review is used to search for contemporary models and definitions of organizational change best practice.

No consistent definitions of organizational change best practice are to be found in the literature.

The paper provides a snapshot of the current literature on organizational change best practice. Implications of the findings on organizational change best practice are discussed and further research suggested.

The present study was undertaken to identify what practices are considered best business practices by business firms in Sri Lanka and to explore whether there exist different practices in different sectors.

Data were collected from managers attending postgraduate and mid‐career development programs in a large Sri Lankan university. A total of 71 managers responded to the questionnaire representing 71 firms. The data were analyzed with principal component factor (Varimax rotation) technique to identify the best practices and Tukey's post hoc test was employed to compare them across different sectors.

The findings indicate that the following are considered to be best business practices in Sri Lanka: a bias for action, quality focus, customer orientation, relationships with customers, relationships with employees and outsourcing. These best practices belong to four key performance areas, namely external market orientation, internal organizational process, current business performance, and internal customer orientation. It was also found that medium‐sized firms are different from large, and service firms are different from firms in the trade sector in terms of a bias for action. Further, firms operating in the overseas markets and manufacturing firms are significantly higher in “quality focus” than their counterparts.

The researchers suggest that future research be undertaken using large samples, taking the four‐dimensional framework as the conceptual framework.

Though the history of best business practices runs into the early 1980s, empirical studies on the topic are limited both in the West and the East. During the last two decades a number of lists of best practices appeared with little empirical support, thus causing a research gap.

Sharing information security best practices between experts via knowledge management systems is valuable for improving information security practices, exchanging expertise, mitigating security risks, spreading knowledge, reducing costs and saving efforts. The purpose of this paper is developing a conceptual model to enhance the transfer of information security best practices between professionals in virtual communities through a Web-based knowledge management system to exchange their successful experience in handling different information security situations.

The model is validated by surveying 17 experts’ reviews on the correctness of the model’s structure and its related components through applying deep rich peer debriefing to test suitability. Quantitative data has been collected to achieve confirmatory results.

The resulting model incorporates five main components that support the formal mechanism for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge: identification, classification, storage, validation and sharing. The success of knowledge sharing is highly dependent on the active collaboration of community members and highly influenced by motivation. Validating transferred knowledge is vital for ensuring the credibility of the system.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is one of the first to highlight the role of integrating knowledge management to enhance the effective share and reuse of information security best practices knowledge. The research results can support researchers investigating the topic and generate trustworthy literature to guide information security virtual community developers.

The paper aims to provide guidelines of companies in identifying their best practices with reference to a French example.

The paper describes first the evolution of benchmarking, which nowadays is more and more based on the identification of good practices to acquire or transfer. Then we present a typology of best practices which can help a company to discern more effectively what could be relevant to exchange in benchmarking. Finally, we describe the best practice specification (BPS) method, which helps a company to locate and specify its good practices likely to be transferred within the framework of benchmarking.

The paper underlines the difficulty of a company to clearly define what a “best practice” is and the lack of methods which could help it to identify its best practices.

Future research will be to develop a method of acquisition and representation of the best practices. In particular, it will be a question of studying if certain models that are currently proposed to represent knowledge (GAMETH, KADS, MKSM, MEREX, …) can be used for the acquisition and the formalization of these best practices.

The BPS method is presently applied in TECUMSEH Europe on its Cessieu site (France). The company is identifying the best practices currently put into place by the various sectors of manufacturing of the site on the process “To deploy progress effort (SPC and TPM)”. The long term objective of the company is to apply these practices in all of the manufacturing sectors of the site, as well as on those other three sites in the group.

This paper offers practical help to a company to identify and characterize its best practices.

Presents the findings of a global survey, undertaken by the European Centre for Total Quality Management (UK), which was aimed at identifying the critical success factors for the “effective internal transfer of best practices”. Overall, 227 organisations took part in the study. Participant organisations came from 32 different countries, all involved in benchmarking. The participants represented a wide cross‐section of organisational sectors ranging from non‐profit and government agencies to environmental management services and auto parts manufacturers. The survey shed light on the process and methodologies used by organisations to identify and evaluate best practices, and the process used for post‐implementation evaluation to assess the benefits gained. The results have highlighted the importance of “involvement” (training, ownership, and open communication) of all employees for the effective transfer of best practices. Concludes with an overview of the future issues that are expected to influence the spread and application of benchmarking and best practice transfer.

The purpose of this paper is to examine human resource management (HRM) practices of the top 25 companies identified as “best” in India in 2011. This paper provides insights into HRM practices of a leading country in Asia that is playing a very important role in the global economy.

This conceptual paper will use for its research analysis the business reports of the Outlook Business Magazine and AON Hewitt. AON Hewitt is a global human resource consulting company and is an established authority in identifying “best” companies in India since 2004. A qualitative content analysis was done of the business report to identify predominant themes.

The analysis identified how the “best” 25 Indian companies offer progressive HRM practices that required careful investment and collaboration. This research showcases seven specific HRM themes that include elaborate staffing, investment in learning, work–life balance, egalitarian practices, developmental performance culture, generous benefits and engagement initiatives.

This paper provides preliminary guidelines for global practitioners who may be interested in doing business in India. It also provides a model of “best” HRM practices adopted by 25 companies that could help other organizations identify successful HRM practices in India. Among the 25 companies, 16 are Indian companies and 9 are subsidiaries of multinationals.

This paper outlines HRM “best” practices of organizations in an emerging Asian economy that has not been addressed before. This paper hopes to bridge this paucity in the extant literature by showcasing the “best” HRM practices from 25 “best” companies in India. It also provides an Indian model of “best” HRM practices that can be tested by other scholars for future studies.

Organisations with low absenteeism and low turnover can be distinguished from organisations with high absenteeism and turnover through the identification and implementation of sophisticated and strategic best practices such as benchmarking relative cost position, developing a corporate ethic, valuing the negotiation of an enterprise agreement, and not having a written OH&S policy. Several of the remaining 16 practices identified in the literature as best practices, including benchmarking customer service, having a policy addressing recruitment, selection and promotion, were shown to be standard industry practice in the AFI. The findings suggest that benchmarking allows organisations to identify and replicate the innovations of competitors, but competitive advantage requires innovation rather than replication.