Innovation, quality management and learning: Short-term and longer-term effects

Understanding and application of quality costs in automotive manufacturing companies in North Macedonia: empirical study

Purpose

This study aims at presenting deeper insights regarding the understanding and application of the quality costs (CoQ) in the automotive manufacturing industry. The empirical research included three general determinants: reasons for, difficulties during and benefits from implementing quality costs, as well as two specific determinants: measuring and evaluating quality cost elements.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical research methodology employs the expert evaluation method – the Delphi method, using a survey questionnaire comprising a total of 200 questions, and answered by 9 companies.

Findings

The survey results showed that companies do recognize the reasons for implementing quality costs as a need arising from the quality management standards, the lack of knowledge of quality costs by employees and management as the biggest difficulty while the biggest benefit includes the quality costs enhance the company competitiveness. The costs competence and qualification, the quality management system costs, the costs for improvement, the production control costs, the input control costs, the new measuring and control equipment calibration costs, the costs related to scrap, repairs and product finishing are the most significant elements of the quality costs.

Research limitations/implications

This study is limited by the small number of surveyed companies from the automotive cluster.

Practical implications

The proposed quality costs model provides to the management to conceive CoQ elements as possible drivers in the improvement process of product quality. The structure and the nature of the CoQ elements is expected to advance the process of detailing the quality costs elements.

Originality/value

The novelty of this paper refers to development of a generic quality cost model, whose relevance is confirmed by the structuring of the model with elements published in literature and validating in research companies.

Product quality, network effects, and efficiency of network markets

The objective of our study is to capture the roles of product quality and network effects in the success and efficiency of network markets under strategic settings that defined in terms of market share as a strategic factor and profit as a financial indicator. The research paper shows that the efficiency of network markets depends heavily on the phase adjustment of competition models and the balance of network effects and product quality among enterprises. the network market is always efficient in price competition, but not true in quantity competition when the network effect difference is sufficiently large or/and the quality difference is relatively small, then network effects may play a perverse role in market efficiency. The main findings reveal that network effects do not always enhance the role of quality in market efficiency and market growth. The research outcomes point to high quality enterprises’ attitude toward compatibility with enterprises with large network effects. This research paper also offers insights on government intervention to correct the distorted impacts of sufficiently large network effects on the efficiency of network markets.

A global database for conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses in innovation and quality management

Innovation and quality management are two fundamental business orientations that complement each other in improving performance and are important drivers of long-term economic growth. These themes have generated widespread attention in the literature; however, most of these studies mainly focused on a narrow area and only in a short term. No systematic effort has been made to build an extended bibliometric database regarding these research areas, which can be immediately used to conduct literature reviews. This study presents a complete (from 1975–2021), up-to-date, preprocessed and geocoded bibliometric database combining published articles of the two themes. The data collection was performed following the PRISMA methodology. The database consists of seven data tables, including one core dataset with 59,231 records and six citation network-related tables, including latitude and longitude values of the affiliations. These data will benefit researchers conducting comparative and in-depth analyses, such as gaining an overview of relevant existing studies, identifying relevant trends and gaining opportunities for a variety of geographic analyses.

Measurement(s)	Scientific Publication
Technology Type(s)	Systematic Review
Sample Characteristic - Environment	Innovation and Quality Management
Sample Characteristic - Location	Global

ORGANISING FOR INNOVATION IN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS: ECONOMETRIC EVIDENCE FROM THE UK

Undertaking innovation involves a range of different activities from ideation to the commercialisation of innovations. Each activity may have very different resources and organisational requirements, however, most prior studies treat innovation as a single un-differentiated activity. Here, using new survey data for professional service firms (PSFs) in the UK, we are able to examine separately how a range of organisational work practices influence success in ideation and commercialisation. In particular, we use principal component analysis (PCA) to identify and compare the benefits of four groups of organisational work practices relating to strategy & information sharing, recruitment & training, work flexibility & discretion and culture & leadership. Strong contrasts emerge between those work practices that are important for success in ideation and commercialisation. Work practices linked to culture & leadership are important for ideation activities, while strategy &information sharing practices are more strongly associated with commercialisation success. The results suggest clear managerial implications depending on the priority

Quality certification and firm performance. The mediation of human capital

Purpose

This paper investigates the impact of adopting quality management standards like ISO9001 on a firm's performance and the mediator role of human capabilities within firms in this relationship. The article analyses this mediator effect in the context of an emerging economy that set a policy reform aimed at increase ISO adoption and with a large share of informal labour markets.

Design/methodology/approach

This study implements a quantitative approach, applying a Difference in Differences-DiD model with a Propensity Score Matching on fixed effect panel data analysis of a sample of certified and non-certified firms using firm-level data obtained from the national statistics office of Colombia. This methodology allows having comparable groups before the policy implementation. It reduces differences in observable characteristics and controls for parallel trends in primary outcomes before the policy reform.

Findings

The research findings suggest that after Colombian policy reform of the quality system (2006), firms that adopted ISO 9001 certification increased innovation (5.2%), labour productivity (4.6%), sales (5.7%) and wages (4.9%). Furthermore, it shows that the share of permanent workers is an essential mediator in adopting quality programs. Adopters firms with a large percentage of temporary workers weaken their initial investment in quality infrastructure.

Research limitations/implications

This research does not consider one key aspect. This is the lack of information about the organizational culture inside Colombian organizations that is related to a successful implementation of Quality Management standards like ISO 9001. However, it does not affect the conclusion about the mediation effect of human capital in the relationship between ISO 9001 and firm performance.

Practical implications

The study covered all the Colombian manufacturing firms with ten or more employees. It provides critical insight for managers to value implementing ISO 9001 certification and appropriately put attention to enhancing their firms' human capital in emerging economies. Also, a policy implication of the paper is that governmental efforts to strengthen quality infrastructure in emerging economies should also include steps to increase a firm's investment in human capital.

Originality/value

This study provides further support for government policies to strengthen firms' incentives to adopt modern management practices. The strong effects of implementing these management practices on sales, productivity and innovation have been identified. Furthermore, the investments in quality infrastructure must be accompanied by investment in human capital and workforce stability.

The influence of standards and patents on long-term economic growth

Formal standards codify knowledge. Next to patents representing the generation of innovative knowledge, standards can hence be used to proxy the diffusion of innovative knowledge in macroeconomic growth models. Previous work mainly investigates the positive impact of in particular patents, but also standards on economic growth in short term, single country studies. This study is the first to examine the long-term effects of formal standards and patents on economic growth in a panel of eleven EU-15 countries between 1981 and 2014 using panel cointegration techniques. From policy makers' perspective standardization has also gained recently an increasing attention, e.g. in the call for the development of a European standardization strategy in the update of the industrial strategy. Our results show that European and international standards foster growth for the group of countries but that national standards have ambiguous growth effects in the panel. For patents, no significant effect on growth in this group of countries is identified.

Measuring the impact of soft and hard total quality management factors on customer behavior based on the role of innovation and continuous improvement

Purpose

Total quality management (TQM) is a part of the total quality assurance perspective. This system, which is considered as a type of managerial philosophy, employs all organizational levels to constantly ameliorate the quality of goods and service. The purpose of this paper is to measure the effect of hard and soft TQM factors on the behavior of customers based on the role of innovation and continuous improvement.

Design/methodology/approach

The research model was extracted from TQM variables in hard and soft parts, customer behavior, innovation and continuous improvement by reviewing the literature and research background. Based on this, a questionnaire was prepared and then, distributed among the statistical population including 374 project managers, quality assurance managers as well as quality control managers by using simple random sampling. All sub-criteria of questionnaire were determined using Delphi technique, to test the research model. Having gathered the questionnaire, the hypotheses were analyzed by using structural equation modeling and AMOS software.

Findings

According to the statistical analyses, TQM has a significant effect on customer behavior through continuous improvement of the quality and innovation. Also, regarding the obtained results, the highest effect was related to the effect of hard TQM factors on customer behavior through innovation as 0.62. Furtheremore, TQM soft factors such as human resource management have significant effect on customer behavior through quality improvement and innovation. Moreover, TQM hard factors are effective on customer behavior through quality improvement and innovation.

Research limitations/implications

The questionnaire was designed and distributed in order to evaluate the hypotheses in this study. One of the primary rationales behind utilizing this method instead of other methods such as interview was high geographical distribution of organizations. Using other moderator variables such as knowledge management, customer knowledge management and customer emotions can be conducted in the future in this area.

Practical implications

Changing the organizational relationships from task orientation to the process orientation, and controlling the organizational performance by measuring process innovations and improvements, while paying attention to the customer satisfaction system are suggested in this paper. These implications should be implemented in construction projects by department of project management office. Furtheremore, providing different communication for receiving the opinions of the customer and imposing them in the product and service, paying attention to the response system and customer complaint, implementation of this process in the organization, and having a process approach for presenting and developing services are the main subjects in this regard.

Originality/value

Unlike previous studies on this subject, a structural equation model is used for assessing unobservable latent constructs and their related interrelationship in measuring the impact of TQM factors. Focusing on customer behavior which is a broader domain than customer satisfation through continuous improvement of the quality and innovation is another value of this research.

The relationship between TQM practices and organisational innovation outcomes

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of slack (both moderating and mediating) to stimulate the relationship between total quality management (TQM) factors and innovation outcomes relative to gaining competitive industry advantages.

Design/methodology/approach

The research methodology includes a multi-item scale questionnaire completed in three waves between 2016 and 2017, and later analysed in 2018. A final response rate of 29.5 per cent was obtained, representing 190 organisations from both manufacturing and service industries in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the multi-collinearity, moderation and mediation analysis.

Findings

Analysis confirmed that factors such as continuous improvement (CI), human resource management (HRM) and information measurement (IM) were positively linked to innovation. However, when slack was introduced as a moderator, innovation outcomes were stimulated through HRM and IM. The results indicate that slack acts as a full mediator for management leadership but only partially mediates supplier quality, IM, CI, HRM and process management.

Research limitations/implications

In terms of geographical coverage, research was limited to the UAE. Organisations striving for excellence through innovation may benefit from the outcomes, as they help in understanding the relationship between TQM and innovation moderated and/or mediated by slack. This could also lead businesses to develop new strategies that harmonise TQM policies with “rationale” slack policies, thus, promoting innovation.

Originality/value

This study is the first to examine the use of slack to stimulate the relationship between TQM factors and innovation outcomes. Using slack as a mediator can help in understanding when TQM might influence innovation, while slack as a moderator could invert the relationship between the two.

Does IS0 9001 quality management system support product innovation? An analysis from the sociotechnical systems theory

Purpose

Building on the sociotechnical systems theory (STS), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct impacts of the social and technical QMs (ISO 9001) practices on both incremental and radical product innovation and the direct relationships relaying QMs (ISO 9001) as a sociotechnical system with incremental and radical product innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper opted for a survey instrument to collect quantitative data from 82 Moroccan certified ISO 9001 firm. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the research hypotheses.

Findings

Results show that the social and technical QMs (ISO 9001) practices do not have a significant relationship with incremental and radical product innovation when they are taken in isolation. However, when ranged together to constitute a whole sociotechnical system of QMs (ISO 9001), QMs (ISO 9001) prove to have a strong positive and significant impact on incremental product innovation and a weak positive and significant impact on radical product innovation.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the small sample size that might weaken the significance of the results and the use of cross-sectional data, this research may lack a large statistical generalizability vis-à-vis the analytical generalization.

Practical implications

The results provide useful implications for managers, suggesting that in order to develop their product innovation, they must ensure that both QMs (ISO 9001) social and technical practices achieve a high level of integration without allowing some quality practices to take over.

Originality/value

Based on the STS, this study is the first to focus primarily on the role of the multi-dimensional structure of QMs (ISO 9001), i.e. social and technical practices, in incremental and radical product innovation.

Standardizing Innovation Management: An Opportunity for SMEs in the Aerospace Industry

In a globalized marketplace, the competition in the aerospace industry has increased significantly. Producers can choose between many suppliers. These suppliers have to comply with more requirements and technical specifications, as well as take on greater responsibilities that originally fell on producers. In this context, business opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are limited, but still suppliers must try to leverage the maximum strategic advantage of the few that present. Adopting research, development and innovation (R+D+i) practices has proven to bring great benefits to companies and allows them to gain significant competitive advantages. However, the process of designing, implementing and testing R+D+i-related processes is not straightforward, nor it has been addressed in the recent research on SMEs. In this paper, a case study of a Spanish innovative small company providing industrial metrology and quality services is analyzed. Thanks to an internal decision-making process, an R+D+i management system based on the UNE 166.002:2014 standard is eventually adopted. A pilot project is closely followed up to test the robustness of the system implementation. The R+D+i management system has allowed the company to streamline its innovation activities, establish objectives to better allocate essential resources, organize high performing innovation units within the organization structure, increase the clients’ confidence, improve the company’s competitiveness, carry out technological surveillance, and get more patented technology, among many others. Adoption steps taken by this SME are generalizable to other SMEs from other industries and show how an R+D+i management system can be chosen, designed, implemented and tested in the context of Industry 4.0 (I4.0).

Quality Culture of Manufacturing Enterprises: A Possible Way to Adaptation to Industry 4.0

The concept of Industry 4.0 means a new paradigm of modern manufacturing. This phenomenon requires continuous innovation processes and technological development from each enterprise. Traditional concepts of quality must absorb changes and prepare themselves for new challenges. The studies linked to successful adaptation to Industry 4.0 focus mostly on technical dimensions and forget the impact of organisational culture. One should, however, remember that quality culture plays a crucial role in the organisational culture of manufacturing enterprises with elements of quality management implemented. Developed quality cultures support the innovation environment, which is why it is necessary for the enterprises to identify the current level of their quality culture and detect significant factors that differentiate individual quality cultures and focus on them. Given this fact, the aim of the paper is to analyse the typical cultures and quality concepts and to detect the factors that differentiate individual quality cultures in Slovakia. We use data from our own survey; dependences were indicated by means of correspondence analysis and the test of proportion. The improvement and assurance of quality, the use of information and the overall effectiveness are significant factors detected by the discriminant analysis. The conclusions of the survey may be used by scientific researchers but especially by manufacturing enterprises interested in quality which are coming to terms with the era of Industry 4.0.

IN-HOUSE OR OUTSOURCING SKILLS: HOW BEST TO MANAGE FOR INNOVATION?

Innovation is essential for driving business survival, development, and growth. Today, managers within firms continuously search for new ways to gain competitive advantage. In many cases, this comes from the effective use of intangible assets such as workplace skills and abilities. Despite this, little is known about what types of skills are required for innovation, whether these vary by innovation-type, or whether it matters if these skills are outsourced. This paper addresses these issues using data collected on eight skill types as part of the 2008–2010 Irish Community Innovation Survey. We find that there is substantial heterogeneity in the effectiveness of skills at generating different kinds of innovation. In addition, for some types of innovation, it is best to develop the skills in-house (e.g., Engineering skills for product innovation) while for others it is best to outsource the skills (e.g., Multimedia skills for process and organisational innovation).