Total quality management in Sri Lankan service organizations

Detection of unusual scores of individual students for immediate remedy according to daily assessment data

Purpose

The availability of daily assessment data in a centralized monitoring system at school provides the opportunity to detect unusual scores soon after the assessment is carried out. This paper introduces a model for the detection of unusual scores of individual students to immediately improve performances that deviate from a normal state.

Design/methodology/approach

A student's ability, a subject's difficulty level, a student's specific ability in a subject, and the difficulty level of an assessment in a subject are selected as factor effects of a linear ANOVA model. Through analysis of variance, a case study is conducted based on 330 data points of assessment scores of primary grade students retrieved from an international school in Japan.

Findings

The actual score is below the lower control limit, which is recognized as an unusual score, and the score can be detected immediately after sitting for an assessment and is beneficial for students to take immediate remedies based on daily assessment. This is demonstrated through a case study.

Originality/value

The detection of unusual scores based on a linear model of individual students soon after each assessment benefits from immediate remedy aligns with a daily management concept. The daily assessment data in a school system enable detection based on individual students, subject-wise and assessment-wise to improve student performances in the same academic year.

The moderating effect of structural barriers on TQM-performance relationship in Egyptian service organizations

Purpose

This paper aims to empirically investigate how structural barriers affect the relationship between total quality management (TQM) practices implementation and organizational performance in service industries.

Design/methodology/approach

This research hypothesized the moderation effect of structural barriers on the relationship between TQM practices implementation and organizational performance. A questionnaire was adopted to collect data form 153 Egyptian service companies. Moderated regression analysis was used to test the study hypothesis.

Findings

The empirical analysis suggests that structural barriers partially moderate the relationship between TQM practices implementation and organizational performance. The analysis reveals that the effect of Quality Improvement, Process Improvement, External and Internal Relations and Employee Development – being as TQM dimensions – on performance is moderated by structural barriers. While the results provided insufficient evidence on the moderating effect of structural barriers on the relationship between both Performance Management – being as a TQM dimension – and performance.

Research limitations/implications

This research presents a new perspective for researches to understand the TQM–Performance relationship in the light of the contingency theory. However, the adopted sampling technique and the small sample size might limit the generalizability of the research findings.

Practical implications

This study provides useful insights for service organizations about the necessity of developing suitable structural platform for supporting their TQM efforts to boost their performance which, in turn, improves their competitiveness.

Originality/value

This research proposed and empirically validated how structural barriers play a significant role as moderators to the relationship between TQM implementation and organizational performance within service organizations context.

Adopting total quality management to enhance service delivery in medical records

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which total quality management (TQM) initiatives can improve the quality of services delivery at the medical records unit of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) to help meet the expectations and aspirations of patients and customers of the hospital.

Design/methodology/approach

This research adopted the survey strategy as its research design. The total study population consisted of 114 medical records staff of the KBTH. Questionnaires and personal observations were employed as the data collection instruments. The study recorded a response rate of 98 per cent. Data gathered from respondents were analysed in qualitative terms.

Findings

The overall finding of this study was that, although the medical records department of the KBTH had a fair degree of understanding on the benefits of TQM to records management service delivery, the exiting values for TQM did not meet the framework of good TQM practice, principles and standards.

Research limitations/implications

Even though the subjects for the study were from the biggest hospital in Ghana, the findings of this study may not be generalised to the whole country.

Practical implications

The study has demonstrated the need for the medical records department of the KBTH to have and develop good TQM standards to improve the quality of services to patients and varied customers of the hospital.

Originality/value

The literature reviewed indicated that this study is a maiden attempt to examine how TQM initiatives including sensitivity, customer satisfaction, commitment of top management, team work, effective leadership and participatory management, people development and effective and open communication can improve the quality of medical records service delivery at the KBTH in Ghana.

Benchmarking of TQM practices in INGOs: a literature review

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to aggregate significant part of debates in the field of International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) toward performance improvement by benchmarking of the Total Quality Management (TQM) practices, and to propose TQM-Benchmarking model as a seed for future research in the context of INGOs.

Design/methodology/approach

– TQM practices for INGOs were first identified based on critical synthesis of the literature for both, existing for-profit TQM literature and the INGOs field-specific quality and accountability frameworks, initiatives, and practices (Jordan introduced as an example) followed by solicitation of the opinions of experts and colleagues through personal interviews and focus group discussions to define the proposed TQM-Benchmarking model.

Findings

– TQM-Benchmarking model of six practices vital to INGOs performance are proposed by this review including leadership and management commitment, beneficiaries focus and participation, partnership management for sustainability, human resource (HR) focus, process management and learning and continuous improvement, and use of quality information.

Originality/value

– While TQM practices succeed in improving performance of for-profit organizations, this review proposed TQM-Benchmarking model with field-specific practical pillars of performance improvement in the INGOs.