Business excellence in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment (BEVUCA)

Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) in Healthcare

Our professional activity is constantly under pressure from a multitude of elements and factors that can be classified into the four components of the VUCA phenomenon-volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity-components that define the turbulence and challenges of the external environment. Considering the general elements of this phenomenon, we designed a new VUCA dimension specific to the healthcare field within which we have identified and analyzed all the factors that can influence the main actors of the doctor-patient relationship and the effects that can occur within the healthcare system in which this relationship is born. In this context, we generated the VUCA treatment in healthcare capable of mitigating the impact of this phenomenon; this treatment involves essential elements in overcoming possible crises and vulnerabilities of the medical profession. The VUCA treatment in healthcare requires combating volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity through vision, understanding, clarity, and agility, which are grounded in the doctor's need to acquire cross-functional competencies (soft skills). These competencies are applicable by using functional mechanisms and techniques that support the doctor in developing adaptability and anticipation skills, understanding the patient's needs and addressing them, and ensuring the functionality and efficiency of the healthcare system by transferring these elements from micro-management to macro-management levels.

The influence of tourism and hospitality students' perceived effectiveness of outcome-based education on their VUCA skills

The mismatch between supply and demand in the tourism and hospitality labor markets becomes increasingly serious in the past few years. The main reason for such a problem is that tourism and hospitality students are equipped with academic knowledge but lack VUCA skills. VUCA are the acronyms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. However, little research has explored the antecedent mechanism of tourism and hospitality students' VUCA skills. Hence, the purpose of the present study is to clarify the leading factors that would enhance tourism and hospitality students' perceived VUCA skills. This study collected data by distributing questionnaires to senior students majoring in tourism and hospitality management (THM) from five universities in China. The results show: First, students' perceived the effectiveness of outcome-based education (PEOBE) has a significant effect on their perceived VUCA skills and self-concept including cognitive self-concept (CSC) and affective self-concept (ASC). Second, THM students' CSC is positively related to their perceived VUCA skills. Finally, the relevance of ASC and students' perceived VUCA skills was not significant. The present study further justified that PEOBE is the prepositive variable of THM students' cognitive self-concept, supporting the linkage effect of "PEOBE → CSC → self-efficiency → perceived VUCA skills". From the practical implications, this study focuses on OBE as the entry point to explore the antecedent mechanism of THM students' perceived VUCA skills, supplying a basic formulation of educational reform policies for the administrative department of higher education around the world.

Effects of the organizational culture and knowledge exploration and exploitation on results in the EFQM model framework

Purpose

This paper aims to adopt Cameron and Quinn’s analysis of organizational culture and March’s learning framework to analyze the type of organizational culture (OC) that promotes learning competences and whether exploration and exploitation competences (ambidexterity) improve the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) results (excellent results). In addition, this research tests if these competences exercise a mediating effect in the relationship between OC and performance.

Design/methodology/approach

A model is proposed whose relationships have been tested using structural equations. The sample was obtained from the SABI database. Two hundred valid questionnaires were returned via a webpage, in which four managers from each of the 200 organizations responded.

Findings

The results support the proposed relationships. Adhocracy, hierarchy and market culture have a positive relationship with excellent results. A hierarchical culture develops exploitation competences, and a market culture develops learning ambidexterity. Moreover, exploration and exploitation increase results. Finally, these two cultures indirectly influence results through exploration and exploitation competences.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed model can help managers who implement the EFQM model to better understand how the culture of their organization promotes learning and how these two variables improve their performance.

Practical implications

Because the EFQM model requires organizations to use a knowledge management system to enhance the effect of the enabliers criteria on excellent results, the managers of these companies must know that only market and hierarchy cultures are suitable for it. Besides, this study highlights the importance of two cultural values for the implementation of the EFQM Model and, therefore, to promote excellent results: market orientation and process control.

Originality/value

This study fills an existing gap in the literature by combining exploitation, exploration, OC and EFQM results in a single model and highlights the importance of market orientation and process control for excellent results and knowledge exploration and exploitation.

Application of six sigma and the system thinking approach in COVID-19 operation management: a case study of the victorian aged care response centre (VACRC) in Australia

COVID-19 has posed many unique and critical challenges in various contexts and circumstances. This often led the stakeholders and decision-makers to depart from traditional thinking and the business-as-usual processes and to come up with innovative approaches to tackle various mission-critical situations within a short time frame. In this paper, a real-life case study of COVID-19 operation management following a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder novel integrated approach in aged care facilities in Victoria, Australia, is presented which yielded significant and positive outcomes. The purpose of the intervention was to develop an integrated system performance approach through the application of various quality management tools and techniques to achieve organizational excellence at the aged care centers. The case involved the use of mathematical models along with statistical tools and techniques to address the specific problem scenario. A system-wide management plan was proposed, involving various agencies across several residential aged care facilities during the pandemic. A three-step methodological framework was developed, where Six Sigma, a system thinking approach, and a holistic metric were proposed to manage the value chain of the pandemic management system. The experimental result analyses showed significant improvement in the management process, suggesting the validity and potential of this holistic approach to stabilize the situation and subsequently set the conditions for operations excellence within the sectors. The model offers new insight into the existing body of knowledge and offers an efficient approach to achieving operational excellence in any organization or business regardless of its type, shape and complexity, which can help practitioners in managing complex, mission-critical situations like a pandemic.

Clarifying the conceptual map of VUCA: a systematic review

Purpose

Over the past few decades, the environment for organisations has been frequently described using the acronym VUCA: a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. In spite of the popularity of this acronym, it is not unusual to find some overlap concerning the meaning of those terms, as well as poor definitions of each in the literature. Consequently, the main purpose of this paper was to conduct a systematic literature review to obtain a conceptual map of the components of VUCA and their relationships and to highlight some avenues for future research.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a systematic review of various databases between 1999 and 2021. A total of 833 papers were identified and 26 of them met the inclusion criteria for the current study.

Findings

The subsequent analysis revealed several overlaps and relationships between the four terms. Based on this analysis, the authors propose a conceptual map that could serve as a basis for future research and practice.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the exploratory nature of the study and the scarce number of empirical studies, the impact that the use of the VUCA framework has had on businesses could not be addressed.

Originality/value

By clarifying the different components of VUCA and specifying the relationships between them with a comprehensive conceptual map, this paper may contribute to more rigorous empirical research, as well as help managers and executives more effectively deal with turbulent environments.

A Systemic Perspective for Understanding Digital Transformation in Higher Education: Overview and Subregional Context in Latin America as Evidence

Since virtual education has increased from a local to a global audience, it is of great importance to understand the role that cultural and social backgrounds play in the transition to digital education. Therefore, a review of preferences and evidence among different Latin American regions and nations increases understanding. This digital transformation can be assessed under several categories of cultural, social, and economic situations. Traditionally, universities are known as formal institutions with emerging education trends, but it is mandatory to address the managerial work and implications of the institutions themselves. Particularly, universities play a relevant role in understanding the effective digital transformation in communities, but the profile of the educational system is very important for configuring this process. This research points out the main dimensions that prevent societies from increasing their educational level. By using comparative data analysis and documentary references, this paper highlights a systemic perspective for understanding the digital transformation in higher education, but it also expands the range to managerial decisions about the role educational ecosystems play in this transformation. Moreover, this study provides an overview of how relational elements configure management in higher education institutions.

An Institutional Perspective for Evaluating Digital Transformation in Higher Education: Insights from the Chilean Case

From a managerial perspective, the rapid diffusion of actions and strategies accelerating the digital transformation of institutions is critical for success. However, in education, business, and management studies, digital transformation can be understood as simple evolutionary processes that enable business models, operational processes, and experiences to be made quickly and efficiently by institutions and agents. This aspect can sometimes lead to opposition, especially when little information is available or in situations of high uncertainty. This research aims to evaluate the involvement of an institutional ecosystem in the digital transformation at universities. Using data collected in Chile, this paper analyzes how the adoption of technologies by universities provides a context for understanding digitalization, measured by the IAU World Higher Education Database (UNESCO). The main finding of this paper is that there is a wide and relevant range of impacts of technological change in higher education institutions, particularly in the categories of values and operations. Additionally, this work serves as a repository of knowledge applicable to similar situations considering the specificities of each particular case. The importance to intervene in relation to certain variables at different levels of managerial performance is described and the implications for higher education institutions are discussed in these pages.

ICT-enabled organisational flexibility to support sustainable growth in Europe amidst a pandemic

Purpose

Information and communications technology (ICT) is helping to create a sustainable information society and foster development. This study aims to investigate the interdependencies of organisational flexibility enabled by ICT, demographics and containment measures in the ever more dismal economic performances seen during COVID-19 with a view to preparing socio-economic systems for similar future shocks.

Design/methodology/approach

Using non-classical fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, the authors are able to capture the asymmetric relationships and complexities found in real life.

Findings

Analysing data acquired from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker and Eurostat, the authors find these conditions give mixed results depending on how they are combined. The results imply that countries under strict containment measures might only be able to survive when fully equipped with ICT solutions. E-commerce also plays an important role in countries with a below-average decrease in their growth rate. Put differently, the presence and absence of telework produces mixed results. If the population is old, telework seems to generate the desired outcomes. Yet, when the population is young, it might be more beneficial to avoid this practice.

Originality/value

Unlike studies that mainly assumed symmetrical effects and linear relationships, this study investigates the interdependencies of organisational and macro-level factors. On the micro level, this study is useful for managers allocating IT investments for any future occurrence of a general disaster/pandemic. On the macro level, the study can act as an example for the rest of the world regarding the appropriateness of assorted COVID-19 pandemic responses as witnessed in European countries.

Patterns emerging from the TQM paradigm in relation to the 21st century complex context within TQM journal

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to explore the deployment of the total quality management (TQM) paradigm in the TQM Journal in relation to the context of the 21st century. The study builds on the theoretical framework of the four quality paradigms that together compose TQM. The four paradigms differ in their effectiveness based on the context in which they are used. In a complex context, one would expect the reflective and the emergence paradigm to flourish. The TQM Journal is one of the leading scientific journals on TQM. If the assumption that the reflective and emergent paradigm would flourish in a complex environment is correct, one will see that represented in the past five years of scientific research in that magazine.

Design/methodology/approach

The TQM Journal articles of the past five years from January 2016 till January 2021 have been chosen as the scope of an exploratory review. The author assessed the title and abstract of all articles based on the characteristics of the four quality paradigms, as described in the theoretical framework. If the title and abstract did not provide enough data to take the decision for the assessment, the whole article has been taken into account. The results have been collated, summarized and reported. Based on the results, the author explores the possible patterns.

Findings

In total, 283 articles from 2016 to 2021 (from Volume 28, Issue 1 to Volume 33, Issue 1) were included in this study. In total, 45 were read fully to be able to characterize the article. Most of the studies relate the tertiary (33.3%) and secondary (27.9%) sectors. Healthcare was the sector in 32 of the cases (11.3%). Most studies have been conducted in Europe (n = 82, 28.9%) and Asia (n = 58, 20.5%). Within Europe, Italy was the most prolific country with, respectively, 25 (30.8%) of the articles. The USA and Canada only had five articles in these five years (1.8%). Many articles did not specify the region. More than half of the articles (52.4%) worked with surveys, questionnaires or other methods to involve the customer in the research; 16 articles (5.6%) used experts in the field through expert panels and such to collect data from. In total, 107 articles (37.8%) did involve no other stakeholders than the researchers themselves. Eight studies (2.8%) used action research or co-design methodology to create optimal stakeholder participation. Based on the data, four patterns can be discovered: the context sensitivity of the articles, reflexivity, coping with uncertainty and co-creation.

Research limitations/implications

It is acknowledged that the articles in the study were published in just one scientific journal. One can expect that this will be represented in other journals on TQM. Still, it would be interesting to conduct a follow-up study in other journals on TQM and compare the results. The research is done by one subjective researcher.

Practical implications

Research on TQM should take the complexity of the context into account. For that purpose, researchers should focus more on the emergence paradigm within TQM.

Originality/value

This study is the first to investigate TQM as a holistic paradigm, including the empirical, reflective, reference and emergence paradigm in TQM research.

The influence of operational excellence on the culture and agility of organizations: evidence from industry

Purpose

This article offers a novel approach that brings together management, engineering and organizational behavior. It focuses on the understanding of organizational dynamics in an era of technological change, upholding the importance of organizational agility and of the cultural paradigm in the management of organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

In this work, the authors present the conclusions from a set of studies carried out in organizations operating in technical and technological industries. The authors assessed the capabilities of these organizations in terms of operational excellence maturity and its impact on the organizational culture and organizational agility.

Findings

Results show the importance of operational excellence either in developing or expanding organizational agility capabilities while reinforcing the cruciality of an excellence-oriented culture to sustain these efforts over time.

Originality/value

Increasingly unstable business environments have led to a growing interest in how to develop and maintain operational excellence in the face of continued and disruptive change. However, this interest has, so far, been advanced with little empirical evidence to support the corresponding predictions. This work offers the first practical evidence that continued focus and optimization of operations, with the right cultural alignment, helps organizations survive and thrive in increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments.

Digital transformation during a lockdown

These are indeed exceptional and historic times, a global pandemic and public health emergency sitting side by side with heightened public awareness of the injustices of decades of institutional racism. This article considers the current pandemic and lockdown period through a VUCA lens and offers reflection on how the pandemic revealed the fragility of digitally immature organisations. VUCA, a managerial catchall acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity is a litmus test for recognising unpredictable external environments. We offer business leaders a caveat, it is dangerous to ignore the impact of VUCA on the smooth functioning of an organisation. In terms of digital transformation during lockdown this article offers three key lessons that can so far be discerned from the pandemic period, firstly organisations must improve their digital maturity, secondly, less digitally mature organisations are more fragile and finally organisations with higher levels of digital maturity are generally more flexible.

Digital transformation during a lockdown

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Limited studies exist on the use of VUCA as a lens for organisations to understand the impact of Covid-19.

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Overview of different stages of internal digital maturity that have presented businesses with different challenges during lockdown.

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Reflects on how the pandemic has revealed the fragility of digital immature organisations.

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Suggest new body of existing literature on crisis management in natural disasters that can be built upon to underpin current and future pandemics.

These are indeed exceptional and historic times, a global pandemic and public health emergency sitting side by side with heightened public awareness of the injustices of decades of institutional racism. This article considers the current pandemic and lockdown period through a VUCA lens and offers reflection on how the pandemic revealed the fragility of digitally immature organisations. VUCA, a managerial catchall acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity is a litmus test for recognising unpredictable external environments. We offer business leaders a caveat, it is dangerous to ignore the impact of VUCA on the smooth functioning of an organisation. In terms of digital transformation during lockdown this article offers three key lessons that can so far be discerned from the pandemic period, firstly organisations must improve their digital maturity, secondly, less digitally mature organisations are more fragile and finally organisations with higher levels of digital maturity are generally more flexible.

Mitigating manifest supply chain disruptions

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand if organizations can leverage recovery/continuous improvement (RCI) capabilities and two competencies to mitigate manifest supply chain (SC) disruptions. Specifically, the authors examine how learning from previous experience and SC disruption-orientation affects organizations’ capability to recover/continuously improve once a SC disruption has manifested. In addition, knowing that organizational inertia likely exists during disruptions, the authors examine the mediating effects of routine rigidity on proposed relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

To determine how these antecedents impact an organization’s RCI capabilities, the authors collected survey data from 219 procurement managers and analyzed these records using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results indicate that by fostering SC disruption-orientation and developing competencies to learn from previous experience, firms can enhance their RCI capabilities, which in turn improves operational performance. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate how routine rigidity mediates the positive effects these antecedents have on the RCI capabilities construct.

Originality/value

By developing these risk management (RM) tactics and managing routine rigidity, organizations broaden their continuous improvement capability, which enables practitioners to respond to and recover from manifest disruptions. When used in conjunction with other RM tactics, such as inventory and/or redundant capacity, organizations can address an array of disruption scenarios.

Identification and causal assessment of supply chain flexibility

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to map the causal relations among various supply chain flexibility (SCF) dimensions having significant impact on the Indian personal hygiene industry.

Design/methodology/approach

The author(s) have gone through extensive literature review and extracted 22 SCF dimensions. After conducting field visits and expert interaction in the firm related to case industry, 11 major SCF dimensions that seem to have a significant amount of influence on supply chain performance of the firms were retained for further consideration. The author(s) have used decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to establish initial causality and structural equation model (SEM) to investigate the contribution of different flexibility dimensions on overall SCF.

Findings

After DEMATEL analysis, three major SCF dimensions were considered for SEM modeling. The result shows that product flexibility and physical distribution flexibility have favorable influence on the SCF, while the demand management flexibility adversely impacts overall SCF.

Practical implications

The approach adopted in the study can help firms to determine and exercise the flexibility dimensions of a particular supply chain. The DEMATEL and SEM offer a facilitation to explain the causal relationship between the different dimensions to take long-term decisions and address the uncertainty in the demand and supply side.

Originality/value

This paper has made an attempt to evaluate the supply chain flexibilities, prioritize them and evaluate the relationship amongst these flexibilities and the degree to which they affect or are affected by one another in the Indian personal hygiene industry.

Investigating the role of strategic thinking in establishing organizational excellence model

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of organizational forgetting in the impact of strategic thinking on the implementation of an organizational excellence model. Furthermore, the factors with main effects on the implementation success of the organizational excellence model are investigated. The two main causes of organizational forgetting, including purposefulness and randomness, along with the three main factors of strategic thinking (vision, creativity and systematic thinking) also are explored. Enablers and results, which are the two key parts of an organizational excellence model are considered as well.

Design/methodology/approach

A model based on structural equations is designed, in which organizational forgetting factors, strategic thinking measures and main parts of a business excellence model are incorporated based on the literature. A total of 297 Iranian companies in which an organizational excellence model had been implemented are selected for investigation. A questionnaire is designed and distributed among the experts, middle managers and top managers of these companies. Based on Cochran’s formula, the sample size of 168 is obtained, for which the response rate is 100 percent. Main statistical measures such as χ2 ratio to degree of freedom, non-soft fitness index (RMSEA), fitness index (GFI) and modified fitness index (AGFI) are used to assess the performance of the proposed model.

Findings

According to the results of the statistical significance tests, the role of organizational obsessive mediators in the establishment of the organizational excellence model has been largely confirmed. Furthermore, the mediator role of organizational forgetting in the final impact of strategic thinking on implementing an organizational excellence model has been widely endorsed. Failure to use knowledge from learning, the inability of a company in coding and documenting knowledge and lack of incentives to share it are the most important factors in the forgetting of knowledge in companies.

Research limitations/implications

As top managers, middle managers and experts are hard to reach due to the wide geographical spread of the organization under study, a questionnaire is designed and distributed among them. The impact of organizational forgetting on other quality management systems such as ISO 9001 and ISO 4001 needs another research to be conducted in the future.

Practical implications

Using new experiences, increasing the competency of employees and managers experience through organizational learning, employee and managerial assessment and organizational strategy assessment are the main practical methods for considering organizational forgetting in the process of implementing organizational excellence models.

Originality/value

This research addresses organizational forgetting besides strategic thinking as joint main roles for implementing organizational excellence, whereas previous research works only considered strategic thinking as a factor. Furthermore, a structural equation model is developed for appraisal of effect of different factors.

Assessing the impact of organizational culture on achieving business excellence with a moderating role of ICT

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discover the impact of different dimensions of organizational culture (mission culture, adaptability culture, involvement culture and consistency culture) on business excellence results criteria (customer results, people results, society results and business results) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and explore the moderating role of information and communication technology (ICT) use in both service and manufacturing industries.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected by questionnaire from 448 managers in nine companies that have won the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award in the last three years. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the data.

Findings

Organizational culture is significantly related to business excellence. However, these effects varied for different business excellence criteria. Three organizational culture types had a significant positive role in achieving excellent customer-related results. All four types of organizational culture had a positive role in achieving excellent people-related results. Only two culture types had significant role in achieving excellent society-related results. Business results were positively related to a balance between the four types of organizational culture. ICT use moderated the relationship between organizational culture and results related to customers, people and business, but not society.

Research limitations/implications

This study had some conceptual limitations. In particular, it considered the organizational culture as four types in the research model, but without structuring the indices under each type. It also had some methodological limitations. It was cross-sectional and used a self-administered questionnaire, which means that no causal relationships can be implied, and there may have been some bias in responding.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies that investigate the relationship between organizational culture and business excellence in UAE excellence award-winning companies.