Organisational paradigms and sustainability in excellence : From mechanistic approaches to learning and innovation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on how organisations can benefit from adopting an organic paradigm of management to maximise the benefits of quality and business excellence strategy. Mechanistic approaches do not offer long-term sustainability and do not facilitate learning and innovation. Insights from research on business excellence award-winning organisations show how they embed quality into their culture for long-term sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides both a conceptual review of two organisational paradigms and relates this to the findings of a qualitative study of Australian Business Excellence Award winners. Interviews with company managers and case material from the organisations provided the information relating to strategies for sustaining business excellence. Findings – Organisations using a business excellence framework and those who have reached award status have adopted a range of approaches to maintain and sustain their performance. These include measures relating to leadership, processes, people, communication and strategy. Specific strategies focus on embedding, relentless driving values and engagement of people throughout. These support ongoing learning and innovation and fit the organic organisational paradigm. Research limitations/implications – Insights into how organisations sustain their use of business excellence frameworks show how business excellence principles can be embedded into organisations so that it becomes “the way we do things around here”. Originality/value – This paper offers insights into key issues faced by organisations that have already achieved high levels of performance on the business excellence frameworks and how they sustain this.