Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare principles from the original Toyota Production System (TPS), the Toyota Way 2001 and Kaizen philosophy with principles derived from Japanese Zen Buddhism. The paper would also like to enlarge the debate concerning some lessons learnt from...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to revaluate the concept of ethics in management activity. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is a literature analysis and case study. Findings – From previous research, it has been inferred that the practice of ethics in management assures...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to compare the use of critical incident technique (CIT) for gathering student feedback in higher education (HE) with the more traditional and commonly used questionnaire survey method. Design/methodology/approach – The investigation involved a critical...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to promote successful application of quality function deployment (QFD) combined with quantitative techniques in service organizations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper assesses advantages and disadvantages of implementing the QFD method in...

Purpose – The main objective of this study is to develop a strategy for implementing various quality measurement tools as part of a continuous improvement programme in institutions for the elderly in Portugal. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data were drawn from a survey...

Purpose – This paper seeks to focus on the role of virtual communities as a means to boost tourist product innovation by leveraging customer relationships. Its purpose is to offer a deeper and clear‐cut understanding of the collaborative innovation paradigm in order to analyze its impact on...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the most relevant quality factors and communication activities that are suitable as competitive levers in dentistry. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a model that highlights the reciprocal influence between patient...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of organisational culture and job satisfaction on the quality of services provided in higher education and to raise questions about the successful implementation of quality assurance and evaluation systems recently launched in...

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to solving the problem of communicating quality to service users. In particular, it seeks to focus on how to render quality tangible for the users within the health service, characterized by a high information asymmetry. Design/methodology/approach –...

Purpose – This paper aims to find ways to improve the performance of social and medical establishments through a new organizational structure and the use of quality management methods. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on an empirical study of a number of French...