Chourides, Pieris

Knowledge management (KM) has emerged in recent times as a phenomenon with wide-ranging implications for organizational innovation and competitiveness. Supporters argue that as organizations understand the value of KM, they have the opportunity to establish long-term internal strengths, which will lead to external competitive advantage. Further, we find the current literature advocates that KM can be implemented in every organizational discipline. KM is approached from several different perspectives, and a number of these are used to structure our paper and identify emerging factors in: strategy, human resources management (HRM), information technology (IT), total quality management (TQM), and marketing. This paper presents a summary of key responses to a recent survey of FTSE 100 companies conducted by the authors, which shows that KM is an extremely popular management topic, yet relatively few organizations have serious implementation programs in place. Also presented are findings from longitudinal studies of six case organizations, which have been approaching and deploying KM over the last three years. The academic arguments for organizations to be proactive in KM are strong and compelling. Our research identifies the critical factors that respondents feel are vital for successful KM implementation, and these provide a basis for a further stage of the study which considers how best to develop appropriate performance measurements.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of the critical role of "managerial leadership" in total quality management (TQM) implementation in UK higher education institutions (HEIs), and to encourage further research on how to sustain management and leadership best practices for total quality improvement in higher education. Design/methodology/approach - A critical review of the literature on managerial leadership provides the theoretical scope which led to the setting of research objectives. The objectives were achieved through a survey of academics and non-academics responsible for teaching and research quality improvement in a sample of 42 UK HEIs between the period 2000 and 2005. A mix of questionnaires, interviews, inductive analysis and hypothesis testing, was used to explore, describe and to explain the nature of the relationship between the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness of quality management practices in the participating UK HEIs. Findings - The analysis of the survey results revealed "weak" associations between the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness in the quality management practices adopted by participating UK HEIs. It provides examples of weak quality management practices as empirical evidence of "weak" association between "management efficiency" and "leadership effectiveness" in UK HEIs. Research limitations/implications - International generalization of findings requires the sample size to be increased to include more HEIs from the UK and other countries with similar educational systems. Further quantitative research is needed to provide in depth explanation of the nature of the functional relationship between the degrees of effectiveness and efficiency of quality management practices in higher educational settings. Practical implications - Understanding the nature of the association between the degrees of effectiveness and efficiency of quality management practices would provide a conceptual framework which would enable academics and practitioners to reflect critically on the "efficiency" and "effectiveness" of teaching and research quality improvement decisions and actions to ensure successful implementation of TQM best practices. Originality/value - Uses the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness as criteria for evaluating managerial leadership in UK higher education, and recommends strengthening of the association between the criteria through continuous improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching and research quality improvement practices.

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate about the current status and future directions for Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Excellence. The review of literature examines the foundations of TQM and Business Excellence, the critical issues involved in implementation, and the evidence of impact on performance. The primary research seeks to investigate these issues further by studying TQM implementations in companies over a number of years. Primary research includes a longitudinal case study analysis of 20 organisations (1996-2004), a discourse analysis based on interviews with staff engaged on TQM implementation, and a questionnaire survey. The results identify that there are significant issues with the way TQM is being implemented, and that these may be contributing to negative feelings and a reduced level of interest. Our conclusions suggest that in many cases TQM has lost its way. We discuss the reasons for this and propose that a root and branch review is necessary to re-vitalise interest. This we believe will require a significant re-positioning of TQM, a different approach to implementation, and a return of focus to its core values.