The purpose of the study was to evaluate the continuous improvement process of the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence (TNCP). Results of surveys conducted annually by the TNCPE from postapplicants provided data from the state award applicants. Their responses offered indicators of satisfaction among different industry sectors (education, government, healthcare, manufacturing, nonprofit, and service) with the TNCPE services (criteria booklet, feedback report, site visit policy, TNCPE staff, and team of examiners). The survey data were obtained from the TNCPE office in Nashville, Tennessee in which award applicants were provided a series of survey questions. These questions involved the overall award program and the site visit experiences. Within the program award, data included 26 applicant responses while the site visit surveys included 107 applicant responses. In addition, an alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests. The major conclusions were: (1) there are differences in the industry sectors with the length of the site visit, team of examiners' team leader's leadership, and the clarity of the feedback report (control vs. influence). Other tests were not statistically significant.

RPA, AI och IPA blir allt mer populära verktyg inom företagande. Detta trots att det till stor del saknas teoretisk förankrad förståelse för vilka förmågor teknologierna besitter och hur de kan understödja företagsledning. Som ett svar på den bristande tillgängligheten av forskning kring ämnet, syftade denna studie till att på ett inkluderande och övergripande plan, samla teknologiernas förmågor och nytta. Varpå dessa kunde kopplas mot verksamhetsstyrning i form av konceptet TQM. Studien genomfördes som en kvalitativ enfallsstudie, där fallet utgjordes av ett internationellt teknikföretag som arbetar med applikationer kopplat till teknologierna. Den empiri som fallet erbjöd samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer, där företagets personal utgjorde studiens respondenter. Empirin jämfördes sedan med och kompletterades av den tidigare spridda teoretiska forskningen kring RPA, AI och IPA:s nyttjande och nytta. Ur sammankopplingen skapades en modell vilken gav en bred bild av teknologiernas nytta i relation till TQM och MBNQA-modellen som nyttjades för att konkretisera TQM. Resultatet antydde att RPA, AI och IPA kan utgöra viktiga verktyg för att stödja verksamhetsstyrning enligt TQM, och bidrog med en bred teoretisk referensram för teknologiernas förmågor i relation till verksamhetsstyrning. Studien belyste även behovet av mer forskning kring teknologiernas snabbt föränderliga förmågor i relation till verksamhetsstyrning och TQM. / RPA, AI, and IPA are becoming increasingly popular tools in the business sector. Despite their growing prevalence, there is a significant lack of theoretically grounded understanding of the capabilities these technologies possess and how they can support corporate management. In response to this research gap, the aim of this study was to comprehensively and inclusively gather the capabilities and benefits of these technologies. Subsequently, these factors were linked to business management through the concept of TQM. The study was conducted as a qualitative single-case study, with the case comprising an international technology company working with applications related to these technologies. The empirical data were collected through semi-structured interviews, with the company's personnel serving as the study's respondents. This empirical data were then compared with and supplemented by existing scattered theoretical research on the utilization and benefits of RPA, AI, and IPA. From this synthesis, a model was developed that provided a broad view of the technologies' benefits in relation to TQM and the MBNQA model, which was used to concretize TQM. The results suggested that RPA, AI, and IPA can serve as important tools to support business management according to TQM, and contributed a broad theoretical framework for the capabilities of these technologies in relation to business management. The study also highlighted the need for further research on the rapidly evolving capabilities of these technologies in relation to business management and TQM.

The objective of the study was to quantify the evolving scope of quality management as practiced in a sample of companies in South Afiica, and to correlate this with corporate profitability. The empirical data in this study suggests that a more extensive scope of application and practice of quality management and related management practices is related to better organisational profitability. The significant correlations which were demonstrated are: • A focus on results by companies is inversely correlated with Operating Profit Margin. • Quality training, employee communications and internal coordination correlates positively with Net Profit Margin. • The rigorous use of quality standards correlates positively with Net Profit Margin. • Quality control and monitoring correlates positively with Return on Equity. Recommendations flowing from this study include that a broader paradigm of quality management is required, expressed as an integrated model for innovation and change which is holistic rather than fragmented. / Economics / M. Com. (Business Economics)

The objective of the study was to quantify the evolving scope of quality management as practiced in a sample of companies in South Afiica, and to correlate this with corporate profitability. The empirical data in this study suggests that a more extensive scope of application and practice of quality management and related management practices is related to better organisational profitability. The significant correlations which were demonstrated are: • A focus on results by companies is inversely correlated with Operating Profit Margin. • Quality training, employee communications and internal coordination correlates positively with Net Profit Margin. • The rigorous use of quality standards correlates positively with Net Profit Margin. • Quality control and monitoring correlates positively with Return on Equity. Recommendations flowing from this study include that a broader paradigm of quality management is required, expressed as an integrated model for innovation and change which is holistic rather than fragmented. / Economics / M. Com. (Business Economics)

The business performance management (BPM) framework helps an organization continuously adjust and successfully execute its strategies. BPM helps increase flexibility by providing managers with an early alert about changes and, as a result, allows faster response to such changes. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) framework provides a basis for self-assessment and a systems perspective for managing an organization's key processes for achieving business results. The MBNQA framework is a more comprehensive framework and encapsulates the underlying constructs in the BPM framework. The objectives of this dissertation are fourfold: (1) to validate the underlying relationships presented in the 2008 MBNQA framework, (2) to explore the MBNQA framework at the dimension level, and develop and test constructs measured at that level in a causal model, (3) to validate and create a common general framework for the business performance model by integrating the practitioner literature with basic theory including existing MBNQA theory, and (4) to integrate the BPM framework and the MBNQA framework into a new framework (BPM-MBNQA framework) that can guide organizations in their journey toward achieving and sustaining competitive and strategic advantages. The purpose of this study is to achieve these objectives by means of a combination of methodologies including literature reviews, expert opinions, interviews, presentation feedbacks, content analysis, and latent semantic analysis. An initial BPM framework was developed based on the reviews of literature and expert opinions. There is a paucity of academic research on business performance management. Therefore, this study reviewed the practitioner literature on BPM and from the numerous organization-specific BPM models developed a generic, conceptual BPM framework. With the intent of obtaining valuable feedback, this initial BPM framework was presented to Baldrige Award recipients (BARs) and selected academicians from across the United States who participated in the Fall Summit 2007 held at Caterpillar Financial Headquarter in Nashville, TN on October 1 and 2, 2007. Incorporating the feedback from that group allowed refining and improving the proposed BPM framework. This study developed a variant of the traditional latent semantic analysis (LSA) called causal latent semantic analysis (cLSA) that enables us to test causal models using textual data. This method was used to validate the 2008 MBNQA framework based on article abstracts on the Baldrige Award and program published in both practitioner and academic journals from 1987 to 2009. The cLSA was also used to validate the BPM framework using the full body text data from all articles published in the practitioner journal entitled the Business Performance Management Magazine since its inception in 2003. The results provide the first cLSA study of these frameworks. This is also the first study to examine all the causal relationships within the MBNQA and BPM frameworks.

One of the most important tasks that business leaders undertake in order to achieve a superior market position is strategic planning. Beyond this obligation, business owners desire to maximize profit and maintain steady growth. In order to do this, resources must be invested in the most efficient way possible in order to achieve performance excellence. Adjusting business operations quickly, however, especially in times of economic uncertainty, is extremely difficult. Business leaders therefore need insight into which elements of organizational improvement are most effective in order to strategically invest their resources to achieve superior performance in the most efficient way possible. This research examines the results of companies which have a demonstrated ability to achieve performance excellence as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. This research examined award-winning applications to determine common input factors, compared the business results of a subset of those award-winners with the overall market for a time-frame of 11 years, and then investigated the profitability, liquidity, debt management, asset management, and per share performance ratios of award-winners compared with their industry peers over 11 years as well. The main focus of this research is to determine whether participation in performance excellence best practices have created value for shareholders and business owners. This objective is achieved through the analysis of performance results of award winning companies. This research demonstrates that the integration of efforts associated with performance excellence is in-fact advantageous.