Legitimising Quality Principles through Critical Incidents in Organisational Development

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to analyse how critical incidents or organisational crises can be used to check and legitimise quality management change efforts in relation to the fundamental principles of quality. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple case studies analyse critical incidents that demonstrate the importance of legitimisation, normative evaluation and conflict constructs in this process. A theoretical framework composed of these constructs is used to guide the analysis. Findings – The cases show that the critical incidents leading to the legitimisation of continuous improvement (CI) were diverse. However all resulted in the need for significant ongoing cost reduction to achieve or retain competitiveness. In addition, attempts at legitimising CI were coupled with attempts at destabilising the existing normative practice. This destabilisation process, in some cases, advocated supplementing the existing approaches and in others replacing them. In all cases, significant conflict arose in these legitimising and normative evaluation processes. Research limitations/implications – It is suggested that further research could involve a critical analysis of existing quality models, tools and techniques in relation to how they incorporate, and are built upon, fundamental quality management principles. Furthermore, such studies could probe the dangers of quality curriculum becoming divorced from business and market reality and thus creating a parallel existence. Practical implications – As demonstrated by the case studies, models, tools and techniques are not valued for their intrinsic value but rather for what they will contribute to addressing the business needs. Thus, in addition to being an opportunity for quality management, critical incidents present a challenge to the field. Quality management must be shown to make a contribution in these circumstances. Originality/value – This paper is of value to both academics and practitioners.

Developing a model of innovation implementation for UK SMEs: A path analysis and explanatory case analysis

Continuous large-scale changes in technology and the globalization of markets have resulted in the need for many SMEs to use innovation as a means of seeking competitive advantage where innovation includes both technological and organizational perspectives (Tapscott, 2009). However, there is a paucity of systematic and empirical research relating to the implementation of innovation management in the context of SMEs. The aim of this article is to redress this imbalance via an empirical study created to develop and test a model of innovation implementation in SMEs. This study uses Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the plausibility of an innovation model, developed from earlier studies, as the basis of a questionnaire survey of 395 SMEs in the UK. The resultant model and construct relationship results are further probed using an explanatory multiple case analysis to explore ‘how’ and ‘why’ type questions within the model and construct relationships. The findings show that the
effects of leadership, people and culture on innovation implementation are mediated by business improvement activities relating to Total Quality Management/Continuous Improvement (TQM/CI) and product and process developments. It is concluded that SMEs have an opportunity to leverage existing quality and process improvement activities to move beyond continuous
improvement outcomes towards effective innovation implementation. The article concludes by suggesting areas suitable for further research.

Establishing ex ante public construction supply chain guidelines in the public procurement of Schools' estate

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the formative development of construction supply chain guidelines or proposals in a UK region’s schools’ estates procurement process to more effectively address a forthcoming increase in investment.

Design/methodology/approach – The research approach is interpretive. Using an action research approach, repeated semi-structured interviews and focus groups with a range of stakeholders are conducted.

Findings – The current construction supply chain in schools’ estate procurement has many difficulties, not least given the highly fragmented and disconnected nature of the projects. Synergies are being missed and there is little or no continuous improvement. Drawing on these findings, the research iteratively develops a range of proposals and guidelines to address this situation.

Research limitations/implications – This research adds weight to the current focus on pressing for change in the construction industry. It presents potentially valuable insights into the benefits of partnering arrangements and how these might usefully be incorporated into schools’ estate supply chain.

Practical implications – A set of guidelines is developed to guide the public procurement of schools’ estate in a UK region. These guidelines are set within the context of the Modernising and Rethinking Construction agenda.

Originality/value – The action research approach enabled the researchers to gain a unique insight into how public procurement and contractor personnel interact and to establish effective practical guidelines.

The efficacy of a CDIO based integrated curriculum as preparation for professional practice in product design and development

The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast started BEng and MEng degree programmes in Product Design and Development (PDD) in 2004. Intended from the outset to be significantly different from the existing programmes within the School the PDD degrees used the syllabus and standards defined by the CDIO Initiative as the basis for an integrated curriculum. Students are taught in the context of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating a product. Fundamental to this approach is a core sequence of Design-Build-Test (DBT) experiences which facilitates the development of a range of professional skills as well as the immediate application of technical knowledge gained in strategically aligned supporting modules.
The key objective of the degree programmes is to better prepare students for professional practice. PDD graduates were surveyed using a questionnaire developed by the CDIO founders and interviewed to examine the efficacy of these degree programmes, particularly in this key objective. Graduate employment rates, self assessment of graduate attributes and examples of work produced by MEng graduates provided positive evidence that their capabilities met the requirements of the profession. The 24% questionnaire response rate from the 96 graduates to date did not however facilitate statistically significant conclusions to be drawn and particularly not for BEng graduates who were under represented in the response group. While not providing proof of efficacy the investigation did provide a good amount of useful data for consideration as part of a continuous improvement process.

QA and Enhancement Marketplace for HEIs – An Erasmus+ project

Improving European education and training system quality has been set as a key target in Europe’s strategy to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy by 2020 (European Commission, 2010). These objectives are more specifically defined in the so called Modernisation Agenda (European Commission, 2011). More specifically it sets a goal to improve the quality and relevance of higher education. In this process external evaluation and
Proceedings of the 11th International CDIO Conference, Chengdu University of Information Technology,
Chengdu, Sichuan, P.R. China, June 8-11, 2015.
self-assessment are seen in a key role! In the CDIO approach the 12 CDIO standards provide a framework for continuous improvement. Each institution/institutional department are encouraged to regularly do the self-evaluation using the CDIO Standards. Eight European universities identified a need for further enhancement of the self-evaluations and creation of processes with peers to reduce the inertia of heavy accreditations/evaluations in HEIs. In September 2014 these universities started an Erasmus+ project (QAEMarketPlace4HEI) aiming at
1. Developing a collaborative, comprehensive and accessible evaluation process model, methods and tools for HEIs to complement the accreditation systems.
2. Promoting, increasing and exploiting further the European collaboration in the evaluation processes and the exchange of best practices.
3. Disseminating the model, best practices and widen the cooperation to new HEIs in Europe through the partner networks.

Perception and Automatic Recognition of Laughter from Whole-Body Motion: Continuous and Categorical Perspectives

Despite its importance in social interactions, laughter remains little studied in affective computing. Intelligent virtual agents are often blind to users’ laughter and unable to produce convincing laughter themselves. Respiratory, auditory, and facial laughter signals have been investigated but laughter-related body movements have received less attention. The aim of this study is threefold. First, to probe human laughter perception by analyzing patterns of categorisations of natural laughter animated on a minimal avatar. Results reveal that a low dimensional space can describe perception of laughter “types”. Second, to investigate observers’ perception of laughter (hilarious, social, awkward, fake, and non-laughter) based on animated avatars generated from natural and acted motion-capture data. Significant differences in torso and limb movements are found between animations perceived as laughter and those perceived as non-laughter. Hilarious laughter also differs from social laughter. Different body movement features were indicative of laughter in sitting and standing avatar postures. Third, to investigate automatic recognition of laughter to the same level of certainty as observers’ perceptions. Results show recognition rates of the Random Forest model approach human rating levels. Classification comparisons and feature importance analyses indicate an improvement in recognition of social laughter when localized features and nonlinear models are used.