Purpose The aim of the study is to identify best practices from Business Excellence (BE) award-winning organizations on the use of their BE self-assessment (internal assessment) and third-party assessment (external assessment including BE award assessments) for organizational improvement.Design/methodology/approach An explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was used to gather data from 50 organizations across 17 countries with varying degrees of BE maturity. Twenty of these, representing 40% of the sample, then participated in semi-structured interviews through which their understanding of the impacts of various practices was explored in more detail. From this sub-sample, three (3) emerged as exemplars used as the case studies reported here.Findings The findings from the first and broader study of the 50 organizations demonstrate a diverse approach to BE assessments, much of which is tailored to the maturity level of each organization. BE organizations with a high BE maturity level are more likely to conduct regular self-assessments and certificate assessment. Key practices identified in the case study organizations were their unique approach to preparing the organization for assessments irrespective of the BE award criteria, the use of mock assessments to prepare for award assessments, the use of customer-led assessments, thorough action plan review process, the use of internal assessments to grow internal capabilities, participation in regular award assessments, the use of external BE assessors and experts for assessments, increased use of technology to support the assessment process, and varying assessment types by organizational BE maturity.Originality/value This research provides a specific and valuable contribution to the existing BE literature by presenting contemporary, real-world examples of best practices in BE assessment. It offers a unique perspective on how award-winning organizations tailor their strategies to meet diverse business needs and strategic objectives.

Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystem development is not addressed in research. We define and characterise Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystems and their evolution based on a qualitative study comparing Indigenous entrepreneurship in Chile and in Aotearoa New Zealand. We draw on interviews with 10 Mapuche entrepreneurs in Araucanía and 10 Māori entrepreneurs in the Bay of Plenty, observation, and a literature review to address the question – how does an Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystem develop along with the social, economic, and political development of mainstream society? We find that Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystems evolve with the economic and social environments of their countries because of an internal imperative towards cultural continuity and the resilience of culture to change. We find that mature Indigenous entrepreneurial ecosystems are associated with higher states of development and support a broader range of business models. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to address a critical gap in the existing literature on business excellence implementation. While various studies have examined different aspects of business excellence, there is still a lack of comprehensive research on the optimal organizational excellence architecture (OEA) for an award-winning business excellence journey. The absence of a unified framework has led to inconsistent practices across organizations. The aim of this research based on data collected from 50 organizations across 17 countries is to address this gap and present a refined OEA model.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Member organizations from the Global Excellence Model (GEM) Council participated through an online survey administered via the Qualtrics software platform. Quantitative data were analyzed using the SPSS and Microsoft Excel software tools, while content analysis techniques were applied to the qualitative data to gain detailed insights.FindingsThe findings refine and extend the OEA model. These contributions lead to a refined OEA definition and open avenues for future research, enriching the current understanding of BE implementation.Originality/valueThis study introduces a novel concept of OEA to the literature on business excellence implementation. The refined OEA model provides a fresh perspective on the critical components necessary for an award-winning business excellence journey. This research offers significant value to both practitioners and academics by presenting a unified approach to BE implementation, effectively addressing the previously identified gap in BE research.

Purpose Research studies on offshoring and reshoring have predominantly focused on the home company, widely ignoring the offshored company in the host country. The host company's influence and contribution have been unseen. This research explores how the host company responds to the home company's location decisions to maintain the dyadic relationship. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory case study in China was conducted to examine the host company's response to reshoring. The case company has two Japanese parent companies that acted for the emergence of reshoring drivers. Primary and secondary data were collected and analysed through thematic analysis. The host company's response strategies to the home company's relocation decisions were identified and explored. Findings The findings reveal that four strategies, identified here as being cost control, market expansion, knowledge seeking and relationship bonding, were implemented by the host company. The importance of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and knowledge transfer is also emphasised within these strategies. Practical implications This research identified active and practical strategies conducted by the host company to maintain a cooperative relationship with the home company(ies). Instead of encountering a passive response from the host company, the home company may consider working with the host to overcome difficulties caused by emerging reshoring drivers and create an outcome beneficial to both. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to study manufacturing reshoring from the perspective of the host company. It provides a new perspective to understanding this phenomenon.

Indigenous entrepreneurship promotes economic prosperity in both Indigenous and mainstream societies. There is a paucity of comparative studies of Indigenous entrepreneurship in the Pacific Rim, particularly studies spanning the Western and Eastern hemispheres. This study of Indigenous entrepreneurship in Chile and New Zealand explores the impact of national political and economic contexts on Indigenous entrepreneurial conduct and business models. Chile represents challenging and turbulent political and economic environments, as highlighted by the recent protests. New Zealand, however, maintains political stability and economic prosperity, providing a model that South American countries may want to explore. We recommend that Indigenous entrepreneurs pursue a broader range of business models while drawing advantages from Indigenous culture. Further, policy makers in Chile should ensure that the benefits of economic and political development are available as early as practicable to Indigenous entrepreneurs.

Purpose To explore the cultural context of Indigenous family entrepreneurs and to apply to them the concept of n-Culturals, thus contributing to validating the concept. Design/methodology/approach Interview data collected from Wayuu entrepreneurs in La Guajira region of Colombia and from Māori entrepreneurs in the Rotorua region of New Zealand were analyzed qualitatively. The analysis primarily focused on Wayuu entrepreneurs, with the results for Māori entrepreneurs used for comparison, to help to interpret the Wayuu data. Findings For Wayuu entrepreneurs, family members play a range of crucial roles in enterprise operations, with the family and the kin-centered local Indigenous community emerging as an informal organization surrounding the enterprise. Family is the source of Indigenous culture, while the mainstream culture is centered on global Western business culture, rather than the culture of the country. The Indigenous entrepreneurs integrate the values of the two cultures in managing their enterprises, thus acting as n-Cultural. Māori entrepreneurs who managed enterprises with a strong Indigenous character were similar in this respect to Wayuu entrepreneurs. Social implications As n-Culturals integrating the values of Indigenous culture and the mainstream culture, Indigenous entrepreneurs develop valuable traits, becoming a valuable component of the human capital in their regions, even when their enterprises fail. Originality/value Existing research on multicultural individuals is largely limited to immigrants and expatriates. By characterizing Indigenous family entrepreneurs as n-Culturals, the present study contributes to validating the concept and opens the way for further research on how Indigenous entrepreneurs manage their multicultural identities.

Purpose As employees in the lower ranks of a Japanese company advance through the levels of management and seniority their role in day-to-day kaizen activities shifts from that of directly improving their own job, operations and surroundings to guiding, educating and facilitating understanding and practice. The emphasis of kaizen to the employee during career progression changes in an embedded, sequential and predictable manner. To a new employee, kaizen is a process to be implemented, something that is visible and largely provided through company training and job manuals, while not necessarily being fully understood. To the senior manager, however, one who has advanced up the corporate ladder, kaizen is tacit knowledge and accumulated experiences, and is seen as being more than just reducing costs, increasing productivity and decreasing lead times. At this point, kaizen becomes something invisible, something that can produce real influence on both the company’s profitability and the manager’s reputation. Consequently, what kaizen is actually changes from being a duty associated with employment to a matter of personal, group, collective, and organizational responsibility. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanism underpinning the transfer of kaizen (acknowledgement and exercise) in the Japanese workplace that results in it being sustained across multiple. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from research participants (n = 53) through a mixed-method multi-language field design comprising questionnaires and unstructured interviews conducted in genba, the workplaces of five domain-name multinational companies in Japan. Multi-level statistical analysis identified two largely mutually exclusive generational groups. Findings During their late 40s, employees were found to transfer their understanding of kaizen between the two forms. At this age, employees were identified to shift from being student to teacher; follower to leader; and disciple to sensei. This study identified how kaizen shifts from one generation to another; when kaizen shifts through the change in responsibility of employees; and changes in the understanding and practice that creates sustained business excellence. Originality/value Importantly, the study reveals how kaizen itself is a sustainable business activity in the workplace, one that Western business is struggling to emulate.

Purpose For the past three decades, the dominant economic policy environment across the Anglosphere has assumed that industrial performance results from increasing national competitiveness. The US Government and others have extensively used the tools of deregulation that emerged from the influential frameworks of Michael Porter and the Chicago School. That both the contributing analysis and attendant policy environment largely neglected the very source of national disadvantage, mostly Japanese industry in the 1970s and 1980s, remains surprising. What was going on in Japan at the time, and to some extent continues today, remains largely hidden. The aim of this paper is to expose one source of Japan’s influential competitive advantage – the human resource. Design/methodology/approach This paper, through the translation of a Japanese-language paper by Professor Emeritus Masaki Saruta, introduces the Japanese phenomenon of managed education in Aichi Prefecture, home of the Toyota Motor Corporation, and provides insight into the lifestyles of the Japanese workers who live and work in corporate castle towns that feed Toyota. Inductive content analysis was used to identify four themes that can be identified as the strategies used to produce a homogenous pool of labor that sustains the Toyota Way philosophy and Toyota Production System. Findings The content analysis identified four major themes: Toyota’s abnormal level of influence over local government, a unique education system of education management, a closed labor market and the homogeneity of labor. It is only now that business leaders in the Anglosphere are able to comprehend the vastness and depth of inculcation and nurturing policies of Toyota and other Japanese industrial giants – something business leaders in the Anglosphere today can only dream. It now becomes evident that Chandler’s visible hand remains alive and well, but critical drivers of its success in Japan and Toyota were largely invisible to the West. Research limitations/implications The research required the knowledge of one of Saruta’s works that is only published in Japanese, and therefore, inaccessible to researchers in the Anglosphere. The translation process and development of themes is reported in detail. The findings are then located in the broad context of national competitive advantage. Practical implications With the insight presented in this paper, business and government leaders may now be empowered to implement policies and practices to nurture a pool of labor more conducive with the organizational strategic policy. While leaders in the Anglosphere are able to implement policy, there also remains a new threat to economic sovereignty – the nurturing of human resources in the dormitories, refectories and shopping malls of industrial China. Social implications The development of a company-focused workforce to support corporate castle towns, one of the sources of national advantage, has been identified in this paper. The social implications are twofold. First, in Japan, the nature and influence of these towns are accepted and heralded by the community. Second, outside of Japan, and especially across the Anglosphere, these towns are a major source of competitive advantage. Originality/value Through the translation of original research published in the Japanese-language medium, this research provides otherwise inaccessible insight into the inner workings and effectively the “black box” of what was Japan Inc. in an era when business people in the West were playing catchup. As the debate on globalization extends to sovereignty across the Anglosphere, it is beholden on the academic community to provide effective solutions for industrial competitiveness.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the demographic characteristics of Boards of Directors in the hospitality industry, and how those characteristics can impact a firm's performance during a major crisis. More specifically, using the upper echelons perspective, this study examined the impact of finance-oriented directors, and directors who were outsiders, on a company's stock price during the great recession. Results using companies from the hospitality industry indicate that companies that had the highest percentage of finance-orientated directors tended to fall further and recover less quickly. Yet, in the aftermath of the crisis, companies that performed worse during the crisis tended to increase the percentage of finance-oriented directors. The authors of the study assert that extending the application of the blissful ignorance effect is a logical explanation for the behavior found in the results.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a definitive and insightful working definition of kaizen for practitioners and academics in the West through which they may better understand the kaizen phenomenon and its intangible but critical underpinning philosophy. Design/methodology/approach – A phenomenological study of the utility of kaizen within in the bounds of active kaizen environments in name Japanese industrial organisations was conducted over a three-year period in Japan. The research explored how Japanese workers acknowledge, exercise, identify and diffuse kaizen in a sustainable manner. Findings – Kaizen is found to be a broad philosophical approach to work that serves different purposes for different members of the organisation, where no universal definition appears to exist yet differing ideologies are tolerated. Kaizen in Japan has a considerably deep meaning: it channels worker creativity and expressions of individuality into bounded environments, and creates an energy that drives a shared state of mind among employees to achieve proactive changes and innovation in the workplace. Originality/value – This paper competently bridges the Japanese-Anglosphere cultural divide in social and business contexts. It contributes to the development of practitioner understanding of the utility of kaizen in Japan through unhindered cross-cultural research methodology, enabled by researcher competency and fluency in Japanese language and culture.

In the realm of the physical sciences, universal governing rules were written at the beginning of time, hold to this day, and will, one would hope, continue to do so forever more. In the (human) social sciences, no universal rules were written due to one fundamental differing factor: the introduction of people into the equation. It is here that academics spend much time and effort searching for theories and models so to find some form of universality, where none may exist. Instead of explicit theories and models, only generalisations are generated, some which become food for further thought and other exist as fads for a short period of time; some are technical in nature, and others philosophical. It is here that this reflective, conceptual paper begins by considering the aspects of leadership, strategy, structure, and governance within the realm of the (business) organisation and their relationships (read: impact) upon business performance. (If this had been a Utopian world, such research would not be necessary as the academics would know all the answers, but as it isn’t, they don't. Research aims to find Utopia, good luck lads).

Phronesis is the wisdom in determining the ends, and the means of attaining them (Random House, 2006), and this differentiates leaders from followers. Leadership has been the subject of much research and discussion, in both the academic and practitioner worlds. What are the qualities a leader must have? The following is a brief look at leadership, in both business and the more general social sense; considers the roles of a leader, and the relationship between leadership and performance of the organisation; and concludes that leadership can have some bearing on organisational success, but is not always directly attributable.

Following its comprehensive defeat in the Pacific theatre of World War II and destruction of much of its production capacity, between the early 1950s and the Oil Crisis of 1973, Japan recorded an average annual economic growth rate of 10% and an average annual export growth rate of 20%. During the Oil Shock of 1973, when other countries fell into economic decline, industrial production efficiency enabled Japan to become a competitive and dominant force in world markets (Barnwell, 2007). Such achievement, when other major economies were faltering, lead to intense (Western) analysis and discussion in a hunt to discover the source of such success. Ultimately, this success was attributed to two factors: the relationship between Government and industry, and the success of name corporations including Toyota, Sony, Panasonic, and Honda (Abe & Fitzgerald, 1995). Investigation of these large successful corporations leads to the field of "quality management" and the underlying concept of "kaizen" -- a cornerstone of Japanese management -- with the Toyota Production System being the exemplar of Japanese quality management and operations management techniques. This literature review notes that while much is known about the concept of kaizen within the organization there remain aspects that are still not fully understood or are misunderstood; that current (English language) academic literature may fail to provide accurate accounts of the Japanese point of view, and differences between Japanese and Western perspectives. For this paper, the author has considered only English language literature, including contributions from Japanese academics. For simplicity, reference made to both "the US" and "Western" by cited works is considered to imply the same entity or idea.

This paper, in keeping in mind the emphasis made in Ohmae’s The Mind of the Strategist (original Japanese version 1975, English version 1982) considers what strategy is and what it should be, that is, the 'how' not the 'what' of strategy; reviews (Western) strategic management history through to the present era, and considers a possible future.

Since the beginning of human history, man has strived for improvement both as an individual and collectively. With the exception of human society, the military organisation may be considered one of the oldest. Even today, after thousands of years of learning and application, military organisations still make mistakes. Mistakes that should, in theory, not occur. This is clearly witnessed through research undertaken by Scott A. Snook in his account of one such mistake (“Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq” (2000)).

II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV LIST OF FIGURES X LIST OF TABLES X ATTESTATION OF AUTHORSHIP XI BIOGRAPHY XII CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 13 1.1 KAIZEN AND ITS INTERPRETATION IN THE ANGLOSPHERE 13 1.2 EMERGENCE OF THE QUALITY MOVEMENT 15 1.2.1 Genba is All 16 1.2.2 Kaizen Diffusion 16 1.2.3 Intergenerational Diffusion of Kaizen 17 1.2.4 Kaizen Drift 18 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 18 1.4 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH METHOD 20 1.5 THESIS OUTLINE 22 1.6 DEFINITIONS 23 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 29 2.