Max Saunders

The article presents the results of participatory monitoring and evaluation of projects which aimed to aid the establishment and development of 24 modern rural cooperatives in Shandan County, Gansu Province, China. The evaluation was designed to assess the economic and community development outcomes of the cooperatives after three years of operatio...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of new model farmer cooperatives set up with Aid agency assistance in Shandan County, Gansu Province, China, focusing on enterprise management and training, and the monitoring and evaluation issues and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a case study of two projects tha...

This paper examines the field of strategy deployment in relation to its connection with quality management. It surveys literature from the two fields to strengthen the validity of a framework for implementing strategic initiatives in a business excellence (quality management) environment. The framework of seven constructs, which emerged from an emp...

Purpose Recent operations management research suggests that adopting and implementing the right practices are essential to attaining “world‐class” performance. The purpose of this paper is to report the leading operations management practices and the strategy deployment framework that emerged from a qualitative study that addressed the question of...

Purpose To examine the processes used by custodians of business excellence frameworks (BEFs) internationally to review and revise their frameworks, and to present the findings of a review of the design of the Australian business excellence framework (ABEF). Design/methodology/approach A literature review, three surveys, and a series of focus group...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the international use of business excellence (BE) models and the practices used by BE framework (BEF) custodians to encourage use. Design/methodology/approach A literature review, three surveys, a series of focus groups and key informant interviews were conducted. The study involved input from 16 cou...

The report presents some of the most commonly used techniques for each of the six Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (CPE) enabler categories. Examples are given of tools, measures and competencies for each of the techniques and they are linked to CPE scoring bands where this is valid. By understanding the scope and limits of the techniqu...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe how managers from a network of organisations formed and operated as a team to work on a benchmarking project. The project had the dual purpose of enabling learning for the participants, and identifying leading practices in strategy deployment. Design/methodology/approach The participants were manage...

Purpose The New Zealand Benchmarking Club (NZBC), a multi‐organisational network, aimed to improve the performance of member organisations through best practice benchmarking. The purpose of this paper is to critique the NZBC self‐assessment process, report the scores for self‐assessments from 2000‐2002, and present an analysis of the 2001 self‐asse...

The purpose of this study was to investigate strategic gaps at a regional polytechnic, using the technique of gap analysis. Strategic gaps between projected student recruitment and strategic target recruitment were examined and established. The study was exploratory, and provides the basis for further investigation of the relationship between proje...

This paper describes recent developments in organisational performance measurement and improvement, and the New Zealand response to these developments. The paper begins by providing an overview of the movement towards business excellence and benchmarking, and summarises the research evidence showing that the Baldrige framework has considerable vali...

The paper examines the application of organisational transformation to the management of tertiary education institutions. Three broad approaches to organisational transformation are discussed: all three have been undertaken in organisations with the objective of improving effectiveness. The concept as defined here has two parts: to create a signifi...