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This study aims to investigate service modularization in a manufacturing firm, identifies service modularization processes and examines how these processes change the service module characteristics.

The study is based on a longitudinal case study (2008-2017) of a manufacturing firm. The development of six service modules was analyzed using data from interviews with key informants, informal meetings and internal documentation.

This study suggests five service modularization processes, and that service module characteristics, such as standardization and interconnectedness, change in different ways depending on the service modularization processes used. It further identifies two service modularization routes that each combine the service modularization processes in unique ways with replication as a key process to improve both standardization and customization.

This study elaborates a framework for service modularization, which can serve as a guideline for developing service modules. It also highlights the differences between product and service modularization, suggesting that the role of service module characteristics such as standardization and customization is specific for services.

This longitudinal case study (2008-2017) provides empirical evidence on service modularization and extends existing knowledge on service modularization processes and how they influence service module characteristics.

Over one million organisations have a quality management system (QMS) certified to the ISO 9001 standard; however, the system requires a lot of resources and its value has been questioned. This critique also leads to a questioning of the strategic relevance of quality management. The purpose of this paper is to explore how different types of uses of QMS correlate with management perceptions of quality management in terms of respect, cost and strategic importance.

The paper is based on a mixed method data collection strategy, quantitative data being collected from a survey in 8 organisations (n = 108) and qualitative data being collected from 12 interviews with quality managers in 12 different organisations.

The paper shows that a compliance-oriented QMS usage will more likely lead to a view of quality management as costly and of little respect, than a business or improvement-oriented QMS usage. Moreover, it nuances the view on compliance-oriented usage, showing that it is mainly documentation that negatively influences how management views quality management, whereas standardisation that is part of the compliance-oriented use is perceived as more value-adding.

This paper suggests three types of QMS use, namely, business management, improvement, and compliance-oriented use, and that a wise selection of how to use the QMS will affect the respect, strategic importance and cost that management associates with quality management.

Conducting research that is both practice- and theory-relevant is important for the service research community. Action research can be a fruitful approach for service researchers studying the transformative role of service research and wanting to make contributions to both the research community and to practical development. By exploring the current use of action research in service research, this study aims to make suggestions for enhancing the contribution to theory and practice development and to propose criteria for research quality for action research in service research.

This study builds on a systematic literature review of the use of action research approaches in service research.

The study makes three main contributions. First, it posits that any action research project needs to consider the four elements of problem identification, theorization, creating guiding concepts and intervention. Second, based on these elements mirrored in service action research, it outlines and analyzes three approaches to action research (i.e. theory-enhancing, concept developing and practice-enhancing). Third, it suggests a move from instrumental to a more conceptual relevance of the research and elaborates on the criteria for research quality.

This study contributes to the understanding of how action research may be applied for conducting high-quality collaborative research in services and proposes measures to enhance research quality in action research projects focusing services.

This study aims to explore factors that contribute to auditee satisfaction in external audit fieldwork of ISO 9001, and relationships between these factors.

The purpose is addressed through a single case study and based upon data collected by a questionnaire. Data were analysed using probabilistic graphical models.

An auditor's knowledge of operations is shown to be the single most important factor contributing to auditee satisfaction in the study. Furthermore, establishing a co-operative audit atmosphere and focussing on business improvements support the co-creation of value in the interaction between auditor and auditee, while a focus on ISO compliance appears to be more of a hygiene factor.

This paper is based on a study of one company and its interactions with one of the certification bodies for external auditing. Hence, the generalisability of the findings is limited by the case study method.

This paper identifies that an auditor's knowledge of operations and a focus on improvements and co-creation of value can improve auditee satisfaction and appreciation of the audit process.

Previous research has concluded that audit fieldwork is a key attribute associated with auditee satisfaction. This paper adds to this body of knowledge by empirically examining the specific factors within audit fieldwork that contribute to auditee satisfaction and focuses on value-creation in the audit process. By understanding these factors and moving towards a service perspective on audits with value co-creation as focus, it is possible to enhance the value of external audits.

The concept of value is becoming increasingly fashionable in healthcare and various improvement approaches (IAs) have been introduced with the aim of increasing value. The purpose of this paper is to construct a taxonomy that supports the management of parallel IAs in healthcare.

Based on previous research, this paper proposes a taxonomy that includes the dimensions of view on value and organizational focus; three contemporary IAs – lean, value-based healthcare, and patient-centered care – are related to the taxonomy. An illustrative qualitative case study in the context of psychiatric (psychosis) care is then presented that contains data from 23 interviews and focuses on the value concept, IAs, and the proposed taxonomy.

Respondents recognized the dimensions of the proposed taxonomy and indicated its usefulness as support for choosing and combining different IAs into a coherent management model, and for facilitating dialog about IAs. The findings also suggested that the view of value as “health outcomes” is widespread, but healthcare professionals are less likely than managers to also view value as a process.

The conceptual contribution of this paper is to delineate some important characteristics of IAs in relation to the emerging “value era”. It also highlights the coexistence of different IAs in healthcare management practice. A taxonomy is proposed that can help managers choose, adapt, and combine IAs in local management models.

The purpose of this paper is to use competence theory to explore the fit between actual competencies of quality management (QM) practitioner and the perception of QM competence needs in organisations.

This paper is based on a cross-case quantitative study design featuring a survey of QM practitioners (n = 249) within eight large Swedish organisations. The research instrument was a questionnaire covering seven themes within QM. The analysis is based on descriptive statistics.

The results show that while the perception of formal QM competence may seem sufficient, the evolving nature of QM requires knowledge, skills and attitudes that are also apt for more external and explorative perspectives. There is a bias towards competence for exploitative QM rather than explorative QM. Organisational logics preserving and possibly reinforcing a perceived “competence lag” in organisations are identified and described.

Few empirical studies within QM explore the competencies required for QM practices. This paper contributes to QM research in providing arguments for adopting the competence theory as a foundation for organising current and future QM work.

Quality management (QM) can support organisations in contributing to sustainable development. As a result of an expanding focus from customers towards stakeholders within QM, the perspectives to consider multiply. Understanding how practices and tools for process management are specifically affected by this increase in perspectives is key to creating the right conditions for improvement initiatives that support sustainable development.

This paper constructs a typology wherein the use of process management practices and tools is described in nine distinguished system contexts. Inductive discrimination is used to differentiate the system contexts and different use cases for process practices and tools.

Using the system of systems grid (SOSG), mainstream business process management (BPM) practices are positioned in a simple unitary context, whilst sustainability challenges also involve more complex contexts. Addressing these challenges requires integrating new tools and methods from paradigms outside of traditional functionalist business process management practices.

This paper highlights the necessity to consider system contexts when developing feasible practices and tools for effective process management.

Practical implications are that quality practitioners aiming to exploit the potential in process management to support sustainability get support for planning and conducting process improvement initiatives aiming to consider several stakeholder perspectives.

This paper presents a new typology for understanding the context of QM process initiatives and BPM in light of a contemporary sustainability focus.

The purpose is to understand how the role of quality functions might evolve amidst digitalisation and an increased focus on services. This study focuses on customer feedback and how it can function as activation triggers for developing absorptive capacity, as well as how it relates to the value creation processes.

Following a qualitative research design, the authors gathered primary data from interviews with quality managers at 17 UK and Swedish firms and triangulated it with secondary information from the firms' web pages.

The findings show that customer feedback-based activation triggers can support development of absorptive capacity in the quality function if there are established processes for acting on customer feedback. This is often the case for codified feedback, which normally concerns products. However, digitalisation offers new opportunities of engaging in value co-creation, and firms need to develop digital capabilities to manage new technologies and data analytic tools. For personalised feedback (the main category of service-related feedback), established processes are missing.

This study work contributes to knowledge about how quality functions respond to customer feedback on both products and services. It clarifies why the quality function sometimes struggles to contribute to service quality as much as to product quality. From a theory development perspective, the authors contribute to understanding customer feedback-based activation triggers, how they lead to development of absorptive capacity and their relation to value co-creation on a functional level.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore important quality-related challenges facing organizations, and investigate how current excellence models incorporate these challenges.

The paper is based on a Delphi study of Swedish organizations. Forty-nine challenges were generated and ranked according to importance and the ten top-ranked challenges were compared to the principles of four excellence models.

The excellence models still seem to be relevant since their content matches many of the identified challenges. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Swedish Institute for Quality models were found to have the most comprehensive coverage, while the International Organization for Standardization model had limited coverage.

Three areas for further research were identified: first, how quality management (QM) can evolve in different contexts that have varying needs in terms of adaptive and explorative capabilities; second, the interfaces of QM and sustainability, and ways to understand how customers and stakeholders can be active contributors to improvements; and third, the roles of the owners and board of directors regarding QM, and how to organize and distribute responsibilities of the QM work.

There are three important challenges that future revisions of excellence models could address: first, making QM a strategic issue for company owners; second, involving customers in the improvement activities; and third, developing processes that are robust yet still easily adaptable.

The Delphi study identified upcoming challenges in the QM area based on input from 188 quality professionals.