SIQ

Category Archive: Research

1. SIQ Organizational Culture Index

   14 December, 2021 08 :11 Comments Off on SIQ Organizational Culture Index

   We are looking for organizations that want to strengthen their organizational culture

   Leading and managing towards sustainable success by measuring your organizational culture

   Background

   SQMA - Swedish Quality Management Academy conducts research in co-production with organizations in the private and public sector on behaviors that drive or hinder a desired culture. Based on the research, a generic measurement tool has been developed to measure a culture that leads to sustainable success. The measurement tool is digital and SIQ has today conducted about 50 measurements in organizations in business and the public sector. With the support of the measurement tool, it is now possible to adapt the measurement based on your organization's own values.

   Research shows that employees with good conditions to perform and develop their tasks feel better and create more value for customers and stakeholders. Developing and strengthening culture requires an organization to have knowledge of the behaviours that support - but also hinder - the organization's values. Above all, the crucial knowledge is to understand how the values are expressed in practice. An organization with a strong organizational culture is better able to cope with the rapid pace of change in society, difficult crisis situations and difficult economic conditions. An important prerequisite is therefore to be able to measure organizational culture over time, where trend measurements can provide the organization with valuable support in its own value-based work.

   Purpose, objectives and benefits

   The purpose of the project is to develop, test and evaluate a way of measuring organizational culture that is designed and adapted to the organization's defined values in combination with the values that provide the basis for a quality culture. The project aims to enable an organization's own values to be expressed as behaviours in practice and to measure and evaluate them. After a measurement and evaluation, the organization will receive a current situation analysis as a decision support for priorities in an organizational development work. In this, the emphasis is on increasing the insight into what strengthens behaviors that support the development of an organizational culture, but also the insight into behaviors that need to be removed as they hinder the development of an organizational culture. The project is aimed at organizations that want to develop organizational culture activities through mutual learning with researchers in SQMA.

   Implementation

   The project will run Q1 2022 - Q1 2023 with participating organizations and SQMA researchers with a focus on developing a new measurement of organizational culture based on the organization's own values. Subsequently, tests with measurements in participating organizations are planned to validate that the new measurement tool works in practice. The time commitment for a participating organization is estimated at three workshops before a measurement and then with two follow-up workshops. The project is aimed at those who have a work role and an interest in developing your organizational culture. At least two people from each organization should be represented throughout the project. The work is led and facilitated by SIQ with the support of SQMA and SKI (Swedish Quality Index). SIQ is responsible for planning and implementation, including measurements and review of the results of the measurements. The project includes planning, monitoring, literature studies, facilitation and follow-up of workshops, development of measurements, and review of reports from measurements.

   Participation fee for taking part in the research project:

   • Businesses that are members of SIQ Excellence Center: 120 000 SEK
   • Organizations that are members of SIQ Intressentförening: 140 000 SEK
   • Activities that are not members of SIQ Intressentförening: 180 000 SEK

   We look forward to receiving your expression of interest. For more information, please contact Anders Fundin, Research Manager at SIQ - Institute for Quality Development.

   E-mail: anders.fundin@siq.se, mobile: 0730 32 99 44.

2. Innocities - smart and sustainable community development

   20 October, 2021 10 :00 Comments Off on Innocities - smart and sustainable community development

   Vinnova has granted support for the project Innocities - smart and sustainable community development through innovation and collaboration

   The transition work to achieve the 2030 Agenda requires a high degree of social innovation and collaboration in order to implement the necessary systemic transformations, not least in municipalities and other publicly owned businesses.

   The project will develop and disseminate the Innocities innovation program to municipalities, ports and energy companies in Sweden and the Nordic region. Innocities provides a systemic innovation process and methodology for local operational interaction with the aim of accelerating the transition to achieve the 2030 Agenda and contribute to smart and sustainable social and economic development.

   By further developing a successful Norwegian innovation program for Swedish conditions, the project will contribute to developing the innovation and collaboration capacity of municipalities and publicly owned ports and energy companies so that the involvement of individual residents, civil society, academia and business is utilized in a systematic way and interwoven with established activities and social missions.

   SIQ is participating in the project, which runs from October 2021 to March 2023, in collaboration with Smart Innovation Norway, Mälardalen University and Sweco.

3. Margareta Karlsson, LTU newly awarded PhD in Quality Engineering

   6 October, 2021 11 :46 Comments Off on Margareta Karlsson, LTU new PhD in Quality Engineering

   Swedish healthcare is facing challenges to meet changing needs, new treatment methods and new technologies. Coordination and collaboration can improve quality for patients while reducing costs.

   Organizational collaboration involves actors, across organizational boundaries, working together to achieve the purpose of the collaboration, e.g. to facilitate the care of a patient or group of patients in a care pathway.

   The thesis shows that organizational collaboration can promote improvement work and learning in processes by sharing knowledge within and between functions and organizations.

   Professor Anders Fundin, also Research Director at SIQ was the main opponent.

   We congratulate Margareta for a well done research work and especially for her PhD in Quality Engineering.

4. Quality and partnership

   July 7, 2021 08:06 Comments Off on Quality and partnership

   Public procurement is often still based on price, although quality is now a key criterion in procurement. There is a strong need for a model with practices that promote dynamic quality with leadership that drives a culture of improvement. One possible such approach to public procurement is to start with a quality model that drives that culture.

   Case study on procurement of elderly care

   In this research project we have in a case study studied in more detail how procurement of elderly care has been improved by using the quality model GUM model, which during the project was developed into SIQ Managementmodell.

   The project included training all parties in the quality model and conducting workshops to see what a well-functioning partnership between the municipality and the tenderer could look like. 

   A partnership based on a quality model presupposes that the municipality making the procurement itself works according to the chosen structure, so that the partnership is built into an already functioning way of working. It is important to discuss what a partnership means and how it should be expressed initially.

   Advice for future public procurement

   Given the results of the research project, some advice for future public procurement has been formulated. Among other things, the parties should consider the following: 

   • A common thread throughout the procurement process 
   • A discussion on the minimum acceptable level of delivery, i.e. which "shall" requirements should be set.
   • To "work in" the quality model and not just add it to the procurement documents.
   • An early integration of partnerships in the procurement documents in order to work in good cooperation during the contract period
   • Training of all stakeholders in the chosen quality model

   The report is written by Carolina Camén as a researcher at CTF, Center for Service Research and associate professor at Karlstad Business School and Anders Fundin who is a research leader at SIQ and professor at Mälardalen University.

5. Decoding sustainable success

   29 December, 2020 11 :28 Comments Off on Decoding sustainable success

   In this conceptual study, we outline a simplistic framework of aspects, variables, and relations constituting a workable definition of 'sustainable success' inspired by previous theoretical models. The aim is to contribute to a pragmatic clarification of how the concept of sustainable development could be more understandable, measurable, and manageable during global uncertainty and rapid change. A theoretical background is presented, followed by an overview of the method of investigation with a subsequent presentation of the results and a reasoning that frames the conceptual framework on critical constructs for measuring sustainable success based on stakeholder perceptions.

6. Quality 2030: quality management for the future

   09:22 Comments Off on Quality 2030: quality management for the future

   This article is based on extensive data gathered during a workshop process conducted in two main steps: (1) a collaborative brainstorming workshop with 22 researchers and practitioners (spring 2019) and (2) an appreciative inquiry summit with 20 researchers and practitioners (autumn 2019). The process produced five collectively elaborated and designed future research themes for QM: (a) systems perspectives applied, (b) stability in change, (c) models for smart self-organizing, (d) integrating sustainable development, and (e) higher purpose as QM booster.

   The process also identified a positive core of QM, defined as core values and aspects in the field and practice that need to be preserved and nurtured in the future.

7. Towards societal satisfaction in a fifth generation of quality - the sustainability model

   09:13 Comments Off on Towards societal satisfaction in a fifth generation of quality - the sustainability model

   In the new generation of quality, societal satisfaction would be a more appropriate way of measuring sustainable success. Consequently, and to support societal satisfaction, additional quality management models that complement current approaches are needed. For organizations to manage current, fast-changing environments successfully, existing management models need to be further developed.

   Hence, to support decision makers in the fifth generation of quality, Quality 5.0, achieve societal satisfaction, this paper proposes a generic model for sustainable development, based on a longitudinal trend analysis of two sequential Delphi studies conducted in 2012 and 2018. The sustainability model supports all organizations-private or public, large or small-on their pathway towards sustainable organizational success and a sustainable future.

8. Inclusion of CSR in the extended performance satisfaction index - new development

   22 December, 2020 11 :36 Comments Off on Inclusion of CSR in the extended performance satisfaction index - new development

   Using customer perception data from the Extended Performance Satisfaction Index (EPSI) Rating database, this study evaluates the relationship between customer satisfaction and corporate social responsibility (CSR). We apply the EPSI model and find a positive relationship between CSR and customer satisfaction, mediated by the effect of CSR on company image.

   Furthermore, there are non-linear relationships between CSR and customer satisfaction, leading to a proposed CSR-effect curve. From a managerial perspective, the effect of CSR on customer satisfaction is a function of the company's perceived efforts related to CSR. Hence, an improvement in CSR ratings from customers is expected to impact the business' bottom line, since improvement in customer satisfaction is known to positively impact financial performance.

9. Does SIQ Management Index simplify quality work for management teams?

   22 October, 2020 14 :31 Comments Off on Does SIQ Management Index make quality work easier for management teams?

   The research focused on two questions:

   • To identify conditions necessary for the successful use of SIQ Management Index that contribute to an ongoing dialog on how to support quality management through the use of measurement tools.
   • To investigate the usefulness of SIQ Management Index as a tool to improve the effectiveness of management teams.

   Results from the qualitative data show four primary uses of SIQ Management Index : heart rate monitors, navigation, systematic dialog and management team development.

   In particular, the study supports the need to develop an understanding of the importance of dialogue and process combined with the use of measures to achieve results.

   To identify conditions necessary for the successful use of SIQ Management Index that contribute to an ongoing dialog on how to support quality management through the use of measurement tools.

   The results do not clearly show that SIQ Management Index contributes to improved effectiveness. The maturity of the organization and management team, with open and transparent communication and clear purpose and objectives, seem to be key factors in how well a management team benefits from SIQ Management Index . The tool works best when used in the longer term rather than quick fix use, although this has not yet been validated by further research.

10. SIQ develops management model for micro enterprises

    12 December, 2019 18 :26 Comments Off on SIQ develops management model for micro-enterprises

    The research and development project aims to strengthen Sweden's competitiveness by developing and adapting the SIQ Management Model for Microenterprises. Through an adapted Swedish management model, the project aims to promote the opportunities of digitalization and contribute to digital transformation in rural businesses.

    The project will be carried out in collaboration with several micro-enterprises, Tillväxtverket and Almi Företagspartner. The focus is set on the development of new methods and working methods that provide support for microenterprises to manage a high rate of change and at the same time provide conditions for growth through new innovations.

    The project is co-financed by SIQ Intressentförening.

    - To lead for success in a turbulent world, management models also need to evolve with the times. We are therefore very pleased and proud of Tillväxtverket's confidence and at the same time humbled by the task of developing a new Swedish management model for microenterprises, comments Mats Deleryd, CEO of SIQ. We look forward to a deeper collaboration and co-production with the micro-enterprises, the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth and Almi Företagspartner.

    SIQ's research director Anders Fundin, who is also a professor at Mälardalen University, is responsible for the project.