Loading...
9 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
- Service Quality Strategy: Implementation in Algarve HotelsPublication . Candido, CarlosThis chapter addresses the problem of service quality strategy implementation and undertakes a tentative validation of three models. The first focuses on service quality, as a function of quality gaps, while the second and third ones examine strategy implementation. The models aim to help to explain how to implement a service quality strategy that simultaneously avoids quality gaps and resistance to change. Sample data has been collected through questionnaires distributed within the population of four- and five-star hotels of the Algarve, Portugal. Descriptive statistics and statistical tests do not provide evidence against the models and thus support their validity, but raise concerns about some possible inconsistent management practices during the implementation of a quality strategy.
- Strategy implementation: what is the failure rate?Publication . Cândido, Carlos; Santos, Sérgio Pereira dosStrategy implementation has attracted the interest of researchers from the strategic management field almost since its foundation and has been the subject of much debate, in part, due to the ‘high’ percentage of organisational strategies that fail. It is often claimed that 50 to 90 percent of strategic initiatives fail to succeed. These claims have often been used to propose new management tools and to dismiss others. As we intend to show, although these claims have had a significant impact in management practice and theory, they are, however, controversial. In this paper we aim to clarify why this is the case and to emphasise that any attempts to produce a generic estimate of the rate of failure based on the current state of affairs are of little practical value. To this purpose an extensive review of the literature is presented and discussed. Based on the analysis of this literature, we conclude that whilst it is widely acknowledged that the implementation of a new strategy can be a difficult task, nobody seems to really know what the true rate of implementation failure is. Much of this uncertainty is due to the fact that some of the estimates presented in the literature are based on evidence that is eitheroutdated, fragmentary, fragile, or just absent. Careful consideration is therefore advised before using these estimates to promote changes in the theory and/or practice of strategic management.
- Is TQM more difficult to implement than other transformational strategies?Publication . Cândido, Carlos; Santos, Sérgio Pereira dosThis paper aims to assess whether Total Quality Management (TQM) is harder to implement than other business strategies. In order to accomplish this objective we have adopted a two-stage methodology. Firstly, we carried out an extensive review of the literature to identify the rates of TQM implementation failure estimated by researchers and practitioners. Secondly, we compared these rates with those estimated for other organisation-wide transformational efforts and explored the extent to which the obstacles to TQM implementation and to the implementation of other business strategies differ. Based on the literature reviewed and on the comparative analyses performed, we conclude that while it is widely acknowledged that the implementation of TQM can be a difficult task, significant uncertainty remains as to what the exact rate of failure is. Furthermore, the analyses suggest that the rates of failure and obstacles to TQM implementation are similar to those presented by other business strategies, and therefore, there seems to be no grounds to assume that TQM is more difficult to implement than other business strategies. These findings have implications for researchers and practitioners and open up several avenues for further research, which are also discussed in this paper.
- Service quality strategy implementation : a model and the case of the Algarve hotel industryPublication . Cândido, CarlosThis is the third of a series of papers addressing the problem of service quality strategy implementation. The first paper focuses on service quality as a function of quality gaps and proposes a comprehensive model that amplifies the areas where to look for service quality gaps (Cândido & Morris, 2000). The second paper focuses on strategy implementation and proposes three interrelated models: a static model of the organisation; a dynamic model of the strategy process; and a mixed model, which integrates static and dynamic models (Cândido & Morris, 2001). Taken together, the four models can help to implement a service quality strategy that simultaneously avoids quality gaps and resistance to change. Now, this paper undertakes a tentative validation of the models. Sample data has been collected through two complementary questionnaires, both implemented in the population of four and five star hotels of the Algarve (FFSHA). Data analysis involves descriptive statistics and statistical tests. In general, the descriptives and the statistical tests do not provide evidence against the models thus supporting their validity. Descriptives have also raised concerns about some possible inconsistent management practices during the implementation of a quality strategy. The paper concludes with insights to managers interested in implementing such a strategy.
- Implementation obstacles and strategy implementation failurePublication . Candido, Carlos; Santos, SérgioPurpose – The paper addresses the following question: How do strategy implementation obstacles relate to each other and affect strategy implementation? Method – The research methodology is qualitative and based on an extensive review of the literature and on an in-depth case study analysis. Findings – This paper draws two main conclusions. The first is that the many obstacles that impact the strategy implementation process can interact and be strongly interrelated in dynamic and complex manners. The second is that obstacles can lead to and reinforce other obstacles, eventually forming long chains of blockages. Originality – Strategy implementation remains a difficult task with improbable success. This paper provides a contribution to an explanation on why so many strategy implementation efforts fail. It is one of the very few papers addressing the issue of the relationships between strategy implementation obstacles.
- Implementation of a service quality strategy: application to the Algarve hotel industryPublication . Cândido, CarlosThis dissertation addresses the problem of service quality strategy implementation. The problem has been defined more precisely as how to implement a strategy of quality, which focuses on customers’ needs, in a service organisation, or alternatively, as how to integrate coherently a strategy of service quality, centred on the customers, with the requirements and idiosyncrasies of operationalization, in order to make it successful. The nature and scope of this research problem is based in the confluence of the areas of service quality, strategy and strategy implementation. Thus, addressing this problem naturally requires a review of the literature on service quality, on strategy and on strategy implementation. The literature review on service quality revealed, first, that service quality is a function of service quality gaps; second, that there are some models of service quality gaps; and, third, that there are several service quality gaps in the literature which are not integrated into any model; thus revealing a need for an encompassing synthesised model. This dissertation consequently considers the existing service quality gap models and a list of other gaps to propose a comprehensive model. Similarly, the literature review on strategy and on strategy implementation revealed, first, that there is a lack of clear, detailed and general strategy implementation models; second, that existing strategy implementation models can be separated into two distinct types, the static and the dynamic models; and, third, that existing static models exhibit many relevant aspects but differ strongly on the number and on the nature of the aspects included; thus revealing insufficiencies and the need for an integrative effort. The same happens with the existing dynamic models. This dissertation consequently considers several existing models to propose a synthesised static model and a synthesised dynamic model. The synthesised static model is a representation of an organisation, of all aspects relevant for strategy implementation, at a given instant. The synthesised dynamic model is a generic process of strategy formulation and implementation that explicitly addresses the requirements for success. Note that whilst the two kinds of models address the implementation problem from different perspectives they are not in competition. In fact, it is the view of the author that static and dynamic models are complementary and have to be integrated into a “mixed model”, in order to provide a better understanding of strategy implementation. Thus, besides the already mentioned three comprehensive models, that have been synthesised, this dissertation goes further to suggest a mixed model which, simultaneously and harmoniously, considers all relevant organisational dimensions and all relevant stages of the strategy process. The model shows what dimensions can be changed and at what stages. It can be adapted to the specific circumstances of any organisation. Such model, unique in the literature, as far as the author is aware, is finally combined with the service quality gap model to propose: (1) a map of the pattern of the quality gaps occurring at each implementation stage; (2) the organisational variables that can be manipulated, at each stage, to prevent and eliminate the gaps; and (3) several relevant implications to practising managers. The gap, static, dynamic and mixed models suggested are confronted with some evaluation criteria and with sample data from the four and five star hotels of the Algarve. The data does not provide evidence against the models thus supporting their validity. This tentative validation of the models thus provides some relevant theoretical contributes to the service quality and strategy implementation literatures. Sample data is also used to describe (1) how these hotels are implementing service quality strategies and (2) how they prevent and eliminate service quality gaps. This description has raised concerns about the absence of a consistent model for the implementation of service quality strategies in many four and five star hotels of the Algarve. It also provides some insights to managers interested in implementing a service quality strategy, especially to those of the Algarve Hotel Industry.
- Obstacles, their relationships and strategy implementation failurePublication . Cândido, Carlos; Santos, Sérgio Pereira dosStrategy implementation remains a difficult task with improbable success. This paper provides an explanation on why so many strategy implementation efforts fail. The paper addresses the following questions: What are the obstacles to a successful strategy implementation? Do these obstacles simply accumulate during implementation or do they relate to each other in more damaging ways? and Can an obstacle be the cause leading to, and reinforcing, other obstacles? Based on an extensive review of the literature and on an in-depth case study analysis, this paper draws three main conclusions. The first is that there is little agreement regarding what the real implementation obstacles are. The second is that obstacles interact and can be strongly interrelated in dynamic and complex manners, which add further difficulties to the process of strategy implementation. The third is that obstacles can lead to and cause other obstacles, eventually forming long causality chains of blockages.
- Strategy implementation: what is the failure rate?Publication . Cândido, Carlos; Santos, Sérgio Pereira dosIt is often claimed that 50–90% of strategic initiatives fail. Although these claims have had a significant impact on management theory and practice, they are controversial. We aim to clarify why this is the case. Towards this end, an extensive review of the literature is presented, assessed, compared and discussed. We conclude that while it is widely acknowledged that the implementation of a new strategy can be a difficult task, the true rate of implementation failure remains to be determined. Most of the estimates presented in the literature are based on evidence that is outdated, fragmentary, fragile or just absent. Careful consideration is advised before using current estimates to justify changes in the theory and practice. A set of guiding principles is presented for assisting researchers to produce better estimates of the rates of failure.
- The implications of service quality gaps for strategy implementationPublication . Cândido, Carlos; Morris, D. S.This article addresses the problem of service quality strategy implementation and proposes three interrelated models: a static model of the organisation; a comprehensive dynamic model of the implementation process, both synthesised from the literature; and a mixed model, which integrates static and dynamic models. The mixed model is combined with the service quality gaps (SQGs) model, drawn at a previous congress paper, to propose a map of the pattern of SQGs occurring at each implementation stage; the organisational variables that can be manipulated to eliminate SQGs; and several implications to practising managers.