If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract During the years 1995/96 a special survey was organised by the Chemical Engineering department of the NTUA (National Technical University of Athens) aiming at the examination of the conditions for the introduction of quality assurance systems (QAS) in Greek enterprises, the identification of the most important problems and the evaluation of the resulting benefits. Although the major motivating factor for companies to introduce QAS was market-related, benefits experienced often refer to the improvement of internal organisational and communication procedures, whereas the main difficulties concern the change in the way of thinking and working. The impact of training on the employees' motivation, on the difficulties experienced and on the negative reactions of the staff indicates its significant role for the proper implementation of the system.The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
Leadership effectiveness is considered to be a key factor for the implementation of TQM. Although companies worldwide are increasingly adopting TQM, Greek companies have not taken major steps towards this concept. Research was organised by the Chemical Engineering Department of the NTU Athens in order to investigate leadership performance in Greek enterprises using the framework of the European Quality Award. The results of the research show that Greek leadership has generally not embraced the principles of quality so as to be able to drive the process of change towards total quality. Important factors with a double, positive and negative, influence on the leadership performance of Greek enterprises are the existence of a quality assurance system in accordance with ISO 9000 on one hand and the existence of a mother company on the other. Major weaknesses of leadership in the sample enterprises refer to inadequate communication at intra‐ and inter‐departmental level, to lack of organised and intensive training and to a rather formal commitment to total quality, just covering the requirements of the quality assurance system. However, an élite of four to five enterprises covering some of the leadership requirements of the EQA model at a degree of more than 60 per cent proves that TQM can be realised in Greece.
Principal component analysis is integrated with canonical analysis to examine aspects of the competitiveness of two di!erent sectors of the Greek manufacturing, i.e. the food and the beverage industries. Di!erent measures of labour productivity, vertical integration, technological innovation and size of the "rms which are considered as critical factors of industrial competitiveness are used in the application of the principal component analysis. Canonical analysis is then applied to correlate the variables of labour productivity with the other variables. In the case of the food and beverage integrated sector, the results of the principal component analysis pinpoint that there are two main principal components: (a) labour productivity and vertical integration, and (b) technological innovation and size. The "rst factor depicts the internal organizational, structural and production processes changes realized so that the competitiveness of the sector "rms improves, whereas the second factor re#ects the response of the sector to technological and growth trends. The two variables of labour productivity are a!ected by the degree of vertical integration and, at a lesser degree, by a common factor of the size of the "rm and the level of investment for technological innovation.Application of multicriteria methods and multivariate analysis are the two main techniques that have been widely adopted [1}6]. Using multicriteria analysis approaches, the multidimensional character of all organizations can be better re#ected. The rankings obtained by the simultaneous consideration of multiple ratios can give useful information regarding the examined set of measures. However, due to the complexity of the MCA and the subjective selection of weights, its application is not free from problems.Elaborate statistical models have been also developed to forecast the business future, particularly with respect to bankruptcy risk [7,8]. Moreover, multivariate models have been applied to determine industry and corporate performance [9}12]. The main di!erence between multicriteria and multivariate methods is related to the way the various weights are assigned to the relative performance measures. Thus, in a multicriteria method the weights are subjectively determined by the decision maker, whereas in a multivariate method weights are estimated rather objectively by the data set.In recent years, major changes have taken place in technology and production systems, in organizational structures and cultures and in business strategies so that the industrial companies face the new challenges of the international markets and continue to be competitive in an ever-changing economic environment. Consequently, industrial business performance can no longer be assessed or explained by the unique use of "nancial ratios which are based on conventional cost accounting and management reporting systems [13}15].The competitiveness of an industrial "rm or sector depends on products' and services' quality, on customer's satisfaction, on productivity and e!ectiveness...
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