Purpose This paper aims to present a review of literature that considers the use of quality frameworks in higher education (HE). Quality frameworks provide a minimum standard of teaching and learning of students. This systematic literature review identifies the tools and techniques to continuously improve the systems and processes that underpin teaching and learning are missing. With this in mind, the authors present a focus on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) as an improvement methodology adopted by the HE sector and present the factors that drive or hinder the implementation of LSS in higher education institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach A review of the literature and thematic analysis has been undertaken relating to the application of quality frameworks and methodologies within the literature set. Findings The findings show that quality frameworks to be lacking insofar as their focus on compliance is no incentive for continuous improvement. This finding is not unique to the HEI sector and similar challenges exist in other sectors. A further finding identifies the need for academic professional practice to go beyond quality assurance to attend to the transformation of students. Together these present an apparent disconnect between continuous improvement methodology and HE quality frameworks. Research limitations/implications A literature review does have limitations insofar as some literature may have been missed because of different key terms. A further consideration being literature from 2019 not available at the time the review was conducted. Practical implications It represents the state of play in regard to the use of quality frameworks operating in HE and business schools. Insight is offered into how the use of continuous improvement methods can deliver quality in HE to benefit the sector, students and others. An agenda for future research is offered. Originality/value The discussion is valuable as it seeks to improve understanding of the relationships between methodologies with adopted quality frameworks in the HEI sector. A contribution is made in the use of force field analysis to represent the critical success factors and barriers of LSS in HEI.

Considerations of employee-driven innovation generally posit innovation as an advance in the substantive products, services and/or processes of an organisation. More broadly, innovation can also refer to anything that seeks to do something new, or address a concern that would not otherwise be met. Employees contribute to innovation in many ways: they can generate and/or implement a product or service; they can generate and/or implement new technologies; however, they can also influence the ways in which an organisation adapts and evolves over time in more subtle ways through instigating work practice changes. Although these more subtle changes may not appear under the banner of organisational innovation they nevertheless contribute to the creation and application of new organisational processes, practices and outputs. They may also never be part of the conscious and explicit agenda of the organisation or be something that managers have a strong role in initiating. However, their effects can be cumulative and substantial.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine a contextualized local government case study of the application of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in conjunction with the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) to highlight the importance of a good strategic fit between LSS and organizational objectives before implementation.Design/methodology/approach A local government council is used in a case study-based approach. Organizational artefacts and documents were used for data collection in conjunction with interviews from senior executives within the organization.Findings Results indicate that when used in conjunction with the ABEF, LSS provides focus on organizational learning practices embedded within the implementation of continuous improvement. Research limitations/implicationsThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to discourse regarding the effective application and implementation of LLS in local government.Practical implications LSS tools and techniques are known to local government, but are applied in isolation of the overarching LSS framework. This paper emphasizes the importance of comprehensive implementation of these tools, guided by the inclusion of an external contextualized framework (ABEF) in conjunction with the LSS to achieve sustainable continuous improvement.Originality/value Business excellence frameworks are widely used in the public sector as a reference/means for improvement. This paper highlights the importance of LSS in operationalizing strategic direction provided by such frameworks and providing the focus on learning practices critical for sustainable improvements.

This paper takes up understandings of organisations where practices constitute and frame past and present work, as well as future work practice possibilities. Within this view, work practices, and thus organisations, are both perpetuated and varied through employees' enactments of work. Using a practice lens, we are particularly interested in the ways workers simultaneously maintain and alter practices in their workplace-we characterise this as re-making one's job. This perspective challenges ways in which managers often depict jobs and everyday work-as rational, linear and easily describable. We suggest that workers at various levels of responsibility contribute more to the formation of organisational practices than is often assumed. The processes of re-making jobs and remaking organisational practices create tensions that we posit as sites for learning. This paper addresses these issues through a focus on work practices in two Australian organisations that have been undergoing significant cultural change.In this paper we explore what happens to particular kinds of organisational practices when new workers are employed to enact them. We draw attention to the kinds of things these workers do to work out what their jobs entail. In considering this working out, we highlight points of tension between workers' enactments of their Vocations and Learning (

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