Purpose-Telecommuting continues to be a topic of interest for practitioners and researchers alike. There are significant numbers of employees currently involved in telecommuting around the globe. Organizational implications, global workforce implications and the scarcity of scholarly publications make this research topic one that warrants our further investigation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the literature to identify the substantive work, examine the state of this phenomenon as of to date, particularly the failure and success factors, provide valuable insight to the practitioners and research directions to researchers Design/methodology/approach-An extensive literature review was conducted in an effort to identify the significant, substantive work to date. We reviewed two major business data bases and limit our review to refereed journals because of the rigorous review process that these articles go through before publication. Findings-A schema was identified to help categorize topics found in the literature. A framework model is proposed to further explore the relationships between the motivating factors for telecommuting and the resulting outcomes from telecommuting programs. Practical implications-The literature review and the model should be useful information for both practitioners and researchers in a variety of disciplines including management, communication, and information technology. Originality/value-Few published papers have attempted to thoroughly review the telecommuting literature. Many of the articles concentrate solely on the individuals who telework. This review, looks at many facets of the telecommuting phenomenon like the workers, their managers, the organization as well as the technological and environmental issues.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to survey and analyze current process improvement (PI) approaches, their empirical results reported in the literature, and develop accordingly a conceptual framework and implementation guidelines.Design/methodology/approachA literature review of the popular business database to search for case studies and empirical research on PI methods was conducted. The empirical evidence on success and failure factors were inferred and tabulated. Based on synthesis of the lessons learned from this empirical evidence along with concepts drawn from economics, and operations management, a conceptual framework is developed.FindingsIt was found that the framework would serve as a diagnostic tool for identification of, and recovering from root causes of problems and inefficiencies faced in business environments. The framework proposed synthesizes and extends earlier PI tools and basic approaches used for mitigating disruptions faced in operations practice. The framework design consists of three main phases: Specify; Analyze; and Monitor closely. Accordingly, it is denoted by SAM.Practical implicationsDecision makers can be altered to both the success factors and causes of failure of different PI approaches, and a framework is provided along with implementation guidelines that help assure practical effectiveness of PI efforts. The guidelines provided for practicing managers comprise two categories: specific; tool‐based, and general; system‐based.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is two fold: first, empirical evidence on the drivers of success and failure of four main PI approaches, were synthesized. These include: six sigma, benchmarking, reengineering and process mapping. Second, based on this empirical evidence, a conceptual framework that guides both the choice and implementation of business process improvement programs is developed. The proposed framework and its implementation guidelines help assure actual effectiveness of PI practice.

A classified model for applying the theory of constraints to service organizations Samia Siha Article information:To cite this document: Samia Siha, (1999),"A classified model for applying the theory of constraints to service organizations"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. AbstractThe general principles of TOC can be applied to improve the performance of service organizations. A classified model is proposed for such applications based on Schmenner's classification of service organizations. The flow of``material'', inventory and throughput is identified at various service organizations of the four quadrants of the service matrix. The definition of these terms might be dependent on the service. Since system constraint is at the heart of TOC, the recognition of the nature of organization constraint is the first step towards continuous improvement. Electronic accessThe current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

Addresses quality management issues of both conceptual and practical significance. The contribution is twofold: first, conceptual issues and critical relationships which have been overlooked in the current literature are discussed, as well as their policy implications. Second, a contingency approach for managing quality is proposed to guide implementation, and to help reduce the deviations between the desired and the actual outcomes of quality programs. The contingency model developed provides a basis for advancing both theory and practice.

Maintains that, although service industries would benefit from research concerning the implementation of just‐in‐time (JIT) techniques, most research has focused on JIT only in manufacturing firms. A review of applied journals and articles, however, revealed JIT concepts migrating to non‐manufacturing environments. These articles describe JIT techniques successfully moving from the factory floor to other environments and suggest a potentially rich research opportunity. Summarizes these articles using Benson′s guidelines for applying JIT in service. Illustrates various JIT applications within each of the JIT categories.