Browsing by Author "Almaiman, Sulaiman"
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Item Open Access Developing a framework to facilitate a culture for continuous improvement within nonprofit organisations: the case of Saudi Arabia(2018-08) Almaiman, Sulaiman; McLaughlin, PatrickCurrent research in the field of continuous improvement shows that organisational culture influences the likelihood of organisations succeeding in their mission to continuously improve. However, little has been done to investigate how organisational culture can actually foster continuous improvement. Particular aspects of organisational culture seem to be associated with successful continuous improvement. Yet, despite the apparent interest in the tools and techniques of continuous improvement, these practices have not yet been fully determined. While the for-profit sector, suffering from exhaustive competition, would be glad to discover these aspects, it is a major concern that nonprofit organisations cannot survive without continuous improvement, as they too need to respond dynamically to the rapid and dramatic changes in today’s world. This research asks what procedures and interventions would facilitate a culture of continuous improvement in nonprofit organisations. As the case study for this research, the Saudi nonprofit sector has been chosen, as little empirical research exists on continuous improvement in developing countries. Additional factors for choosing Saudi Arabia are that the country’s economic growth rate is increasing, and the ambitious “Saudi Vison 2030” aims to expand and enable the nonprofit sector to increase its impact on the nation’s well-being and economy. This exploratory study adopts an interpretive paradigm whereby reality is socially constructed and treated as subjective, consisting of multiple entities that can be explored from the perspectives of the research participants. A grounded research methodology and an action research approach focused on an issue to bring to light the cultural features that foster continuous improvement. Grounded theory was the chosen approach for collecting and analysing the qualitative data; thus, the theory that were constructed was grounded in the data themselves. Qualitative data were suggested as appropriate for answering the research question. Thirty-one interviews in thirteen nonprofit organisations yielded data which, when analysed revealed six themes. These themes were then returned to the participants through self-assessment surveys to gauge their organisation’s proximity to the ideal position. After that, six proposed interventions were developed to help organisations to shift gradually to the ideal position of a continuous improvement culture. These interventions were developed from the basis of the literature and focus group discussions. Finally, a conceptual framework was synthesised to visualise the impact of an organisation’s culture on its continuous improvement and to show how this impact could be achieved through similar intervention. The originality of this work comes from the fact that while Saudi Arabia is attracting intense interest from the international research community, little research has been done on continuous improvement practices there, in part because Saudi nonprofit organisations may have been hesitant in granting access to foreign researchers. This study offers one of the first "inside views" of Saudi nonprofit organisations with reliable data, focusing particularly on continuous improvement.Item Open Access Developing a framework to facilitate an improvement culture: the case of Saudi Arabia(2017-06-30) Almaiman, Sulaiman; McLaughlin, Patrick; Al-Ashaab, AhmedThis research explores aspects of organizational culture to facilitate continuous improvement within nonprofit organizations. Research shows that organizational culture plays a significant role in driving organizations and that they benefit from continuous improvement. The nonprofit sector contributes much to the economy and well-being, but is still often neglected; hence, Saudi nonprofit organizations are here the location for building a framework that promotes a culture of continuous improvement. In this qualitative research, grounded theory is the chosen approach. Eighteen interviews in nine organizations yielded data which, when analysed revealed forty emergent factors, classifiable into six initial themes developed by focus group participants. However, synthesising the framework is still in progress.Item Open Access Facilitating a continuous improvement culture: a literature review(IOS Press, 2018-12-01) Almaiman, Sulaiman; McLaughlin, PatrickBecoming a continuously improving organization demands more than debates and resources; it requires a proper organizational culture. Successful continuous improvement depends on certain cultural factors. The challenge that faces many organizations is how to facilitate continuous improvement and embed its spirit in their organizational cultures. There are specific values and behaviours associated with continuous improvement. Several recent studies have confirmed the crucial role of organizational culture in implementing operational management approaches. However, answering the question of “how” is still awaiting a clear road map. This paper provides a literature review that explores the aspects that could facilitate a continuous improvement culture, where there is a clear demand for modelling the proper climate for continuous improvement. This literature review has included the articles have been published within the last two decades. It concluded with a group of cultural aspects, which draws guidelines for leaders to facilitate continuous improvement in their organizations.Item Open Access Interventions to develop an improvement culture within nonprofit organization: The case of Saudi Arabia(2017-09-06) Almaiman, Sulaiman; McLaughlin, Patrick; Al-Ashaab, AhmedIt has been confirmed that organizational culture has a remarkable impact on facilitating continuous improvement. Nonetheless, little empirical research has investigated how organizational culture can facilitate continuous improvement. Therefore, this paper asks what interventions facilitate a continuous improvement culture within nonprofit organizations. Qualitative data are suggested as an appropriate method for answering the research question. The present research adopted an interpretive paradigm whereby reality, treated as a subjective and multiple entity that is “socially constructed”, can be mentally explored from the participants' perspectives. Grounded theory was the chosen approach for collecting and analysing the qualitative data; thus, the constructed theories were ‘grounded’ in the data themselves. Thirty one interviews in fifteen nonprofit organizations yielded data which, when analysed revealed a number of interventions, developed by the participants during five focus group discussions.Item Open Access Investigating the role of organizational culture in facilitating continuous improvement within Saudi non-profit organizations(IBIMA Publishing, 2018-07-19) Almaiman, Sulaiman; McLaughlin, PatrickIt has been confirmed that organizational culture has a significant impact on facilitating continuous improvement, although it is not clear yet how this impact can be achieved. On the other hand, nonprofit organizations struggle mainly in sustaining resources and increasing the quality of the services they provide. Several recent studies have confirmed the crucial role of organizational culture in implementing operational management approaches. However, answering the question of “how” is still awaiting a clear road map. Nonetheless, nonprofit organizations contribute remarkably to economies and civilisation. They deserve research attention, and studies done on continuous improvement suggest it to be holistically beneficial. Hence, this paper shows an empirical investigation that selected Saudi nonprofit organizations for their social setting to explore the influence of organizational culture on facilitating continuous improvement. The approach of grounded theory has been employed, using qualitative data, to construct a reality based on participant perspectives. The thirty-one interviews that were conducted at thirteen organizations revealed many lower level cultural aspects. These aspects were evolved, during five focus groups, into six higher-level themes. The findings can be used by leaders to create desired change.Item Open Access Success factors to facilitate continuous improvement culture within Saudi non-profit organizations(2016-06-23) Almaiman, Sulaiman; McLaughlin, PatrickThis paper explores the organizational and cultural factors facilitate a continuous improvement in Saudi non-profit organizations. Several researchers have shown that organizational culture has a significant impact on an organization. The literature shows that the nonprofit sector is often neglected. There is a similar lack of empirical research on this topic explicit to Saudi Arabia Grounded theory was used to explore factors from the literature and empirical data. Nine factors were extracted from the literature. Nineteen factors emerged from seventeen interviews conducted in the non-profit sector in Saudi Arabia.Item Open Access Uncovering aspects that facilitate a continuous improvement culture within nonprofit organizations(2017-07-06) Almaiman, Sulaiman; McLaughlin, PatrickThe literature shows that organizational culture has a significant impact on implementing and sustaining continuous improvement initiatives, although there is a lack of research on how to achieve this impact. Therefore, this action research adopts a grounded theory approach to explore aspects of organizational culture that facilitate continuous improvement. Eighteen interviews in nine nonprofit organizations yielded data which, when analysed revealed forty emergent factors, classifiable into six core themes developed by the participants during two focus group discussions. These themes conceptualized by Schain's model of organizational culture.