Process improvement capability: a study of the development of practice(s)

The purpose of this paper is to report on a research project, using intervention research (IR), which aims to identify how a higher education institution could develop process improvement (PI) capability.

The paper adopts a practice perspectives of routines, and classifies and catalogues the potential routines that could form PI capability. The development of these routines are investigated using the constructive research approach, a form of IR), in the action research mode. Within this approach, the methodology of mediated discourse analysis was employed to trace the empirical trajectory of the routine development, in a student management office within the context of an improvement project by the institutions PI unit.

Of relative significance is the implication that there is a small group of initialising PI practices which are accessible to practitioners, in contrast to a large set of critical success factors. Second, these PI practices transcend particular methodologies, meaning their development can be incorporated into customised, contextualised methodologies, by individual organisations.

The set of PI practices identified are able to be enacted by practitioners and are not dependent on macro-management factors. Second they are relatively simple to understand and are not associated with any particular improvement fad or fashion.

The study contributes to the appreciation of PI in higher education as a capability, and outlines the potential array of routines that could constitute that capability. It provides a theoretical view on how key PI routines are developed in an organisational field, and a more nuanced and richer view of “process mapping” and its effect on other PI practices.