New business model of integration practices between TQM and SCM: the role of innovation capabilities

The paper investigates the offshore crisis 2015–2017 and its impact on central international offshore oil and gas related maritime cluster, the Blue Maritime Cluster, located at the North-Western coast of Norway.
This complete maritime cluster, heavily involved in offshore petroleum operations, it experienced an almost devastating blow, as it lost almost one-third of its employees as its value added contracted by 39 percent.
When the crises is basically seen as a result of falling of oil prices and lower activity and squeezed profit margins, this paper investigates the crisis in the light of financial instability and reactions down the maritime supply chain.
By collecting data from the Blue Maritime Cluster and the Norwegian central company register one is able both to trace the fall in the activity due to the crisis and measures of financial strength. The study approaches the data by using a structural time series analysis in order to map cycles as deviations from polynomial trends.
The findings ascertain that financial instability was dominant within the Blue Maritime Cluster during its boom before the crisis. Debt ratios and thereby gearing (leverage) were high. Thus, the companies could not meet their obligations when the crisis hit.
The paper also finds that narrow focused supply chain management made the cluster fall deep into the abyss. Companies with a more diversified portfolio were able to meet the hard years better than others.

The study aims to explore the role of total quality management (TQM) in enhancing the service quality of the private healthcare sector in the Northern Area of West Bank Palestine. The study involves a questionnaire-based survey, private hospitals, and healthcare centers selected in North West Bank. The administrative employees are the population of the study, 200 employees were selected via stratified sampling method. By using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the findings show that all TQM factors are positively and directly related to each other in the private healthcare sector. There is a positive and direct relationship between four TQM factors (customer satisfaction, employee involvement, continual improvements, and top management commitment) and service quality, while there is a negative direct relationship between processes and service quality. TQM factors (customer satisfaction, employee involvement, continual improvements, processes, and top management commitment) explained 95% of the variance in healthcare service quality (R² = 0.950, P < 0.05). Continual improvements is the main pillar in TQM application in healthcare sector, and it is highly associated with the private healthcare processes (R² = 0.907, P < 0.01), while top management commitment is the most significant factor in improving the service quality. Full understanding and commitment by the managers across all levels and activating the effective communication between employees at all levels in the organization are the key factors of a successful TQM implementation; it helps in strengthening the teamwork efficiency. Top management is required to avoid the monotonic managerial practices, especially in the organizational processes, as it has a negative impact on the private healthcare service quality.

The paper’s principal purpose is to present the original concept of the project supply chain’s entrepreneurial management. Based on the literature on the subject, one defines the entrepreneurial management concept showing the influence of entrepreneurial management on company operation. Moreover, the paper also outlines the most important concepts of the project supply chain and presents the functioning scheme. Theoretical considerations concerning contemporary theories of entrepreneurial management and project supply chain are the prelude to presenting the concept of entrepreneurial management. The presented approach can be found helpful for the effective management of the project supply chain, which has not yet been thoroughly defined. It should be mentioned that the designed model of the entrepreneurial supply chain management is an original proposal for the paradigm of project supply chains. Both in a classical and project supply chain, a significant role is given to the flow of material resources between the individual chain components. It determines that the project supply chain is mainly driven by the need for its members’ value increase. It was explained that regarding entrepreneurial competences, knowledge can be transferred to other organizations in the whole supply chain. It was also mentioned that the project supply chain’s entrepreneurial management takes into account the flexibility manifesting itself through the establishment of agile project teams, and by focusing on human relationships. It is the basis for the presented concept of the entrepreneurial management model of the project supply chain.

Acknowledgment
The project is financed within the framework of the program of the Minister of Science and Higher Education under the name “Regional Excellence Initiative” in the years 2019–2022; project number 001/RID/2018/19; the amount of financing PLN 10,684,000.00.