Best practice interventions: Short‐term impact and long‐term outcomes

• Published date: 01 July 2011
• Author: Niels Gorm Rytter,Chris Voss,Adrian Done
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2010.11.007
• Date: 01 July 2011

Journal of Operations Management 29 (2011) 500–513

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Operations Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jom

Best practice interventions: Short-term impact and long-term outcomes

Adrian Donea,∗, Chris Voss b,1, Niels Gorm Rytterc,2

aIESE Business School, Avda. Pearson, 21, 08034 Barcelona, Spain

bLondon Business School, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4SA, United Kingdom

cDepartment of Production, Aalborg University, Lautrupvang 15, 2750 Ballerup, Denmark

article info

Article history:

Available online 26 November 2010

Keywords:

Best practice

Capability development

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)

abstract

This paper uses empirical field research to examine whether short-term best practice interventions (BPIs)

can lead to improvements that are sustained in the long term. In addition, this research investigates the

implied conflict between striving for short-term results and achieving long-term development of capa-

bilities. It also examines the tension between the lack of resources of the typical small and medium sized

enterprise (SME) users of BPIs and the time required to develop a critical mass of capability. A longitu-

dinal case-based study of eight SME contexts examined BPI outcomes and factors leading to short- and

long-term success and sustaining best practices. The research identifies factors related to the intervention

context, implementation and change-agent approach. The data indicate that in resource-limited SMEs

BPIs are limited in their ability to develop adequate capability for long-term change.

© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

There is widespread use of best practice interventions (BPIs) to

help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) introduce and develop

new and best practices. Such BPIs typically have both short- and

long-term objectives. Short-term objectives are usually aimed at

performance improvements and long-term objectives usually seek

to embed new practices across the organization. Evidence indicates

that larger organizations are more likely to possess the resources to

implement practice improvements (Shah and Ward, 2003) and thus

in the USA, UK and other countries publicly funded intervention

programs have been created specifically to offer SMEs support in

learning about and adopting best practices.

There are two important issues with such BPIs. First, there is

an underlying question as to whether a short one-off interven-

tion can lead to sustained change in the organization’s practices

and, hence, long-term performance. Existing empirical research

indicates a “loose coupling” between the implementation of cer-

tain best practices, such as total quality management (TQM) and

plant performance, and questions the expenditure of resources

with unclear implications for performance (Choi and Eboch, 1998).

Second, there is an implied interplay and potential conflict

between short- and long-term objectives as trade-offs, diminishing

∗Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 93 253 4200.

E-mail addresses: adone@iese.edu (A. Done), cvoss@london.edu (C. Voss),

i9nr@production.aau.dk (N.G. Rytter).

1Tel.: +44 20 7000 8812.

2Tel.: +45 21806855.

returns and diminishing synergies impact the way a company may

improve towards its production frontier (Schmenner and Swink,

1998). Over-emphasis on short-term objectives may lead to the

neglect of long-term ones. On the other hand, successful short-term

outcomes may be a major contribution to the visibility and accep-

tance of new practices in the long term. Introducing new ways of

working and new innovative practices is generally a difficult pro-

cess. Short-term benefits must be created but it is still mostly a

long-term journey. How do companies handle this dilemma?

This paper explores these issues through case-based research.

A research model is proposed and a set of propositions concern-

ing the impact on both short- and long-term outcomes of factors

associated with the organizational context of the intervention, the

interventionitself and the consultants/facilitators are proposed and

tested.

2. BPIs

A BPI can be defined as an activity designed to introduce new

practices through a series of short focused activities in the orga-

nization. These interventions are typically composed of two parts.

The first part aims for dramatic improvements within a focused

operational area in a very short time. The second part focuses on

the introduction of new (often seen as either “best” or promising)

practices or processes and on preparing the organization for the

‘journey’ required for widespread adoption of these practices by

transferring and building skills through action learning and apply-

ing lessons learned in practice. BPIs typically consist of preparation

activities, one or more improvement workshops (usually less than

a week), finishing events and follow-up activities. The practical

0272-6963/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.jom.2010.11.007