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

Purpose: This paper reports on a research project, using Intervention Research (IR), which aims to identify how a Higher Education Institution (HEI) could develop Process Improvement (PI) capability. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a practice perspectives of routines, and classifies and catalogues the potential routines that could form process improvement (PI) capability. The development of these routines are investigated using the Constructive Research Approach (CRA), a form of Intervention Research (IR), in the Action Research mode. Within this approach the methodology of Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) 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 process improvement unit. Findings The study shows a smaller set of ‘initialising’ practices; those which are present, or desired, and instrumental to the beginning of a process improvement activity. The analysis reveals the mechanisms of why ‘process mapping’ is significant in the development of process improvement routines and the potential recursive power of the interrelatedness of these. Practical implications Of relative significance is the implication that there is a small group of initialising process improvement practices which are accessible to practitioners, in contrast to a large set of critical success factors. Secondly, these process improvement practices transcend particular methodologies, meaning their development can be incorporated into customised, contextualised methodologies, by individual organisations. Originality/value The study contributes to the appreciation of process improvement 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 process improvement routines are developed in an organisational field, and a more nuanced and richer view of ‘process mapping’ and its effect on other process improvement practices.