Purpose: Total quality management is a valuable approach to continuously improve the quality of organizations; however, scholars debate its applicability to services, which require specific best practices that are different from those related to manufacturing. Moreover, digitization is pervading all kinds of services, but little has been written about total quality service practices in digital-based companies. For this purpose, the authors provide a holistic model of total quality service that reflects the peculiarities of such companies, guided by the question: how do total quality service practices change in digital-based service organizations?Design/methodology/approach: The authors conduct an illustrative case study on Healthware Group, a global integrated digital health organization, to evaluate theoretical assumptions about total quality service practices in the digital environment.Findings: The findings allow to validate the model provided. In addition, the study enables them to observe the changes the authors are witnessing in service provision in the digital era and the consequent transformation of best practices. To be accurate, the authors cannot refer to a full transformation in digital-based companies but rather to the enrichment and extension of TQS practices. The best illustration of these conclusions has been summarized in a set of propositions corresponding to seven of the key levers of a TQS model.Originality/value: The paper represents the first attempt to discuss the relationship between total quality service and digitalization, offering a set of propositions for academics and insights for practitioners. The model can be used as a tool to visualize the different levers that successful implementation of TQS in digital-based services companies can rely on.

The consequence of port evolution is that port authorities (PA) around the world are modifying their nature and their role, acquiring more and more an active role in the governance of logistic systems and are often adopting managerial and entrepreneurial behaviours. This new role of PA requires the adoption of a complex approach to monitoring the performance of the single stakeholders and of the whole port. Existing studies on port performance consider only specific indicators of port performance such as operational and financial efficiency neglecting aspects like customer satisfaction, port security and port sustainability. This paper tries to fill this literature gap: (i) outlining an integrated multi-dimensional dashboard to monitor port performance in a strategic perspective; (ii) analysing the role of digital technology to support the PA in the implementation of the monitoring dashboard; (iii) defining the evolutionary stages of tools implementation in the strategic monitoring of PAs.

Despite the progressive shift towards the capital-intensive paradigm, the human factor is still considered as one of most valuable assets in the port domain. Port labour from ship-to-shore and yard crane drivers to harbour pilots may lead to the success in port competition, affecting the quality, reliability and flexibility of port service. Several scholars started to address the major drivers shaping the causal relation between port labour and competitiveness. While some individual determinants have been already discussed, including port governance settings, innovation and technology, shifts in the demand needs, etc., extant literature fails to provide a multidimensional conceptual framework. The article addresses this literature gap by proposing an ad hoc theoretical model that identifies valuable drivers of change, which shape the relationship between port labour and competitiveness in the Mediterranean port systems. Grounded on two case studies in the Mediterranean Sea, i.e. the Port of Genoa and the Port of Marseille, the conceptual framework is tested and empirically validated. Managerial and organizational implications for port competitiveness are discussed, providing useful insights for both academics and practitioners.

This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transition drivers by reviewing four major strands of inquiry in transition studies: Multi Level Perspective (MLP); Strategic Niche Management (SNM); Transition Management (TM); Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). To the best of our knowledge, none of these contributions have so far provided a clear-cut classification of main drivers of transitions, as evidenced by the difficulty of practitioners in reaching goals as entrepreneurs, or policy makers in supporting economic growth. We believe that these theoretical streams share views relating the origin and drivers of transitions and that the analysis of the multi-level developments and systemic sub-processes by using the Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) allows for a more comprehensive identification of transition drivers. By mapping causal relationships within each perspective and by developing an integrative framework that takes in due account of overlaps between theories, we derived a new conceptual structure for the identification of transitions’ drivers.