Innovating Regional Quality

Introduction

Lots of projects over the world have been realized for improving quality in cities or other kinds of local geographical territories initiated and controlled mainly by the respective authorities. Normally they have applied traditional quality approaches originally developed for companies or other organizations. However, the regional conditions are essentially apart from a single organization’s environment. New innovations are needed. The regional quality should be considered from the viewpoints of both the whole regional community and the individual and independent actors cooperating in networks in this community. This text considers how traditional quality and quality management concepts and approaches should be expanded, modified, or redefined for these environments.

There are quite a little innovative examples available from different countries for regional quality. However, some of these are highlighted in this text and additionally some practical experiences are presented from the case of South-Karelian Province in Finland.