Faith, Quality, And Operations: An Appreciative Inquiry on the Operations Management of an Adventist Health Food Business

Abstract

The Seventh-day Adventist church has long advocated for a healthful lifestyle, emphasizing plant-based diets rooted in biblical principles. Recent trends in health food consumption highlight significant opportunities for Adventist food companies. By exploring best practices in operations management within Adventist health food enterprise, researchers can identify effective strategies that not only improve business outcomes but also contribute to community health education and outreach initiatives. This study utilizes Systems theory and Resource based-view as its framework. This is a qualitative study, conducted within an appreciative inquiry paradigm, the study intends to initiate change to the current operations management practices in an Adventist health food business. The setting of the study is an Adventist health food business under Davao Mission located in the Southern Philippines. The study was participated by the employees and management officers with a minimum of 3 years of work experience in the Adventist health food business. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews and document analysis. In the analysis phase, the research applied Creswell and Poth's spiral data analysis technique and the 4d design model from Cooperrider, Whitney, and Stavros. The findings revealed that the current operations management practices include faith as the foundation of success, tailored strategic operations management, strong operational leadership, systematic continuous improvement culture and contextual adaptability and innovation. The ideal operation strategies include customer-centric workforce empowerment, vision-driven operational alignment and leading operational excellence. To reach the strategies it is needed to have ethically integrated and resilient supply chain, sustainable quality management and transparent data-driven operations. It is recommended to foster collaborations with academic institutions to conduct research on dietary habits and health outcomes among Adventists. This could lead to evidence-based recommendations that further enhance the credibility of Adventist health food products.