Total Quality Management System

Introduction

Total quality management (TQM) has been proposed to improve firms operating performance, and received considerable attention in recent research. This study empirically examines the extent to which total quality management and firm performance are correlated and how total quality management impact various levels of firm performance.

The core ideas of total quality management (TQM) were introduced in the mid-1980s by, most notably, W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran and Kaoru Ishikawa (Hackman and Wageman, 2010). Whilst it is acknowledged that TQM is not a clear-cut concept (Hackman and Wageman, 2010), TQM is generally understood as an integrated organization strategy for improving product and service quality (Waldman, 49). Since the mid-eighties TQM has been (over) sold as a near-universal remedy for a range of organizational problems, including improved organization performance. This is remarkable considering academics have acknowledged for many years that universal principals cannot be successfully applied to organizations. Contingency theory with its

"no one best way" dictum, asserts that high performance is a function of the alignment between organization systems/processes and various context factors. Indeed, empirical research addressing successful TQM implementation is "crying out" for a contingency theory approach: while most studies report a positive relationship between TQM and performance (e.g. Brah et al., 56; Hendricks and Singhal, 102; Kaynak, 28; Terziovski and Samson, 133), some studies report a negative relationship between the two variables (e.g. McCabe and Wilkinson, 2008; Yeung and Chan, 2008). The identi?cation of contextual factors effecting the successful TQM implementation has thus recently emerged as an important research agenda (Douglas and Judge, 288; Sadikoglu, 205).

Within the context of successful TQM implementation, there is increasing recognition of the importance of human factors in quality management (Brah et al., 65; Chen, 136; Fok et al., 1222; Golhar et al., 108; Montes et al., 222). Many of the basic elements of TQM involve people, such as teamwork, participative management, creativity, effective communication, customer feedback, employee involvement and empowerment, employee and management trust and support (Guimaraes, 107). For an organization to realize the bene?ts of TQM, the consideration of human factors is critical for the successful implementation of TQM. Human factors previously identi?ed in the TQM literature include management (leadership) style, type of employees, departmental interaction, management commitment, employee's attitude toward change, authority to empower employees, rewards/recognition for innovation and citizenship behaviours (Mann and Kehoe, 265; Montes et al., 147) This study examines two human (or behavioural) factors: co-worker support and organization support These two support variables are consistent with the view that employees' perception of tolerance, support, cohesion and the intrinsic acknowledgement of employees organizational contributions are important factors in the successful implementation of TQM (Montes et al., 205). TQM implemented within a supportive organization environment is more likely to motivate employees to work harder and smarter in achieving quality outcomes for the organization (Hackman and Wageman, 133)

Discussion

With the increasing competitive operating pressure and the development trend of customer-oriented business environment, total quality management (TQM) has been recognized as an important issue and generated a substantial amount of ...