مطالعه طولی از پیاده سازی مدیریت کیفیت جامع (TQM) : عوامل موثر بر موفقیت و شکست

This is one of a very few longitudinal research studies of the link between TQM implementation and successful outcomes. The paper reports on perceived TQM success for a cohort of 109 firms over a 5-year period. Some 42 firms, predominantly small in size, had discontinued with TQM, while the remaining 67 firms reported varying degrees of success. The data suggests that the size of firm, the nature of the customer base and the holding of ISO9000 series certification has had no significant effect on TQM outcomes for this cohort. The research has also highlighted some necessary antecedents for TQM success. In particular, managers need to understand the nature and purpose of TQM, its relationship to ISO9000, and the potential benefits that can accrue from its implementation. We have shown that these factors are significantly associated with perceived TQM success. They are also significant for the discontinuing firms. Deriving success from TQM has also been shown to be significantly associated with (i) the time since adoption, (ii) the inclusion of quality objectives in the strategic planning process, and (iii) the need for senior managers to take charge of TQM and to ensure that the majority of employees are involved in its implementation. While these findings are supportive of such assertions in the literature, this paper provides further robust empirical evidence from a cross-section of UK companies in a longitudinal research design. This research has also contributed to the debate about the effects of firm size and ISO9000 certification. The paper concludes by proposing the next phase of analysis of these firms, based on five additional performance variables collected during both studies of the cohort.

Similarly, Dean and Bowen [2] commented that while TQM has become a ubiquitous organisational phenomenon, it has been given comparatively little research attention, and in particular there has been little theory to explain the differences between successful and unsuccessful efforts. What are the determinants of successful TQM implementation, and why do some organisations try to implement it and subsequently stop? While these two questions have been a prime focus of TQM research over the past decade, they remain largely unanswered. This paper is one of the first longitudinal research studies of TQM implementation, involving a cohort of 113 companies. The foundation for the study began in 1992, when the original cohort was investigated [8] and [9]. Five years later, the same group of companies was re-contacted to assess what progress had been made with TQM and to explore the achieved levels of success. The remainder of this article is in four sections. Firstly, we review some of the key studies on TQM implementation, and highlight some of the challenges of the extant research literature. In particular we emphasise that methodologically, most previous studies have taken a snapshot of TQM activity. Thus, in the second section we propose a longitudinal research method for evaluating the success of TQM for this cohort. In section three we present results from the second study of this cohort, conducted in 1997. Finally we discuss the implications of these results and outline some research questions for future analysis of these data.

The research has highlighted some necessary antecedents for TQM success. In particular, managers need to understand the nature and purpose of TQM, its relationship to ISO9000, and the potential benefits that can accrue from its implementation. We have shown that these factors are significantly associated with perceived TQM success. They are also significant for the discontinuing firms. Deriving success from TQM has also been shown to be associated with the need for senior managers to take charge of TQM and to ensure that the majority of employees are involved in its implementation. While these findings are supportive of such assertions in the literature, this paper provides further robust empirical evidence from a cross-section of UK companies in a longitudinal research design. This research has also contributed to the debates about the effects of firm size and ISO9000 certification. Evidence is now emerging to show that TQM does deliver improved performance when implemented effectively [34] and [47]. Therefore we have developed a research agenda to understand what makes TQM effective and what makes it successful. The paper is of particular interest, given that many organisations adopt new managerial innovations such as TQM, yet a smaller number are able to obtain and sustain the success of the innovation. Our next research questions will therefore explore whether or not those companies perceiving most success from TQM are also deriving higher levels of performance improvement. To do so, we will explore the trends in the five performance variables reported earlier, viz; customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, process management, sales and financial performance. It is also likely that when we return to these firms for the third phase of our study, TQM may have given way to other improvement initiatives. Thus, we may need to broaden the investigation to explore the possible rise in importance of the EFQM Excellence Model, and other performance improvement initiatives such as the Balanced Scorecard. If our speculation proves correct, it will be interesting to see whether or not TQM has provided a fertile platform for adoption of these, and other, improvement approaches and to what extent they have been integrated with TQM within each firm.