While total quality management (TQM) has emphasized organizational-level factors in achieving successful implementation, human capital theory and person-environmental fit models suggest individual difference factors may also be useful. Accordingly, the ability of organizational commitment, trust in colleagues, and higher order need strength to explain variation in TQM adoption, after inclusion of organizational-level factors, is assessed using longitudinal data from a manufacturing setting. These three individual differences collectively explain 7–19% of incremental variation in TQM adoption and are found to be relatively better predictors of TQM adoption than organizational-level factors. The findings support increased consideration of individual differences in order to implement TQM and other forms of organizational change more effectively.
In spite of the phenomenal adoption of total quality management (TQM) in the last two decades among US and UK organizations (Mohrman, Tenkasi, Lawler III, & Ledford, 1995; Wilkinson, Snape, & Allen, 1993), the evidence of its impact on organizational performance is mixed (Choi & Behling, 1997; Fisher, 1992; Gilbert, 1992; Mohrman et al., 1995; Powell, 1995; Westphal, Gulati, & Shortell, 1997). When TQM initiatives do not succeed, “missing” elements (e.g., the initiative failed to include employee empowerment) or implementation problems (e.g., there was a lack of technical training in TQM techniques, lack of top management support) are cited to explain the failure (Reger, Gustafson, DeMarie, & Mullane, 1994). Detert, Schroeder, and Mauriel (2000) assert that the inability to change organizational culture may account for the success or failure of innovations like TQM. Perhaps the most common explanation for TQM failure has been that changes in human resource practices have not accompanied changes in technical systems (Snell & Dean, 1992).
A specific human resource factor that may account for the success or failure of TQM programs, seldom considered, is the nature of the individual employees who participate. Kerfoot and Knights (1995) state “the quality literature fails to consider the way that programmes and their content may be differentially defined or interpreted by employees” (p. 229). The implication, therefore, is that individual variability in terms of how TQM is interpreted or the willingness to adopt the principles of TQM is viewed as inconsequential. This study explored whether individual-level factors have a bearing on the extent to which employees adopt a TQM orientation (e.g., come to view their workgroup as a team, seek to engage in continuous improvement). In addition, in view of the disproportionate emphasis on organizational-level factors within the TQM literature, we compared the unique contributions of individual and organizational factors in explaining the outcomes of teamwork and continuous improvement.
The results of this study intimate that the full and complete value of TQM may not yet be fully appreciated. The findings re-affirm the pervasive benefits of top management support to TQM change efforts and, to a lesser extent, verify the importance of supervisory reinforcement. However, beyond these key organizational practices, the results here suggest additional avenues for continuous improvement in TQM implementation. While the importance of individual dispositional characteristics and attitudes has long been recognized in industrial and organizational psychology, individual differences have not been seen as crucial in the implementation of TQM (e.g., Deming, 1986; Lam & Schaubroeck, 1999). Perhaps the neglect of individual differences reflects a more generalized under-appreciation of individual differences in management applications. Until recently, individual difference variables beyond ability (e.g., personality traits, work styles, attitudes) have not been used very frequently in personnel selection (Raymark, Schmit, & Guion, 1997). The role of individual differences in team and work group functioning has also only recently been recognized (Barrick et al., 1998; Neuman, Wagner, & Christiansen, 1999). Thus there is growing recognition, reinforced by this study, that individual differences merit increased consideration. The idea that continuous improvement orientation can be predicted on the basis of a personality trait like higher order need strength, for example, is certainly intriguing and consistent with recent findings linking other, similar, individual difference constructs such as organizationally based self-esteem to job performance outcomes (Gardner & Pierce, 1998).
Increased attention to individual differences might also provide insight into when TQM works and when it does not (i.e., relatively little is known about the underlying reasons for TQM success and failure). As Dean and Bowen (1994) note, “TQM initiatives often do not succeed, but there is little theory available to explain the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts” (p. 393). This lack of theory underlying TQM is reflected in the virtually universalistic assumption that the work system is the significant determinant of individual behavior, and hence, individual differences are inconsequential. The inherent drive to reduce system variability places an undue emphasis on getting the system right, and in doing so, neglects the potentially significant impact of individual dispositions and the interactions between these individual characteristics and the system within which individuals work. Thus, the failure to consider individual differences may indeed explain why TQM sometimes fails to achieve its espoused outcomes.
