مدیریت کیفیت جامع (TQM) نرم افزاری، مدیریت کیفیت جامع (TQM) سخت افزاری و روابط عملکرد سازمانی: بررسی تجربی

TQM literature suggests that hard TQM has a profound impact on organisational performance. However, most empirical studies have examined the impact of each dimension of TQM on performance separately. We argue that it is more appropriate to investigate the direct impact of soft TQM on the diffusion of hard TQM, and then assess the direct impact of hard TQM on performance. Analysis of 261 Australian manufacturing companies revealed significant positive relationships between soft TQM and hard TQM elements. In addition to direct affects, soft TQM also has an indirect affect on performance through its effect on hard TQM.

Empirical studies which have examined the relationship between total quality management (TQM) and organisational performance have investigated the impact of each dimension of TQM on performance separately [1], [2], [3] and [4], as illustrated in Fig. 1. These studies have indicated that only a handful of the soft aspects of TQM (i.e., ‘human factors’ like commitment, team work and so on) contribute to organisational performance. Our contention is that soft TQM actually plays a number of roles. One is to create an environment where seamless diffusion and implementation of hard TQM can take place, and the other is to directly affect organisations’ performance in the same way that traditional human resource management (HRM) practices can impact on an organisation [5]. Thus, we suggest that the previous attempts to identify the relationships between elements of TQM and organisational performance are not fully appropriate. In this study we propose a more logical approach to study these relationships, as shown in Fig. 2. Other researchers who support our contention are Hart and Schlesinger [6], Bowen and Lawler [7] and Kochan et al. [8]. According to Kochan et al. [8], TQM can be viewed in one of two ways. The first approach conceptualises TQM as a limited set of technical tools (such as statistical process control and Pareto analysis) while the second approach views TQM as part of broader changes to human resource (HR) practices. Through examining computer, automotive, health care and banking industries in four countries, they found that the use of hard TQM tools tends to be more profound in companies that adopt strategies to increase stakeholder commitment and incorporate the views of employees in decision making processes. Fig. 2 hypothesises that soft TQM will affect elements of hard TQM, in addition to having a direct impact on performance. For simplicity, this does not show all direct and indirect paths expressed by the model. In this paper, we look at the six elements of soft TQM examined by Dow et al. [2] and the four elements of hard TQM adopted by Power et al. [9]. Organisational performance is expressed in the seven variables used by Samson and Terziovski [3]. These items are discussed in greater detail in the following sections.

The results of this study suggest that in general, the elements of soft TQM are significantly related to the measures of organisational performance. Five out of six soft TQM elements have a positive relationship with organisational performance. These are Workforce commitment, Shared vision, Customer focus, Use of teams, and Cooperative supplier relations. These findings are consistent with the results of Powell [1] and Dow et al. [2]. However, both Powell [1] and Dow et al. [2] did not find significant relationship between Cooperative supplier relations and performance, and suggested that it could be context-dependent. In other words, a factor such as cooperative supplier relations could be more relevant for manufacturing firms than for service organisations. Three out of four elements of hard TQM—Use of JIT principles, Technology utilisation, and Continuous improvement enablers—have significant relationships with all six soft TQM elements, which supports H2. This provides evidence to suggest that organisations must have appropriate soft TQM elements in place to create conditions that allow effective diffusion and utilisation of hard TQM elements. These results also suggest that four out of seven measures of performance are positively related to Use of JIT principles, and three out seven measures are related to both Technology utilisation and Continuous improvement enablers. These findings contradict the results of Powell [1], Dow et al. [2] and Samson and Terziovski [3] who found no significant relationship between hard TQM elements and organisational performance. Dow et al. [1] argued that non-significant relationships between hard TQM and performance were probably influenced by their narrow definition of organisational performance, and suggested that productivity and flexibility should be included in a broader definition of performance. This study revealed a significant positive relationship between Use of JIT principles and productivity. Four out of six soft TQM elements (Workforce commitment, Shared vision, Customer focus and Co-operative supplier relations) were found to affect Use of JIT principles, which in turn affected Productivity. It is important to point out that in a few cases, despite the significant correlations, standardised beta coefficients were found to be insignificant. For instance, performance measures such as Defects and Cost of quality are significantly correlated with customer focus (both at p<0.05, Table 8). However, beta coefficients for Defects (0.11), Cost of quality (0.09) (Table 10) were found to be insignificant. Thus, there is some evidence to suggest that Customer focus only has an indirect effect on Defects and Cost of quality.