2003
| TOWARDS A SPIRITUALITY BASED POSTMODERN BUSINESS STRATEGY C.C. TAN, S. O'PITAGCHEWIN, P. PRIYAWAT, S. ARISRAPONGPISIT, & T. ITTICHAI Issue 25 (Vol. 13 No. 1) pp. 9-38
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INTEGRATING SURVIVORS IN REDUNDANCIES
GERALD VINTEN & DAVID A. LANE
Issue 25 (Vol. 13 No. 1) pp. 41-54
Redundancy is a risk to all employees, and needs careful handling and counselling. Less recognised are the needs of those left behind. On the analogy of major disasters, they too demand meticulous attention to avoid deleterious effects both to themselves and to their organisations. The mishandling of a redundancy situation is presented as a case study. Drawing on the so-called ‘3R’ (Restructuring, Redeployment and Redundancy) survivors who overcome the trio of trauma, life crisis and loss, a study was undertaken of fifty senior and middle managers in private and public sector organisations which had recently undertaken major restructuring resulting in substantial loss of posts. The management of restructuring, redeployment or redundancy is important, not simply to be humanitarian, or for good public relations, but also because the effectiveness, vision and mission of the organisation that survives is at stake. Survival tips for both the individual and the organisation are indicated.
WORLDWIDE COMPARISON OF 27 NATIONAL QUALITY AWARDS
KAY C. TAN & HSIEN H. KHOO
Issue 25 (Vol. 13 No. 1) pp. 55-73
This article reports a worldwide comparison of 27 national quality awards based on the differences and similarities found within each award’s criteria and scoring system. A comparative framework consisting of the following 10 main items was designed to represent the 27 awards: 1) Leadership; 2) Strategies, Policies, and Plans; 3) Customer Focus and Satisfaction/Results; 4) People Focus and Results; 5) Information; 6) Processes; 7) Resources; 8) Suppliers/Partners and Results; 9) Society and Environment; and 10) Overall Results. The comparison sheds light on national worldwide trends in the recognition of total quality and business excellence.
MODELLING DRIVERS OF EXCELLENT ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
PETER NEERGAARD, LARS GRONHOLDT, & ANNE MARTENSEN
Issue 25 (Vol. 13 No. 1) pp. 75-85
Increasing stakeholder demands have resulted in environmental management becoming an important topic in management. But how do companies achieve significant improvements in their environmental management? This paper tries to identify and analyse factors that are crucial to achieve success in environmental management. A literature review provides a number of hypotheses for factors explaining environmental results. Some factors relate to the initiation of the environmental work. Other factors relate to managing environment in day-to-day business. A number of hypotheses are developed concerning the importance of each factor and they are tested in an empirical study. The empirical study consists of a survey based on answers from 199 Danish companies. The hypotheses are tested by logistic regression. The results show that the theoretical guidelines are followed and furthermore pave the way for achieving excellent results. Implications for improving environmental management and directions for future research are discussed.
MODELLING DRIVERS OF EXCELLENT ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
PETER NEERGAARD, LARS GRONHOLDT, & ANNE MARTENSEN
Issue 25 (Vol. 13 No. 1) pp. 75-85
Increasing stakeholder demands have resulted in environmental management becoming an important topic in management. But how do companies achieve significant improvements in their environmental management? This paper tries to identify and analyse factors that are crucial to achieve success in environmental management. A literature review provides a number of hypotheses for factors explaining environmental results. Some factors relate to the initiation of the environmental work. Other factors relate to managing environment in day-to-day business. A number of hypotheses are developed concerning the importance of each factor and they are tested in an empirical study. The empirical study consists of a survey based on answers from 199 Danish companies. The hypotheses are tested by logistic regression. The results show that the theoretical guidelines are followed and furthermore pave the way for achieving excellent results. Implications for improving environmental management and directions for future research are discussed.
INFORMATION ASYMMETRY AND MANAGEMENT CONTROL ISSUES IN A SINO-FRENCH IJV IN CHINA
MALCOLM H. CONE & ANDRE M. EVERETT
Issue 25 (Vol. 13 No. 1) pp. 107-122
This paper analyzes differences in the management control practices of Chinese and French managers in a joint venture between a Chinese state owned enterprise and a French commercial organization. The research is based on sixty interviews conducted with Chinese and French managers. We utilize the theory of autonomous fields (Bourdieu), complexity models (Boisot and Child), and information economics (Stiglitz) to analyze the ways in which management control as exercised by the Chinese and French managers differs in a variety of contexts within the organization: (1) choosing options to predict demand, (2) collecting information for planning purposes, and (3) using competition as a means of controlling costs.
Interviews with the Gurus
By Jorge Nascimento Ferreira
Jorge Nascimento Ferreira, editor of the renowned on-line management resource web page gurusonline.tv, brings to EAJM the latest from the management gurus
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GARY HAMEL ON THE RE-EDITION OF LEADING THE REVOLUTION
Issue 25 (Vol. 13, No. 1), pp. 125-127
The strategy guru claims that his book of the 90s Leading the Revolution was not a fad, a ‘son’ of the hyped New Economy period. Its re-edition soon will prove the timeless of its ideas
NOKIA, TEN TEARS AFTER THE STRATEGIC MOVE: A CONSISTENT RECORD OF STRONG BUSINESS EXECUTION: AN INTERVIEW WITH JORMA OLLILA, CEO
Issue 25 (Vol. 13, No. 1), pp. 129-131
Jorma Ollila became CEO of the Nokia Group in January 1992, following his success at the Mobile Phones Division and also in the financial side as vice-president. He was de facto elected in December and presented a memo with strategic ideas for Nokia's future development to Board Members of the group. In the memo he pointed the new core business areas - telecommunications and mobile phones. And talked of divesting from historical areas of the conglomerate (paper, tires, cables, consumer electronics like television sets). His strategy was to focus and ‘dismantle’ the conglomerate logic followed since the formation of the group in the 20s.
Issue 26 (Vol. 13 No. 2), December 2003
Special Issue: Quality Management: Learning from Failures
Edited by Carlos Noronha and Su Mi Park Dahlgaard
EDITORIAL
QUALITY MANAGEMENT: LEARNING FROM FAILURES
Carlos Noronha & Su Mi Park Dahlgaard
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 137-138
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy rather than a management tool or technique. It is a long-term endeavor. Failures are often believed to be reflections of misunderstandings of the central philosophy of TQM. Throughout all these years, we have been hearing and seeing failures in implementing TQM. However, seldom is the case that such failures are documented in detail. On the contrary, success cases are very often described to the very minute details and prescriptive points of success are thus recommended. Sometimes the points are so prescriptive that a causal relationship is nearly implied. But can we say that we will succeed if we follow these points and fail if we do the opposite? It is clear to everyone that the other side of a white coin is not necessarily black.
In order to really learn from failures, we need to understand the failure cases, but not implying from the reverse of the success cases. The purpose of this special issue is to report on the latest experiences in implementing TQM and the genuine problems and difficulties faced by organizations, so as to eventually learn from these well-documented cases.
Since the call for paper was disseminated in mid 2002, we have received a satisfactory number of submissions. From these submissions we now present eight intriguing peer reviewed papers. Some of them were also selected as outstanding papers from the 6th Annual Quality Management and Organizational Development (QMOD) Conference held in Paris.
The first paper by Ahmed and Zairi brings out an interesting concept of ‘average organizations’. They present detailed descriptions of five average companies and the difficulties they encountered in sustaining TQM and propose guidelines for average companies to achieve excellence. Swaffin-Smith and Barnes take a more radical approach by questioning what is so different about TQM. They focus on why employees take a medium-term response to TQM. From three case studies they conclude that culture is a very important element. Yusof Ismail and Farag Saleh present their empirical findings concerning the success and failure of 27 Malaysian industrial firms in implementing quality standards. The lack of training skills contributes largely to the difficulties and barriers. Kujala and Lillrank analyze the hidden underlying assumptions of TQM based on the cultural model and apply it to the case of a company which does not have an organizational culture congruent with the cultural model of TQM. Ramis-Pujol addresses the question of sustaining process innovation. Through using four retrospective and one longitudinal case study, he identifies the barriers and facilitators for process innovation and concludes that a quality environment is not enough for sustaining process innovation and continuous improvement is often over simplified. Wong and Dahlgaard report their in-depth case study of an aluminium extrusion company which uses the EFQM Excellence Model to identify failures and weaknesses in a self-assessment process and how this method can be extended to identify inter-departmental resistance to quality improvement efforts. Zhao documents the problems and difficulties Siemens encounter in implementing a business performance and sustainability improvement program. Last but not least, Salsbury and Davis provide us with a detailed narrative of the Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall in 2000 which resulted from blowouts causing death and injuries. This article will be of immense interests especially to practitioners.
It is hoped that these carefully documented cases will help us learn from failures so as to manifest the plan-do-check-act spirit in TQM. We gratefully acknowledge the anonymous reviewers who served for this special issue as well as the scientific panel of the QMOD conference for their valuable time, effort, and constructive comments.
| EN ROUTE TO EXCELLENCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF TQM APPLICATIONS AND MATURITY IN 'AVERAGE ORGANIZATIONS' A,M. Ahmed & Mohamed Zairi Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 139-157 TQM maturity and sustainability are equated with the principle of excellence, which is gaining wider acceptance in the business community. The problem with finding a common and acceptable definition of the excellence and sustainability is the real purpose behind this paper. Excellence as a concept has always been associated with successful organisations competitively and commercially. This paper will deliberately focus on the experience of what has been termed ‘average’ organisations, which is demonstrated by using Zairi’s framework called ‘The Ladder of Excellence’ and an Intelligent Computer Based System (ICBS) to support the self-assessment process. Against various principles and criteria of excellence, various benchmarking data and practices are examined to identify common traits, patterns of performance and to identify gaps against median standards and practices exhibited by successful organisations. The paper concludes by providing useful guidelines that assist average organisations in their pursuit to excellence. |
SO WHAT IS SO DIFFERENT ABOUT TQM?
Chris Swaffin-Smith & Richard Barnes
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 159-170
In this article the authors argue that an inappropriate culture is the root cause of management failure to introduce TQM effectively. They consider the fundamental impact that different starting cultures may have on the relative success or failure of a TQM implementation. A number of paradigms are described that relate to employees’ medium term response to the implementation of TQM. Finally a number of key steps that a committed management team need to take to measure that a TQM implementation is as successful as possible are identified.
ISO9000:2000 TRAINING PROGRAMMES: BARRIER TO SUCCESS
Md. Yusof Ismail & Mofta Farag Saleh
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 171-190
With more Malaysian industrial companies upgrading from previous standards to the ISO9001:2000 standards, employee readiness is an important component for successful implementation. The Implementation Team tasked with implementation and maintenance of the standards is given training to facilitate the required transformation. Using Kirkpatrick’s Model this Study evaluates these training programs within 27 Malaysian Industrial firms and its influence on the success or failure of quality standards implementation. The findings show that while Reaction, Knowledge and Attitudes of the Team were effectively addressed, lack of training skills was largely neglected which may create barriers for successful maintenance of the quality standards.
VIOLATION OF BASIC ASSUMPTIONS: ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE BASED APPROACH FOR ANALYZING AND IMPROVING TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAMS
Jakko Kujala & Paul Lilrank
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 191-202
Total quality management (TQM) is often considered universally applicable for any type of business or organization. However, the success of TQM based development programs varies significantly and many of them do not produce the desired outcomes. The failure of implementation programs is generally not attributed to problems with the content or principles of the discipline, but simply to a lack of management commitment or an implementation failure. In this paper content and underlying hidden assumptions of TQM are analyzed using a cultural model of TQM, which is constructed based on Schein's model of organizational culture. The practical value of the proposed model is illustrated by analyzing TQM implementation problems in a project-oriented organization. It is proposed that TQM implementation programs are significantly influenced by existing organizational culture and in some cases the organization should not pursue quality management based approaches.
SUSTAINING PROCESS INNOVATION IN A QUALITY ENVIRONMENT
Juan Ramis-Pujol
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 203-218
It has been argued that, from a global perspective, a total quality management approach may encompass both a control and a learning component (Sitkin et al., 1994). A balance between those two sets of activities is often recommended. But how do companies sustain innovation in a quality environment? Based on four retrospective and one longitudinal case studies, we find that: a) the nature and the degree of development of the quality environments seem to be associated with process innovation success in the initial and the final stages of the innovation project; b) other organizational elements seem to be necessary to sustain innovation especially during the implementation stage.
IDENTIFYING AND UNDERSTANDING FAILURES AND BARRIERS AGAINST TQM IMPLEMENTATION: A CASE OF SELF-ASSESSMENT USING THE EFQM EXCELLENCE MODEL
Chee Yew Wong & Jens J. Dahlgaard
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 219-233
This paper provides empirical documentation for the use of a survey approach to self-assessment to identify failures, weaknesses and prioritized improvement areas related to the implementation of TQM and the performance of an aluminium extrusion company. The root causes of the performance gaps pinpointed in this assessment were analyzed, and various improvement enablers were recognized using the diagnostics path method. As a supplement to the nine criteria from the EFQM Excellence Model, the same survey approach was extended to identify inter-departmental relations, which enabled a deeper understanding of departmental resistance to improvement efforts.
EXPLORING THE INTERFACE BETWEEN SUSTAINABILITY AND BUSINESS EXCELLENCE: A CASE STUDY OF SIEMENS' TOP + PROGRAM
Fang Zhao
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 235-246
This study shows that Siemens has endeavored assiduously to achieve business excellence and enhance the company’s economic value, and has made considerable efforts to address the issue of sustainable development in various ways. However, the study also found that much is said than done and there are implementation issues and problems that deserve managers’ full attention. A series of recommendations are proposed to address these issues and problems.
DEATH ON THE HIGHWAY: QUALITY PROBLEMS AT FORD AND FIRESTONE
James Salsbury & Mark M.Davis
Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 247-264
Bridgestone/Firestone’s tire recall in August, 2000 set off a major investigation to determine what were the causes of the abnormally large number of blowouts that had occurred with their tires when they were mounted on Ford Explorers. These investigations were done not only by Ford and Firestone, the two companies involved, but also by Congress and lawyers seeking damages for individuals that were either killed or injured as a result of the blowouts. This case attempts to present, from a product quality perspective, the various issues that were related to the blowouts, including product design issues of both the tire and automobile, manufacturing issues, and customer product usage issues. The goal of this case is to provide some insights into the different quality problems that can accumulate overtime and across organizational boundaries, to the point where there are major consequences for all the parties that are involved.
