Quality Flashcards
(11 cards)
Garvin
1984: What is quality? Definitions vary depending on point of view - different dimensions (e.g. features, conformance)
Powell
1995: Simply copying TQM doesn’t provide advantage - need tacit, inimitable features. Quality is a culture and a philosophy.
And TQM is not necessary for success - quality is just common sense / good business
Zbaracki
1998: Rhetoric vs. reality of TQM - enters via rhetoric of managers, becomes reality and shapes people, leaves again as rhetoric. Over time becomes faddish.
Have to change the rhetoric of the people - the rules inside their heads - for true change to happen
Abrahamson
1996: Fads and fashions
Six sigma, BPR, TQM, ISO 9000…
Borial
2003: ISO 9000 - quality standards, adopted by institutional pressure, given superficial support
Strang & Macy
2001: adaptive emulation, institutional mimicry, cascades of adoption, faddish cycles
If you just copy what others are doing (e.g. the West copying Toyota) it’ll just be faddish
Lewin
1947: Organisations have to go through organic process of learning, changing culture - unfreeze, change, refreeze
Flynn et al.
1994: Quality management gives competitive advantage
But different people have different standards
Westphal et al.
1997: Early adopters get efficiency gains (technical performance benefits), late adopters just copy (legitimacy benefits)
Quality as conformance is not really quality
Sousa & Voss
2002: Quality improvements don’t always improve business performance.
* Where are we now? Quality management has been embedded into normal operations - institutionalised
* TQM fundamentally changed companies and how they operate, changed the idea of what’s possible
Who dictates quality control?
- Inspection - mindset of ‘good enough’
- Next person in line - own responsibilty
No inspection - inspector now supports
Changed mentality - ownership and agency
