Relationship between quality management practices and innovation

The purpose of this study is to examine the associations among different quality management (QM) practices and investigate which QM practices directly or indirectly relate to five types of innovation: radical product, radical process, incremental product, incremental process, and administrative innovation. We test the proposed framework and hypotheses using empirical data from ISO 9001 certified manufacturing and service firms. The results show that a set of QM practices through process management has a positive relationship with all of these five types of innovation. It was found that process management directly and positively relates to incremental, radical, and administrative innovation. Organizational capability to manage processes may play a vital role in identifying routines, establishing a learning base, and supporting innovative activities. The findings also reveal that the value of an individual QM practice is tied to other QM practices. Therefore, highlighting just one or a few QM practices or techniques may not result in creative problem solving and innovation.     

A replication and extension of quality management into the supply chain

As competition moves beyond a single firm into the supply chain, researchers are beginning to explore quality management (QM) in a supply chain context. The literature suggests that supply chain management (SCM) consists of internal practices, which are contained within a firm, and external practices, which cross organizational boundaries integrating a firm with its customers and suppliers. Supplier quality management and customer focus are two QM practices that are also clearly in the domain of SCM. In this study we investigate how these two supply chain management-related quality practices lead to improved performance and examine the practices that precede and mediate those relationships. In doing so, we replicate and extend the relationships among the QM practices and their effects on firm performance suggested in Kaynak [Kaynak, H., 2003. The relationship between total quality management practices and their effects on firm performance. Journal of Operations Management 21, 405–435] using survey data gathered from firms operating in the U.S. The inclusion of customer focus and supplier quality management in the QM model supports the importance of internal and external integration for quality performance. Implications of the results for researchers and practitioners are discussed, and further research implications are suggested.     

The impact of supply chain quality management practices and knowledge transfer on organisational performance: an empirical investigation from China

In recent years, both quality management practices (QMP) and knowledge transfer (KT) have been studied extensively from inter-organisational and intra-organisational perspectives. However, to the best of our knowledge, the interaction between QMP and KT in a supply chain and their joint effects on organisational performance have not been addressed fully. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights for improving performance by mapping the relationship between supply chain quality management practices (SCQMP) and KT. A survey of 157 Chinese manufacturing firms is used to test a conceptual model that proposes relationship among SCQMP, KT and organisational performance (including operational performance and innovation performance). Structural equation modelling reveals that internal QMP have significantly positive effect on internal KT, while QMP at supply chain level have highly positive effect on cross-organisational KT. Furthermore, the results show that both internal KT and cross-organisational KT can promote operational and innovation performance, although the influence from internal KT is much more significant than cross-organisational KT for Chinese firms. The findings contribute to theory as well as practice by increasing understanding of how to improve the operational and innovation performance through enhancing SCQMP and KT.     

Supply chain quality management practices and performance: An empirical study

This study proposed a conceptual framework to study the relationships among three dimensions of supply chain quality management (SCQM) – in-house quality management practices (internal QM), interaction for quality with suppliers on the upstream side of supply chain (upstream QM), and interaction for quality with customers on the downstream side of supply chain (downstream QM) – and their impact on two types of quality performance (conformance quality, and customer satisfaction). Survey data were collected from 238 plants in three industries across eight countries and structural equation modeling was used to test this framework. The results indicate a dominant role of the internal QM in SCQM which has a positive impact on the other SCQM dimensions and two types of quality performance. Downstream QM is found to mediate the relationship between internal QM and customer satisfaction, while there is a lack of direct impact of upstream QM on either type of quality performance.     

Meta-analysis of the relationship between quality management practices and firm performance—implications for quality management theory development

Quality management (QM) has received a high degree of attention in extant literature. Several research papers attribute superior firm performance to adoption of QM practices. The availability of a large number of research papers that investigate the impact of QM practices on performance provide an ideal setting for theory extension and refinement using meta-analysis techniques. In this paper a meta-analytic study is presented that fulfills two objectives. First, the paper formalizes performance implications of adopting QM practices and present hypothesized relationship between QM practices and performance. Second, a meta-analysis of correlation (Hunter and Schmidt, 1990) approach is used to examine the empirical research in QM to determine which QM practices are positively related to improved performance. The study also examines the presence of moderating factors in the association between QM practices and performance. The results support many hypothesized relationships and also point towards the presence of moderating factors in almost all QM practice–performance relationships. A discussion of the findings is presented and directions for further development of QM theory are proposed.     

The moderating role of contextual factors on quality management practices

This study investigates how contextual factors influence the relationship between Quality Management (QM) practices and manufacturing performance. It contributes to the contingency theory of QM effectiveness. Drawing on the management literature, we differentiate two different groups of QM practices: Quality Exploitation and Quality Exploration. The analysis empirically investigates the internal fit with organizational structure and the external fit with environmental uncertainty on the relationship between Quality Exploration, Quality Exploitation, and operational performance. The data comes from a survey of 238 manufacturing plants in three industries across eight countries. Regression analyses show that both internal fit with the organizational structure and external fit with the environment affect performance. The findings also provide insights for managers on how to customize QM programs to achieve optimal performance benefits. In stable environments Quality Exploitation practices provide the best performance outcomes, while in a dynamic environment Quality Exploration practices with an organic organizational structure give the best results.     

Exploring early purchasing involvement in discontinuous innovation: A dynamic capability perspective

This paper aims to address the gap concerning our knowledge about early purchasing's involvement (EPI) in new product development (NPD) projects in contexts characterized by discontinuous innovation. We adopt a dynamic capability perspective to explore how existing sourcing and supplier relationship management capabilities are adapted when purchasing agents become involved in discontinuous innovations projects. We use an embedded case-study approach to study four NPD projects in a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) company. The case studies are based on interviews with managers and staff from the research and development, purchasing, and marketing departments, as well as suppliers involved in the projects. Our empirical findings capture emerging purchasing practices including a “reversed” sourcing process, purchasing-marketing interaction, and the coordination of “a learning atmosphere” between the R&D department and suppliers through proactive innovation meetings and creativity workshops. We derive propositions to conduct further research into the role of the purchasing department in times of discontinuous innovation. We also provide a framework of sourcing and supplier-relationship practices that firms can use when embarking on discontinuous innovation.     

Strategic supply management,quality initiatives,and organizational performance

Researchers in supply chain management have found over the past two decades that supply management should be not merely a purchasing function but a strategic tool for supply chain integration. Supply management, the cornerstone of the integration of industrial supply chains, has evolved as a key research area. Based on quantitative and qualitative investigations of 225 electronics manufacturing firms, we examine the organizational impacts of strategic supply management (SSM) and the contexts of company size, process type, ISO 9000 certification, and quality management (QM) implementation that facilitate such an endeavor. We reveal that SSM is essentially a quality management initiative that requires bilateral efforts for continuous improvement and thus is not associated with the basic requirements of ISO 9000. We find that SSM improves on-time shipments, reduces operational costs, and leads to customer satisfaction and improved business performance. Developed based on contemporary premises in supply chain and QM, this research refines our understanding of the relationships among quality initiatives, SSM, and organizational performance.     

Project management for new product development

This article examines the intersection of the project management body of knowledge with new product development (NPD). The area under examination is the development of consumer products that have a significant engineering production content. It is concluded that the project management method, with its structured task definition and software tools, is generally useful for managing NPD projects. However, in some areas, project management incompletely meets the needs of NPD. Specifically, NPD is characterized by complex interrelated activities and large uncertainties about precisely which solution path will be taken, such that the full scope of the project can often not be anticipated beforehand. The article identifies that more research is required to validate the stage‐gate and lean project management methods. Whereas cost is the primary focus in project management, with NPD there is a need to consider both cost and income (from product sales) in making strategic decisions. Communication and human resource management are important factors in NPD success, but existing project management perspectives have little to say about the social and behavioral aspects, such as organizational culture, team dynamics, and leadership styles, especially not for NPD. Current project management practices are very much based on “output control” (targets, appraisal, rewards, management by objectives), which the human resource management literature identifies as inhibiting innovation. There is also likely to exist an intersection, as yet poorly understood, between project management and knowledge management, particularly for innovation processes such as NPD. For practitioners, the main message is that the project management method provides a basic, but imperfect, tool for managing NPD. The relevance for researchers is that gaps have been identified in the project management method as it is currently applied to NPD. Several places are identified where further research is required to (a) better understand the causality between factors (e.g., human resource management) and project success and (b) adapt project management methods to better serve the NPD process.     

Analysis of the effect of risk management practices on the performance of new product development programs

Risk management is receiving much attention, as it is seen as a method to improve cost, schedule, and technical performance of new product development programs. However, there is a lack of empirical research that investigates the effective integration of specific risk management practices proposed by various standards with new product development programs and their association with various dimensions of risk management success. Based on a survey of 291 product development programs, this paper investigates the association of risk management practices with five categories of product development program performance: (A) Quality Decision Making; (B) High Program Stability; (C) Open, problem solving organization; (D) Overall new product development project success; and (E) overall product success. The results show that six categories of risk management practices are most effective: (1) Develop risk management skills and resources; (2) Tailor risk management to and integrate it with new product development; (3) Quantify impacts of risks on your main objectives; (4) Support all critical decisions with risk management results; (5) Monitor and review your risks, risk mitigation actions, and risk management process; and (6) Create transparency regarding new product development risks. The data shows that the risk management practices are directly associated with outcome measures in the first three categories (improved decision making, program stability and problem solving). There is also evidence that the risk management practices indirectly associate with the remaining two categories of outcome measures (project and product success). Additional research is needed to describe the exact mechanisms through which risk management practices influence NPD program success.     

International best practice,quality management anf high performance: inferences from the Australian automotive sector

The adoption of international ‘best practice’ (IBP) has been presented widely as a strategy for organizations to improve productivity and competitiveness. The most prominent best practices include total quality management, continuous improvement programmes and just-in-time (JIT) production. Two key measures of competitiveness are quality and efficiency, and we examine those IBPs that lead to high levels of quality and efficiency in the Australian automotive industry. Our findings are based on a survey of the Australian automotive industry, and they suggest that the successful implementation of JIT and continuous improvement programmes can influence efficiency; this corresponds with recent discussions of IBP. However, our analyses also indicate that certain areas of human resource management, such as performance appraisals, performance-related pay, welfare schemes and testing during selection, can have an important influence on efficiency and quality and should also be considered as important forms of best practice.     

Modularity in building mass customization capability: The mediating effects of customization knowledge utilization and business process improvement

This study investigates the relationships among product/process modularity, organizational learning practices, and mass customization (MC) capability. Drawing on organizational learning theory, we propose that organizational learning practices help to embed the knowledge gained from modular design practices into organizational processes, enhancing MC capability. We empirically test the mediating effects of two organizational learning practices—customization knowledge utilization and business process improvement—on the relationship between product/process modularity and MC capability, using data collected from Chinese manufacturers. We find strong support for the mediating role of organizational learning practices in the relationship between modularity and MC capability. Our findings have implications for management strategies and point to directions for further research in this area.     

Integrating strategic cost management with a 3DCE environment: Strategies,practices, and benefits

The overall objective of this exploratory research was to examine the possible competitive advantages when organizations integrate strategic cost management into the simultaneous design of products, processes, and supply chains. The concept of concomitantly designing products, processes and supply chains is referred to by Fine [1998. Clockspeed. Perseus Books, Reading, MA] as three-dimensional concurrent engineering (3DCE). While many organizations have adopted concurrent engineering to design new products, few have simultaneously considered cost issues related to designing the supply chain. Fewer still were found to integrate strategic cost management with 3DCE. Thus a case study approach was deemed necessary. Based on case studies of five firms, a framework of testable propositions was developed. The initial findings indicated there is a positive relationship between the customer's and supplier's extent of participation in new product development, supplier development practices, and the integration of strategic cost management practices with 3DCE. The integration of strategic cost management with 3DCE should result in a higher level of operational performance in terms of product performance, supply chain responsiveness, and conformance to quality. Integration should also result in lower product and process costs, faster time to market, and fewer product launch problems. The overall result is a higher level of company performance and competitiveness.     

Green Product Innovation in Manufacturing Firms: A Sustainability‐Oriented Dynamic Capability Perspective

Despite environmental sustainability being identified as one of the key drivers of innovation, extant literature lacks a theoretically sound and empirically testable framework that can provide specific insights into green product innovation from a capability perspective. This study develops a theoretical framework from a sustainability‐oriented dynamic capability (SODC) perspective. We conceive SODCs as consisting of three underlying processes (external resource integration, internal resource integration, and resource building and reconfiguration) that influence the change/renewal of sustainability‐oriented ordinary capabilities (SOOCs) (green innovation capability and eco‐design capability). This study answers two key questions: which SODCs are needed to develop green innovation and eco‐design capabilities? Which of these capabilities lead to better market performance of green products? We test a structural model linking SODCs to market performance in 189 Italian manufacturing firms. First, we find that the nature of the SODC–performance link (direct or indirect) depends on the SODC type. Specifically, resource building and reconfiguration is the only SODC with a direct effect on market performance. Second, all three types of SODC affect the eco‐design capability, which mediates the link between SODCs and market performance. Third, we find that external resource integration is the only SODC affecting the green innovation capability, which mediates the link between external resource integration and market performance. Resource building and reconfiguration is the SODC with the overall (direct and indirect) highest impact on market performance. This study, among the first to consider capabilities for green product innovation under a dynamic capability perspective, provides implications for scholars, managers and policy makers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The contextualization of human resource and quality management: a sensemaking perspective on everybody's involvement

The principal idea of this paper is that human resource management (HRM) and quality management (QM) ideas require contextualization when used to change organizations. Here, contextualization stands for the process that leads to a shared meaning, i.e. the majority of the co-workers in an organization understand and define a concept or change in terms that are shared and accepted. In the present paper, we study a strategic change project, based on HRM and QM ideas, conducted at the County Council of Värmland (CCV), the public healthcare authority in the County of Värmland in Sweden, where the focus was on everybody's involvement. Our interpretation of the project shows that a shared meaning of the concept of everybody's involvement was not reached in this particular case, i.e. contextualization did not occur. One important result of the study is that contextualization is a prerequisite for realizing HRM and QM thoughts. The paper also stresses how important it is that general and ‘non-contextualized’ HRM and QM ideas are adapted to local practices when used to direct organizational change.     

Structural ambidexterity in NPD processes: A firm-level assessment of the impact of differentiated structures on innovation performance

Based on a survey study of 155 U.S. firms, we conducted a firm-level assessment of the impact of different kinds of structures (i.e., functional versus cross-functional) in different kinds of new product development (NPD) processes (i.e., incremental versus radical) on different kinds of firm innovation performance (i.e., derivative versus breakthrough). We observe that most firms opt for similar structures for their incremental and radical NPD processes. At the same time, though, we find strong evidence that (1) firms that apply a cross-functional structure for the radical NPD process perform significantly better in terms of breakthrough innovation performance than firms that apply a functional structure for the radical NPD process and (2) firms that apply a functional structure for the incremental NPD process perform significantly better in terms of derivative innovation performance than firms that apply a cross-functional structure for the incremental NPD process. These latter findings point to the relevance of adopting structural ambidexterity, where firms make an explicit distinction between incremental and radical NPD processes and organize them in a different way.     

客户知识管理能力对新产品开发绩效影响的实证研究

本研究分析客户知识管理能力（CKMC）对新产品开发绩效（NPD绩效）的影响,讨论产品创新程度的调节作用,并探索组织文化和组织结构的驱动作用,提出CKMC对NPD绩效影响的概念模型。最后以制造业为调研对象做实证分析,结果表明：客户知识管理能力对新产品开发绩效具有重要显著影响;在中国背景下,信任和合作的组织文化有助于提升客户知识管理能力和新产品开发绩效;集权化和形式化的组织结构不利于客户知识管理能力的提升,但有利于新产品开发绩效的提高;中国的制造业的产品创新能力亟待提高。     

The state of total quality management: a review

As quality is seen as becoming a competitive mandate, many organizations are said to be embracing the practice of total quality management (TQM) as an improvement strategy. In this paper, we will be examining the extent to which quality management (QM) - TQM in particular-has been adopted by organizations. Just as there are companies that claim that QM is benefiting them, the concept is also increasingly being criticized for not bringing about the promised results, and in the following review, studies that have highlighted this disparity in opinions will be reviewed. Increasingly, doubts have been raised as to whether partial quality management - and not TQM - is being practised in organizations. This paper will also examine the difficulties companies may be faced with in their attempts to embrace TQM.     

Customer-facing supply chain practices—The impact of demand and distribution management on supply chain success

Traditionally, distribution has been viewed as the key (physical) link between a company's internal supply chain activities and its customers. More recently, demand management has emerged as a new dimension at the customer interface. Although it has become increasing popular in industry, it has not yet been analyzed in depth with respect to its impact on supply chain performance. Both distribution management and demand management entail customer-facing processes and practices and that are interrelated and (may) jointly determine supply chain performance. In this paper we seek to extend the stream of research in supply chain management by systematically investigating the impact of customer-facing supply chain practices on supply chain performance. Specifically, the paper examines the relative impact of relevant practices associated with demand and distribution management. To this end, we collected data from 116 multi-national companies based in Europe and analyzed it using structural equation modeling techniques. Our results suggest that (i) high demand management performance has a substantial positive impact on the overall supply chain performance, (ii) this effect is stronger than that of distribution management performance, and (iii) there is no evidence that demand management might be an enabler for effective distribution management. Among the individual practices that constitute demand and distribution management, adherence to the demand and distribution management processes and demand segmentation emerged as the strongest performance levers. Based upon additional in-depth interviews conducted with selected companies from our sample, we shed light on some of the most important findings that emerged from our survey analysis.     

Unlocking the value of artificial intelligence in human resource management through AI capability framework

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly adopted within Human Resource management (HRM) due to its potential to create value for consumers, employees, and organisations. However, recent studies have found that organisations are yet to experience the anticipated benefits from AI adoption, despite investing time, effort, and resources. The existing studies in HRM have examined the applications of AI, anticipated benefits, and its impact on human workforce and organisations. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the multi-disciplinary literature stemming from International Business, Information Management, Operations Management, General Management and HRM to provide a comprehensive and objective understanding of the organisational resources required to develop AI capability in HRM. Our findings show that organisations need to look beyond technical resources, and put their emphasis on developing non-technical ones such as human skills and competencies, leadership, team co-ordination, organisational culture and innovation mindset, governance strategy, and AI-employee integration strategies, to benefit from AI adoption. Based on these findings, we contribute five research propositions to advance AI scholarship in HRM. Theoretically, we identify the organisational resources necessary to achieve business benefits by proposing the AI capability framework, integrating resource-based view and knowledge-based view theories. From a practitioner’s standpoint, our framework offers a systematic way for the managers to objectively self-assess organisational readiness and develop strategies to adopt and implement AI-enabled practices and processes in HRM.