Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) - The Issue of National Culture

University of East London (UEL)

East London Business School

Postgraduate Programmes

Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM):
The Issue of National Culture

Management Report
January 2003

ABRAHAM ALLOTEY BA, MBA

Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
SECTION 1
LITERATURE ON TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)
SECTION 2
LITERAURE ON CULTURE
2.1 STUDYING AND DIAGNOSING CULTURE
2.2 MEASURING CULTURE
2.3 THE WORK OF HOFSTEDE AND TROMPENAARS
Hofstede′s Classic Study
TABLE 1
Trompenaars Dimensions
SECTION 3
THE ROLE OF CULTURE ON SUCCESSFUL TGM IMPLEMENTATION.
CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF COUNTRIES
CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF THE US, JAPAN & HUNGARY
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATION
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
REFERENCES
APPENDIX 1
DEMING′s 14 POINTS

1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful to the various organisations that provided my professional experience, including my past and current employers [Habitat Deutschland GmbH, Linkworld Computer GmbH, TESMA Europe GmbH, and AMETEK Precision Instruments Europe GmbH].

For their encouragement, I am grateful to the staff of ′′Industrie und Handelskammer [IHK], Düsseldorf′′ , and European College of Business and Management [ECBM], London.

I should also like to thank all the lecturers at the University of East London [uel] who have given support and advice while I have been writing this report, and in particular John Cocking and Robin Little, whose many suggestions and ideas for improvement, helped shape the direction and the focus of this report.

I must acknowledge that, the comments and advice of Yaw Adu-Larbi of HSBC London, Christian Schrage, and Gerhard Ziegler, of the Weekend MBA Programme, have also been very valuable.

 Foremost, Iam grateful to my family, who have truly participated in the writing of this report.

2

ABSTRACT

Recent surveys in Europe, Africa and the United States show that about 70% of Total Quality Management implementation programmes have not been successful as compared to most countries in Asia. With many multinational businesses expanding operations into foreign countries, which will assist in the development of effective TQM implementation plans. This dissertation investiagtes the relationship that exists between TQM and national culture. Using examples of TQM adoption in three countires, my main findings are that the cultural setting of a particular country affects its level of resistance to TQM adoption.

KEYWORDS
Total Quality Management, National Culture, Uncertainty Avoidance, Power, Distance, Individualism, Masculinity.

3

INTRODUCTION

Total Quality Management has worked in Japan, so why wouldn′t it work in the USA, Europe or Africa? This is a very popular statement amongst many multinational companies when they want to implement quality strategies in different countries. They usually ignore the importance of culture and its impact on transplanting quality strategies that has been successful in one cultural set up. This is one of the main reasons why TQM has not worked in many countries. The compatibility of TQM with different cultures should always be reviewed since work ethics for instance in Ghana is different from that in Japan. Culture reflects the way of life, values, and beliefs of a society and as such very difficult to change but rather can be slightly modified through education and training to adapt to certain quality management strategies.
This claim of the impact of national culture, on the successful TQM implementation across national boundaries forms the basis of this management report. In this report therefore, literature on both TQM and culture will be critically discussed in the first two chapters. The third chapter will critically analyze the literature on the impact of culture in the successful implementation of TQM across different countries.
Chapter four will analyze the managerial implications and finally a conclusion and recommendation will be drawn.

4

SECTION 1: LITERATURE ON TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM).

The impact of globalization and technological change has made many organizations come to realize that they cannot survive or make profits unless they can meet the changing customer needs and requirements or survive the increasing severe economic competition. This has increased the awareness, need and value of TQM to the success of most organizations. Quality in these modern times has been seen as a key strategic factor in achieving business success. What then is this TQM?

Different authors have given different definitions and meanings to TQM. Crosby (1979), for instance argues that ′quality has no qualifiers′ , defining quality management as a systematic way of guaranteeing that organized activities happen the way they are planned.

Collard (1987) , in support of Crosby′s definition, argued that TQM is zero defects in the products and services of an organizations′. Therefore TQM is about providing quality in all aspects of an organization′s operations and, perhaps even more importantly, doing things right first time, which adds nothing to the cost of a company′s products or services. The problem with this definition however is that, it fails not to note that getting things right first time and providing quality in operations depends on how each individual interprets it.

5

For many managers today, customer focused TQM is now synonymous with good management (Schonberger, 1992). As stated in the mission and quality statements of many businesses, TQM is now acknowledged as a set of concepts and tools for getting all employees focused on continuous improvement (Schonberger, 1992).

Fenyvesi (1992) argues that application of the TQM concept should result in improved organizational efficiency through teamwork, personal responsibility, customer orientation, and institutional openness.

Bounds et al. (1994) show that in total quality, manager′s focus on customer value, cross-functional systems and continuous improvement, which involves the whole organization from the top to the bottom.

Flynn et al. (1994) assert that quality management is an approach to achieving and sustaining high quality outputs where management practices are the inputs and quality performance represents the outputs.

As noted by Powell (1995), TQM produces a variety of benefits such as understanding of customer′s needs, improved customer satisfaction, improved internal communication, better problem solving, greater employee commitment and motivation, stronger relationships with suppliers, fewer errors and reduced waste.

Haigh & Morris (1994) further suggest that TQM is a process that embraces the conscious striving for zero defects; the management of organizations in co-operation

6

with its workforce to improve process in order to develop, produce and market quality good and services that satisfy customers′ needs and expectations. This to a large extent makes sense but they ignore the fact that most managers are not ready to co-operate with their employees to achieve improved organizational performance.

These different definitions and meanings given to TQM at times make the concept very confusing. To however get a strong grounding of today′s concept of TQM, then the work of the five main "gurus" of quality has to be well understood. These quality ′′pioneers′′ are Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, Crosby and Ishikawa. In the following sub- section nonetheless, their work will be discussed only briefly and not in depth.

To Deming, quality can be defined as a never ending cycle of continuous improvement. In Deming′s model, quality is not a destination, but rather a journey. He also points out that a firm will benefit most if it builds a long-term relationship with a few suppliers rather than switching from one supplier to another. This relationship to him makes the supplier a partner and reduces cost and improves services for both the supplier and the firm. Deming further developed a chain reaction model where improving quality through improving process leads to a reduction of waste, rework and delays. As such, productivity and quality are improved as well. In order to achieve this aim Deming developed an approach which is summarized in his 14 points for management as seen in appendix 1. (Deming, 1982).

Deming however ignores the question of commitment and motivation of the invidual employee which are very important aspects of todays TQM approach.

7