Quality management: Universal or context dependent?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Sousa, R; Voss, CA
• 署名单位: Universidade Catolica Portuguesa; University of London; London Business School
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 383-404
• 关键词: quality management; manufacturing strategy; contingency research; Empirical Research

摘要

Quality management has often been advocated as being universally applicable to organizations. This is in contrast with the manufacturing strategy contingency approach of Operations Management that advocates internal and external consistency between manufacturing strategy choices. This article empirically investigates whether quality management practices are contingent on a plant's manufacturing strategy context, by examining the use of process quality management practices-a critical and distinctive subset of the whole set of quality management practices-across plants representative of different manufacturing strategy contexts. The study strongly suggests that process quality management practices are contingent on a plant's manufacturing strategy, and identifies mechanisms by which this takes place.