Quality Succes

International Journal of Business and Management; Vol. 7, No. 22; 2012 ISSN 1833-3850 E-ISSN 1833-8119 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education

Quality Success: Do Organisational Learning Attributes Make a Difference?
Judy Oliver1
1

Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia

Correspondence: Judy Oliver, Faculty of Business and Enterprise,Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia. Tel: 61-3-9214-8985. E-mail: juditholiver@swin.edu.au Received: July 22, 2012 doi:10.5539/ijbm.v7n22p11 Abstract The purpose of the study is to investigate the learning attributes of organisations following a continuous improvement approach to operations. The focus will be on the examination of organisations with both successful and unsuccessful qualityprograms to identify organisational learning attributes that discriminate the organisations at either end of the success continuum. Data was collected through a survey sent to Australian organisations certified to quality standard ISO9000. The findings suggest that organisations that have a quality program that has exceeded expectations have been able to develop and encourage the attributes necessaryfor a learning organisation. It would appear that learning has been an important lever for these organisations to succeed in the quality endeavours. The findings of the study provides further empirical evidence of the role organisational learning has in improving organisational outcomes especially in relation to quality practices. Keywords: organisational learning, learning organisation, continuousimprovement, quality management 1. Introduction Total quality management (TQM) has three core elements: meeting customers’ expectations, continuous improvement of organisational processes, and accessing and using employee skills and knowledge (Dean and Bowen, 1994; Evans and Lindsay, 1996; Sitkin, Sutcliffe and Schroeder, 1994). It can be seen to operationalise by continuous improvement ofbusiness activities and thereby enables organisations to respond to changing demands from the business and operational environment (Nicolini and Meznar, 1995; Sambrook and Stewart, 2000). Therefore, TQM is a key capability for developing and sustaining a competitive advantage (Tranfield, Duberley, Smith and Musson, 2000). As there is no universal definition of quality, an organisation will need todevelop its own working definition (Reeves and Bednar, 1994) which will evolve from an organisation establishing its quality philosophy, which will be sourced from the organisation’s view of the future (Chapman, Murray and Mellor, 1997; Groth, 1995; Lau and Anderson, 1998; Sinclair and Zairi, 1995; Srinidhi, 1998). Prior studies have shown that 60% - 80% of attempted TQM implementations failed to meetthe organisations’ objectives (Lau and Anderson, 1998, p.85). It is suggested that TQM success is dependent on an organisation’s ability to learn, to absorb, to adapt and to apply conceptual changes and integrate these throughout the organisation (Ford, 1991, cited by Terziovski, Howell, Sohal and Morisson, 2000). Perhaps the underlying reason behind the lack of success of some quality programs isthat the processes put in place lack the necessary cues for quality learning. The proposition put forth is that an organisation having a quality philosophy of continuous improvement will be more likely to raise its competitive position by improving either product or service performance. For this competitive advantage to be both realised and sustained the organisation must embed continuousimprovement into its operations. Organisational learning will be the link that will enable the organisation to both sustain and improve its competitive position by helping to avoid repeating mistakes; building sensitivity to the business environment so that the organisation can better adapt; and improving operations by understanding weaknesses and then looking at how best to correct them (Lee, 1995)....