Quality management focuses attention on continuous improvement Essay

Th e work of W. Edwards Deming is a cornerstone of the quality movement in management. 27 His story began in 1951, when he was invited to Japan to explain quality control techniques that had been developed in the United States. When Deming spoke, we might say, the Nipponese listened. Th e principles he taught the Japanese were straightforward, and they worked Tally defects, analyze and trace them to the source, make corrections, and keep a enter of what happens afterwardsward. Demings approach to quality emphasizes constant innovation, use of statistical methods, and freight to training in the fundamentals of quality assurance.One outgrowth of Demings work was the emergence of total quality management, or TQM. Th is outgrowth makes quality principles part of the organizations strategic objectives, applying them to all aspects of trading operations and striving to meet guests ask by doing issues right the fi rst time. Most TQM approaches stupefy with an insistence that the total quality commitment applies to everyone in an organization, from resource acquisition and supply chain management, through production and into the distribution of fi nished goods and services, and ultimately to customer relationship management.The search for and commitment to quality is now tied to the speech pattern modern management gives to the notion of continuous improvementalways looking for for new ways to improve on current performance. 29 Th e goal is that one can never be satisfi ed something always can and should be improved upon. Evidence- ground management seeks hard facts near what really whole kit and boodle. Looking back on the historical foundations of management, one thing that stands out is criticism by todays scholars of the scientifi c validness of some historical cornerstones, among them Taylors scientifi c management approach and the Hawthorne studies.The concern is that we may be too quick in accepting as factual the results of studies that are bas ed on weak or so far shoddy empiric evidence. And if the studies are fl awed, perhaps more care needs to be exercised when difficult to apply their insights to improve management practices. Th is enigma isnt limited to the distant past. 30 A book by Jim Collins, Good to Great, achieved great acclaim and best-seller status for its depiction of highly favored organizations.But Collinss methods and fi ndings have since been criticized by researchers. 32 And after problems appeared at many fi rms previously considered by him to be great, he wrote a follow-up book called How the Mighty Fall. 33 Th e menstruum here is not to discredit what keen observers of management practice identical Collins and others report. But it is meant to make you cautious and a bit doubting when it comes to separating fads from facts and conjecture from informed insight.Todays management scholars are trying to move beyond generalized impressions of excellence to understand more empirically the characte ristics of high-performance organizationsones that consistently achieve highperformance results while also creating high quality-of-work-life environments for their employees. pursual this line of thinking, Jeff rey Pfeff er and Robert Sutton make the case for evidence-based management, or EBM. Th is is the shape of making management decisions on hard factsthat is, about what really worksrather than on dangerous half-truthsthings that sound good but leave out empirical substantiation.Using data from a sample of some 1,000 fi rms, for example, Pfeff er and a colleague found that fi rms using a mix of substantially selected human resource management practices had more sales and higher profi ts per employee than those that didnt. 35 Th ose practices included employment security, selective hiring, self-managed teams, high wages based on performance merit, training and skill development, minimal status diff erences, and divided up information.Examples of other EBM fi ndings include c hallenging goals accepted by an employee are in all likelihood to result in high performance, and that unstructured employment interviews are tall(a) to result in the best person being hired to fi ll a vacant position. 36 Scholars pursue a variety of solid empirical studies using proven scientifi c methods in many areas of management research. around carve out new and innovative territories, while others build upon and extend knowledge that has come down through the history of management thought. By staying abreast of such