Gerald Zeitz

An Employee Survey Measuring Total Quality Management Practices and Culture Development and Validation

This article presents a survey instrument designed to measure total quality management (TQM) and supporting organizational culture. In this study, 13 a priori dimensions of TQM and 10 a priori dimensions of organizational culture or climate were operationalized in a 113-item survey designed to measure the level of culture and TQM as experienced by individual members. The instrument was successfully administered to a diverse sample of organization members. A factor analysis of results from 886 respondents indicates that seven TQM and five culture dimensions, comprising only 56 of the original items, account for most of the scale variance. This produces a relatively compact instrument that allows researchers and practitioners to measure perceived culture and TQM implementation among all types of employees, work contexts, and TQM program levels. Revised index scores were found to be significantly related to stage of formal TQM program, thus supporting scale validity. Suggestions for using the instrument are presented.

Boundaryless careers and institutional resources

The ‘boundaryless career’ model has been dominant in the careers and management literatures for over a decade. It has provided valuable conceptual tools for researchers as well as a supportive ideology for those embarking on careers outside the limits of a single organization. It has stimulated a great deal of research in a variety of countries. But, along with a growing number of critics, we suggest that this model has an excessively individualistic bias which views career success as largely a function of individual proactive traits and the person-cantered social networks built by individual action. As a result it has neglected the institutional resources needed to support such careers. In this paper we outline seven different sets of needs for successful boundaryless careers: career counselling, socioemotional support, job performance and entrepreneurial skills, skill transferability and certification, labour market assistance, financial and material resources, and collective voice. We then describe institutions that currently provide at least some of the resources to meet these needs and have the potential to provide more: employers, occupational communities and associations, labour unions, employment and recruiting agencies, temporary worker agencies, community organizations, the Internet, and government at all levels. Employers can play a key role in supporting boundaryless careers by serving as points of reference for independent and contract workers, in particular those who have been their full-time employees. Rather than boundaryless, we suggest that more appropriate metaphors for the new career might be boundary crossing and boundary converging. We call for more research on the role of institutionally provided resources in supporting extra-organizational careers.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Corporate Ideology

The present study focuses on corporate ideology, an important element of culture, which refers to the explicit and publicly expressed beliefs and values of an organizations key decision-makers. Although the literature suggests that ideology affects strategy, practices, and performance, few studies have measured the construct. The present study identifies the dimensions of corporate ideology and develops a typology of ideology. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in which questionnaires were mailed to 645 of the largest manufacturing companies in the U.S. The response rate was 25 percent. The results of the study identify three dimensions of ideology: progressive decision-making, social responsibility, and organicity. They suggest that ideologies have some tendency to fall along a continuum from traditional to progressive. The importance of this finding to strategy and performance are explained within a contingency framework.

The effects of total quality management and perceived justice on organizational commitment of hospital nursing staff

Abstract This study of 507 nurses in 12 hospitals finds that perceived procedural justice mediates the relationship between perceived Total Quality Management traits and two dimensions of commitment to the organization. Affective commitment fully mediates the effects of TQM and justice on intention to remain an employee. Such intention has a negative reciprocal effect on affective commitment. The paper suggests that hospital administrators attempting to implement TQM programs would do well to project a clear vision for the TQM program and impart a sense of fairness and correct procedure if they wish to win full employee commitment to the program. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research.

Employee Attitudes toward Total Quality Management in an Epa Regional Office

Employee attitudes toward implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) are studied in a regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The author condected more than a dozen interviews and adnistered questiousaires to 448 employees in the summer of 1991. Contrary to previous literature, clerical and managerial employees were most favorable toward the TQM program, whereas professionals were most negative. Apparently, professionals have experienced more work and few immediate rewands from the TQM implementation process, perhps because the agency stuied had not yet used TQM to simplify work processes for professionals. More behavioral research on TQM is calledfor.

Testing a “Push–Pull” theory of work commitment among organizational professionals

Abstract Writers have suggested that the current trend toward decreased job security requires employees to commit more strongly to newly “professionalized” occupations to compensate for social and resource support no longer received from their employers. And it has sometimes been implied that such a shift toward increased professional commitment will arise naturally as organizational commitment is whittled away by perceived job insecurity. We propose that job insecurity does not automatically push the employee toward professional commitment, but rather that such commitment stems from the pull of perceived occupational professionalization. We construct a nonrecursive model proposing relationships between job insecurity, perceived professionalization, and both organizational and professional commitment. This model is supported (using structural equation modeling) in a study of 622 employees in 3 occupations: corporate law, human resource management, and computer programming, all of which can be considered professions or semiprofessions. Finally, we suggest how occupations can be fashioned better to support employees when faced with job insecurity and job loss.

Building Internal Motivation for Worker Competency Certifications: A Critique and Proposal

Though not extensively researched, third-party employee competency certifications are increasingly important to organizations. Certifications are double-edged: they may serve to reduce transaction costs, enhance performance, and foster employee development; but they can also be used as “credentials” to gain prestige, rewards, or influence. The authors suggest that excessive use for this latter purpose can undermine their contribution to performance. In this article, a strategy to counter this tendency is proposed. Drawing on “self-determination theory” and Hackman—Oldhams job design theory, two propositions are developed (a) certifications acquired and used primarily for “internalized” reasons are more likely to lead to ongoing learning, improved performance, and employee development; and (b) strategies are available to organizations, occupations, and certifying bodies to present certifications in such a way as to encourage internal motivations. The article ends with suggestions for future research.