National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Research Perspectives: Paper Summaries
Suggested Citation:"Historical Perspective." National Research Council. 1997. Improving Theory and Research on Quality Enhancement in Organizations: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5925.
×

an earlier study conducted by the authors) in order to create a time-line of the development of a company's TQM systems; to determine what key approaches were used, and to assess the actual extent of implementation. Four areas were covered in the interviews: production, customer satisfaction, supplier management, and new product development and design. The results of the analysis confirm many expected patterns in the implementation of TQM: for example, the emphasis in TQM on training and employee involvement is clearly reflected in approaches and programs described in the interviews. Other results are more surprising: for example, there is evidence that of the early gurus of TQM (Philip Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Kaoru Ishikawa, Joseph Juran), Crosby had the most significant effect in the early phases of the quality management movement. His approach fit with U.S. management culture and so could serve as a starting point from which more mature TQM systems could be developed.

Historical Perspective

As summarized above, Cole explored the history of the adoption of TQM principles in U.S. companies. The paper linked historical conditions with theoretical arguments to explain why U.S. industries were slow in learning about and adopting TQM. Participants pointed out that the academic community was also slow to embrace TQM. Research to date consists primarily of descriptive accounts or qualitative case studies, which either make unsupported claims or do not permit generalization.

Cole also outlined the discontinuity between the old and new quality paradigms in terms of focus and organizational change. In the old paradigm, there is an internal-process orientation that views quality as "conformance to specifications" and sees it as the specialized function of inspectors who monitor performance in order to detect and eliminate defective outputs. By contrast, the new paradigm stresses "market-in" criteria that emphasizes the customer's orientation and sees quality as involving all organizational participants, not simply specialists, and as requiring ''up-stream'' prevention, not last-minute detection.

In linking history to theory, Cole suggested several psychological factors that may have limited the ability for U.S. top management to learn from the Japanese example. They include cognitive challenges—the belief that there was inevitably a cost-quality tradeoff—social psychological

Suggested Citation:"Historical Perspective." National Research Council. 1997. Improving Theory and Research on Quality Enhancement in Organizations: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5925.
×
Page 10
Next: Definitions »
Improving Theory and Research on Quality Enhancement in Organizations: Report of a Workshop Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $21.00
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF
  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!