Influence of different types of organizational culture on total quality management

Abstract

Total quality management is a philosophy that organisations can use to improve their performance. However, organisations often overemphasize TQM techniques and tools. TQM implementation requires a change in total organisational culture in order to shift the responsibility to management, and continuous participation of all in the quality improvement process. Organizational culture construction and enterprises TQM activities lack close contact and cannot really penetrate the quality activities, production of the enterprise, and business operation. This study focuses on the influence of different types (clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture, hierarchy culture) of organizational culture on total quality management. This study aims to examine the relationships between clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture, hierarchy culture and TQM practice implementation. Quantitative analysis method has been selected and questionnaire has been employed to collected primary data. A total of 384 questionnaires were distributed to managers, or supervisors, or quality department staffs of Chinese small and medium enterprises located in Henan, China. Respondents returned 139 useful questionnaires, for a response rate of 36.20%. The collected data has been analysed in detail by descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and simple regression analysis. According to the findings, there are positive relations between clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture and TQM practice implementation. There is a negative relation between hierarchy culture and TQM practice implementation. We have suggested few recommendations for future research and Chinese SMEs at the end of this study.