The Focus of Quality Management Practices: A National Culture Perspective

Dongli Zhang,Sarah Jinhui Wu

doi:10.5539/ijbm.v9n2p91

Abstract

The effectiveness of quality management practices under different national culture environments is investigatedin this study. We bundle quality management practices by two orientations based on learning theoryand theninvestigate if any type of quality management practices shows stronger relationship with performance withindifferent national culture environments. The hypotheses were tested using a survey dataset witha sample size of238 which were collected from eight countries. Data analysis results show that exploitative quality practices arehighly related to performance outcome in national cultures featured by high power distance and high uncertaintyavoidance. In contrast, exploratory quality practices are significantly associated with operations performance innations with low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance. The study suggests that quality managementpractices be adopted selectively based on the national culture profile. It advances our understanding of qualitymanagement practices from the context dependent perspective and provides guidelines for practitionersonimplementing quality practices successfully in different cultural environments.

Highlights

In the fast changing business world, organizations continuously search for new ways to improve performance and gain competitive advantages
This results supported hypothesis 1, which states that exploitative quality practicescontribute to performance more than exploratory Quality Management (QM) practiceswithin the culture group of high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance
The results supported hypothesis 2, which expects a stronger effect fromexploratory QM practices when firms operating in a culture featuredwith low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance

Summary

Introduction

In the fast changing business world, organizations continuously search for new ways to improve performance and gain competitive advantages. Quality Management (QM) has been widely used in many nations with the expectation of helping organizations improve performance. How to get the maximum benefits from implementing QM practices is a critical question for both practitioners and researchers that needs to be answered. The other perspective recognizes the implications of the “soft” behavioral and cultural aspects of QM. A potential factor which might influence the effectiveness of QM practices, was mentioned in several recent studies (e.g., Naor et al, 2010; Kull &Wacker, 2010). Some of the studies proposed that many QM failures resulted from the ignorance of different national culture settings (Flynn & Saladin, 2006; Kull & Wacker, 2010; Zhao et al, 2007). Multi-country and cross-cultural research shows a growing need in the field of quality management

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Discussion

Conclusion