Quality practices, priorities and performance: an international study

Quality practices, priorities and performance: an international study

Dr. Louis Brennan

Senior Lecturer in Business Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Email [email protected]

Dr. Alessandra Vecchi and Deirdre Crowe

Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the results of a survey administered across seventeen countries that seeks to examine
quality practices, priorities and performance. The participating countries were Argentina, Australia,
Belgium, Brazil, China, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain,
Sweden, UK and USA. The methodology involved the use of a self-administered questionnaire to
director/head of operations/manufacturing in best practice firms within the sector of firms classified by
ISIC(rev.2) Division 38. There is evidence of both similarities and differences across the countries studied.
Further analysis is required to explore the convergence versus “culture specific” argument.

Keywords: International, Practices, Priorities, Performance

1.0 Introduction

One of the most problematic issues confronting the researcher in quality management is the search for an
appropriate definition [Fynes, 1998]. More precisely, defining “quality” as a construct is difficult given the
number of possible alternatives available [Hardie and Walsh, 1994]. To this purpose, Reeves and Bednar
[1994] suggest a four-way taxonomy of quality definitions that incorporates excellence, value, conformance
to specifications and meeting and/or exceeding customer requirements. The diversity that these definitions
embrace, they contend, implies that “the quality construct space is so broad and includes so many components
that there would be little utility in any model that tried to encompass them all” [p.441]. Conversely, they
argue that “the complexity and multiple perspectives historically associated with the concept have made
theoretical and research advances difficult” and that ultimately the “search for a universal definition of quality
and a statement of law-like relationships has been unsuccessful” [p. 441]. In addressing this problem, Flynn,
Schroeder and Sakakibara [1994] argue that a crucial issue in theory development is the articulation of the
distinction between quality management practices (input) and quality performance (output), which has been
blurred under the broad heading of quality. More recent studies also place emphasis on priorities -
manufacturing strategies may be articulated through competitive priorities which are then operationalised
through improvement goals as well as action programs and demonstrated by performance improvement
[Lindberg et. al., 1998]. This paper endorses the view that a fuller understanding of quality can be reached
only by embracing these concomitant perspectives, namely practices, priorities and performance.

1.1 Relevant empirical studies of quality practices

A significant strand of the literature seeks to assess the diversity of quality practices amongst countries. In the
field of comparative management research, there have been three main approaches. The empirical work has
been aimed towards testing the “culture-free” hypothesis [Child and Kieser, 1979], the “convergence”

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